Archangel Azrael

Archangel Azrael is the angel of transition. He comforts the dying and the grieving, and he accompanies souls as they leave the body and cross into the life beyond. Older writings call him the angel of death, and the name has frightened many people. The teachings are clear that he does not cause death. He keeps company with it, so that no one makes the crossing alone.

His presence is described as very gentle and very still: a softness in the air of a room, a lessening of fear, and a sense that time has slowed down so that what needs to be said can be said.

The Angel of Transition

Every tradition that speaks of angels speaks of one who meets the soul at the end of its life. Azrael's name means whom God helps, and that is how the teachings understand his work: as help, offered at the moment when help is most needed and least easily given by those who are still in the body.

He is also close to those who remain. Grief, the teachings say, is love that has lost its usual way of being expressed. Azrael does not ask the grieving to stop grieving. He sits with them, and helps the love find its new form.

Tomas and the Bedside

Tomas Edevane, who receives the Archangels for our circle, spent most of his working life as a nurse in palliative care. He has said that in the last hours of many of his patients he felt a quiet presence in the room, gentler than Raphael, and with nothing to do except wait. He did not have a name for it at the time. Azrael has never spoken at our sittings, and Tomas is careful to say that he cannot be certain what he felt. We include his account because it is honest, and because many nurses, chaplains and families describe the same thing.

Role in the Ascension

The ascension involves many small deaths: of old identities, relationships, certainties and ways of life. Azrael helps with all of these. He is the angel to call on when something has ended and the next thing has not begun, and when the space between feels like a void. He teaches that endings are thresholds, and that a threshold is not a wall.

When to Call on Azrael

• Sitting with someone who is dying
• Grief after the death of a person or an animal
• Endings of every kind: of a marriage, a home, a career, a long chapter of life
• Fear of death, your own or another's
• Supporting those whose work is with the dying and the bereaved

Signs That Azrael Is Near

• A sudden stillness and softness in a room
• Pale cream or golden light, often seen around a bed or a chair
• Grief that becomes, for a moment, quieter and more bearable
• A sense of being accompanied when you expected to feel alone
• Small, unexpected comforts arriving in the days after a loss

How to Work With Azrael

1. Sit quietly, or sit beside the one who is dying or grieving.
2. Say his name softly, aloud or inwardly.
3. Picture a soft cream and gold light filling the room, especially around the one who most needs it.
4. Ask: Azrael, be with us. Let no one here be alone.
5. Stay. There is nothing else you need to do.

A note of care. Azrael's comfort is offered alongside human support, never in place of it. If grief is overwhelming or does not ease with time, please talk to someone you trust, or to a bereavement counselor or other qualified professional.

An Invocation

Archangel Azrael, angel of every threshold,
be with those who are leaving,
and with those who must let them go.
Hold what is ending in your gentle light,
and let the love that remains
find its new way home.

Our Circle and Azrael

This entry draws on the wider tradition and on Tomas's experience at the bedside, not on any transmission received at our sittings. We offer it in that spirit.

Related Entries

• Archangel Michael
• Kuthumi
• Maha Chohan
• Signs of Awakening