Recently there's been an overwhelming amount of discussion with regard to the nature of the Holy Guardian Angel and the many other "Helpful Spirits" who share some commonalities with it. This, I believe, began with the blog entry by one of a few practicing Magician's whom I respect deeply, Conjureman Ali, and most recently popped up over at Head For The Red, where, as usual, RO offers a great deal of insight and wisdom, helping the reader to differentiate the HGA from the Genius from the Supernatural Assistant from.. you get the point.
As this has become the "topic of the day" amongst many for whom I hold a high regard, I will weigh in as well, sharing my own experiences and truths. While I have indeed worked with several of those that RO classifies as Helpful Spirits, there remain some that I have not yet endeavored to seek out, so I wont speak on those.
First, with regard to the Supernatural Assistant, of which I first learned during my initial foray into the PGM. I first evoked this spirit in 2004, and have worked with him since. While I am guilty of grouping him and other helpful spirits under the title HGA in casual conversation and of failing to voice a contrary opinion when others say that the S.A. and HGA are the same spirit, that is partially because I am loathe to get into an extended discussion on the nature of each thus turning a simple conversation into a debate. Another reason is that I truly think its best for each to find his own way to the HGA, and if he has managed to evoke the Supernatural Assistant and is convinced that this entity IS the HGA, he may not be ready for what he is going to encounter if he does succeed in making conscious contact with the real deal.
The Supernatural Assistant, called in the PGM a god, is not the Holy Guardian Angel. While it shares many qualities with the HGA, for example being bound by its nature and creation to serve as a protector and guide to the individual, they also have hugely varying methods and, for lack of a better term, rules under which they operate.
The S.A., although there are some who would argue this point and perhaps some source docs that imply otherwise, does not seem to be a spirit assigned to man at his birth. Rather, mine was assigned at the moment when I finally succeeded in calling him. In the nanosecond of our time wherein we are successful in making contact with the god, force, power (call it whatever suits your will) which oversees this endeavor, it looks upon the individual, evaluates them and their character, strengths and weaknesses, talents and skills, personality and mentality, and chooses a spirit that best suits the you and who balances your weaknesses with its own strengths and vice versa. The S.A., as I know it, is intended to fill in the gaps in your composition and make you a well rounded and balanced man and magician. The spirits who become S.A.'s are as individualistic as we are, some are proud and egotistic, some strong and yet of lesser intelligence. The god who assigns an S.A. to a man, in that instant which unto us seems a fraction of a minute, looks at where you are strong and where you are weak and matches you with an S.A. whose strengths are your weaknesses and vice versa.
Another characteristic of the S.A which distinctly separates it from the Holy Guardian Angel is that it serves your will. Your goals are its goals, your desires are its desires and your quest is its quest. If your desire is to harm another, that is the S.A.'s desire. It doesnt look beyond the request and suggest that it may have adverse or damaging consequences, it merely does what you need it to do in the moment. Whether your actions are just or unjust, will bring you success or harm, the Assistant's role is to help you get where you want to go without regard to whats going to happen to you when you arrive. If you Evoke the S.A. and tell it that your will is to kill a rival, that becomes its will. It doesnt say "If you embark on this path you will likely end up in prison, let me show you a better way to accomplish your goal", it just says "Ok'. Likewise, if your goal is to learn the secrets of the heavens, to be taught of cosmology and the hierarchy of the universe, the S.A. is not the one to call on. While he may know all of this, it is not his function to teach you, it is his function to assist you in whatever you set out to do.
Yet a third distinguishing trait is that the S.A. does, as RO suggests, work on both a celestial and terrestrial level. While HGA is primarily concerned with your spiritual development, learning and ascension, and thus is unconcerned if you are dying to get a BMW, are in dire straits financially or in need of a lover, the S.A.'s entire purpose is to get you where you want to be by being the ying to your yang, and being strong where you are weak. If you want a new car, he wants you to have a new car, and can use his abilities to help you get one. Don't get the idea that by meeting your S.A. and asking him for a fortune he is going to cause a million to appear, or carry a treasure from the nearest hole in the ground, thats not how it works. He opens the way for you, whether by unlocking doors or by kicking them in. He is everything you are not, and you are everything he is not. He thinks in a fundamentally opposite way then you, and thus is able to see what you dont. While you're looking for ways to win the lottery to buy your car, or who you can borrow from, hes looking at the baseball card collection your granda left you and how its easily worth enough to get you that new Beamer. While you're thinking logically and rationally, hes thinking abstractly and outside the box.
