What Is the Path of Ascension? Ascended Masters, Archangels & the Book of Light

There's a word we throw around in this world of ours — ascension — like it's a finish line. Like one day you get good enough, evolved enough, awake enough, and you graduate. You go up. Somewhere else. Somewhere better than here.

But what if that's the wrong way to hold it?

What if ascension isn't a place you arrive at once you're done with being human — what if it's what happens every single time you choose the harder, truer thing down here? Every time you sit in the mess of a lesson instead of running from it.

That's the question I sat down with for this week's episode of Soul Sync, with spiritual mentor, healer and multiple #1 international best-selling author Angela Orora — known to a lot of people simply as the practical mystic.

When every clair turns on at once

Angela's path started forty years ago, in a tarot class, in a meditation she'd never done before in her life. She describes what happened next as being plugged into a nuclear power station. Every sense she had switched on simultaneously — she could see auras, hear things, feel things, all at once, all without warning. She went to the loo to try to calm down and the water in the sink bubbled with the energy coming off her.

That's not a gentle awakening. That's a system with no dimmer switch suddenly running at full volume, with no idea how to turn itself back down.

What struck me listening back is how much that story is really about being met. Her teacher had no idea what to do with her, but she knew someone who would — a healer and psychic named Betty Baldcombe, working in London in the 1980s, who took one look at Angela and said, "I've been waiting for you." Angela sat in circle with Betty for seven years. The first things Betty taught her were protection and boundaries — and they're still the first things Angela teaches now.

Protection isn't a costume, it's the right coat for the weather

I asked Angela what protection actually means, because it's a phrase that gets attached to a lot of things — candles, smudge sticks, ritual — and not all of it is really about the same thing. Her answer was simpler than I expected: protection is just wearing the right coat for what you're about to do. You don't need a storm coat for a summer's day, but you'd be a fool to go out in a storm without one.

What she was careful to point out — and I think this matters — is that she's not talking about protecting yourself from evil spirits. She's talking about negative energy. That's a distinction I've always felt strongly about myself. I don't believe I've ever attracted a negative spirit, because I'm not putting that call out. But negative energy from another human being who's decided to have a go at you? That's real, and it doesn't care how much light you're shining. As Angela's grandmother used to tell her: you've got more to fear from the living than the dead.

Every strange job you've ever had was preparing you

This is a theme that keeps showing up on this podcast, and it showed up again here. Angela's first job was in banking — budgets, running a business, the Institute of Banking exams. Her second was as an event manager. Neither one looks anything like spiritual mentorship from the outside. But when she started working for spirit, the first thing she did was set up Mind-Body-Spirit festivals and fairs — and suddenly those two "unrelated" jobs were exactly the skill set the work needed.

I felt that one. If you want the fuller version of why I think none of your own checkered history is wasted, I wrote about it properly after my conversation with Nicola Farmer on human potential — worth a read alongside this one.

What is an Ascended Master, actually?

Here's Angela's explanation, and it's the clearest one I've heard: think of it like school. We start as a baby, then infant school, primary school, all the way up through university. An Ascended Master is a soul that's been through that whole process — multiple incarnations, lesson after lesson — and graduated. They don't need to come back to the planet to learn anything else. Instead, they join what Angela calls the Ascended Master Collective, and they stay available to support humanity, the planet, and the universe from there.

The reason they're useful allies, she says, is precisely because they've lived it. They've been there, done that, got the t-shirt. One of her main guides is the Ascended Master Saint Germain, who's had a string of very public lives and has been working with lightworkers for around 150 years.

Which Master do you call on, and for what

This is the part I loved, because it turns something that can sound abstract into something genuinely practical — which is exactly Angela's point about herself: none of it is rocket science.

If you're creating something brand new, she says, you might work with the Master Jesus, who works on the first divine ray. If you're clearing or transmuting negative energy, that's Saint Germain, on the seventh ray. Magic sits with the Ascended Master Merlin. And if you need to bend time — compress what needs to get done into the time you've actually got — you call on an angelic collective called the Elohim.

You don't need special attunements for any of it, Angela says. You need intention, and you need to know who to ask.

Energy follows intention — and the step most people miss

We got onto manifestation, and Angela's phrase for it was disarmingly simple: energy follows intention. But the lesson she learned from her own teacher, Betty, was about the step most people skip — thinking through the full picture of what happens to everyone in your life, and everything around it, once the thing you're manifesting actually arrives.

It's easy to want a thing. It's harder to actually align with it — to notice whether you're doubting it's possible, or wishing for it passively rather than acting in a way that matches it. And even when you do align, Angela's point was that we also have to be in step with our own soul's plan. If what we want isn't part of that plan, it may not show up the way we pictured it — or it may show up as a lesson instead.

The path of ascension, explained simply

So, back to the question we started with. Angela's answer, once you strip away the language, is almost plain: ascension is what happens when a soul reaches a point, vibrationally, where it doesn't need to come back to the planet to learn anything else. That's the whole thing. Not a reward, not an escape — just a soul that's finished this particular curriculum and can now be of service from the spirit world instead.

Which brings me back to where I started. Maybe ascension was never about leaving this world behind. Maybe it's what happens the more honestly we do the work while we're still in it.

Inside the Book of Light, the Book of Many Flames & the Book of Many Colours

Angela's book The Book of Light: An Illuminated Guide to the Ascended Masters, Archangels, Etheric Retreats and the Path to Ascension is, in her words, a conscious guide to living through the lens of the Ascended Masters, Archangels and the Divine Rays. You don't have to be a working medium to use it — it's for anyone who wants to shift how they think and feel, with the Masters' support.

If you want to work with them more directly — channelling healing energy rather than just reading about it — she points people to The Book of Many Flames, which teaches you how to channel the energy of the Divine Rays and Sacred Flames directly. Its companion, The Book of Many Colours, is more about bathing in that energy and building a direct connection with the Masters and Archangels for yourself.

One that stuck with me: the Ray of Nurture and the Flame of Nurture, which Angela describes as the feeling of sitting on your grandmother's lap — completely safe, completely held, completely loved. She half-joked it should be in everyone's bag at all times. I think she's right.

You are a spark of the divine

Angela's closing words are the ones I want to leave you with. You are a spark of the divine. You have the ability to manifest. You have the ability to reset, and to embody your sovereign self. And none of it is rocket science.

Connect with Angela Orora

Angela Orora (Angela Medway-Smith) is a spiritual mentor, healer, teacher and multiple #1 international best-selling author working as the practical mystic. You can find her books, retreats and mentoring at cariadspiritual.com.

Listen to the full conversation

This post covers the highlights — the full episode goes much deeper into Angela's awakening, her years training with Betty Baldcombe, and the practical side of working with the Ascended Masters. Listen to the complete conversation above, or search "Soul Sync with Jason Paul" wherever you listen to podcasts.

If anything in this conversation has raised a question for you — about protection, about your own path, or simply where to start — you're welcome to get in touch or book a tarot or mediumship session, in Bristol or over Zoom, wherever you are.