The Difference Between Spirit Guides And Angels

From the beginning of my psychic career, the information in my readings has always come from both spirit guides and angels. I find that the energy of these two types of spirit beings are very similar in the way they present themselves, but there are different nuances in the messages they convey.

In the early days, I never gave much thought to the “technical” differences between spirit guides and angelic guides until a client asked me about it. I then decided to investigate by asking my guides and angels directly in my daily meditations. I believe it’s always best to go straight to the source, don’t you?

The information I received from Spirit turned out to be very enlightening and even a little surprising, making it easier for me to explain it to people ever since. Over the years of doing many spirit guided readings, I gradually gained a deeper understanding of how these benevolent spirit beings guide us in our life journey.

Spirit guides and angels are spiritual beings who offer guidance, support and protection to humanity, but they have slightly different roles and characteristics. The two main distinctions that has been shown to me are that spirit guides have lived human lives before, while angels have not, and that spirit guides support us in our daily human lives and earthly affairs, while angelic guides provide us with higher wisdom, spiritual guidance, and divine protection.

The minute you speak to your angel for the first time, you will never be alone again, because our angels are always with us. No matter where you are as you read this, you are surrounded by angels ~ Eileen Elias Freeman

A simple way to understand the distinction between these two spirit entities is to compare it to the Major and Minor Arcana in the Tarot. Angel guides are like the Major Arcana, while spirit guides are the Minor Arcana of spirit guidance.

The Major Arcana cards in the Tarot represent major life themes, archetypes, and universal experiences such as love, death, rebirth, and transformation. They symbolize significant life events, turning points, life transitions, and personal transformations. The Minor Arcana, on the other hand, represent everyday experiences, emotions, and situations. They deal with the mundane aspects of life such as work, relationships, lifestyle, and daily challenges.

Because they represent major life themes, the Major Arcana cards generally carry more weight and significance in a reading. They indicate turning points, powerful influences, and important lessons. The Minor Arcana cards, on the other hand, provide everyday nuances and practical details that offer insight into specific life situations, emotions, and actions.

Spirit Guides

Spirit guides are spirits who have lived human lives. Some guides are highly evolved spirits who have experienced life on Earth in numerous incarnations through which they have managed to evolve to a higher state of consciousness, while other guides, such as our ancestor guides, are spirits who are currently in-between incarnations and have not yet reached their highest potential for enlightenment.

As part of their next stage of soul evolution in the spirit realm, spirit guides support those of us who are still working on our soul growth here in the physical world. They assist us daily by sharing wisdom and offering guidance based on their own soul growth journeys and previous earthly life experiences.

Spirit guides are therefore closer to the earthly plane in terms of their vibrational frequency. This does not necessarily mean that they are less valuable. Rather, their guidance is more directly related to the practical, everyday aspects of living in the physical world.

Our ancestral guides are a special subset of spirit guides who are directly related to us through soul family ties. They are the spirits of deceased family members as well as distant forebears who provide guidance and support based on soul family connection, shared heritage, ancestral legacy, and akashic experiences from their own lifetimes and previous generations.

The primary role of a spirit guide is to provide guidance, insight, and support as we navigate our life path. They help us with personal growth, learning, and overcoming obstacles, providing support that is tailored to our individual soul’s journey.

They usually offer guidance in subtle ways, encouraging us to make our own free will decisions. They communicate and interact with us in a variety of ways, through our intuition or inner guidance, ideas and inspirations, signs and synchronicities, dreams, and various forms of divination, psychic reading, and mediumship.

An angel can illuminate the thought and mind of man by strengthening the power of vision and by bringing within his reach some truth which the angel himself contemplates ~ St. Thomas Aquinas

Angel Guides

Angels, on the other hand, are divine beings who have never lived a human life. They are celestial beings or higher manifestations of consciousness that function as divine messengers, spirit guardians, celestial teachers, and angelic guides. They are pure, powerful spirit beings with a direct connection to God, Source, the Great Spirit, the Divine.

There are different types of angels that play different roles in the spirit realm, such as delivering important messages from the divine, offering spiritual shielding and protection, and teaching divine wisdom. There are many angels who act as guides and can be called upon for their supreme spiritual strength and ability to provide comfort, healing, wisdom, and miracles.

Angels operate on higher levels of consciousness and vibrational frequencies. They are associated with unconditional love, profound wisdom, universal laws, and a deep connection to God, Source, Universal Consciousness, the Divine.

They generally provide guidance that encompasses not only individual spiritual growth and wisdom, but also universal truths, spiritual enlightenment, and the evolution of humanity as a whole. They help us with the big picture of life lessons, soul contracts, and understanding our life purpose and soul mission. While spirit guides typically only work with individuals and families, angels can also guide entire communities or nations.

Angels communicate and interact with us in all the same ways that spirit guides do, including through intuitions and inspirations, signs and synchronicities, and various divination practices, psychic reading, and mediumship channeling. Angels also appear to us in profound dreams and visions, offering direct messages, protection and guidance. In exceptional cases of divine intervention or intercession, they also appear to us as human-shaped apparitions or physical manifestations, and typically only in extremely critical moments and life-or-death situations.