On, now to the Great Granddaddy of all Helpful Spirits; The Holy Guardian Angel. Let me first say that of all those who claim they have established "Knowledge and Conversation....", 70% are lying, 15% have interpreted the aforementioned S.A. or another helpful spirit AS the HGA when in fact it is not and therefore truly believe they HAVE Knowledge and Conversation... etc..., 10% have no contact with any spirit and are under the new age proliferated misconception that contact with spirits evoked comes in the form of "clear messages, like really reeeaallly clear messages in my head" or another such abominable lie.
5%, then, are those who genuinely have made conscious, true contact and have attained what Abramelin and Abraham von Worms call "Knowledge and Conversation of The Holy Guardian Angel". And thats a liberal number. In the majority of cases, those who are among this 5% and have ascended to this level, will know recognize one another in conversation or when reading each others writing on the subject. This is because the experience of meeting this transcendent being is absofuckinglutely changing, and there are no circumstances under which one having done so could not be utterly, permanently changed. That change is therefore reflected and recognizable in everything that person does. There is a confidence, a self assuredness, and an aire of authority.
Before I segue too far off track and into the mind of the magus, let me return to the subject matter at hand; The Nature of the Holy Guardian Angel. This is an entity that is purely, utterly and indisputably divine. Wholly celestial. The first time I actually succeeded in calling and standing before my Holy Guardian Angel I felt as if I was standing miles and miles too close to the Sun, such was the radiance and power. Not heat, for there was no discomfort at all, but just the magnitude of power. The HGA can appear in any form it desires and can manifest in many ways. It can take the shape of a man, woman or anything else. Nonetheless, whatever form it does take, however much its appearance is identical to that of something else, you will always know exactly what it is, simply by the sheer power and, for lack of a more suitable adjective, light, radiated by him. He can dim it down a bit, making his visage and appearance more palatable and discernible to us, but you will still feel as though you are staring at the sun on a clear and sunny day, its rays enveloping you. You can be in a closed room in your house, others present in the home, standing before him and convinced that everyone is seconds away from bursting in the room believing it to be aflame and in amazement at the inestimable light coming from under the door, and be sure that no one in the house could possibly have missed that light, onyl to walk out of the room and discover no one but you saw or felt a thing.
The HGA, unlike the Supernatural Assistant, is NOT "at your service". He will be of much, much greater use to you in the course of your life, and take you to new heights spiritually, magickally and as a man, teaching you all the secrets and wisdom you'll ever need, but he does NOT serve at your pleasure, is not at your service and is wholly unconcerned with your worldly and material desires. His Will is that of the Source, the Father, the one who preceded all the gods and goddesses. Not YHVH, Not Allah, Not Buddha, Not Asar or Aset, Not Marduk or Krishna, but something of which we cannot possibly conceive from whom all of those at some point descended. The will of the cosmos, and the divine is the HGA's will. He has been created solely to facilitate your development spiritually, to teach and guide, but not interfere. your free will is your own and he will never, under any circumstances circumvent it. If you ask for counsel or advice he will provide it, but you need to ASK. He wont just offer up guidance, even if the course you set out on is a dangerous one, because if he offers advice that causes you to change your mind, he has interfered with your will. He will teach when you ask to be taught, insofar as what you want to learn is beneficial to your spiritual development and not contrary to the divine plan. He will aid you in Magickal work and provide an astounding boost in power, as long as the work is in some way in furtherance of your development and ascent, and again, not in contradiction to the will of the cosmos. Material things, wealth, possessions, etc... are beneath him, and he will aid you in obtaining them only when lack thereof prevents you from seeking the divine. If 18 hours of your day have to be spent at work in order to survive and feed your family, he can help you into better circumstances in order to allow you more time to devote to ascent, but he doesnt care if you have a mansion or in ground pool.
