Spirit guides

[Näre]

I've noticed that this concept is more used amongst new agers (and youtube users :P) than pagans but what do you think about spirit guides?

[Hickory67]

Re: Spirit guides

I tend to refer to them as such. I have two I currently work with - my primary and an ancestor of my path. Back in the day I was taught they were "guardian angels," which is also a viable term IMO, though I stick with Spirit Guide since having come up through the advent of New Age.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Spirit guides

IMHO - a "spirit guide" is an autonomous psychic projection.

They can take any form that is meaningful to the one experiencing it/them. Animals carry a lot of mental weight for most people, so animal autonomous psychic projections are common. I have experienced them myself.

[habbalah]

Re: Spirit guides

I work with entities that spiritually guide me if I ask for help, but I don't think that's the same thing?

[sionnach]

Re: Spirit guides

I believe that especially norther pagans were very connected with nature. Whether they had the exact concept of spirit guides they did observe nature and natural events feeling that there was a connection to the world and one could learn from nature. Divination from observing nature could be seen as the natural world communicating to people. There was an acceptance of the concept of shape-shifting and animals could lead them to special places including the otherworld call the Sid in irish language or Annuwn in the welsh. Dear or stags where known to lead people into the other-world. They also saw special characteristics/traits in animals that they honored. There is also evidence that they use altered states of conciousness now defined by the term of Shamanism. The term Spirit Animal has been a more recent usage and seems to derive from several sources but especially from Native American ideas although many Native Americans do not like the term. I do not think there is any evidence to say that they had spirit animal but they certaintly identified with the characteristic so some animal as in the Berserkers and in names of people like Ethelwulf who was a king of Wessex before it became England. This is not exactly like a spirit animal but in the new view of paganism why not. May want to look into Shamanism more just as an idea.

[monsno_leedra]

Re: Spirit guides

Personally I think the notion of Spirit Guides as used in New Age practices has simply been the latest incorporation of Power Animals, Totems, Spirit Helpers, Spirit Spouses, etc and all the other buzz words that were borrowed from other places. Not excluding the notion of Guardian Angles in all the capacities and persona's that suggests.

[Thrudr]

Re: Spirit guides

I'm never really sure what to believe about spirit guides or other such entities. I don't have enough experiences with them to say that spirit guides exist (I don't hear, see or feel them). But I do like the idea of a spirit guide hanging around to keep an eye out for me. Two people at two different times once described the same 'spirit man' standing beside me. I'm still not sure what to think of that. As long as he won't bother me, I'm ok with it I guess :P

[Thirsty Fox]

Re: Spirit guides

When I was a little boy I had 2 beings that lived on my shoulders. Sort of like the angel vs Devil in cartoons. One I called "Boy". He was mean and always tried to get me to do things I knew I shouldn't. I remember saying to him "Shut up boy".
On my other shoulder was "Tinker". She was sweet and loving. I felt even then that she protected me from Boy.

When I was in my early twenties I had a physic reading and was told I had a very strong Spirit Guide named Tinker.

I used to contact her thru a pendulum. It's been awhile. I should try again

[DragonsFriend]

Re: Spirit guides

Spirit guides can be very real and sometimes even unpleasant. When I was younger, 40 or more years ago, I was taken on as a student by a dragon spirit guide. When I was particularly bull-headed My guide would "share memories" in order to explain things to me. Those experiences were horrible. As long as I was doing what I should my mentor was great but whenever I was sidetracked He could make it a living hell for me.
I was a particularly single minded (hard headed) young man and needed to learn everything "the hard way", as my older sister would say. I took a three year side track after completing my early training to practice magik. It was not a "recommended" action but I wanted to be very good at magik. This was the kind of magik that only is useful to bolster ones ego and to frighten people. It serves no useful purpose in the "real" world unless you are fond of being associated with the spawn of Satan or known as someone who has some really good "tricks". I did learn some things that I might have been better of not knowing and found that humans - well at least THIS human - was not ready for the powers that we can possess. My spirit guide brought me out of this period by making my dreams come true. He took me to a place that I can only describe as "between". It is a void in which every thought, doubt, fear and joy is instantly transformed into reality. This place allows the sub-conscious mind to rule and your conscious mind has to keep up. It was enlightening to understand that the sub-conscious mind is so undisciplined. If not for my guide I would have destroyed myself and never understood how or why. I guess the proper name for this sub-conscious mind is the Id. I can consciously control the magik I perform now but it took a couple of times of allowing my sub-conscious mind to put people in the hospital before I could completely control it. Without the help from my guide I would have been a menace to myself and everyone around me. in the years since I have paid better attention to my guides and have learned to have potential rather than power.

[Ula]

Re: Spirit guides

I have an animal fetch. I don't really use the word guide but it's the same thing.

[R. Eugene Laughlin]

Re: Spirit guides

I wonder if anyone here considers the Holy Guardian Angel associated with the so-called Abremalin Operation as fitting the basic (modern) idea of a spirit guide?

[Thirsty Fox]

Re: Spirit guides

This thread is reminding me of an ongoing childhood situation I found myself in often at night.

