Applied Esoterics

Dedication

For my wife, for the love, support, and encouragement during the three years it took to research and produce this book; and for my guardian angel, for the same reasons.

For Saint Anthony of Padua, my patron saint.

For Saint Joseph, patron of fathers and terror of demons.

For Saint King Ferdinand III—¡Santiago y cierra España!¹

For the Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, a man of inimitable wisdom and eloquence.

And for Saint Thomas Aquinas, whose work inspired me to write this, I hope I have not let you down.

Table Of Contents

Introduction

Section I: The Nature Of Angels

Introductory Remarks

Why Do Angels Exist?

What Do Angels Do?

Do Angels Have Bodies?

What Do Angels Look Like?

Can Angels Take On Animal Forms?

What Are The Capabilities Of An Angel?

How Do Angels Communicate?

Do Angels Have Emotions?

When And How Were The Angels Created?

How Many Angels Exist?

How Are The Angels Organized?

Can Angels Get Promoted?

Can Animals See Angels?

What Is The Significance Of An Angel’s Name?

Section II: The Guardian Angels

Introductory Remarks

Does Everyone Get A Guardian Angel?

What Are The Duties Of A Guardian Angel?

What Can I Request Of My Guardian Angel?

What Relationship Should I Have With My Guardian Angel?

Should I Give A Name To My Guardian Angel?

What Becomes Of The Guardian Angels Of The Damned?

What If Heaven Runs Out Of Guardian Angels?

What Can We Learn From The Example Of The Holy Angels?

Section III: The Nature Of Demons

Introductory Remarks

What Is A Demon?

What Is The Difference Between Demons, Devils, And The Devil?

What Was The Fall Of The Angels?

Can A Fallen Angel Repent? Can A Holy Angel Fall?

Who Is Satan?

What Does Satan Look Like?

Why Does Satan Hate Us?

Should We Fear Satan And His Demons?

How Are The Demons Organized?

Why Are Demons Opposed To Holy Things?

What Are The Levels Of Demonic Activity?

What Is The Significance Of A Demon’s Name?

Should Laypeople Conduct The Exorcisms Of Others?

Can Any Good Come From Temptation?

Can A Human Being Sell His Soul To The Devil?

Are There Fallen Guardian Angels?

What Are Generational Or Family Spirits?

What Are Incubi And Succubi?

What Are Ghosts?

Can We Trust The Opinions Of Ghost Hunters?

What Are Spirit Animals?

I May Have Witnessed A Private Revelation; Now What?

Section IV: The Reality Of Spiritual Warfare

Introductory Remarks

The Lay Of The Land: The Laws of The Universe

Rules Of Engagement: How The Enemy Operates

Foiling The Enemy’s Disguises: Discernment Of Spirits

Snares And Pitfalls: Black Magic, Superstition, And Magical Thinking

The Armor Of God: Virtue

The Spiritual Weapon: Prayer

The Arsenal Of Righteousness: Sacramentals

Provisions For The Battles Ahead: Sacraments

The Endgame: Hell And Heaven

Afterword

Bibliography

About This Book

Although this work is organized into discrete subject headings, it is not meant to be used as an encyclopedia. Jumping directly to a topic of interest may deprive the reader of the context that came before, and the discussions that build upon it afterward. Instead, this text is best employed when read from start to finish, as with any other book.

The Bible verses found throughout this book are quoted from the Douay-Rheims (1899) American Edition. The Douay-Rheims is an English translation of the Latin Vulgate, the Catholic Church’s official version of the Holy Bible. It is an authentic and reliable reproduction of sacred Scripture, approved by the Church, that takes a pious approach to both the spirit and the meaning of the text. Verse and chapter numbers may differ slightly from other versions of the Bible.

While much has been written on the theology of demons, practical, reliable information on their behavior is difficult to come by. This is due in part to the secrecy that surrounds the practice of Catholic exorcisms. The Church maintains tight control on who is allowed to assist at exorcism rituals out of respect for the safety and privacy of those involved. Moreover, many exorcists opt to conceal their identities in order to protect themselves. Thus, the reader will note that the accounts of preternatural activity discussed in this book have been anonymized.

