From the divine messengers of Western traditions to the devas of Eastern traditions to the maleks and spirit beings found along the Silk Road, angels are one of the unifying themes of theology worldwide. But what is an angel, and why do they contact us, believers and non-believers alike? In this in-depth study into the mystery and purpose of angels, Normandi Ellis looks at the angelic dimensions of spiritual traditions around the world from the ancient past to present day. She explores well-known angels from Judeo-Christian and Islamic faiths, the Hindu Devata and Buddhist spirit beings, the neteru of ancient Egypt, the Peacock Angel of Yezidism, and the yazatas of Zoroastrianism. She compares angelic visions from medieval Christians like Thomas Aquinas and John of Damascus with what Theosophists, Kabbalists, Sufi masters, Eastern gurus, and modern mystics like Edgar Cayce have recounted about angels. She looks at dark and fallen angels and their role in the grand cosmological plan. Quoting from sacred traditions, narrative myth, and contemporary angelic encounters, including her own personal interactions with angels, the author clarifies the divergent aspects of angelic beliefs but also reveals the common points shared by all traditions. Ellis shows how, in whatever guise they appear, angels are messengers. Sharing a wealth of evidence from both Western and Eastern holy texts as well as modern accounts, she explains that angels are beings of light consciousness, part of the universal life force that connects all beings. And not only are angels actively helping in our planet’s cosmic evolution, they also help us see our own place in the cosmic plan.

iheartblob avails itself of a new visual vocabulary of architecture. Here designs are visualized not in the form of ground plans and sections. Instead, renderings, mixed-reality objects (which are depicted physically and in augmented reality) and animations are the media which reflect the legacy of the mathematician Lagrange. Visually, but also on the basis of short theoretical texts, the book facilitates new discussions about the contemporary theoretical and cultural framework - and thus also about the "crisis of philosophy" faced not only by architecture. While the theoretical framework here invokes the principles of object-oriented ontology, in a subsequent step it attempts to unravel the theoretical principles of postmodernity and poststructural formalism.