I would be in bed and a man in a long cloak would come out of the closet and sit on my bed. He scared the hell out of me. As I remember it, this was several to many times a year for I'm not sure how long but I think it ended by the time I was 8 or 9. To this day I know that I was awake even though I was told I was dreaming. If I tried to get up he would push and hold me down. If I tried to scream I could only manage a mere little squeak. The times I did manage to get up, my mother would put me back to bed and turn the light across the hall on and it seemed to help, as I remember.

As an adult I have often contemplated what this was. Was it an evil spirit? Was it one of my grandfathers visiting and I just misread his purpose? Was it the fear I was experiencing from my neighbor who was molesting me during that time? Was it Jesus who I was already rejecting by then? Whatever or whoever it was, it was very real and even today nearly 60 years later it can feel like it just happened yesterday.

[Jembru]

Re: Spirit guides

I've noticed that this concept is more used amongst new agers (and youtube users :P) than pagans but what do you think about spirit guides?

Had an imaginary friend in my teens who I communicated with via a ouija board until I could feel what he was going to say before it was spelt out, at which point I started speaking to him directly. Then in my late teens I met other pagans and heard of the concept of spirit guides. I then, a few years after telling 'Arkle' that I'm too old for imaginary friends, asked him to come back. Arkle as been in my life ever since. I don't believe he is the spirit of a dead person though. Arkle just is what he is.

Besides him there are other such friends in my inner world, but Arkle is generally the only one who speaks to me outside of that place (with the occasional exception). I also have an animal I identify with, Magpie, as well as a host of animal friends in my second inner world. Those animals all seem to be aspects of me or my immediate world in some way rather than unique spirits in their own right, although I try to keep an open mind about what they could potentially be.

[Rae'ya]

Re: Spirit guides

I wonder if anyone here considers the Holy Guardian Angel associated with the so-called Abremalin Operation as fitting the basic (modern) idea of a spirit guide?

I doubt it.

The Holy Guardian Angel better fits the concept of the Higher Self than a spirit guide. You might be able to stretch 'spirit guide' to include the Higher Self, but generally a spirit guide is external to yourself. Even if you count internal manifestations as spirit guides, the Higher Self / HGA isn't quite the same sort of manifestation.

I've not seen anyone here on PF talk about the Abremalin Operation, but we have relatively few ceremonial magicians who discuss their rituals here. For anyone who doesn't know, the Abremalin Operation is a very long, complex ritual (as in... it takes months and months and months of preparation) which aims to connect you with your HGA. The original versions (from the Book of Abremalin the Mage as well as the later HOGD and Thelema versions) also involve invoking and binding certain Goetic Demons. But Demonolaters have their own version which involves invoking the Demons without actually binding them.

[R. Eugene Laughlin]

Re: Spirit guides

I doubt it.

The Holy Guardian Angel better fits the concept of the Higher Self than a spirit guide. You might be able to stretch 'spirit guide' to include the Higher Self, but generally a spirit guide is external to yourself. Even if you count internal manifestations as spirit guides, the Higher Self / HGA isn't quite the same sort of manifestation.

That idea is common enough now, but I don't find it in the source documents, or similar literature in the same tradition from the same period.

Here's the money shot from the Mather's translation, toward the end of Chapter 13 of Book 2:

***

After this he will show unto you the true wisdom and holy magic, and also wherein you have erred in your operation, and how thenceforward you should proceed in order to overcome the evil spirits, and finally arrive at your desired ends. He will promise never to abandon you, but to defend and assist you during the whole period of your life; on condition that you shall obey his commands, and that you shall not voluntarily offend your creator. In one word, you shall be received by him with such affection that this description which I here give unto you shall appear a mere nothing in comparison.
Now at this point I commence to restrict myself in my writing, seeing that by the grace of the Lord I have submitted and consigned you unto a master so great that he will never let you err.

***

My read of this passage in context is that the HGA is assumed (by the author) to be a foreign intelligence that takes on the role of a personal, tutelary spirit. The spirit's primary function seems to be to instruct the aspirant in finer magical arts, but it also has a generally protective and helpful nature, which seems to be more in keeping with the general idea of spirit guides than the Higher Self idea.

I'm thinking that the spirit guide concept is fairly generic to humans. In a more direct expression, tutelary spirits may represent a unique spirit species that likes bonding with specific individuals and likes to be helpful to them throughout their life. Maybe they take on culture-specific, epoch-specific forms to facilitate their acceptance and impact, and it just happens that the Abramelin place and time was particularly ecclesiastical.

I've not seen anyone here on PF talk about the Abremalin Operation, but we have relatively few ceremonial magicians who discuss their rituals here.

I don't practice much ceremony these days, but I have a lot of GD and GD-inspired work in my background, and a penitent for Western Esoteric literature and history.

The reason I brought it up here isn't to discuss ceremonial magick for its own sake, but because I think the Abramelin Operation may offer an adaptable template for seeking and establishing a relationship with a personal tutelary spirit. Conversation about spirit guides seems common enough on occult-oriented discussion these days. Many anecdotes suggest that these spirit relationships tend to form serendipitously. Some might find a relatively systematic approach useful, and I have some (not so ceremonial) ideas about that if there's interest.