The material presented here is in no way intended to glamorize, sensationalize, or encourage participation in matters of the demonic or the occult; nor is it meant to give undue attention to them. The aim of this work is to edify that such things exist, to demonstrate how they can be harmful, and to instruct the reader on what can be done against the forces of darkness.

The author and the publisher disclaim responsibility for any harm to persons and property that may arise from the use of the material contained herein.

The reader is further cautioned that this book is designed to provide general, introductory information on the subject matter. Taken alone, this book does not and can in no way fully prepare the reader to engage in deliverance ministries. Such work is best left to the professionals—specifically, priests who are properly ordained in the Catholic Church.

Introduction

It has been said that ninety-nine percent of creation is invisible.

Consider that statement in light of the latest technological advances. We have tools so powerful that they can reveal to us things as small as an electron, and massive things as distant as the furthest planet in our solar system. Mankind has plumbed the depths of the oceans and even set foot on the moon. That we have achieved such wonders might lead one to think that we, as a species, have seen it all.

And yet, for all our knowledge, there is always something more to discover; for all our cleverness, even the most precise of our instruments are limited in the information they can measure.

Here is where we delve into the extra and the other—things our senses can only dimly grasp, and that the practice of the physical sciences is not always equipped to explore.

Before we sojourn into the supernatural, four precepts must be expressed. While you do not have to take them to heart, you should nonetheless keep them in mind because they will inform the remainder of the discussion.

The first precept is: be skeptical, but not to the extreme. Saint Paul put it best: Extinguish not the spirit. Despise not prophecies. But prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.² Thus, avoid being cynical; but do not permit yourself to be credulous.

The supernatural exists. Forgive me for belaboring the point, but the fact of its existence simply cannot be understated. You cannot say you believe in God and not the supernatural, because God by definition is above all that is natural. God is the quintessential supernatural being.

Some time ago, while I was reading an article online, I came across a single-panel comic strip. It showed a unicorn staring at the viewer. The caption read: I exist regardless of whether you think I do. Admittedly, the strip’s avant-garde humor was lost on me, but the irony came through well enough. Unicorns do not exist, but not for lack of anyone who believes in them.

If we were to turn the preceding phrase on its head, it would insinuate that if at least one person believed in the existence of unicorns, then they might exist—in other words, we could wish them into existence if we just believed they were real.

This got me thinking: if unicorns did exist, they would not care whether you believed in them. Your belief (or lack thereof) would have no bearing on whether they were real. That, in a nutshell, describes the supernatural. For the most part, you cannot perceive it with your physical senses, but it exists regardless of whether you think it does. That it exists is objectively true.

Having said as much, not all of what we might call supernatural (in common parlance) is good. The spiritual forces of evil are just as real. This is why, when it comes to otherworldly experiences, your first inclination should be toward skepticism. The consequences of mistaking the bad for the good can be disastrous.

Therefore, be observant. Gather the facts. Use common sense. Reason things through. If the facts do not pan out, take your time. Do not jump to conclusions. Think critically. Above all, do not trust your emotions.

Exhaust all natural causes before ruling something is otherworldly. If the phenomenon was of a kind that imparted a message, doubt the message, the sender, the sender’s motives, and even the sender’s existence.

The spiritual world is not to be taken lightly. Working in this field without sufficient knowledge of how it operates is like a solider charging into battle with no bullets in his gun—you will not accomplish anything, and will likely end up getting hurt.

By the same token, you cannot believe everything you read. Feel free to mistrust what you find in this book, if it will get you thinking for yourself. I will not take offense; rather, I would consider it a compliment if you did, because you at least would have taken my words to heart.

The second precept is: God exists.

God is the foundational being. Even atheists believe in a god, despite superficially claiming none exist. Atheism merely swaps the God for a god—some other cause for why things are as they are.