Angelic Encounters

Throughout history, many cultures and religious texts contain accounts of angels manifesting in human form to guide or protect people in need. Angel-like messengers and protectors is a common motif across various religious traditions, even though the details and theologies surrounding these spirit beings vary greatly. Religious traditions and spiritual contexts that feature encounters with angelic beings or angel-like entities include:

Christianity: Some of the most well-known examples of angel encounters are found in the Christian tradition. In the New Testament of the Bible, the angel Gabriel appears to Mary in human form to announce that she will conceive and give birth to Jesus, a key moment in Christian narratives that demonstrates direct divine intervention and guidance. The angel Gabriel also appeared to Zechariah to announce the birth of John the Baptist and tells him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.”In the Acts of the Apostles, an angel also appears in human form to Peter in his prison cell. The angel leads Peter out of prison, demonstrating divine intercession and protection in a moment of need.

Islam: In the Islamic tradition, the angel Gabriel (Jibril) plays an important role in guiding and protecting the Prophet Muhammad. Gabriel appeared in human form to teach Muhammad and give him revelations that would eventually become the Qur’an.

Judaism: Angels are a significant part of Jewish theology, with texts like the Torah and the Talmud mentioning various angelic beings. Angels such as Gabriel and Michael are also recognized in Judaism and serve similar roles as messengers and protectors. Famous accounts in the Hebrew Bible include the three angels who visited Abraham to tell him that his wife Sarah would have a son; the two angels who visited Lot to warn him of the impending destruction of the city where he lived and to help him and his family escape the catastrophe; and the account of Jacob wrestling all night with an angel.

The wisdom of the ages teaches that each individual, whether believer or not, good or bad, old or young, sick or well, rich or poor, has a personal Guardian Angle with him or her at every moment of life’s journey ~ Janice T. Connell

Zoroastrianism: In this ancient Persian religion, there are angel-like entities known as Amesha Spentas and Yazatas that serve Ahura Mazda (the Supreme Deity) by protecting the cosmos, promoting the principles of good, and fighting against the forces of evil.

Hinduism: Hinduism has celestial beings called Devas and Apsaras, among others, that are analogous to angels. Devas are gods or benevolent spirits responsible for maintaining natural order and can act as protectors and messengers. Apsaras are celestial nymphs known for their beauty and dance, often serving the gods and representing natural phenomena.

Buddhism: Buddhism also features various angel-like celestial beings across different traditions. These include Devas and Bodhisattvas who reside in different heavens or pure lands. They are protectors of the Dharma (Buddhist teachings) and assist or inspire practitioners on their path to enlightenment.

Sikhism: Sikhism believes in Devtas, who are divine or semi-divine beings. While not central to Sikh worship or theology, they are acknowledged as part of the broader spiritual cosmos.

Shinto: In Japan’s indigenous religion, there are spirits known as Kami who reside in natural features like mountains and rivers. Kami are revered and worshipped, and while their nature differs from the Abrahamic religious concept of angels, they play similar roles as guardians and messengers of the divine will.

Modern Day Encounters: Around the turn of the millennium, British scholar Emma Heathcote-James embarked on a fascinating quest: to collect stories of modern-day encounters with angels. She placed a classified ad seeking personal accounts of angel contact, and to her surprise, numerous people eagerly stepped forward to share their experiences.

The stories Heathcote-James collected span a wide range of cultural and religious backgrounds, including people who claim little interest in spiritual matters. In all, she archived and analyzed more than 800 such stories, which she then compiled into her book, Seeing Angels: True Contemporary Accounts of Hundreds of Angelic Experiences (2001).

One of the most fascinating stories she received came from a woman who explicitly stated that she was not religious. About a decade earlier, she had a remarkable encounter. Sitting quietly, she felt as if she were looking into a cave made of blue light sheets. However, she soon realized that it was not a cave, but a winged being. Unexpectedly, she felt enveloped by the wings of this angelic presence.

The experience was vivid and clear, and she felt a strong nonverbal message emanating: “All is well, all is well, and all is well.” This comforting message echoed the angelic greeting found throughout the Bible: “Do not be afraid!” In the Gospel of Luke, for example, an angel appears to shepherds in a field to announce the birth of Jesus and says, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all the people.”

This account illustrates the profound and personal nature of these experiences. It reflects a common theme found in many stories of angelic encounters: a message of reassurance and peace, often delivered nonverbally or telepathically. Such experiences, regardless of the individual’s religious or spiritual beliefs, offer comfort, evoke a sense of wonder, and often lead to a deeper exploration of spiritual questions.

Angels are spirits, but it is not because they are spirits that they are angels. They become angels when they are sent, for the name angel refers to their office, not their nature. You ask the name of this nature, it is spirit, you ask its office, it is that of an angel, which is a messenger ~ St. Augustine

Spirit Guided Reading

From the time I was a young girl, I have always felt the presence of various spiritual entities. As I grew older, I learned to call upon my spirit guides and angels to show me what I was meant to learn and to guide me through life. I discovered that when I face challenging situations or difficult decisions, they will subconsciously or intuitively send me the answers I am seeking and then I can move forward. Once the message or guidance is given, you don’t have to deal with it again and again if you really listen the first time.

When I do a reading, I ask my spirit and angel guides to connect with the client’s angelic messengers and spirit guides. I do the same when I give a Reiki healing. I then ask them to provide guidance for the highest good of the client.

The answers are not always what the client wants to hear. In fact, more often than not, it’s not what they expected to hear, but it’s always the truth that best serves the person’s highest good at that time. Often it is seemingly “small” messages with great significance. Our spirit guides and the angels never play games, and they certainly don’t beat around the bush!