Why do so many celebs think an angel is watching over them?
WHAT do J a me s Bond actress Gemma Arterton, Hollywood star Denzel Washington and television presenter Gloria Hunniford have in common? Here’s a clue: it’s not the agent looking after them. In fact, all three have spoken of their belief in guardian angels.
Arterton recently told Vogue magazine she believes her deceased grandmother acts as her guardian angel, sending her signs about, among other things, whether or not to accept film projects. Washington described seeing an angel which looked like his sister — only with wings. Hunniford once claimed to have a ‘parking angel’ which helped her find spaces for her car.
It’s enough to bring out the cynic in anyone. Can we expect to see celebrities bearing angelic talismans as conspicuous as those little red bracelets when Kaballah, a spiritual movement rooted in Jewish mysticism and practised by Madonna, Demi Moore and Victoria Beckham, was all the rage? Actually, yes.
Wayne Rooney’s torso already bears a tattoo of a guardian angel, reportedly dedicated to his son Kai. Mrs Beckham has said she and husband David wear matching guardian angel necklaces that apparently emit a powerful ‘energy’.
And as if to prove that celebrities are fascinated by angels, last month singer Adele showed off her seven-month-old son in public for the first time. His name? Angelo.
But it isn’t just the rich and famous who are professing their belief in guardian angels. In a recent survey by pollster ICM, 31 per cent of us — and 41 per cent of women — admitted they believed angels existed. Nearly a third said they were convinced a guardian angel watched over them.
The internet is bulging with blogs and websites set up by those claiming to have seen their guardian angel. And sales of books on the topic have soared. Big-name publishers such as Penguin and Hodder & Stoughton have snapped up writers claiming angelic visions.
THE genre appeals because people naturally have the desire to find meaning and depth in their life,’ says Mark Booth, from Hodder & Stoughton. ‘ Often the established Church doesn’t fulfil that.’ Some of the best-known recent ‘ angel books’ are those by Lorna Byrne, a motherof-four from Dublin.
Her 2008 memoir, Angels In My Hair, about a life filled with visions of angels, has sold more than half a million copies around the world. It has been translated into 26 languages, including Mandarin, Japanese and Korean, and been published in more than 50 countries. Two further books written by Byrne, Stairways To Heaven and A Message Of Hope From The Angels, have also become bestsellers.
Byrne claims her earliest memory was of lying in a cot and attempting to play with ‘angels’ as they floated above her head. And, she says, they’ve never left her. Sometimes they appear as bursts of white light. At others, they assume a ‘ human form’. They can be male or female, are frequently tall, and do not always have wings.
It’s tempting to write off her claims as the work of a fantasist. Nevertheless all those book sales must have added up to a lot of royalties. Six years ago, Byrne was working as a cleaner and struggling to make ends meet as a widowed mother of four.
Now, as she puts it, she ‘doesn’t have to worry about paying for the electricity’.
There is clearly money to be made from people’s faith in guardian angels. A host of selfappointed ‘mystics’ offer everything from ‘angel card readings’ — like Tarot readings with cards bearing fortune-cookie-like ‘messages’ from angels — to ‘ angel therapists’ promising to ‘heal and harmonise every aspect of life’ by putting you in touch with your guardian angel.
Jacky Newcomb, a 50-year-old self- described ‘ angel expert’, offers angel card readings and angel healing. She made her name writing books about angels, including the 2006 bestseller An Angel By My Side, in which she gives the details of a collection of angel ‘sightings’ from around the world.
Her o nl i ne store offers everything from ‘inspirational’ posters of herself wearing angel wings to narrated CDs to put you in touch with your guardian angel through meditation.
Her one- on- one angel card readings cost anything between €7 for a basic reading and €70 for a more extensive reading of 60 cards. She appears regularly at spiritual fairs where believers can experience her ‘healing with angels’ sessions — a series of ‘ positive visualisations and relaxation techniques’.
She claims that one woman who visited her was due to undergo an operation but didn’t need the treatment after the session. ‘I’m not professing to be a healer,’ she insists. ‘It won’t work for everyone. I don’t know why it works for some people.’
There’s no doubt that an awful lot of people do believe they have come face-to-face with a guardian angel.
History is full of tales of angelic encounters, from the Old Testament to Joan of Arc’s belief that the archangel Michael told her to lead France in battle against the English. But if the sceptics are correct, what is it that all these people have seen? ‘A lot of people are genuinely seeing these things,’ says Christopher French, a professor of psychology. ‘For example, mountain climbers who have lost their bearings sometimes report seeing a figure guiding them out of the danger.
‘ It may be a psychological defence when faced with danger. Of course, we don’t hear from those whose guardians led them off the edge of a cliff!’
NEUROSCIENTISTS have identified several f actors which may induce fantastical visions. In 2005, Swiss researchers found that sending electric currents through the left temporoparietal junction — a small area at the back of the brain which retains visual memories and sensory i nformation — resulted i n patients seeing ‘ghostly’ figures.
Brain scans of Tibetan monks showed mystical experiences tended to occur when sections at the front of the brain (typically involved in concentration and planning) were very active, while those involved in navigation and spatial orientation were calm.
In other words, there was evidence that there is a physical difference in the brains of those who experience such visions. Believers often say a vision ends with the angel passing on a message or sign, frequently in the form of white feathers.
Gemma Arterton has said in the past that she ‘has feathers which follow her everywhere’.
TV presenter Judy Finnigan claimed she found white feathers in her house, which she believes were evidence of her f riend, television presenter Caron Keating, who died of cancer, returning as an angel.
Before she wrote her debut novel, Eloise, about the grief she felt after Caron’s death, Finnigan asked the blessing of Caron’s mother Gloria Hunniford, a fellow believer in guardian angels.
Analysts argue t hat such phenomena simply reflect a human need to find patterns and significance in otherwise random events.
And the truth is that the powers of guardian angels — even if they do exist — are rather patchy. An awful lot of bad, sad things happen to good people. Why don’t guardian angels protect them?
Lorna Byrne says she hasn’t got a categorical answer, but insists: ‘Your guardian angel has protected you in millions of different ways throughout your life.’
Perhaps. But the next time you’re trying to find that elusive parking space, be wary of relying too much on guardian angels.
You could be looking for an awfully long time.