Raphael

An angel whose name means "God has healed." He first appeared in the Apocrypha, those honored but uncanonical books of the Hebrew people that were considered but not included in their Bible (i.e., the Christian Old Testament). The book of Tobit, written in the second century B.C.E. , concerns a man who was blind. Raphael was the angel sent to heal him. In the pseudepigraphical (falsely ascribed) book of Enoch it was said that: "Raphael presides over the spirits of men." In Jewish rabbinical legend of the angelic hierarchies, Raphael was the medium through which the power of Tsebaoth, or the Lord of Hosts, passed into the sphere of the sun, giving motion, heat, and brightness to it.

As one of the angels named in the ancient writings, Raphael reappears in the Kabalistic literatures of the Middle Ages. As an archangel, Raphael was identified with Hod, one of the ten sephiroth iminated by the Ein Soph (God) who implements God's creative purposes, in this case healing. He then reappears in a variety of magical operations of ceremonial magic and is one of the four angels called upon in, for example, the basic "Ritual of the Pentagram" which was taught to neophytes in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

The name "Raphael" was also adopted by pioneer British astrologer Robert Cross Smith (1795-1832) whose career really marks the beginning of the modern astrological revival from the low point of astrological interest in the eighteenth century. Smith founded a successful astrological publishing house and compiled Raphael's Astronomical Ephemeris, the book of sun, moon, and planet position for each day of the year, a necessary tool for the preparation of an accurate horoscope. Since his death, the publishing house continues to publish his ephemeris which remains one of the most popular used today.

Through the nineteenth century, individual astrologers also assumed the name and operated as "Raphael." Raphael II was John Palmer (1807-1837), editor of Raphael's Sanctuary of the Astral Art (1834), Raphael III was a Mr. Medhurst, who edited the Prophetic Messenger almanac (1837-ca. 1847), Raphael IV was Mr. Wakeley (d. 1853) who wrote under the name "Edwin Raphael," and Raphael V was a Mr. Sparkes (1820-1875) who edited The Oracle (May-June 1861). Raphael VI was Robert C. Cross (1850-1923) who acquired the Raphael copyrights, including the ephemeris. Since Cross's death, a company has continued the Raphael publications.

Sources:

Christian, Paul. The History and Practice of Magic. New York: Citadel Press, 1969.

Halevi, Z'ev ben Shimon. A Kabbalistic Universe. New York: Samuel Weiser, 1977.

Lewis, James R. Astrology Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994.

Regardie, Israel. The Golden Dawn. 4 vols. Chicago: Aries Press, 1937-40. Revised ed., St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1969.