Risky angel business

Do you have an angel that watches over you? Guardian Angels can come in many forms of course. It might be that you have a winged-cherub who haloes you in God’s love. Maybe you have an Egyptian high priest who offers sage advice or perhaps it is a small heavenly goldfish who appears in your times of need? Whatever your Guardian Angel may be, and indeed whether you believe you have a Guardian Angel or not, new research shows that this belief has an impact on how you behave on a day to day basis.

Protective spirits can take many forms and the belief in Guardian Angels is not just a “new age” phenomenon, although the idea of protective spirits has been avidly taken up by new age adherents. Indeed, protective spirits are invoked in no lesser formal religious doctrine than the Catholic Catechism 2nd Edition (336) which states, “From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their (the angels) watchful care and intercession. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.” In Shamanistic cultures spirit helpers are widely believed to play a role in life and guardian spirits play a significant part, for instance, in the cultural beliefs of the Native Americans.

Just as you judge a tree by the fruit it bears, so the importance and value of any belief system lies in its consequences for how a life is lived. The hypothesis of the researchers in this new study was that a belief in a protective spirit, or Guardian Angel, would probably lead to greater risk taking behaviour due to a lowered perception of risk.

To test this they surveyed a range of people. The subjects came from 31 different ethnic backgrounds and represented 26 different religious beliefs. In answer to the question, “Do you believe you have a personal spirit or supernatural power that watches over and protects you?” 45 per cent answered “yes” and 54 per cent answered “no”. Of those who indicated that they have a personal guardian spirit, 70 per cent indicated that they interact with them and 69 per cent indicated that the spirit intervenes on their behalf.

All people were given a range of scenarios in which they were asked to estimate the risk involved. Contrary to what the researchers thought would happen, where there was a difference between people who believed in Guardian Angels and those who did not it tended to happen in the direction of Guardian Angel believers being more sensitive to risk.

For instance, in one question where the subjects were asked to rate how risky it is to drive 20 km/h over the speed limit on a scale of one to five (with one being low and five being high), the Guardian Angel believers rated it a three while non-believers rated it a two.

The researchers now theorise that people who view the world as inherently risky or dangerous may be more likely to believe in personal guardian spirits.

Although the results were not what the researchers expected, it is a reminder of course, that your beliefs don’t exist in isolation but evolve in the environment of your personality and social milieu and create a mental framework that allow you to navigate life. Even the certainty of an atheist is a form of spiritual security.

On a more concrete level, the next time some idiot flies past you doing 20km/h over the speed limit you can console yourself with the knowledge that they probably don’t have (or know that they have, depending on your perspective) a Guardian Angel watching over them.