That said, if we allow for an invisible, all-powerful deity, then we presuppose the existence of other beings that are less than God and more than human.

Christ is God. [He] is the image of the invisible God…³ For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead corporeally…⁴

The reason for this emphasis on Christ being God is because Christ is a real person. His existence and deeds are corroborated in more records than just the Bible. These accounts from history demonstrate He walked among us and performed miracles.

C.S. Lewis has expounded the idea that the person of Jesus Christ presents a paradox. One can either accept Christ’s divinity as true, or not. If not, then the only explanations that remain for how Christ acted are that He was either mentally ill or wickedly evil.

No man who calls himself a god and demands others follow his example is sane. Such behavior instantly elicits distrust in most listeners. No one in their right mind would make claims to divinity unless he sought to gain from them somehow. This is especially true in times and places where religious apostasy is a capital offense.

The people of first century Judea were not naïve to this thinking. They were faithful to the laws of Moses, which required they put to death anyone who acted in the manner Christ did. In their view, Christ was a blasphemer, a religious criminal. As a result, they did what could be expected of any God-fearing Jew of the era—they put Christ to death for claiming to be God.

If Christ was nothing more than a madman or a fraud, He would not have merited anything better than a footnote in history. This has not been the case. Christ wrote nothing except for a few words in the dirt once,⁵ and yet there have been reams written about Him. Some of the best accounts of Christ’s deeds were composed by His enemies.

Tacitus, a Roman writing around 100 AD, comments on a peculiar religious sect that arose in Judea during the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Despite the execution of the cult’s leader at the hands of the local procurator, Pontius Pilate, these Christians continued to be problematic for Rome—so much so, in fact, that Emperor Nero ordered their persecution.

Suetonius, a Roman historian and contemporary of Tacitus, labels Christ a Jewish instigator and rebel.

Lucian, a first century Greek, condemns the early Christians for abandoning the worship of the traditional pagan pantheon in favor of their crucified sage.

Writing from what is today Turkey, Pliny the Younger was sent by Emperor Trajan to provide a detailed report of Christian practices. He describes the fledgling faith as a dangerous superstition, peppering his report with alarmist language.

Josephus, a first century Jewish historian working for Rome, acknowledged Christ as a wise teacher and a wonder-worker.

The fourth century Jewish writers of the Talmud recorded that Jesus was executed on the eve of Passover for crimes of apostasy and the practice of sorcery.

These near-contemporary accounts corroborate that Christ was a real person, that He was wise, that He performed miracles, and that He inspired a following. With so many hostile sources acknowledging His work, Christ cannot simply be a myth, nor can His deeds be make-believe.

In addition, the body of His followers, the Church, has persisted for over two thousand years. It has endured war, oppression, scandal, and schism; and persists to this day as the custodian of the universal truth. If the survival of Christ’s legacy is not a miracle in itself, then I am at a loss for an explanation.

Detractors can point to the scintilla of a chance that sheer luck is responsible. That is a fair point, but indeed, what are the odds? Slim and none.

For centuries, the early Church’s greatest oppressor was Rome, the most powerful empire the world had yet seen. Faced with the insurmountable threat of obliteration at every turn, how could it be possible that the Church still exists, with its traditional practices intact, if not for divine intervention?

If none of this has supernatural origins, then today’s Christians can thank a daisy-chain of unlikely coincidences for the survival of their religion into the modern day.

On the other hand, if there is no God, then we are all insane, because that would make God the biggest shared hallucination in history. That would mean the overwhelming majority of all people who ever existed are crazy for thinking God is real; and it would mean the rest of us are too, for taking the believers seriously enough that we should want to debate the matter with them. Those prospects are neither likely nor satisfying.

Christ alone enjoys a degree of credibility that sets Him apart from all who would call themselves God. To paraphrase the venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen, if you were to line up Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, the Buddha, Christ, and all the divine figures of history, and ask who among them was God, each would point to themselves.

