Because I write a lot about angels, demons, tarot, the occult, and my take on Qabalah based philosophy, I can’t help but pick up damn good reference books when I come across them. It’s always frustrating though because in this day in age, unless you have a master, it’s easy to spend your time rooting through lots of fluffy bunny, new age garbage. But because part of my interest and practice of the occult is fueled by my love for the arts and humanities, I’m very picky about what books I read on these topics.

I’d been looking for a decent reference for the names of angels and demons because these days, it seems like you can slap the word “angel” on anything and it will sell. But if you actually know the mythology behind a lot of the angel books, you can learn to see right through the Charlatans.

Now I’m not scholar of angel lore (although I aspire to be), but from what I can gather from a lot of the mythology that has been widely forgotten, angels are fucking scary, they’re powerful and if you piss one off, you better hope it has mercy on you and kills you quickly.

True, working with angels archetypes can be a light filled experience that makes each mundane day a new, beautiful step into the nature of the awesome power of the Divine. But to really welcome that kind of energy into your life comes with a level of respect rooted in  rites of reverence and prayers for protection.  It’s a humbling but at the same time, empowering.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I found Encyclopedia of Angels by Richard Webster.

First of all, it has a gorgeous cover and the paper quality and binding are meant to make this a book that you can thumb through again and again. This book serves as a great introduction to lesser known angles and has a few interesting tidbits on the celebrity angels as well.  I really like it because it has a lot of angels that I’ve never heard of but doesn’t leave you hanging. It actually provides enough leads to where to find more clues about lesser known angels if you’re interested in working with them.  I could sit down and look at this book for hours because it’s so fascinating. It even gives the church history of the politics that caused angels to be listed as “fallen” or denoted from their class.

Under Tarot, Angels of the (pp 194) there’s a listing that gives the angels that govern each Tarot card. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, each Tarot card apparently is governed by an Archangel and an Angel.

I was randomly cruising around online looking up information on lesser angels that I found interesting when I came across a book that goes into depth about which angels rule each Tarot card.  It’s called Tarot Tailsmans: Invoke the Angels of the Tarot by Sandra Tabatha Cicero, Chic Cicero. Honestly, I wonder if this book is going to be utter crap or if it’s going to be mind blowing but I took a chance on it.  It claims you can use the Tarot as tailsmans to work with angels? I have a deck of holographic trumps that may be really awesome to use while reading this book. We shall see if it lives up to my expectations.  And if it’s bullshit, at least I only spent $9 on it.

Since it was book ordering time, I decided to finally place my order for a book I’ve been meaning to read for about a year;Tarot Trumps and the Holy Grail by Margaret Starbird. Yeah, so what if I found out about it through the Da Vinci Code? I’ve read up on it and it seems academically solid. I’m curious what scholars have to say about the connection between the Major Arcana and the story of the Holy Grail. Don’t laugh, but I totally geek out over symbols and that’s why I want to read this book. I love symbols because they’re like secret, encoded messages hidden right out in the open. I find them downright empowering, honestly. And so I’m pretty sure that it will teach me some things about the Tarot that will improve my understanding of the symbolism and use that to get a better look at what’s going on in a reading.

And of course, I’ll post reviews of these books once I have them. I’m finishing up The Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock (a former journalist for the Economist), which is a fascinating book that provides an impressive amount of academic evidence for the Ark of the Covenant to be currently residing in Ethiopia (this book has over 100 pages of credible academic references).  I’ll post a review if I get around to it but that book blows my mind. Some of his ideas are a little too out there for me but he presents his ideas in a way that  inevitably leaves the reader to decide for him or herself what the truth is.

No promises on when I’ll finish though. Books like these are amazing to get lost in because they’re so chock full of information, it takes a while to digest it all. Ha, I’ve been digesting Israel Regardie’s A Garden of Pomegranates for a year but I honestly think you could study that book for a life time.

And this is why I’m probably one one of the biggest dorks ever.