Can an angel read my mind?.

Though there is no scriptural evidence that members of the heavenly host know a person’s mind or thoughts the way God does, the question of whether angels can read minds is not as silly as it sounds.

The question becomes reasonable in the context of angelic appearances in the mind or consciousness of people via dreams of visions. Such instances, which are obviously scriptural, can be parsed as angels having access to the consciousness of human beings. If they have such access, then (some would argue) they by definition have access to the thoughts already in a person’s mind.

The absence of any scriptural explanation for how angels appear in dreams leaves us only with speculation. On one hand, we could presume that angels have access to information stored in a person’s brain or consciousness. There is no way to demonstrate that an idea like this is valid.

On the other hand, we are on the same footing if we speculate that dreams are nothing more than transmissions of information into a person’s consciousness. 

Information transmission is not information retrieval. To use a modern illustration, angels may be able to “write” to our CD or DVD, but not read from it. It is therefore just as reasonable to assume that angels cannot read minds.

Both options are nothing more than speculation.

When it comes to affecting the material world, we are on the more scriptural footing. They can, assume a material form and act upon material objects.

• The two angels that visited Lot, and were able to strike the men of Sodom with blindness (Gen 19:10–11). No explanation is offered as to how this was done, but the two angels were the cause of that effect. 
• An angel somehow freed Peter from his shackles (Acts 12:7), opened an iron gate without touching it (Acts 12:10; cf. Acts 5:9). 
• Angel struck Herod with a disease (Acts 12:23). 
• An angel moved the stone from the tomb of Jesus (Matt 28:2).

The ability of spirit beings to assume human form, including material corporeality, becomes even more interesting when considering 2 Corinthians 11:14, where Paul wrote that “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”

The verb translated “disguises,” metaschēmatizō, is rendered “masquerades” by other translators and scholars.

Guthrie notes:

The verb [metaschēmatizō] means “to disguise oneself” or “to pretend to be what one is not,” thus “to masquerade.” In the pseudepigraphical work Testament of Job, Satan disguises himself as a beggar (6.4), the king of the Persians (17.2), and later as a baker (23.1), and this same verb is used. A number of Jewish traditions also present Satan as transforming himself into an angel or an angel of light in order to get the better of those he tempts. 

For instance, Paul may have been aware of a passage in Life of Adam and Eve (9.1) in which Satan tempts Eve again after the fall: “Then Satan was angry and transformed himself into the brightness of angels and went away to the Tigris River to Eve and found her weeping.”

There are other Second Temple period texts that provide some context for Paul’s words. In the Life of Adam and Eve 17:1–2, Eve saw Satan (the serpent?) in the form of an angel:

Then Satan came in the form of an angel and sang hymns to God as the angels. And I saw him bending over the wall, like an angel. And he said to me, “Are you Eve?”

The point is that Second Temple material shows us that the notion that spirit beings could change their appearance was alive and well in the first century.

Some might suggest that the meaning is metaphorical, that Satan’s “presentation” of himself as something he is not referring broadly to lies and deception, not visible appearance.

Considered in isolation, that perspective is possible in 2 Corinthians 11:14, but some of the contemporary instances cited above go beyond such an abstraction. It may well be that Paul was thinking of visible manifestations in addition to deception. The possibility means that, along with assuming corporeal form, spirit beings might be able to alter that form—that is, changing appearance may be among their suite of abilities.


Heiser, M. S. (2018). Angels: What the Bible Really Says About God’s Heavenly Host (pp. 171–173). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.