Ultimately, the Holy Guardian Angel is a creation of the highest, it is of an essence and power beyond that of gods and goddesses because it is a tool and instrument OF the highest, and can move mountains on your behalf, but will not do so unless the mountain impedes your development. He serves the source, not you, and the Will of the source is that he guide, protect and illuminate you as you seek to return TO the source.
Finally, let it be known that the HGA is in every way everything Abramelin makes him out to be. Those who claim that his importance is exaggerated in that book or that he plays a comparatively minor role and contact with him is not something a Magician needs to seek with all his might, are fools and have not achieved it. A surefire way to determine if someone is bullshitting about having "K&C of HGA" is if they underplay its importance or value, or make it sound simple.
It is NOT fucking simple. The rites we use to obtain it may be simple, such as Samekh, but the fact is that the rites, words and conjurations used are absofuckinglutely meaningless when it comes to achieving contact with the HGA. Samekh is a bullshit rite. Crowley basically took the corpus of one single ritual from PGM, because he recognized it as REAL magick, assigned meanings through Gematria to words which do not HAVE meanings we can interpret, replaced the original names with some that fit his own system, and said "Here, lets use this for any purpose at all". People DO and HAVE actually achieved success in contacting the HGA with this rite, notably Frater RO, just as many like myself have achieved it using rites they designed themselves. That isnt because Crowley, or I, am a genius and figured out the specific formula and wording that brings success, its because the rites dont matter.
Unlike obtaining an S.A. which is a pure act of Magick where a well designed rite such as RO's is necessary, when we seek contact with the HGA we are NOT doing Magick. We are beseeching the ultimate, the highest, to find us ready and worthy and to grant us this privilege. If you are ready for it, you are sufficiently developed and have ascended on your own to the level whereat this is given, you will succeed. A sincere prayer to the highest will be as effective as Samekh or anything else. Its the preparedness, the worthiness and the intent that matter, if those are there the highest frankly doesnt give a shit if we're doing the LBRP or singing I'm a Little Teapot. And if they arent there, there is no ritual, no words, no amount of memorization of others writing that is going to make it happen.
First, with regard to the Supernatural Assistant, of which I first learned during my initial foray into the PGM. I first evoked this spirit in 2004, and have worked with him since. While I am guilty of grouping him and other helpful spirits under the title HGA in casual conversation and of failing to voice a contrary opinion when others say that the S.A. and HGA are the same spirit, that is partially because I am loathe to get into an extended discussion on the nature of each thus turning a simple conversation into a debate. Another reason is that I truly think its best for each to find his own way to the HGA, and if he has managed to evoke the Supernatural Assistant and is convinced that this entity IS the HGA, he may not be ready for what he is going to encounter if he does succeed in making conscious contact with the real deal.
The Supernatural Assistant, called in the PGM a god, is not the Holy Guardian Angel. While it shares many qualities with the HGA, for example being bound by its nature and creation to serve as a protector and guide to the individual, they also have hugely varying methods and, for lack of a better term, rules under which they operate.
The S.A., although there are some who would argue this point and perhaps some source docs that imply otherwise, does not seem to be a spirit assigned to man at his birth. Rather, mine was assigned at the moment when I finally succeeded in calling him. In the nanosecond of our time wherein we are successful in making contact with the god, force, power (call it whatever suits your will) which oversees this endeavor, it looks upon the individual, evaluates them and their character, strengths and weaknesses, talents and skills, personality and mentality, and chooses a spirit that best suits the you and who balances your weaknesses with its own strengths and vice versa. The S.A., as I know it, is intended to fill in the gaps in your composition and make you a well rounded and balanced man and magician. The spirits who become S.A.'s are as individualistic as we are, some are proud and egotistic, some strong and yet of lesser intelligence. The god who assigns an S.A. to a man, in that instant which unto us seems a fraction of a minute, looks at where you are strong and where you are weak and matches you with an S.A. whose strengths are your weaknesses and vice versa.
