Chrissie Astell: Angel Insights

Chrissie Astell describes herself as ‘fascinated by the human desire to connect with the Angelic realms”. She follows divine Angel guidance in her own life and runs workshops focused on helping other people to do the same.

Although Chrissie feels privileged to have found her own path and enjoys sharing it with like minded people she hasn’t always lived with one foot in such a happy and harmonious place. Prior to what she describes as here’re-awakening’ she was running a transport business with her then husband. To the outside world they looked like a perfect couple with two beautiful children and a successful business, yet Chrissie found that she was unable to be herself and felt separated from any form of spiritual life.

When her husband suggested marriage guidance and then didn’t turn up for the appointment she realised that she couldn’t go on, and it didn’t take her long to decide that the end of the relationship was a blessing and gift. In the time she spent alone following the break-up of her marriage she was able to explore her spirituality undeterred by anyone around her.

As an only child she was “always aware of spiritual energy and presence, very often feeling someone or something in old buildings, and able to empathise with pain and memories of others.” Some of her relatives didn’t understand and found it difficult to deal with the fact that she just knew things about other people; they put it down to an unusual level of awareness and left it at that.

Even as a child Chrissie rarely feeling nervous when walking home alone, always feeling that she was accompanied; “I always felt a close relationship with Jesus and won many prizes for Scripture competitions over the years.”

Spirituality is definitely in Chrissie’s blood. Interestingly, when her mother and father split up when she was 20 months old her father left to join a mystical organisation in Scotland led by Eileen and Peter Caddy who later went on to found the Findhorn Foundation. Her mother also left to go travelling to sacred sites all over the world, and Chrissie was bought up by her grandma. Also an author, her mother has channeled Ascended Masters and written about ancient mysteries, sharing information and wisdom from beings she calls the Elders.

She has also discovered that her great-grandfather, a Methodist preacher, was also a friend of Annie Bessant – one of the founders of the Theosophical Society. Annie was an active reformist who led the Match girl strike from the Bryant and May Match Factory. Chrissie lived in the old Match Factory for 7 years, whilst studying and finding her connection with the Angels.

As part of her awakening Chrissie was led to discover the Aura-Soma essences. With the help of a therapist she chose her ‘soul bottle’ “Orion and Angelica”, the two Angels of the curtains at the gates of Paradise, and was told that “soul had incarnated in the company of Angels and that to work closely with them was my soul purpose”.
Shortly thereafter her mother called her from America where she had been living for over 20 years. Having built a New Age Eco/Light centre called Alcyone, she and her husband had been asked to talk at a gathering of a group of people who called themselves Essenes, she called Chrissie who went along out of curiosity to see what her mother had been doing all her life.

She was welcomed with such warmth and love into the group that she was totally inspired feeling in some way that “I had come home”. She continued with Angel communion’s night and morning and asked them to help her to change her life.

When she arrived home she signed up for a Healing with Angels course with a lovely lady who helped her to find her direction. It was at this point that she resigned from working with her husband and returned to nursing, moved out of the family home into a studio in East London, and pressed for a divorce. Chrissie feels that the drastic changes she made were right for her at the time. Her life seemed to flow from that point, her work, her university place, book commissions; everything fell into place and seemed to be guided by the Angels.

“I absolutely know that the heavenly realms were simply waiting for me to choose a different path and waiting for me to finally hear them offering help. So many times I heard a voice in my head saying ‘Chrissie, it doesn’t have to be like this’ but it wasn’t until later that I realised I had a choice.”

There seem to be many ideas out there about the Angelic Realms, especially as to whether Angels incarnate here. We asked Chrissie about her take on things.
Refreshingly she admits that she doesn’t know for certain, however she says that she has “always thought, and indeed written, that Angels are of a completely different vibration from human beings. They vibrate to pure love and have a far higher energy frequency.”

“I thought I understood intellectually who they were until I had a visitation and actually ‘felt’ the angel in every cell and at every level of my understanding. The energy and vibration of pure love was so intense that it was almost like being in the presence of God. The angel ‘knew’ me and I certainly knew him. I say him because the energy I felt was such a strong masculine presence, even though there were no features that could be described as ‘manly’ in a human way. The angel was pure white, had two pairs of wings, and as his hands stretched out towards me I felt so loved, and so recognized, that I melted into tears of joy.”