But say, instead, you asked them whose arrival was foretold by different prophets, at different times, in separate parts of the world; asked them whose deeds fulfilled those prophecies to the letter; asked whose miracles—even those in recent times—can neither be disproven nor explained by modern science; and asked whose legacy has had the greatest positive impact on this planet’s history.

Only one would step forward, and it would be Christ.

Thus, Christ became incarnate and he hath given us understanding that we may know the true God… This is the true God and life eternal.⁶

And now, the third precept: the Bible is the word of God.

A modern way of thinking holds that God sits at the end of life’s journey, and that no religion is better than any other because all lead to God. This would have us believe that every religion is as good as any other, and that the same must be true of all religious books. Thus, the Bible, the Quran, and the Bhagavad Gita must be placed on equal standing.

Even a casual examination of the world’s many faiths will reveal that they are not equal. A believer in Hinduism strives to reincarnate until he reaches a state whereby he is no longer distinguishable as an individual. For the Buddhist, Nirvana amounts to the annihilation of self. The end goal of these faiths is not eternal union with a personal, loving God in paradise. The reward, as such, is eternal non-existence.

Catholicism is a stand-out among the world’s religions in a key aspect, and this lends it enormous credence. Unlike man-made religions, which purport to serve as ladders to reach God, Catholicism is God reaching down to lift us to Him.

The Catholic religion is not a compilation of mankind’s best guesses on what pleases God; rather, it is an expression of God’s plan for how we are to live righteously.

Because Christ is God and He instituted the Catholic Church, Catholicism is the only faith that possesses the entirety of divine revelation, as He Himself said: I am the way, and the truth, and the life.⁷

Indeed, it is a gift from God that there is one true faith, because if we adhere to that one, we will never have to concern ourselves over whether we chose wrongly.

The Bible, therefore, is special. Though written by human hands, it was divinely inspired. Understanding what the Bible is and how to use it makes all the difference in unlocking the knowledge it contains.

The Catholic Bible contains seventy-three books. The Old Testament comprises forty-six of them, with the remaining twenty-seven making up the New Testament. In its entirety, the Bible cannot be categorized in a single genre, because within its pages are works of poetry, historical accounts, summations of the law, wise sayings, and fictional stories meant to teach us lessons.

The Bible, then, is not so much a book in and of itself, but a library. Its unifying concept is that it is the story of God’s efforts to call His human children back to Him.

What you will not find, however, are myths.

No passage in the Bible follows the typical narrative structure of a myth. Myths are mankind’s attempts to account for phenomena for which our ancestors had no explanation.

This is not the same as the biblical story of Job, which, despite being fiction, teaches the reader to hold fast to God in good times and in bad. The Book of Job does not explain why the world is the way it is; rather, it shows us the attitude we must adopt if we are to be people of God.

The Bible represents the truth God has chosen to reveal to mankind. That truth is not always in what the Bible actually says but what it intends to say. One of the best examples of this can be found in the story of creation.

Even if you do not accept as fact that God made the universe in seven calendar days, Genesis nonetheless relates that there was an order to creation: in the beginning there was nothing, and then God called into being the heavens, the earth, plants, creatures, and finally, mankind. The manner in which creation was ordered indicates a deliberate progression from simple to complex. The odds are infinitesimal that such a process could arise from random chance. Thus, Scripture holds answers on the nature of God and the world around us, if we are willing to search them out.

Lastly, the fourth precept: Catholics are immersed in the supernatural world.

This might come as a surprise to those who consider the faith stodgy and dry; but the supernatural is a reality of life for the Catholic.

They worship God, speak with their guardian angels, pray with the saints, and offer Masses for souls in purgatory.

Their priests bless them and the implements of their faith.

During the sacrament of Confirmation, the Holy Spirit imparts an indelible mark of sanctity upon their souls.

And at every Mass, the true presence of God manifests before the faithful.

