Angels

Gabe, the homeless angel
In the episode, Nightshift, a homeless man claiming
to be an angel is witness to a murder. When questioned he replies,
"I'm here to work a miricale."


The most commonly spoken of is the Gaurdian Angel, the lowest of the nine orders of angels. The ranks of the angels differs acorrding to who you ask, but one of the most common divides the ranks into three choirs as follows...

The First Choir
Seraphim
Cherubim
Thrones
The Second Choir
Dominations
Virtues
Powers
The Third Choir
Principalities
Archangels
Angels

According to the Catholic Church's traditional beliefs, each human recieves one at birth. However, it is noted in the Talmud, the famous body of Jewish law and commentaries, that each Jew has 11,000 gaurdian angels. In our time, people who have reported their gaurdian angels say they sometimes feel as if they have more then one, or even that one or more were relieved by another shift of angels. Angels also asume the role of messengers from God. Sent to either spread tidings of great joy or great destruction. Whatever the role an angel assumes he or she is generaly thought of as a translated being. Or a being elevated above the existance of mere mortals or spirits. All biblical refrences to angels have discribed them as male.

Superstitions about angels abound. The Irish believe that a child smiling in its sleep is having a conversation with an angel. But the Armenians believe that the snoozing smile actually comes from the fact that the child's gaurdian angel is actually tickiling him by cutting his fingernails. However the French originated the belief that a lull in the conversation is due to an angel passing through. And in Latin America it's an old custom to hang black cloths over all the mirrors when a death occurs, so that the Angel of Death does not see his reflection.

Celestial Byways Everything you ever wanted to known about angels

Ghosts


Molly, the ghost in the mirror
In the episode The Waiting Room, the ghostly reflection of a woman in the
mirrior drives Ellison to solve a 40 year old murder.


Ghosts... apparitions of the dead, or not merely apparritions. The official defenition of a ghost is "the spirit of a dead person, thought to haunt living persons or former habitats", or "the animus or soul, as opposed to the body."

Haunting ghosts seem to have a purpose. Whether it's to re-enact a tragic moment in their lives, or to seekrevenge for some wrong doing comitted against them. This was done in many ways. In Europe, for example, the ghosts would achieve this by driving the trespasser mad with haunting visions. Much as Hamlet's father did in the play Hamlet, by Shakespeare, driving Hamlet to kill his murderer. The ghosts could never take revenge itself, though. In China they have a different theory altogether. There the soul of a murdered person can physicaly take revenge on their killer.

In the past, extreme measures have been taken to keep the dead from returning. In Ireland, for example, they would go so far as to take a different way home from the funeral in order to confuse the spirit, and keep it from following them home.

The Spirit Website The equivalent of ghostbusters anonymus. I'm serious.

The Shadowlands: Ghosts and Hauntings True life accounts of ghost encounters.

Spirit Guides



Ellison's spirit guide, a black jaguar, pops in every now and
then to warn of danger or guide his way.


Shamans and spirit guides go hand in hand. Ephemeral guidence counselers. Spirit animals (totems, animal allies, power animals) have been used for centuries as a means of communicating with the Creator through nature, and to help discover inner strengths. Contact with your totem may be made in a dream, or as an intuitive awareness, or the totem may physically visit you during a vision quest.

In many cultures through the ages the vision quest was trama induced. That is, the vision was induced by drugs, starvation, or something as equally strenuous. Modern believers tend to take a more liberal view and many believe that spirit animal appear most often to those who aren't looking.

Once contact is made the recipient may very well begin to take on certain behavioral traits and life qualities associated with that animal. Different totems have individual meanings which vary from culture to culture. Meanings also vary according to associations a person has to the animal.

Exercise: Finding Your Spirit Animal


Relax and breath deeply and fully. Open your heart, mind, and soul and ask that your animal spirit come to you. Imagine that you are in a beautiful place in nature. Make it seem as real as you can. Imagine that a dense fog descends on the land. Be aware that your spirit animal is coming to you through the mist. Imagine reaching your hand out into the mists and touching your totem. Notice whether you feel fur, hair, feathers, reptilian skin, scales, a shell, a hide, or something else. Use your intuition to be aware of what kind of animal your touching. Gradually the mist rises; imagine talking to your animal ally.
-taken from Quest by: Denise Linn


Shamanism: Working with Animal Spirits This site has over 300 animal spirits and a breif synopsis of its wisdom

Shamanism FAQ and more...

Sentinels




In the show the Sentinel, Detective James Ellison is a sentinel. In tribal times a sentinal was a protector, chosen because of a genetic advantage. His senses were inhanced beyond that of a normal human. He can see and hear at great distances, detect the most minute imperfections with touch, taste every ingredient, and smell the faintest of oders.

By accident I stumbled across the exact description of a sentinel in Edgar Allan Poe's story The Fall of the House of Usher. Which was absoulutly perfect seeing as I have not yet found anything resembling a sentinel in any of the popular mythologies. There are gaurdian spirits, ghosts that protect their living loved ones, but nothing like a sentinel... yet. I'll keep looking. In the mean time, I was fliping through a book on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, because I love Edgar Allan Poe, and, BOOM, there it was. In the story, Roderick Usher, is suffering from a strange malady that he despares of ever escaping. This is a paragraph from The Fall of the House of Usher...

He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy --a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.

The Fall of the House of Usher click here to read the entire story

Brad's Edgar Allan Poe Page three other works by Poe

The Works of Edgar Allan Poe more by Poe