Angels are to be found in many operations of early modern European magic. Appeals to such divine messengers (angeloi) accompany almost any and all works of prayer, contemplation, and sanctification, not to mention formal rites of sorcery and conjuration.

The evidence attests to a variety of engagements between angels and humans in both Christian – not to mention older Jewish - formal angelology and folk magic alike: from simple prayers to one’s personal guiding angel for protection, healing, clarity, and comfort to complex conjurations involving asperged and fumigated circles and pentacles and oh so much Latin. Astrological, geomantic, and angelological magics throughout history and across cultures have appealed to planetary archangels, seven ‘Secondarian Intelligences’ considered to stand before the Almighty, and hosts of other astrological angelic messenger spirits of time and place.

Angels have been called to impart knowledge by divine means, as in the works of the medieval Ars Notoria. They have been sought by scrying in ‘shewstones’, mirrors, and crystals, and indeed in oiled thumbnails, by glistening polished sword, and via many other glimmering surfaces. Angelic messages are even called by incubating dreams through the use of purifications, sigils, vigils, and meditative prayer. Exorcists, conjurors, and nigromancers have all called upon the holy might of angelic forces to compel, exorcise, and command wicked and unclean spirits.

In this class, contemporary cunning man and historian Dr Alexander Cummins will take us through detailed study of several operations of early modern angelic magic, sourced from prayerbooks, popular pamphlets, grimoires, treatises of occult philosophy, the working-books of cunning-folk, historic scrying journals, and accounts by early modern heresiographers and demonologists. In so doing, we will examine where the pious meets the pragmatic in these angelic choruses of prayer and practice, and look to ways we can understand and even embody such heavenly spiritual influences and loci of power.

This class-bundle consists of:

A two-hour-long lecture recording
The illustrated lecture slide-deck
Bibliography of Further Reading
Dr Cummins’ Current Course List for Further Study

A full table of contents of the lecture runs:

Early Modern Angelology
Thy Own Good Angel of Nativity
Crystals & Glasses
The Heptameron
Dreaming Starry Messengers