Thanks to films like The Exorcist and The Rite, it would seem the public’s consciousness is stamped with the idea that whenever something otherworldly turns up, people ought to fetch a Catholic exorcist. This is universally good advice, notwithstanding that Catholicism does not hold a monopoly on practices designed to expel evil forces. Similar practices exist in Voodoo, Shintoism, Islam, and Judaism, and so on. These other practices have been known work to an extent, because, as God deems fit, He will answer prayers for deliverance from non-Christians acting in charity.

But here is the distinction: Catholic sacred Tradition relies upon two thousand years of experience built upon Jewish foundations reaching into distant antiquity. It benefits from the contributions of scores of mystics, saints, and theologians throughout the centuries. To live as a Catholic is to have one foot in the material world and the other in the spiritual.

We now arrive at a threshold question: Does any of this matter? I ask you this: What does it mean to matter?

Many jokes start with: Why did the chicken cross the road? My response is always: I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter.

Admittedly, that is not much of a punch line, but then again, the setup was not much of a joke either.

There is little value to knowing why the chicken crossed the road. Pursuit of an answer to this question is a vapid exercise, because the payoff amounts to a booby prize. The answer will not have any appreciable impact on your life, other than to make you cringe briefly at the poor attempt at humor.

On the other hand, developing your understanding of the universe’s supernatural components can reap many benefits.

That is why I decided to call this book Applied Esoterics. With the supernatural as its subject matter, this text is about as esoteric as anything can get. It is entirely serendipitous that esoterics also denotes the study of these specialized topics. How you decide to use this knowledge is the manner in which it might be applied.

With today’s ease of access to information, there exists a great deal of confusion with respect to supernatural reality. Some of it, I am certain, is put out there by people who are well-meaning but uninformed. Hundreds of books seek to show us new and exciting ways to astral-project ourselves to spirit beings of higher energy vibrations. It leads one to wonder how much of this popular theology might be based upon the cosmology section of the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook.

Still many more lifestyle and spiritual guidance weblogs are written by middle-aged American yoga enthusiasts who subsist on soymilk, greet their cats with an uttered "Namaste" and derive their understanding of the universe from repeated viewings of the film Eat Pray Love.

I should not be so harsh.

I am the least qualified person to be presenting this information.

I am not an expert.

I am not a philosopher or a theologian.

I am just a layman who writes books.

Though, far be it from me to mislead anyone, whether intentionally or inadvertently.

If there is truth to what I have written, then it is by the grace of God this is so.

Any errors are solely mine.

Would, therefore, that my words be true, and that you learn from them.

Section I:

The Nature Of Angels

Introductory Remarks

If we are to understand the nature of angels, we must start by considering two preliminary matters. The first is to question whether they exist, and the second is to question what they are.

The notion of angels’ existence transcends culture. In nearly every corner of the world there can be found a belief in tutelary spirits—invisible beings that serve as protectors, patrons, and guardians of specific persons or places.

Among the eastern traditions, Hinduism features numerous devas, which can be likened to angels. The Chinese believed in chenghuangshen, which were revered as spiritual patrons of cities.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed in similar entities. The Roman word for them was genius. These genii, as they were called collectively, represented the divine aspects of a person, place, or concept. There were genii of harvests, festivals, theatrical performances, and so on.

It was thought that appealing to these spirits would ensure the success of the undertakings with which they were affiliated. The genius of a city might be invoked for protection against an army threatening to invade the settlement. On the personal level, the genius was the personification of an individual’s divine nature.

That a genius was considered personal to the individual was firmly in the mind of the Romans. Saint Augustine of Hippo equated the concept of a person’s genius with a soul from how intertwined the two seemed, though a more apt comparison might be drawn between a genius and a guardian angel.

In this light, a genius, at least with respect to individual people, bears the strongest resemblance to our concept of an angel. Genii were thought of as entities separate from the people they accompanied, unlike the soul, which is an integral part of a person. This much can also be deduced from how an individual person’s genius might be of higher or lower dignity depending on the person’s station in life, with the Roman emperor’s genius being the highest and best of all.

