Could it really be true that an Irish mystic named Lorna Byrne has seen angels continuously since she was a child -- for as long as she can recall? Can it be true that she is able to describe for us their characteristics and transformations? Could it be true that she grants an unprecedented glimpse into the spiritual world around us?

We always have to be careful with mysticism and especially anything that handles a spiritual dimension with such depth. We are also called to be open. Is it an authentic account? It would seem so if detail is the measure of authenticity, for Lorna has broken what had been a life-long secret in writing a book of 325 pages that provides precisely that glimpse.

If she is making this stuff up, she certainly has an incredible imagination.

It is enthralling reading as we digest it for consideration.

"When I was two years old the doctor told my mother I was retarded," Lorna begins, in Angels in My Hair. "I can even remember lying in the cot -- a big basket -- and seeing my mother bending over me. Surrounding my mother I saw wonderful bright -- shiny beings in all the colors of the rainbow: they were much bigger than I was, but smaller than her -- about the size of a three-year-old child. These beings floated in the air like feathers; and I remember reaching out to touch them."

The angels, it seems, came however they wanted to come. They could look like cherubs or they could come as towering entities on a mission from Heaven. As for the colors: think of the hues that come from the beveled side of a mirror like a prism and imagine them reflected on a sunny day in another mirror.

To say the least, otherworldly.

Whatever the verdict on authenticity, Lorna is a Catholic. There are a few controversial comments. But most of her angelic viewpoints are in line with what the Church has taught -- which is that angels indeed are all around to help us.

"As the months passed, my mother noticed that I'd always be looking or staring somewhere else, no matter what she'd do to try to get my attention," she recalls. "In truth, I was somewhere else: I was away with the angels, watching what they were doing and talking and playing with them."

Byrne asserts that all babies see angels until they are taught not to -- until they are told what is real and what is not by adults who don't see them. "There are millions of angels out there," she says. "They are impossible to count, like snowflakes -- but many are unemployed. They are doing their best to help, but they can't always get through to people. Imagine millions of unemployed angels hovering about!"

It was her strict little secret. She had been told not to say anything about what she saw. This was a great suffering! It is only now, she says, "while writing this book, that I am telling much of what I have seen for the first time." As she matured, says Lorna, it was more a matter of them walking alongside her, or speaking messages.

And what an account it is. The salient points:

Lorna was born into a poor family that lived in Old Kilmanham near the center of Dublin, Ireland. Often, there was little or nothing to eat. Her father cobbled together what he could by renting a little bicycle repair shop attached to their dilapidated cottage. Growing up, she saw many kinds of angels and on occasion also spirits of the deceased -- particularly a brother named Christopher who had died as a youngster.

"As a child I had the angels with me so much of the time, teaching me things, that I was happy to be on my own for hours on end," she writes. "Most children hurried home after school, but I preferred to take it slowly and spend time on my own playing with the angels. The angels taught me to look at things differently to the way others do; I wouldn't just glance at a cow, I would really look to see everything about it: every line, every little bump. The angels would make each detail glow or stand out."

Just images conjured from things she had seen at church -- or the real thing?

About the guardians around her and others she says: "These angels came in all kinds of sizes: sometimes they would appear as a spark which would then grow and open up to full size; sometimes they would be massive, much bigger than the person they were minding. The guardian angels were radiant and were often dressed in all gold or silver or blue, or wore a variety of colors" [left, a strange angel-shaped light as John Paul II arrived in Baltimore in the 1995].

There were her guardians. There were angels that came on occasion throughout her life -- one when serious events were to take place. There was an angel named Michael. He dressed in a way that fit whatever he was communicating. At times, he looked like a prince -- with a golden crown and a robe of white and gold tied loosely with a gold and black belt, his hair shoulder length and flowing as if in a constant, gentle breeze. He had sapphire blue eyes that were radiant -- are radiant -- and a "smile of Heaven." On his feet he wore thronged sandals which crisscrossed up his legs, and on top of each foot was a golden Crucifix.

Michael's eyes were so bright, says Lorna, that "it was as if you could see for miles and miles inside of them; as if you were going down a long, long road; as if you were passing through time itself."

Or seeing into eternity.

"I love churches," she notes. "They are full of angels. There might only be a few people in the church, but there is always a great hustle and bustle amongst the angels there.

"People don't realize how many angels there are in a church; the angels are there praising God and waiting for God's people to come and join them, but frequently no one does.

"At Mass on a Sunday the place is packed with angels: guardian angels with every person, angels standing around the priest at the altar, and lots more angels which God sends down."

A simple but powerful prayer to invoke them, she says, is: I want my angels with me through everything I do.

"This simple request will empower the angels to help us."

Why call it "Angels in My Hair"? On occasion, when she was young, claims the Irishwoman, angels touched her head to make their presence felt.

One day, glancing at a monastery, she noted the bright whiteness around the monks and the way angels were praying or walking alongside them.

They also fill graveyard on the day of a burial. "Even if there is just a single person there, they will be surrounded by angels giving them the comfort that they require."

Did Lorna have encounters with devils? She was in a "constant" battle with them, she says. She also saw the "angel of death," who was "elegant, slender, and extremely tall." Of that she says: "The Angel of Death does everything in his power to try and prevent [a premature death] and he has many angels working with him." But sometimes they have to take the soul away. Lorna "saw" souls as they died and ascended. "They looked human in appearance and were dressed in brilliant white robes," she states. "I call the color white because I don't have any other word, but it was much more brilliant than the color we call white. Through their robes, I could also see the light of their souls, and this radiated up through their faces, making them look more pure and radiant than they ever had been on earth."

What a glimpse this is! One can feel something. Yet, the caution always remains. At times Lorna indicates like many who have near-death experiences that our souls exist before they are in the physical body -- are with God in Heaven before they are on earth-- not as in reincarnation but also not in tune with what the Church indicates.

The guardian angel she saw around one child had "hair red like fire of flame, and his eyes were like stars. And he had what looked like a sword in his left hand, but actually it was a sword of light and it flashed."

They taught her that we all have paths in life that were chosen for our spiritual growth.

They are there to help -- when we listen.

"We all have our guardian angel with us all the time, but the guardian angel, in its role as gatekepper of your soul, can allow other angels to come into your life to help you with different things."

What about evil angels? What about healing? What about spirits? We'll get to that next.

For now, those guardians. Once, they showed her the spirit developing in her womb when she was pregnant.

"One day I was standing in front of the mirror," notes the author. "Angels appeared around me as well as a golden light. Then I saw the energy of life spinning in my tummy -- all colors: emerald blues, emerald green, emerald red, emerald purple -- and the swirl opened up and I could see the little baby, like a speck of dust. The sight filled me with emotion and love for my unborn child."