Every human being on this Earth has a threefold existence; their physical form, their human soul and their divine spirit. Most people never move beyond their mundane physical lives, being driven solely by their bodily functions, base instincts and worldly desires for wealth and sex. But a small and ever increasing number of people awaken to the knowledge of their human soul, the understanding of their true place in the world, the desire to help others, a drive to better themselves and the world around them. Such people become life coaches, spiritual healers and teachers, priest(esse)s, aid workers, environmentalists etc. These people are 'the tip of the wedge' readied to force open the door to a new age of enlightenment. An even smaller number of people manage to get in touch with their divine spirit, coming to a realisation of their own divinity and stepping forward into the world as a conduit through which the Gods act in the world. Alister Crowley wrote that every man and every woman is a star, the centre of their own universe, and this is what connecting to the higher self means; becoming the star and having the world gravitate around you. While such people may not go on to fill roles such as those filled by those awaken to the soul, they do shape their own lives in the image of what they truly desire, walking through the world and leaving blazing trails in their wake, setting an example to others on how to do the same. In doing so they not only liberate themselves from the invisible bonds of servitude to a world which neither knows of nor cares for them, they help to liberate others who are already awakened to the soul and drag those who are not out of their materialistic slumber and into the harsh reality of higher consciousness.
I came to be introduced to the idea of the higher self by a friend who had spent many years as a practicing Seer and Spiritual Healer. One evening we were discussing some of the experiences we had had with spirits, good and bad, and she said to me, "if only you knew who you really are, you wouldn't have any trouble of this kind." At the time I had no notion of the 'higher self', but it had me wondering; I had experience a recurring dream in which I was trapped in a dark space surrounded by strange beings that moved like ink in water, and I was approached by a shadowy figure who said the same thing every time, just three words; "Who am I?" Around the same time my friend introduced me to a unique form of Ouija board called an angel table, which was specifically designed using angelic sigils, planetary seals and other symbolic devices to invoke positive energy while repelling negative energy. I had tried other forms of divinatory communication but had difficulty interpreting the answers I received at that early juncture, so decided to try using an angel table to call upon a specific deity. At that time I was looking into Judaeo-Christian mysticism as it had the most reference material readily available to me, so I decided, with my partner, to call upon the Archangel Michael for guidance. We posed a number of questions relating to personal matters and answers to dreams and visions we had had, receiving words and phrases both on the board and in our minds, as well as visions of people, places, objects and symbols which we could note down, research and interpret afterwards.One of my questions was about what my friend had meant by "who you really are", to which I received two words, "True Name". There are a number of traditions that hold the belief that if one can learn a person's true name then they control that person's soul, so this intrigued me further. I asked if Michael could tell me my true name, and I was answered with what appeared to be an anagram. Later, we sat and tried to decipher the messages we had received, and found that my anagram spelled the name Shamael.
Further research into the name revealed that Shamael, also pronounced Samael or Chamael, related to an angel mentioned in the dead sea scrolls. Shamael was one of the first seven creating angels, the Elohim, and the twin of Shamyazza who led the fall of the Watchers from heaven to Earth in order to educate primitive humans. Shamael is the biblical equivalent of Prometheus, giving mankind mastery of all crafts relating to fire, while his twin, Shamyazza bestowed the gift of Metallurgy in conjunction with this. After the Watchers began to breed with human women and produce the Nephilim, "Giants of men, heroes of renown" - (Gen. 6:4), which prompted the wrath of God, Shamael repented and was accepted back into the heavenly host but punished by being marked as the angel of death, while his sibling refused to repent and was cast into darkness after a majority of the Nephilim were destroyed by the great flood. Shamael's participation in the fall from grace has led some scholars and theologians to view him as a demon, though this is incorrect due to his subsequent repentance and return to heaven. He was feared by the Hebrews due to his renewed role as the angel of death, suspected of being the shadow which brought the death of the first born in Exodus which affected all who failed to mark their doors with lambs blood, Egyptians and Hebrews alike. Shamael rules over the 5th Heaven, Machon, and is typically portrayed as being a spirit of both light and darkness, with many unsure as to whether he is wholly good or evil. The name Shamael is derived from Sama-El in Sumerian and is translated to mean "Lord of the Red Land". The ancient Egyptians used this title for their Chaos God, Set, who was represented by the Dessert, or Desh-Rhut meaning Red Land, and so this was later used to label Shamael as a 'devil-like' figure. In one passage of the dead sea scrolls, Shamael is described as the 'sword of God' and can be transliterated into ancient Greek to mean 'the venom/wrath of God'. This inadvertently creates a link back to Archangel Michael, 'he who is like God' who, despite being typically depicted with a spear, uses a sword to slay the Beast in Revelations. As Michael is viewed as the hand of God, and Shamael as the sword of God, it necessarily follows that Shamael is an instrument of or emanation from Archangel Michael, though there is nothing in classical theology to support this interpretation.