For Catholics, the existence of angels is a matter of fact. The same holds true for Jews. For Muslims, it would be impossible to deny angels exist, because they assert the Archangel Jibril (Gabriel) dictated the Quran to Muhammad.

While angels’ ubiquity might be taken as a sign that they are just a shared myth, this viewpoint collapses when scrutinized. It is like thinking gravity is a myth because everyone experiences it. Indeed, this is all the more reason to conclude they do exist, because angels cannot be isolated to just one culture, time period, region, or religion. People of different religions—and even some who adhere to no religion at all—have borne witness to them.

We now address the second matter: what is an angel?

The easiest way to begin answering this question is by discussing what an angel is not.

Angels—specifically the holy angels—are good, but not nice.

The modern conception of an angel paints them out to be vapid do-gooders with halos and harps that flutter among the clouds, eking out an insipid existence. This is outright fallacy. Angels are powerful ministers of God, each uniquely created to fulfill a specific destiny and purpose.

Angels are not human beings.

While it is true that angels have taken on the appearance of human beings from time to time, these are merely disguises. Angels, being purely spiritual creatures, do not have physical bodies.

Comparing their state to that of humankind makes the distinction ever finer. At the moment of death, a human’s soul departs from his body until the second coming of Christ, at which time the soul will be reunited with a perfected body.

This reveals the nature of humanity, that we are designed to exist as a body-soul composite. Death only temporarily separates us from our bodies. Angels, in contrast, were never intended to have physical bodies, just as humans were not intended to be permanently without them. It is therefore incorrect to think of angels as humans and humans as angels.

By the same token, human beings are not angels. A common misconception holds that humans become angels upon death. This is not the case. Though similar in some respects, the natures of angels and mankind are distinct in the same way that dogs and cats may both be mammals, but one can never become the other.

Saint Augustine opines that the word angel denotes their office, while the word spirit describes their nature. Thus, an angel is a spirit with a task. This definition, while accurate, prompts more questions than it provides by way of answers.

What, then, is a spirit?

A spirit is a type of person. The most apparent difference between them and other persons with whom we may be more familiar is that spirits are incorporeal. There is not a single atom of matter in a spirit. And yet, the fact that a spirit is incorporeal in no way makes him any less a person.

This begs yet another question: why the emphasis on personhood if the discussion is on angels?

Angels by rights are persons despite not being human.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking only human beings are persons because humans are the kind of people with which we have the most frequent contact. You may encounter difficulty seeing the personhood of something that is not like you. In truth, angels are more like us than you might have at first expected. All of mankind is like the angels’ little cousins. You have more in common with an angel than with an ape, despite anything a biologist might tell you.

For the sake of discussion, let us say that the reason you are able to recognize the personhood of others is because you yourself are a person. The qualities that make someone a person are present in you, regardless of whether you are cognizant of these qualities. You see these same qualities in others whom you consider persons.

This is how you know your aunt is a person, and also how you know that insects are not persons. You know this viscerally, without having to ponder the matter. Jackie Gleason said it best: If you have it and you know you have it, then you have it.

Your ability to recognize the personhood of another depends upon your finding qualities in him that are similar to yours. Once you understand this, you can break this concept into its constituent parts to identify where the similarities lie. I will refer to these parts as the building blocks of personhood.

The first building block is a unique personality. A personality is a distinct combination of traits that make up an individual’s character.

The second building block is the will. This is the power of self-determination.

The third building block is an intellect.

The intellect is more than just intellectual capacity. Intellectual capacity is the extent to which a creature can reason about things happening around it.

A chimpanzee exhibits a degree of intellectual capacity, as shown by its ability to predict what might result from a simple cause and effect experiment. That said, not even the smartest of chimpanzees possesses an intellect.

The intellect is what allows for introspection. It is the power to examine our own mental processes. No beings except persons can perform introspection.

When we consider these components of personhood, we can conclude that there are only three classes of persons. Out of all beings that exist, only the members of these three classes possess the building blocks of personhood. They are God, the angels, and humankind.