Another characteristic of the S.A which distinctly separates it from the Holy Guardian Angel is that it serves your will. Your goals are its goals, your desires are its desires and your quest is its quest. If your desire is to harm another, that is the S.A.'s desire. It doesnt look beyond the request and suggest that it may have adverse or damaging consequences, it merely does what you need it to do in the moment. Whether your actions are just or unjust, will bring you success or harm, the Assistant's role is to help you get where you want to go without regard to whats going to happen to you when you arrive. If you Evoke the S.A. and tell it that your will is to kill a rival, that becomes its will. It doesnt say "If you embark on this path you will likely end up in prison, let me show you a better way to accomplish your goal", it just says "Ok'. Likewise, if your goal is to learn the secrets of the heavens, to be taught of cosmology and the hierarchy of the universe, the S.A. is not the one to call on. While he may know all of this, it is not his function to teach you, it is his function to assist you in whatever you set out to do.
Yet a third distinguishing trait is that the S.A. does, as RO suggests, work on both a celestial and terrestrial level. While HGA is primarily concerned with your spiritual development, learning and ascension, and thus is unconcerned if you are dying to get a BMW, are in dire straits financially or in need of a lover, the S.A.'s entire purpose is to get you where you want to be by being the ying to your yang, and being strong where you are weak. If you want a new car, he wants you to have a new car, and can use his abilities to help you get one. Don't get the idea that by meeting your S.A. and asking him for a fortune he is going to cause a million to appear, or carry a treasure from the nearest hole in the ground, thats not how it works. He opens the way for you, whether by unlocking doors or by kicking them in. He is everything you are not, and you are everything he is not. He thinks in a fundamentally opposite way then you, and thus is able to see what you dont. While you're looking for ways to win the lottery to buy your car, or who you can borrow from, hes looking at the baseball card collection your granda left you and how its easily worth enough to get you that new Beamer. While you're thinking logically and rationally, hes thinking abstractly and outside the box.
On, now to the Great Granddaddy of all Helpful Spirits; The Holy Guardian Angel. Let me first say that of all those who claim they have established "Knowledge and Conversation....", 70% are lying, 15% have interpreted the aforementioned S.A. or another helpful spirit AS the HGA when in fact it is not and therefore truly believe they HAVE Knowledge and Conversation... etc..., 10% have no contact with any spirit and are under the new age proliferated misconception that contact with spirits evoked comes in the form of "clear messages, like really reeeaallly clear messages in my head" or another such abominable lie.
5%, then, are those who genuinely have made conscious, true contact and have attained what Abramelin and Abraham von Worms call "Knowledge and Conversation of The Holy Guardian Angel". And thats a liberal number. In the majority of cases, those who are among this 5% and have ascended to this level, will know recognize one another in conversation or when reading each others writing on the subject. This is because the experience of meeting this transcendent being is absofuckinglutely changing, and there are no circumstances under which one having done so could not be utterly, permanently changed. That change is therefore reflected and recognizable in everything that person does. There is a confidence, a self assuredness, and an aire of authority.
Before I segue too far off track and into the mind of the magus, let me return to the subject matter at hand; The Nature of the Holy Guardian Angel. This is an entity that is purely, utterly and indisputably divine. Wholly celestial. The first time I actually succeeded in calling and standing before my Holy Guardian Angel I felt as if I was standing miles and miles too close to the Sun, such was the radiance and power. Not heat, for there was no discomfort at all, but just the magnitude of power. The HGA can appear in any form it desires and can manifest in many ways. It can take the shape of a man, woman or anything else. Nonetheless, whatever form it does take, however much its appearance is identical to that of something else, you will always know exactly what it is, simply by the sheer power and, for lack of a more suitable adjective, light, radiated by him. He can dim it down a bit, making his visage and appearance more palatable and discernible to us, but you will still feel as though you are staring at the sun on a clear and sunny day, its rays enveloping you. You can be in a closed room in your house, others present in the home, standing before him and convinced that everyone is seconds away from bursting in the room believing it to be aflame and in amazement at the inestimable light coming from under the door, and be sure that no one in the house could possibly have missed that light, onyl to walk out of the room and discover no one but you saw or felt a thing.
