Hey, I’m thinking about working with angels (Raphael specifically) and I’m wondering if an offering is required for exchange with the work I’d like to do with these types of beings. If it depends on the task it’s for healing since that’s what Raphael is associated with but I am unsure what to give if need be.
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From what I hear, angels will be fine working with you without offerings. I guess demons are more apt to ask for an offering then an angel. This might be more the average, then the norm all around though.
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They don’t require offerings, but they are appreciated.
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Yea from what I’ve heard about angels most seem to have a pretty selfless and pure attitude. Thanks for the info. Also if I do decide to use some do you have any suggestions of what they would like?
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There is a slight difference between an offering (something you give of your own free will) and a payment (something you pay either in advanced or after a task is done by an entity you ‘hire’). Demons almost always require payments in my experience, Angels not so much.
An offering is something you give to your guest for arriving, most commonly they are food or drink such as liquors, coffees, teas, and other things but offerings have no limitations. It’s a nice thing to do, and is encouraged, but it’s not required. Payments, however, are required by some entities for performing a task for you, and are often done in addition to offerings anyway. Some entities like to be paid up front, others can wait until they have completed their task. Payments can also be food or drink, but like offerings they can be other things such as energy (sexual energy by demons is common), blood, a task for you to complete (as an artist I am often asked to draw the portrait of the demon), and more. Offerings are non specific and usually for you to give freely for the generosity of having a guest in your home. Payments are what you give an entity for doing something for you.
Angels don’t usually require payments or offerings of an sort in my experience, they often do work freely but I personally like to offer them water, rice, and/or flowers.
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Alright that’s good to know, thank you
Yes I’m with the other posters on this I haven’t found angels to need gifts or rewards for thier service. I have in the past done charitable works or given donations to people that needed help while mentally telling the angel that this was done in honor of you.
I don’t think it’s required however. Everytime I get myself into hot water spiritual or otherwise the first being I call on is Archangel Michael. He’s never even hinted at wanting anything more than to help with a good heart.
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Reading about offerings always baffles me. Can spirits actually do anything with food/drinks, or is it just symbolic? And how exactly do you offer something? Leave it on a table, tell them it’s for them, and throw it away after they’re gone?
All esotericism is symbolic. Without symbols, it all means nothing. And symbols vary culture to culture, person to person. Offerings are also an important part bonding with a being if you desire to have a working relationship with them. It shows dedication and importance. It is important in worship, especially, in all cultures around the world.
It’s also symbolic of how much and what you are willing to do for an entity, as well as having faith that they are truly with you enough to go out of your way to offer and give them things at all. Think of it as: if you don’t believe in them enough to give them something of the “real” world, why believe in them at all?
It’s in part the time and effort given to make the offerings, part trusting in them to know they are “Real” enough to bother giving to, and in part the energies of the given via the offerings, as all things from the smallest grain of sand to the largest tree have energy stored in them that can be used or be given.
For some, especially in modern neopagan practices (I have experienced this within norse and more specifically Lokean circles in particular) when we give offerings of food and drink, they are eaten “with” the entity. By this I mean, you, the physical person, eats the offering in a medium relationship. The process of making it all from scratch or by hand, such as baking or cooking a full meal can be eaten by you in honor of the god, because you went through the trouble of dedicating all that time and effort in their name. In offerings of food and drink to other beings, such as La Santa Muerte and others, full bottles of liquor, packets of cigars or cigarettes are offered without being opened typicaly, or you can pour a libation and smoke one cigar/cigarette during your work with her. Drinks are often poured out as libations in honor, and sometimes you do open the bottle and have a drink every time you contact a spirit if you use alcohols. You can leave the food up until it needs to be changed out (i.e. before or after it rots depending on the associated entity or spirit). Think of how people give offerings to the dead. Their favorite foods and bouquets of flowers alongside pictures of them, candles, drinks, etc are left on graves and by headstones for them.
In my culture, the use of water, rice, beans, corn, and other “meager” offerings as symbolic of what we are able to give in very poor communities, of our ancestral heritage and culture (being said that we are made by the creator gods from corn), as well as they are important food staples of our culture.
Short answer: Yes.
You can tell them that you are offering it to them if you want. Or you can simply leave it on their altar. When you communicate with an entity, you can get to know them through what they like and don’t like to better the offerings in the future.
Again, they aren’t necessary but they are encouraged for these purposes.
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There are many who think so regarding Demons, but I want to add that many here, including E.A Koetting, have worked with Demons a lot without giving an offering or ‘payment’. Even I have, and it still worked out wonderfully. So even for them, it is optional in most cases.
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Offerings are gifts you give. They are meant to be a sign of your respect and appreciation for what is done on your behalf, NOT payments for services rendered.
That’s why a simple, heartfelt, thank you, is all that is ever needed. However, traditional offerings for angels have included a glass of pure, cold, water, and white candles.
They can draw the energetic essence out of offerings. If you ever eat a food offering that was left out for an entity, you’ll find that it is most often bland and tasteless, having lost its flavour. It might also taste rotten or mouldy.
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That’s fair. Different practitioners have different experiences at times 
I find that if I don’t ask what they want they do the task at hand anyway, but if I do ask they almost always want something. And, well, I almost always ask because I think it’s rude not to. In comparison to angels, though, I find demons tend want payments and offerings more often than angels.
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I’d have to agree with that. Demons seem to want an energy exchange of some sort. I don’t mind giving it to them either. You scratch my back I’ll scratch yours. Typically they’re very reasonable.
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Angels never asked anything when working with them. Some of demons asked, sometimes they got what I give to them, other times nothing. Didn’t effect the success rate. I say they are fine without offerings.
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I offer my energies is it ok?
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Yes, that’s fine! Some entities may even prefer personal energy; that’s sometimes what blood or sexual offerings can be, too (but you don’t have to do those in order to offer your own energy).
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Thank you , I am a fortune teller so I get others energıes durıng the day
thats why I should have enough energy to offer though
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I completely agree! It’s one of the main reasons I like to say Demons almost always take payment; it may not necessarily be an actual, physical thing you give them such as food, drink, etc but the act of evoking them itself may be the payment. One of the BALG books (sorry, cant recall which one) EA or Timothy wrote also that by working with a demon you’re inadvertently answering the call they sent you, anyway. It gives them the energy they may want be it from the practitioner or the associated objects on the altar (like candles as you said, even crystals, herbs, incense, etc). Thanks for putting this into words!
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I can see all that, but personally I use a more animistic approach in that all things living or not, changed states or not, have spiritual energy, from the simplest sedimentary pebble to the deepest roots of a tree to the ashes in the paper you burn. Then again this is coming from a culturally indigenous approach. Fire, Rivers, and Mountains are considered my ancestors, for example.
I’m interested to see more of the differences between these types of spirits. Ik angels don’t need them but I’m gonna do an experiment. Group A will be the offerings for an angel with two bowls of rice which are A1 and A0. A1 will be given and A0 will be a control group. And group D will be two bowls of rice for a demon D1 being an offering and D2 being a control group. I’ll share any differences when stuff starts to happen.
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