Whilst researching her book and studying for her degree Chrissie learned the Zoroastrian teachings, which suggest that God organised seven aspects of Himself in order to create the universe. For Chrissie these beings seemed to represent the attribute that we attach to the Archangels. She also found herself interested in the teachings of Swedenborg, who believed that humans are all Angels in training. She can best be described as somewhat ambivalent on this point as she has “come across many people who have wonderful angelic qualities, and some who have not!”

Chrissie believes that this is a very exciting time in human history, in that we have so much information at our fingertips and can learn all the theories of world religion and culture, and then form our own beliefs. She acknowledges the confusion that the differing beliefs can cause, and has created an Educating Heart & Soul Course to help people to navigate the minefield of belief systems, explaining how they work so that students have a wider understanding of spiritual practices. She feels that this will allow people to develop their own Spiritual guidelines based on a far wider perspective than has ever been available before.

We asked Chrissie if she felt that humans and Angels were different, and she does. She believes that Angels can manifest in any form including that of a human being, pointing out the many stories of people who believe that they were helped by an Angel in physical form. She also points out the Old Testament stories about fallen Angels (the Watchers) who created beings from their union with earthly women, so perhaps some of us can trace our ancestry back to angels? An interesting thought.
Chrissie admits that in the past she used to have strong opinions as to whether Angels incarnate here as human beings, but she is now “quite comfortable with the knowledge that I don’t actually know the answer.”

She has been told many times over the years that people believe that they are Angels, sometimes because a Psychic told them so or because they are Psychic and can ‘see it’. She neither believes not disbelieves this idea, she simply “takes it lightly” because she can imagine “the fun the ego would have with that idea.”

Chrissie graduated in Comparative Religion from the School of Oriental and African Studies (part of London University), she went on to do two post-graduate certificate course in Spiritual Development and Facilitation and Teaching in Lifelong Learning. Enough for anyone to cope with except that it was exactly at the same time she was offered two book commissions; obviously the Angels don’t believe in too much rest!

Her home study course – Educating Heart & Soul - is gradually making its way around the world in diverse countries such as New Zealand, Iceland and Pakistan, and she is planning on producing the Facilitator’s Module over the next couple of months. Her many CD’s, with guided medications and visualisations are an extension of the course, with music by New Age musician Llewellyn or Mark Hughes.

Regular readers will also be aware of Chrissie’s amazing and beautiful Angel card pack, and we asked her to tell us more about the use of the cards. Apparently the idea was to develop an Angel Card set that rather than being an oracle provided real-life guidance. The questioner asks a question of their Angels, and the Angels use the cards to provide up-to-the minute guidance on the issue. Then you take 3 more cards to give you a clear indication of the aspects of your life you need to look at. The cards can also be used as a focus for meditation or inspiration, or as symbols of guidance and protection, and because there are 52 cards they can be used as a weekly focus tool to guide you through your spiritual development.

Chrissie feels that it is the energy within the cards that has the most profound effect on the Reading because “the loving effect of each card is almost tangible”. The cards are used by people of all ages even children, who love them.

Chrissie is currently writing a new book called Walking with the Angels based on her personal experiences. She is also re-writing her very popular book Gifts from the Angels, and hopes to continue writing for spiritual magazines. She would love to do more public speaking as “it’s the talks and workshops that inspire me the most”, and she will be at the Body & Soul exhibitions in Brentwood, Edinburgh and Glasgow. For those able to travel to foreign climes she will also be running her regular week in Crete this year.

Throughout her Spiritual journey Chrissie has met a wide variety of different people and tried many different paths in life, and she describes a very funny situation that came about during her degree. “While I was studying for my degree and writing my books I often took part in market research focus groups. During one of these groups we had to describe our position with the company, as I generally work alone I introduced myself as a ‘sole trader’. After the group session one of the younger participants came over to me and said ‘Wow! You must be really into the spiritual stuff, how do you do that? How did you come to be trading in Souls?”

On that happy note we will leave you with Chrissie’s favourite quotation (at the moment) from Marianne Williamson’s book Return to Love “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure… it is our light not our darkness that most frightens us”, and the best piece of advice she has ever been given “just be yourself.”

We trust that Chrissie will continue to just be herself for a long time to come, and to share that with her ever-growing group of students and fans.

© Deb Hawken - First published in Eternal Spirit Magaz\ine, Spring Equinox 2010