What Happens When You Die Part 6: Psychopomps

Have you ever wondered if there is somebody or something ready to collect your soul when you die? Throughout the series, we’ve discussed many things surrounding death and dying, especially relating to us who are having a magical journey in this lifetime. Today we look at who will collect you when it’s time to die.

Death is not a popular topic, because it is a tad morbid, and for some people, it can be uncomfortable for many reasons.  Perhaps it triggers thoughts of your current or prior religious beliefs, and then you feel guilty or concerned that you’re going to hell because that’s where all witches are heading anyways! One day we will find out for certain. Until then, let’s have a light discussion about who comes to collect us, if anybody when we die.

Personally, this is one of my favourite discussion topics when it comes to death and dying because it challenges so many concepts such as good versus evil, the judgement of your deeds, and Angels and Demons.

Let’s begin with the movie Hellbound. This movie was released by Netflix in 2021, and promises to have a follow-up movie sometime in late 2022 to explain the purpose of these “Death Angels”. So far we are led to believe that these creatures judge you for your sins, and brutally punish you, taking you into your death with a whirlwind of pain and the idea of being Hellbound. But the movie does take a turn when the sinners move away from the usual suspects such as a prostitute, a drug dealer, a hitman etc. The death angels appear with a death warrant for a newborn baby. It leaves us to wonder about the true purpose of these death angels.

Will there be a Hellbound style Demon ready to torture you for your sins?

The formal name for Hellbound Death Angels is what we call a psychopomp. Psychopomp means “conductor of souls” in Greek. The term refers to a specific type of spirit, entrusted with a specific type of function. These are the spirit guides who lead the soul between the lands of the living and the dead.

In Jungian psychology, the psychopomp is a mediator between the unconscious and conscious realms. It is symbolically personified in dreams as a wise man or woman, or sometimes as a helpful animal. But let’s not dismiss psychopomps as figments of our imagination as they are definitely real external entities with a specific purpose. Sorry Dr. Jung!

Psychopomps include:

Angels: Gabriel, Azrael, and the unnamed “Angel of Death” (Jewish)

Anubis, Hathor, Wepwawet (Egypt)

Baron Samedi, Baron La Croix and Baron Cimitiere (Vodoun)

Culso (Etruscan)

Freya and the Valkyries (Norse)

Giltine (Lithuania)

Hecate, Hermes (Greece)

Jizo (Japan)

Mother Holle (German)

Demons: There are many.

Ancestors: In Filipino culture, ancestral spirits (anito) function as psychopomps. When the dying call out to specific dead persons (e.g. parents, partners), the spirits of the latter are supposedly visible to the former. The spirits, who traditionally wait at the foot of the deathbed, retrieve (Tagalog: sundô) the soul soon after death and escort it into the afterlife.

See Wikipedia for an extended List of Death Deities

You may be wondering, why in western countries do we just have “Angels” or “Demons” to describe psychopomps? I call this Abrahamic marketing. “The polytheistic concept of a specific deity of death is rejected by Judaistic monotheism because only God is regarded as the master of death and of life.”

In monotheistic religions, death is commonly personified by an angel or demon instead of a deity. The monotheistic religions demonize any other spirit from ALL other traditions. The Demons from the Bible, for example, are the ancient Gods and Goddesses of the surrounding lands. In the forced conversion from polytheistic religions to monotheistic religions, only these Gods and Goddesses were converted into demons.

Animals too?

Animals serve as psychopomps, too. The most famous are dogs, jackals, and other canines. Many spirit psychopomps manifest in these forms. These include Anubis and Kali (jackals), Hecate (dog), and Wepwawet (wolf). Other animal psychopomps include butterflies, snakes, and birds, especially ravens, crows, hornbills, and frigates.

It is considered extremely auspicious if any of these creatures make a spontaneous appearance at a funeral or similar post-death rites. This indicates that the escort service for the soul has arrived and is intended to comfort and reassure the living.

I have shared this story before but I’ll share it again because perhaps it gives an example of animal psychopomps? My uncle was a beekeeper, and produced a lot of honey in the country town of Hay, NSW. He lived a long life performing the same occupation. During his burial, my Grandmother said they all witnessed a small dark cloud quickly approaching the gravesite. Before they had time to talk about what it possibly could be, they realised it was a swarm of bees. The bees flew over the coffin, each taking a “dip as if to salute Uncle Bob, before continuing their journey.” Personally, I think the bees were saying thank you and goodbye, more than taking him beyond the veil.

On a surgeon’s table

This is another good story a client told me about what happened to a patient on the operating table. We will call him Dr F. I have asked Dr. F to write a blog post on this matter, as people who work in a hospital setting have a unique position of working with death on a daily basis. I’ll quickly mention that we have so many clients in the medical field that during consultations it is me who is enlightened and entertained by their real-life stories.

In this example, Dr. F shared he was performing a surgery on a male patient. Since becoming an occultist and building a relationship with the demons, he has had some other unique experiences where Lucifer will share with him the status of a patient during the procedure. On this day Lucifer said to Dr. F the patient will not survive. Dr. F said he didn’t think this could be true and that the patient will recover from the operation.

What happened next took Dr. F by surprise. He could tell there were two more entities in the room. These entities were not in a rush to leave and were not interfering in the procedure. They were waiting. As always Lucifer was correct, and the patient died on the table. It was at that time the energy of the patient ceased to exist, and the entities disappeared with that energy.

Dr. F said he could now recognise the difference between what we could call an angel or demon energy at the point of death. The “angel” type energy, does not linger, and more sweeps down collecting the soul before going elsewhere. The darker energy arrives in numbers, such as two or three entities, and will tend to linger.

Final Thoughts

I guess we are left wondering if the dark entities Dr. F sees in his operating theatre are the Hellbound Angels of Death -ready to deliver punishment at the time of death? Or are these the dark entities the patient may have been summoning during his lifetime?

I would fully expect people to perceive the spirits I work with as dark and/or daemonic. At my time of death, I couldn’t think of a great honour than to be greeted by my beloved Astaroth, Gremory, & Murmur. I would die again should Lucifer express His approbation of my deeds and welcome me home!

Feel free to share with me your thoughts and feelings on this interesting topic!

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