Angels

by Peter Lamborn Wilson

Celestial emissaries have inspired artists from every tradition to create artwork and decoration for temples, tapestries, miniatures, and manuscripts. Here is a dazzling array of angels in art, folklore, literature, and scripture, around the world and through the ages. Learned and lucid, the text illuminates the sacred origins of angels from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim to Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, and Zoroastrian."

Genres: Religion, Art, Spirituality

128 pages, Paperback

First published November 4, 2013

About the author

Peter Lamborn Wilson also writes under the pseudonym Hakim Bey.

Reviews

[Gala · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a pity that there's no book cover loaded into goodreads for this one. What I'm most taken by in this book, to be honest, is its visual appeal. Fantastic closeups and details of paintings and drawings from a range of history and geography... full bleed-printed spreads that are total artbook luxury. I checked this book out because I'm fascinated by the ways that artists in different times and cultures make efforts to visualize the invisible. And this book has stunning examples.

The text is engaging and thought provoking, with a clear point to prove beyond merely presenting the occurrences of angel-figures in various cultures and traditions; a final image after the index is a William Blake plate that reads "All Religions are One." The format of the book made me think it would be an art historical text with a certain expected impartiality and academic distance. So when the language used implies belief in a spiritual reality, as well as a perceptible slant, it took me by surprise. It was both disconcerting and refreshing.

[Stere Lizia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this has been more infuriating rather than educating.

I am in no means trying to say i'm well more educated than the author on the topics, but let's just say i've read a lot of esoterics books focused in angelology. Don't get me wrong, this is probably a great book for a beginner that want to study the topic ( or not, i will elaborate later ). But 75% of the abrahamic angelology ( if that what you're looking for ), is a general knowledge you can find easily on the internet ( even Wikipedia delve deeper into some of the topics here ). I reccomend this book as some short of keyword source, if you see anything that peak your interest, you should do more research on your own. So probably reccomended for introduction, not for further study.

Back to why i called this book infuriating. I thought that this book would focus on abrahamic angelology because the belief itself 'create' the image of your modern world angels. However the author also talk about other beliefs and folk lore connected to angels beside abrahamic's one, which would be insightful if he didn't start mashing up those religions, that clearly have distinct line with each other to fill in the gap and draw his own conclusion. Most of the times, he even insert his own opinion and view without making it clear that it's an OPINION not fact. This remind me of the method some ancient greek philosopher use by inserting their opinion in the middle of a list containing facts and proven truth in order to pass it on as a fact. This could be quite annoying if you're a beginner reader who then take his opinion as fact, not knowing it is not and cause mass-misinformation.

He also skips a lot of topic, beginner readers seems to like to read about like the specific angel order/choir, the seven archangels, etc.

[Alyaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book, which brings the significance of angels in every tradition, religious philosophy ad religion. I really enjoyed this book and its lack of snobbery and excellent diversity. They mention almost all widely known philosophies and religions, It also mentions how the 3 major religions share a lot of their ideology and a lot of their dogma.

Visually and although not very accessibly written, it is great at describing the pictures.

[Ippolit · Rating 5 out of 5]

choice of color plates is spectacular

[Elise M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has some beautiful colour plates 😍

[JJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book with information collected from several different sources and world religions.