Supernatural creature of the week: Castiel

An honorary Winchester brother and part of Team Free Will, the angel Castiel has been beloved by Supernatural fans for 10 years, and he came straight from real-lore angelology.

I’m going to stick with angels this week because I’ve been wanting to do Castiel for a while, so for this latest episode of Supernatural, the creature of the week is fan-favorite Castiel.

I’m sure by now most Supernatural fans already know that Castiel has the fans to thank for staying alive this long. When he was originally introduced, the hoarse-voiced trench-coated angel was intended to die off and be replaced by Anna Milton (probably as a Dean love interest the same way Ruby was Sam’s).

If anyone remembers the episode “On the Head of a Pin”, where Dean tortures Alastair and Sam has a romantic blood date with Ruby, that’s the episode when Anna reappears after regaining her grace and kills Uriel. This was the episode where Castiel was supposed to die. However, fan devotion to Cass ditched that idea and made him a permanent figure in the series.

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• Is a new episode of The Winchesters on tonight? (March 14, 2023)
• The Winchesters Season1 finale explained: Did it connect to Supernatural?

Castiel himself isn’t a real angel, but he is based on the Archangel Cassiel (also called Casiel, Cassiel Mocoton, Kafziel, Qafsiel, Qaphsiel, Qaspiel, Quaphsiel), who appears in the Jewish and Islam religion. Known as “The Angel of Solitude” and “The Archangel of Saturn”, Cassiel isn’t that different from the angel on Team Freewill. He’s depicted as being less involved with human affairs than other angels, preferring to watch events from afar without intervening, which is why he’s the angel of Saturn. The classical virtue associated with Saturn is “sophrosyne”, an Ancient Greek concept of great character that includes temperance, moderation, prudence, and self-control.

Besides Saturn, there’s a lot of other things Cassiel is associated with, such as the Kefitzat Haderech (which allows him the ability to travel through space), time, tears, and overlooked individuals.

He rules over games of chance, and as such is a source of good fortune. He is a patron angel for the investor, stock broker, and gambler. And on top of all that, which is a lot, he also wears the Turban of Judgement for those departed, signifying the need for repentance and meditation on Saturday, meaning he’s a symbol for everyone’s favorite day off.

This is all too much, and I find it odd that he’s basically the antisocial angel in Heaven that never wants to hang out with anybody. But then is also a patron of gamblers and good fortune, symbolizing self-control and gambling seems a little counteractive don’t you think? Either way, he’s about as overworked as our own Cass.

Is there more? Yes, there most certainly is…Cassiel is also the ruling Prince of the Seventh Heaven and appears as the Prince of the Order of Powers. Whatever that means.

He apparently also binds together the unity of the Eternal Kingdom. Again, I’m not 100% sure what that means because I’m not a theology expert. All I know of the Seventh Heaven is that it’s the highest point of Heaven and is where God sits on his throne.

Cassiel is all about separation, even when it comes to separating one from adversaries. Ancient Hebrew amulets bearing his name were used to drive away enemies. The names would be written with the blood of a bird then tied to the foot of a dove. Then the dove is set to flight and takes the enemy with it, but if the bird didn’t fly, then it is was a sign that the enemy wouldn’t depart.  One can not only drive away enemies using Cassiel, but using his name in a spell, you can also create destruction, scatter a crowd or send a person off to wander aimlessly.

Like his fellow Archangel Anael, Cassiel is listed in the Sigillum Dei and  several other literary pieces including various editions of the “Key of Solomon” and in “The Sworn Book of Honorius”. For some reason an English occultist, Francis Barrett, went far off in the opposite direction towards crazy-town and made Cassiel a dragon-riding jinn in his textbook of magic, “The Magus.” WTF?

A fact about Cassiel I find interesting, is that he’s named in a Byzantine exorcism manual (as Kasiel). That makes me think about all the exorcism’s the boys have done throughout the series  and I wonder if they ever used Cass’s name in one.

Supernatural definitely drew some characteristics from Cassiel when creating our Castiel. Like Cassiel, Castiel is an unusual angel, something that’s been mentioned a couple times. In season eight, Naomi told Cass, “you have never done what you were told, not completely.”

Before teaming up with Sam and Dean, Castiel was part of a garrison (group of angels assigned to a specific task) led by Anna Milton assigned to watch over humanity for 2,000 years. When Anna fell, Cass was named head of their garrison and watched over the humans in her place. Castiel’s job of watching angels but never interfering with them, parallels Cassiel’s solitude job description. Neither interacted with humans but watched over them for centuries.

This also somewhat explains Cass’s awkwardness. No other angel is as socially awkward as he is, not even the other members of his garrison; Uriel, Inias, Hester, and poor Balthazar. Only Cass seems dumbfounded by voicemails, white lies, and other human things. The others adapted pretty quickly. One thing’s for certain though, Cass hasn’t had a lot of good fortune during his time on Supernatural so I’m guessing they cut that from his list of angel powers.

He’s an important angel in mythology so maybe the series will start leading in that direction. Cass already tried leading Heaven before but now that he’s learned from his mistakes, there might be a chance that the series will end with him ruling over Heaven in Gods place.

Don’t miss the next episode of Supernatural  Thursday at 8:00 p.m. ET only on the CW.