God is a person. Scripture records God expressing delight,⁸ anger,⁹ remorse,¹⁰ and love.¹¹ What He says, as much as the manner in which He expresses Himself, evidences He has a personality.

It is also apparent that He is a being capable of introspection. When God informed Abraham of His intent to immediately destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleaded that these settlements be spared.¹² God’s restraint at Abraham’s behest shows that God is a being who deliberates. God is capable of reflecting upon His internal thoughts. Therefore, we can observe that God possesses an intellect.

Lastly, God is a being who acts. An action is an outward manifestation of one’s will. Because human beings do not have the ability to read another’s thoughts, we make our intents known to others through our actions.

God’s act of desiring that a thing should be is sufficient to make it exist, as was the case when He spoke the universe into existence. Here is evidence that God possesses a will, and furthermore, proof of the extent to which He can harness it. To make something exist merely by desiring it is the ultimate expression of will; to make it so from out of nothing is a demonstration of infinite power.

Because God is infinite, so too are the aspects of His personhood. It follows that God’s will, intellect, and every attribute of His personality must also be infinite. God must therefore be the epitome of personhood.

On to the angels: God created the angels and mankind in His image and likeness. This does not mean that angels look like human beings, or that God looks like a bearded old man in the sky. What this means is that, like God and human beings, angels are persons.

The angels were the first creatures to inhabit the universe. Having been made in God’s likeness, they command the dignity of personhood, each exhibiting a unique personality, an intellect, and a will. By nature, they are the most excellent of all creatures, because collectively, they bear the greatest resemblance to their Creator.

So to better understand angels, let us now consider how all three—God, angels, and mankind—relate to each other, with humanity as the point of reference.

Mankind is unique. Like God and the angels, we are spiritual in that each of us possesses an immortal soul. No physical creature aside from mankind possesses a soul with dignity level to ours. At the risk of speculating, the substance of which the human soul is composed might well be identical to the ephemeral material that makes up the angels, and even God.

The common ground we share with angels and with God is what makes all three more similar to each other than anything else that exists. To share in God’s likeness is to possess a spiritual nature, because possession of a spiritual nature goes hand in hand with the quality of personhood. Just as we would not attribute personhood to an insect, so would we not attribute a rational soul to one.

From this, we infer that there can be only three overall types of spiritual persons: God, the angels, and human beings. The last two types—that is, angels and human beings—can be further subdivided if specificity requires.

Angels can be distinguished as being holy or fallen, with the latter being better known as demons. Both angels and demons can fairly be called spirits—what they are—and angels—what they do. Thus, there are good spirits and bad spirits; good angels and bad angels. To avoid confusion, benevolent spirits will be referred to as the holy or elect angels; while malevolent spirits will be referred to as the fallen angels or demons.

Within the class of human beings are found four subdivisions: the souls of people who are alive, the souls in heaven, the souls in purgatory, and the souls in hell.

As there can never be more than these particular groups of spiritual persons, such things as earthbound ghosts, wandering souls, animal spirits, and nature spirits cannot exist.

Inanimate objects do not have souls.

An animal possesses something like a soul in that it is extinguished when the creature dies, but this cannot be considered a soul in the formal sense, because it does not exhibit the qualities of personhood.

In light of the foregoing, it will serve you to keep this ever in mind: anything attempting to pass itself off as something that cannot exist is lying to you. Such entities should be regarded with suspicion. Whatever conceals its nature from you is also trying to hide its intentions. You should not be quick to accept that it has your best interests at heart—even if it tells you that it does.

Why Do Angels Exist?

The short answer is: to glorify God along with the rest of creation. This is the general reason for why anything should exist. It applies as much to angels as it does to angelfish. The splendor of a mountain, the power of a lightning strike, the complexity of your nervous system—all that is, was, and will be—exist to demonstrate the might and creative genius of God.

God is entirely self-sufficient. He needs no created thing. He is content with Himself in His own perfection. He does not need His creatures to worship Him, though He