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Delusions are one of the symptoms of schizophrenia, but are associated with other disorders as well (see this article for more information about delusions). A belief is a delusion if it's held even when the person holding the belief is given evidence it's not true.
Feeling that a guardian angel is watching over you doesn't seem to fit the criteria for either mental illness or a delusion. Neither does the belief that a God or gods care about your life and is/are watching over you.
A good rule of thumb is: if someone believes there's a guardian angel watching over him/her and for some reason this is causing him/her stress or interfering with normal functioning and relationships, the person may want to seek professional help. That's true for all behavioral and mental problems.
I would tell the op, the first place to start is understanding just what a guardian angel is.
We all are endowed with a soul(spirit) with in us.
That soul guides us through out lifetime.
One other thing one needs to know, and understand is, spirits watch over one another.
Sometimes the guardian angel watching over our spirit, may have been close to the spirit with in us, in another life.
They have formed a bond for eternity, and this feeling you experience of being protected, is indeed happening.
Because you are the "envelope" that encases the spirit with in you, you are able to sense the feeling of being guided, when in fact it is your spirit that is guiding you, or being guided, and protected by a spirit it has a relationship with.
Your spirit relates the feeling to you, that both of you are being guided, and protected.
More often that not, our spirit is the one guiding, and protecting us, but it is also, many times, a spirit that "knows" our spirit, that is the guiding force behind what we see, and feel.
What you sense is normal.
It would be abnormal not to feel the sense of something guiding us at different times in our lives, because it happens through most of our existence, though many times some are unaware when it happens.
Some of us are acutely aware of this guidance, and recognize when it happens, while others are completely oblivious to the fact.
There's a tradition of guardian angels in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. In the Orthodox petitions we ask to be granted "an angel of peace, a faithful guide, a guardian of our souls and bodies". Here is a 19th century Russian icon of a guardian angel; as you can see, the angel is prepared to do to fierce battle in the defense of the soul assigned to its care.
A child of about ten started weeping in my previous church one day. His mother asked him what was the matter; he told her he used to see the angels surrounding the altar when he was little, but he couldn't see them any more. Believing in angels and experiencing their presence (both good ones and fallen ones) is a cultural thing, and an ethical psychotherapist would not label these beliefs delusional; in some cultures it's normal to hear the voices of the ancestors, in others, to hear from angelic beings.
In Greek, angelos means simply "messenger". I've only been granted the sense of the presence of a messenger once - and it was a flesh and blood person rather than a bodiless power. I was sitting in a restaurant I'd never visited before having lunch, and struggling with a spiritually-related life decision I had made; I was wondering what it meant, and whether I had made the decision out of my own pride. A woman I didn't know came and sat in my booth and looked at me expectantly; I asked her if I could help her. She said she was the restaurant manager, and she didn't know why she had come to do this but believed that it was where God wanted her, that it was her calling and it didn't matter whether it made sense to her at the time, the meaning would become clear over time. Or perhaps never be completely clear but it wasn't her job to figure it out. She walked away and I never went back to the restaurant.
Weird coincidence? Maybe. Whether we choose to see these events in our lives as spiritually meaningful, the workings of chance, or delusions is a choice. We choose to believe or not believe - that's where faith comes in.
There's a tradition of guardian angels in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. In the Orthodox petitions we ask to be granted "an angel of peace, a faithful guide, a guardian of our souls and bodies". Here is a 19th century Russian icon of a guardian angel; as you can see, the angel is prepared to do to fierce battle in the defense of the soul assigned to its care.
A child of about ten started weeping in my previous church one day. His mother asked him what was the matter; he told her he used to see the angels surrounding the altar when he was little, but he couldn't see them any more. Believing in angels and experiencing their presence (both good ones and fallen ones) is a cultural thing, and an ethical psychotherapist would not label these beliefs delusional; in some cultures it's normal to hear the voices of the ancestors, in others, to hear from angelic beings.
In Greek, angelos means simply "messenger". I've only been granted the sense of the presence of a messenger once - and it was a flesh and blood person rather than a bodiless power. I was sitting in a restaurant I'd never visited before having lunch, and struggling with a spiritually-related life decision I had made; I was wondering what it meant, and whether I had made the decision out of my own pride. A woman I didn't know came and sat in my booth and looked at me expectantly; I asked her if I could help her. She said she was the restaurant manager, and she didn't know why she had come to do this but believed that it was where God wanted her, that it was her calling and it didn't matter whether it made sense to her at the time, the meaning would become clear over time. Or perhaps never be completely clear but it wasn't her job to figure it out. She walked away and I never went back to the restaurant.
Weird coincidence? Maybe. Whether we choose to see these events in our lives as spiritually meaningful, the workings of chance, or delusions is a choice. We choose to believe or not believe - that's where faith comes in.
Do their ancestors actually talk to them, or is this the case of people hear what they want to hear, see what they want to see? If their ancestors actually talk to them, then how come my ancestors don't talk to me? I want to hear their voices too.
Do their ancestors actually talk to them, or is this the case of people hear what they want to hear, see what they want to see? If their ancestors actually talk to them, then how come my ancestors don't talk to me? I want to hear their voices too.
There is a word missing from the passage you quoted: “in some cultures it's considered normal to hear the voices of the ancestors, in others, to hear from angelic beings.“ Hearing voices is as I said not necessarily a sign of pathology:
You don't hear voices because you're not from a culture that believes they are something other than a meaningless misfiring of neurons. Or a culture that believes the world is something other than a wind-up mechanism with no origin or telos. Whatever floats your boat.
If it 'works' for you, then I shouldn't worry about it. Either way, you cannot stop it whether you have an illness or not. The best you can do is to stay as healthy as you can, eating the right stuff, thinking the best thoughts you can, etc. If these manifestations still happen then accept them as part of life.
In spiritual circles, the rule is to test what you hear/see and make sure you keep testing it against your own inner morals to see if it is the highest possible 'truth'. It is always said that the 'good guys' will never mind you testing the integriity of the link because they understand we are subjected to all kinds of influences on us. It is the way we weed out the 'good guys' from the 'bad guys'.
Having a guardian angel is a metaphor for feeling watched over. The feeling that one is being safeguarded is comforting to some peoplle. I do think it is a misunderstanding of things found in the bible.
I have no firsthand experience with schizophrenia so cannot respond to that aspect of your question.
I guess it really depends on if the spirit is communicating with you, and if so, what the spirit is telling you.
If we are to accept the existence of guardian angels then we must also accept the existence of demons. There is no good without evil. You must also factor into the discussion whether the person who is experiencing this entity is inherently good or evil.
An angel will 'puzzle' or otherwise riddle with an inherently evil/bad person. Likewise, a demon will 'puzzle' or otherwise riddle with an inherently good person.
Hearing voices may be a sign of schizophrenia or other disorder but only if those voices are disrupting someone's life. If the voice tells them to kill something, or gives them reasons for things that have a true reason that have no relation to that truth (i.e. They are divorced, and received word that their daughter got married. They send that daughter a letter stating that they believe she got married so that she didn't have to have her father's name anymore - when in reality the daughter got married because she was in love).
We all have an inner voice and it has nothing to do with mental illness.
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