The Angelic Way

October 1, 2009
In his latest, Shapiro (religious studies, Middle Tennessee State Univ.; "The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness") discusses the history of angels, giving particular attention to archangels, fallen angels, and the Angel of Death. While this is not a work of profound scholarship akin to Peter Gardella's "American Angels" or Gustav Davidson's "Dictionary of Angels", the connections Shapiro makes across ideas and traditions are intriguing, especially his comparison of the ascended ones of various religions to angels. Angels, he writes, are not figments of our imagination but the imagination itselfnot external to us but internal. Angels have wings because angels are us, and we can fly. VERDICT A well-informed but accessible treatment of angels as divine aspects of the self, which will appeal to general readers.

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