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       Angels and the Heavens

      These days, many of us think that there is one heaven and two types of angelic beings: angels and archangels. But it was not considered so in classical times when it was believed there were seven heavens and nine different “choirs” or “orders” of angels, each composed of distinctly different angelic beings. Let’s explore the classical view of the heavens and angels.

       The Heavens

      “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) (Here “heavens” is the Hewbrew word shamayim, which has a dual meaning comparable in English to “the lofts” or “lofty places,” likely referring to the dual realms of the visible sky and then the ether of celestial regions beyond the sky. Most every translation of this Bible verse uses the plural “heavens” except for the King James.) In all translations of the Bible, this opening line clearly indicates that there are heavens, not simply a heaven. We acknowledge this in our language; for example, when a person says, “I was in seventh heaven,” he means that he was the happiest he could be, because the seventh heaven is the highest heaven in lore and legend. The mystical Jewish texts that make up the Kabbalah detail these seven heavens and give insight into how one may traverse them while incarnate in this world. In other words, one does not have to die to experience the heavens. The disciple Paul revealed this when he wrote, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago . . . was caught up even to the third heaven.” (II Corinthians, 12:2) Paul was speaking of himself about an experience he had while incarnate.

      In Kabbalah’s Merkabah mysticism—based on the visions of Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Daniel and found in Hekhalot writings—these teachings instruct how one may ascend to and through the heavens by meditative practices, passing from one level of heaven to another, finally entering through the “seven palaces” in the “seventh heaven” to the very “throne of God.”

      Curiously, Cayce’s metaphysical discourses agree with the teachings of Merkabah. This name means “chariots” and is a metaphor for heavenly “vehicles” that enable us to make passage through the heavens. The ancient Egyptians had the same concept but used boats to traverse the heavens. In the following Cayce discourse, the three-dimensional imagery of chariots shifts to fourth-dimensional states of consciousness. An angelic being is speaking through Cayce’s trance-state body. Notice how the angelic being uses a three-dimensional object, “the Throne,” but then gives the fourth-dimensional description: “threshold of Universal Consciousness.” Here’s the Cayce discourse:

      . . . no one approaches the Throne—or the threshold of universal consciousness—without that purpose of either lifting self to that consciousness or bringing us [heavenly angels] down to their own ideal . . . Then why, even I [a heavenly angel], should I make thee falter, or why should one seek less than the Gods of Glory?

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      There are two comments in this reading that need elaboration: 1) From the perspective of the angel speaking through or being channeled by Cayce, we are to lift ourselves up through the heavens to the “Throne” of God or Universal Consciousness, for the other way—bringing heaven down to us—does not help awaken us to grow toward our destiny with our infinite Creator. 2) This guidance from the angel also touches on the often-ignored teaching that we are gods—sons and daughters of the Most High—as written in Psalm 82:6 (KJV): “I have said, Ye are gods, all of you are children of the most High.” And even Jesus referred us to this passage by an answer he gave to the Pharisees in the gospel of John 10:33-34 (KJV): “’For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.’” “Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?’” Jesus is referring to the line in Psalm 82.

      Given our present condition and circumstances, I realize how difficult it is for us to think we could possibly be gods. It may help us if we use the ancient Egyptian term: godlings. We are godlings of the great God; the one supreme God conceived us in His/Her image as recorded in chapter one of Genesis: “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . .’ And so God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:26-27, KJV) Of course this was not the physical creation of our bodily existence that came later in chapter 2: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7, KJV)

      Cayce addresses the challenges we face in making passage from this world or level of consciousness to the higher dimensions of awareness, the heavenly realms:

      Passing from the material consciousness to a spiritual or cosmic . . . oft does an entity or being not become conscious of that about it; much in the same manner as an entity born into the material plane only becomes conscious gradually of that designated as time and space for the material or third dimensional plane. In the passage the entity becomes conscious . . . of being in a fourth or higher dimensional plane takes place, much in the same way as the consciousness is gained in the material. For, as we have given, that we see manifested in the material plane is but a shadow of that in the spiritual plane.

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      It was teachings like this one from Edgar Cayce that encouraged me to budget time in my incarnate life to practice and experience the higher dimensions, and from my early twenties I have used Cayce, ancient Eastern, and Kabbalistic methods and concepts to become conscious of making passage through the heavens without losing touch with my life and relationships in this world. And just as Cayce said, we awaken to the higher, heavenly dimensions in the same way that we awaken to a more expanded consciousness of this world. As to the nature of perception in the higher dimensions, Cayce explains that this plane of existence is like a “shadow” of the invisible realms: “There is no difference in the unseen world to that that is visible, save in the unseen so much greater expanse or space may be covered!” (5754-3) My experiences with the higher dimensions is just as Cayce indicated; they feel more expansive than the physical world, more open, and my spirit/mind seems to move through them easily and quickly. Many others have had the same experiences with the nonphysical dimensions. It’s a shift in consciousness, in perception, from finite to infinite, from an individual to a universal. This is one reason why so many meditators describe feeling a profound oneness with all life when in deep meditation. Aloneness or individualness dissolves into collectiveness and universalness.

      When

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