Author: David Albert Jones
Publisher: Oxford University Press 2010
Price: £10.99 (paperback)
Isbn: 9780199582952

I took Jerome Clark to task in these pages for stating that mediæval “fantastic visionary phenomena” are “without analogue in our post-Enlightenment times”, and suggested that disproof of this wayward assertion could be found in channelled ‘revelations’ about crop circles. True, but for full-blown refutation I should have adduced the angel industry: the word plethora might have been invented for its literary effusions over the last decade and a half. Some of these – an example to hand is Lorna Byrnes’s Stairways to Heaven (Coronet 2010) written, it says, with the guidance of “the Archangel Michael and other angels” – are sincere if often syrupy accounts of visionary experiences and their effects on individuals’ lives. But most are gaudy, exploitative, taste-free New Age goo of a low order. And also American.

David Albert Jones’s small but perfectly formed volume stands like one of the Seven against Thebes in stark contrast to this industrial deluge. (One of his cohorts might be Prof Peter Gardella, whose American Angels [University Press of Kansas 2007] beadily analyses their place as “useful spirits” in the context of American materialism: recommended.) Jones has a refreshingly English tone, one that we lose at our peril: restrained, cultured, above all decent. He says it would be “foolish to seek to prove the existence of angels. It would be like deliberately testing a friendship – something likely to do more harm than good. The desire to test everything stems from a preference for knowledge over trust.

...For the sake of humanity [..] it is necessary to defend the human spirit, and this implies keeping an open mind about the existence of other, immaterial, spirits.”

This comes at the end of the book, by which time Jones has taken us through chapters on the ‘brief history’ of angels, their ancient and modern depictions (not excluding Charlie’s Angels), how they may be defined, their roles as divine messengers and ministering spirits, their serried ranks and hierarchies in heaven, fallen angels, and the concept of wrestling with angels. Every page of these accounts is packed with information, some of which one knew, some one didn’t (eg, in Islamic tradition, the archangels Gabriel and Michael each have 600 wings), some one did know but hadn’t realised it – for instance that “Angels are not little gods”, and are peculiar to monotheistic religions. Likewise, Jones notes the shift over millennia of angels’ gender, from the ‘men’ of the Tanach (Hebrew bible), through Renaissance androgyny, to the predominantly female figures encountered today.

One of the most useful features of the book is the way Jones keeps pulling the reader back to authentic, traditional angel lore, an implicit (if not consciously intended) corrective to the wilder and lazier presumptions of the New Age. But he also touches directly on “ancient astronauts”, courteously debunking them, and other perceived equivalences between angels and (ET) aliens: “Rather than seeing ancient religious texts as evidence for alien visitors, we should perhaps see modern interest in aliens as the metamorphosis of an ancient belief… Aliens are angels for modern materialists.”

Those tempted to see aliens as demons should read Jones’s chapter on fallen angels, which includes a sharp profile of djinn. But really, everyone should have this book. And a library consisting of the references and further reading – imagine, a five-volume biography of Satan! – could long keep one happy on a desert island, given a sufficient accompanying supply of Sobranies, vintage Mumm, and canapés. And perhaps a ministering angel.