Holy Guardian Angel


The term Holy Guardian Angel originates in the Catholic Church where a morning prayer is recited which reads, "Holy Guardian Angel whom God has appointed to be my guardian,
direct and govern me during this day/ Amen". The idea of a Holy Guardian Angel is central to the book The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra Melin the Mage by Abraham of Worms, a German Cabalist who wrote the book on ceremonial magick during the 15th century and which was later translated by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, the founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He elaborated on this earlier work, giving it extensive magical notes, but the original concept goes back to the Zoroastrian Arda Fravaš. In Mathers' publication of The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, he writes:
Later, author and occultist Aleister Crowley popularized the term within his religious and philosophical system of Thelema.

Aleister Crowley's teachings

Within the system of the magical Order A∴A∴ founded by Aleister Crowley, one of the two most important goals is to consciously connect with one’s Holy Guardian Angel, representative of one's truest divine nature: a process termed “Knowledge and Conversation.”
In some branches of occultism, the term is so widely known that HGA has become a common abbreviation even in non-English-speaking countries. Crowley seems to consider it equivalent to the Genius of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Augoeides of Iamblichus, the Atman of Hinduism, and the Daemon of the ancient Greeks. He borrowed the term from the Grimoire The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.

Methods of achieving knowledge and conversation

Crowley said that the Abramelin procedure was not the only way to achieve success in this endeavour:
Since the operation described in Abramelin is so complex and requires time and resources not available to most people, Crowley wanted to provide a more accessible method. While at the Abbey of Thelema in Italy, he wrote Liber Samekh based on the Bornless Ritual, a ritual designed as an example of how one may attain the Knowledge and Conversation with one’s Holy Guardian Angel. In his notes to this ritual, Crowley sums up the key to success: “INVOKE OFTEN.”
Crowley also explains, in more detail, the general mystical process of the ritual:
Another detailed description of the general operation is given in The Vision and the Voice in the eighth Aethyr and is also described in Liber 8.

Variations in Crowley's teachings

Crowley only states that the Holy Guardian Angel is the 'silent self' in his early life. In his late sixties, when composing Magick Without Tears, he states something very different. According to Crowley's later definition, the Holy Guardian Angel is not one's 'self', but an independent and discrete being, who may have been a human like oneself at one stage:
The idea that the HGA is an independent, spiritual being, rather than a manifestation of the Self, has led to uneasiness in some circles that the doctrine is a disguised form of diabolism.

Peter Carroll's teachings

An occult writer, Peter Carroll split the concept in two and speaks of two "Holy Guardian Angels". According to his work Liber Null and Psychonaut, one is the Augoeides, a projected image of whatever the magician strives for, and the other is quantum uncertainty, which ultimately determines the acts of the magician and is a spark of the only true creative force, the chaos of Chaos magic.

C.F. Russell's teachings

American author C.F. Russell was the founder of an occult group called the G.B.G. The G.B.G. taught the use of "Dianism", a sex magick ritual in which a participant is to regard their partner as a representation of their Holy Guardian Angel.

Enochian teachings

The Enochian system of 16th Century occultist Dr. John Dee offers a concept similar to Crowley's later teachings with regard to the Holy Guardian Angel. It is more in concord with traditional teachings of the HGA as a messenger of God and one of His angels.
In this dialog between Dee and the angel Jubanladace on p. 18, Cotton Appendix XLVI 1, the angel says the following:
Dee: If I should not offend you, I would gladly know of what order you are or how your state is in respect of Michael, Gabriel, Raphael or Uriel.
Jubanladace: Unto men, according unto their deserts, and the first excellency of their soul, God hath appointed a good Governor or Angel, from among the orders of those that are blessed. For every soul that is good, is not of one and the self same dignification. Therefore according to his excellency we are appointed as Ministers from that order, whereunto his excellency accordeth: to the intent that he may be brought, at last, to supply those places which were glorified by a former: and also to the intent, that the Prince of darkness might be counterposed in God's justice.
Jay Byrd