The HGA, unlike the Supernatural Assistant, is NOT "at your service". He will be of much, much greater use to you in the course of your life, and take you to new heights spiritually, magickally and as a man, teaching you all the secrets and wisdom you'll ever need, but he does NOT serve at your pleasure, is not at your service and is wholly unconcerned with your worldly and material desires. His Will is that of the Source, the Father, the one who preceded all the gods and goddesses. Not YHVH, Not Allah, Not Buddha, Not Asar or Aset, Not Marduk or Krishna, but something of which we cannot possibly conceive from whom all of those at some point descended. The will of the cosmos, and the divine is the HGA's will. He has been created solely to facilitate your development spiritually, to teach and guide, but not interfere. your free will is your own and he will never, under any circumstances circumvent it. If you ask for counsel or advice he will provide it, but you need to ASK. He wont just offer up guidance, even if the course you set out on is a dangerous one, because if he offers advice that causes you to change your mind, he has interfered with your will. He will teach when you ask to be taught, insofar as what you want to learn is beneficial to your spiritual development and not contrary to the divine plan. He will aid you in Magickal work and provide an astounding boost in power, as long as the work is in some way in furtherance of your development and ascent, and again, not in contradiction to the will of the cosmos. Material things, wealth, possessions, etc... are beneath him, and he will aid you in obtaining them only when lack thereof prevents you from seeking the divine. If 18 hours of your day have to be spent at work in order to survive and feed your family, he can help you into better circumstances in order to allow you more time to devote to ascent, but he doesnt care if you have a mansion or in ground pool.
Ultimately, the Holy Guardian Angel is a creation of the highest, it is of an essence and power beyond that of gods and goddesses because it is a tool and instrument OF the highest, and can move mountains on your behalf, but will not do so unless the mountain impedes your development. He serves the source, not you, and the Will of the source is that he guide, protect and illuminate you as you seek to return TO the source.
Finally, let it be known that the HGA is in every way everything Abramelin makes him out to be. Those who claim that his importance is exaggerated in that book or that he plays a comparatively minor role and contact with him is not something a Magician needs to seek with all his might, are fools and have not achieved it. A surefire way to determine if someone is bullshitting about having "K&C of HGA" is if they underplay its importance or value, or make it sound simple.
It is NOT fucking simple. The rites we use to obtain it may be simple, such as Samekh, but the fact is that the rites, words and conjurations used are absofuckinglutely meaningless when it comes to achieving contact with the HGA. Samekh is a bullshit rite. Crowley basically took the corpus of one single ritual from PGM, because he recognized it as REAL magick, assigned meanings through Gematria to words which do not HAVE meanings we can interpret, replaced the original names with some that fit his own system, and said "Here, lets use this for any purpose at all". People DO and HAVE actually achieved success in contacting the HGA with this rite, notably Frater RO, just as many like myself have achieved it using rites they designed themselves. That isnt because Crowley, or I, am a genius and figured out the specific formula and wording that brings success, its because the rites dont matter.
Unlike obtaining an S.A. which is a pure act of Magick where a well designed rite such as RO's is necessary, when we seek contact with the HGA we are NOT doing Magick. We are beseeching the ultimate, the highest, to find us ready and worthy and to grant us this privilege. If you are ready for it, you are sufficiently developed and have ascended on your own to the level whereat this is given, you will succeed. A sincere prayer to the highest will be as effective as Samekh or anything else. Its the preparedness, the worthiness and the intent that matter, if those are there the highest frankly doesnt give a shit if we're doing the LBRP or singing I'm a Little Teapot. And if they arent there, there is no ritual, no words, no amount of memorization of others writing that is going to make it happen.