Shamael's role as an angel of death links him to such deities as Hades in Greek mythology, Pluto from the Roman Pantheon, Anubis from Egyptian culture and Cernunnos, the Celtic God of Fertility, Nature and the Underworld. His gift of fire to mankind justifies him as being an elemental angel, embodying fire, and his title of 'the sword of God' places him also as an angel of war. The combination of his links to fire and war place him alongside the likes of Ares, Mars, Tyr, Horus and Nuada. His act of bestowing wisdom upon humanity has created a loose link to other 'teacher deities' such as Hermes, Thoth and Odin. This is further suggested as he is often depicted as a dragon or serpent, animals typically associated with wisdom or cunning, which has led some to believe that he is the snake which bestowed the knowledge of free will and good and evil upon Adam and Eve. This link with the serpent imagery also ties Shamael to Enki in Sumerian mythology, who disguised himself as a serpent to free humanity from slavery under Enki's brother, Enlil; Enki was one of the Annunaki who created the world, and was said to govern the elements of Water and Fire, while Enlil governed Air and Earth. These three primary attributes of Shamael as a deity led me to view all deities as having a threefold nature, falling into the categories of 'Maiden, Mother and Crone' for female deities and 'Brave, Warrior and Chief' for male deities. While I am aware that the three-part view of the Goddess is a relatively modern invention by Robert Graves, I feel that it is apt and holds some tangible truth to it, especially as it directly mirrors the threefold nature of all things in nature - mineral/vegetable/animal, solid/liquid/gas, horizontal/vertical/perpendicular, biological/emotional/intellectual etc. - and so I feel that it is a valid addition to the pagan spiritual tradition upon which I have now elaborated. In view of this pantheistic structure, I feel that Shamael is somewhat of an archetypal 'umbrella' term encompassing all of the various deities listed above, or as Stephen D. Farmer would call it, the 'over-soul' of the other deities. This in no way means that the Judaeo-Christian angel is at all superior to the pagan Gods, for they are all one and the same, simply different facets or personality types of a complete entity in the same way that I, as a human being, have an artistic side, and political side, a religious side, a scientific side, a warrior side and a compassionate side. All of these traits make up who I am, just as each of the pagan Gods listed above, when combined, make up the over-soul that is named Shamael.
There were a number of clues that I noticed upon discovering the above information which further consolidated the possibility in my mind. First of all, I was born in the month of March, which is the month sacred to Mars. I was born on a Tuesday which is derived from the Norse Tyr's-day and Latin as seen in the Spanish Martes meaning Mars Day. I was born at 10:10pm, and in numerology, 10 is equivalent to 1 which is the number of creation and action and is sacred to Mars. My favourite colour has always been red, attributed to Mars, Ares, Tyr etc. My zodiacal element is water (for Pisces), and when operating within the Qabbalistic system, my higher spiritual element is a mirror/opposite to my earthly element meaning that my higher self's element must be fire (as seen with Enki governing two opposing elements). When examining my birth date numerologically, I found that it too comes to the spiritual number of Mars, 5+3+1+9+9+1=28, 2+8=10/1. My mother's name, Sam, when conjoined to my name, Liam, spelled backwards in keeping with the mirror theme, is as follows Sam/mial or Samial which is another authentic pronunciation of Shamael. Also, the various planets associated with each of the deities corresponding to Shamael, namely Mars, Mercury, Pluto and Jupiter, were all in direct allignment in the constellation of Aries, which is loosely associated with the Greek God Ares. By meditating upon all of the symbols and names I had uncovered and ruminating deeply on their meanings and connections to each other an myself, I was able to gain more information and deeper insight regarding the roles and stories behind each facet of the deity. With all of these 'coincidences' put together, I found that I was overwhelmed by the amount of synchronistic messages which all suggested that my higher self is indeed Shamael/Ares/Mars/Horus/Nuada/Tyr etc. Over the years I have structured my spiritual practice around this fact and found that it is even more effective than it has ever been before.
In conclusion, though I acknowledge that it is absurd to believe that I am actually an angel/God incarnate, I do feel that the above named deities are in rather my Archetype(s), the primary energetic consciousness with which my Earthly human soul aligns. I could go as far as stating that I am a priest of these deities, this fiery, aggressive, masculine, creative consciousness, a vessel for it or a conduit through which it communicates and acts in the physical world. Too many people take issue with the idea of 'tooting one's own horn' attacking such thoughts by referring to it as 'self-aggrandisement', 'delusions of grandeur', 'God-complex' or being driven by 'Ego' (which is an inaccuracy in new-age terminology, as the idea of Ego comes from Sigmund Freud who divided the human psyche into three parts; namely the Id, which is the self-sabotaging subconscious with low self esteem, the Super-Ego which is the self-aggrandising subconscious with arrogant over-confidence, and the Ego which is the mediating frontal conscious, balancing the Id and the Super-Ego to create an evenly measured healthy mind). All ancient traditions, in their higher mysteries at least, teach that "man is God in the making" - (Manly P. Hall). The Norse saw the Gods as kin to mankind and believed that humans could elevate themselves to the status of Gods through great deeds, as did the Hellenics as with the stories of Heracles and Perceus. Every human has a higher self, and there can be many humans with the same higher self, being physical embodiments or emanations from that deity, and it is up to us to realise these connections, to connect to these Gods as best we can so as to channel their divine power, wisdom and grace into our mundane lives and sacred practices; it's fair to say that 'Gods live among us in disguise'. We all have little clues placed before us by the Gods; look at the numerology of your name, your date of birth, the correspondences of the day and month you were born, the symbols that may appear throughout your life in the most mundane of places, they are all clues as to your true identity and will guide you on the path to Godhood. But please, don't try asking a Ouija board for your name; it's a dangerous business, communicating with spirit, especially through boards. If you feel you must, then be absolutely positive that what you're using is an angel table, and even then, the slightest inaccuracy in the symbols involved could compromise the security of the board. I hope that my sharing this experience with you will help you discover your higher self and become who you were born to be. May the Gods be with you!
Enki Endymion. O(
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