wings

• origin of idea that angels have

39:5.11Your con­ven­tional idea of an­gels has been de­rived in the fol­low­ing way: Dur­ing mo­ments just prior to phys­i­cal death a re­flec­tive phe­nom­e­non some­times oc­curs in the hu­man mind, and this dim­ming con­scious­ness seems to vi­su­al­ize some­thing of the form of the at­tend­ing an­gel, and this is im­me­di­ately trans­lated into terms of the ha­bit­ual con­cept of an­gels held in that in­di­vid­ual’s mind.

39:5.12The er­ro­neous idea that an­gels pos­sess wings is not wholly due to olden no­tions that they must have wings to fly through the air. Hu­man be­ings have some­times been per­mit­ted to ob­serve ser­a­phim that were be­ing pre­pared for trans­port ser­vice, and the tra­di­tions of these ex­pe­ri­ences have largely de­ter­mined the Uran­tian con­cept of an­gels. In ob­serv­ing a trans­port ser­a­phim be­ing made ready to re­ceive a pas­sen­ger for in­ter­plan­e­tary tran­sit, there may be seen what are ap­par­ently dou­ble sets of wings ex­tend­ing from the head to the foot of the an­gel. In re­al­ity these wings are en­ergy in­su­la­tors—fric­tion shields.

39:5.13When ce­les­tial be­ings are to be en­ser­a­phimed for trans­fer from one world to an­other, they are brought to the head­quar­ters of the sphere and, af­ter due reg­istry, are in­ducted into the tran­sit sleep. Mean­time, the trans­port ser­a­phim moves into a hor­i­zon­tal po­si­tion im­me­di­ately above the uni­verse en­ergy pole of the planet. While the en­ergy shields are wide open, the sleep­ing per­son­al­ity is skill­fully de­posited, by the of­fi­ci­at­ing se­raphic as­sis­tants, di­rectly on top of the trans­port an­gel. Then both the up­per and lower pairs of shields are care­fully closed and ad­justed.

39:5.14And now, un­der the in­flu­ence of the trans­form­ers and the trans­mit­ters, a strange meta­mor­pho­sis be­gins as the ser­a­phim is made ready to swing into the en­ergy cur­rents of the uni­verse cir­cuits. To out­ward ap­pear­ance the ser­a­phim grows pointed at both ex­trem­i­ties and be­comes so en­shrouded in a queer light of am­ber hue that very soon it is im­pos­si­ble to dis­tin­guish the en­ser­a­phimed per­son­al­ity. When all is in readi­ness for de­par­ture, the chief of trans­port makes the proper in­spec­tion of the car­riage of life, car­ries out the rou­tine tests to as­cer­tain whether or not the an­gel is prop­erly en­cir­cuited, and then an­nounces that the trav­eler is prop­erly en­ser­a­phimed, that the en­er­gies are ad­justed, that the an­gel is in­su­lated, and that ev­ery­thing is in readi­ness for the de­part­ing flash. The me­chan­i­cal con­trol­lers, two of them, next take their po­si­tions. By this time the trans­port ser­a­phim has be­come an al­most trans­par­ent, vi­brat­ing, tor­pedo-shaped out­line of glis­ten­ing lu­mi­nos­ity. Now the trans­port dis­patcher of the realm sum­mons the aux­il­iary bat­ter­ies of the liv­ing en­ergy trans­mit­ters, usu­ally one thou­sand in num­ber; as he an­nounces the des­ti­na­tion of the trans­port, he reaches out and touches the near point of the se­raphic car­riage, which shoots for­ward with light­ning­like speed, leav­ing a trail of ce­les­tial lu­mi­nos­ity as far as the plan­e­tary at­mo­spheric in­vest­ment ex­tends. In less than ten min­utes the mar­velous spec­ta­cle will be lost even to re­in­forced se­raphic vi­sion.