The Heptameron, attributed to Peter de Abano (d. 1316) and circulating in printed editions from the mid-16th century, gives the practical operations: the planetary days and hours, the names of the angels of the air, the prayers, the protective circles. Read it once and you'll notice something that contradicts modern angel discourse immediately — the entire ritual structure assumes that you need protection from angels. (Joseph Peterson observes the ritual to have been originally about demons, see the page at Esoteric Archives. What modern readers encounter as "angel magic" in the Heptameron is thus, in this case, a rebranded conjuration of fallen angels with the inconvenient genealogy edited out, and the protective circle of the operation makes considerably more sense once you know what the operator is actually calling on.)
The systematic working with named angels in Western magic is nowadays associated with Theurgy or "White Magic." It has a few key texts you can actually point to. Henry Cornelius Agrippa's 16th century Three Books of Occult Philosophy laid out the system of correspondences.
Moreover also these Elements are placed in the Angels in Heaven, and the blessed Intelligencies; there is in them a stability of their essence, which is an earthly vertue, in which is the stedfast seat of God; also their mercy, and piety is a watery cleansing vertue. Hence by the Psalmist they are called Waters, where he speaking of the Heavens, saith, Who rulest the Waters that are higher then the Heavens, also in them their subtill breath is Aire, and their love is shining Fire. Hence they are called in Scripture the Wings of the Wind; and in another place the Psalmist speaks of them, Who makest Angels thy Spirits, and thy Ministers a flaming fire. Also according to orders of Angels, some are fiery, as Seraphin, and authorities, and powers; earthy as Cherubin; watery as Thrones, and Archangels: airy as Dominions, and Principalities. Do we not also read of the original maker of all things, that the earth shall he opened and bring forth a Saviour? Is it not spoken of the same, that he shall be a fountain of living Water, cleansing and regenerating? Is not the same Spirit breathing the breath of life; and the same according to Moses, and Pauls testimony, A consuming Fire? That Elements therefore are to be found every where, and in all things after their manner, no man can deny: First in these inferiour bodies feculent and gross, and in Celestials more pure, and clear; but in supercelestials living, and in all respects blessed. Elements therefore in the exemplary world are Idea's of things to be produced, in Intelligencies are distributed powers, in Heavens are vertues, and in inferiour bodies gross forms.
Most of the systems modern practitioners think of as "the tradition" descend from this text or from sources Agrippa was synthesizing, in no small part because his books stayed in print fairly consistently through the centuries.
John Dee and Edward Kelley's Enochian work, recorded in scrying sessions during the 1580s, produced a system with its own angelic language, hierarchy, and the four watchtowers that have become a backbone of certain ceremonial traditions. Whatever you think of the source — divine revelation, Kelley's invention, something else — the textual record exists and the system has been worked continuously for over four centuries.
The modern assumption that angels are the good guys and demons are the bad guys, and that angel magic is therefore the safe choice, doesn't survive a careful reading of the grimoires. The *Lemegeton* binds Goetic demons by the names and authority of God and the angels. The same operator might work with both. The categorization is hierarchical and functional — angels generally rule, demons generally serve, certain spirits are mixed in nature — but it isn't a neat binary.
Some of the entities called angels in the texts behave in ways that would not pass modern wellness-industry vetting. The Enochian governors have names and offices but the records of working with them include accounts of disorientation, vivid and unpleasant visions, and instructions that practitioners later wished they had not followed. The angels of the Shem HaMephorash include entities whose stated functions are things like the destruction of enemies and the discovery of buried treasure through the agitation of the dead.
This doesn't mean angel work is dangerous in the way a horror movie would frame it, only that the historical category "angel" covered a much wider range of operations and entities than the contemporary use of the word suggests, and pretending otherwise leads to disappointment when practical work produces results that don't match the marketing.
The pastel angel oracle deck and the channeled angel message have a documented origin worth knowing. The major commercial figure was Doreen Virtue, who through Hay House Publishing produced a long series of angel oracle decks, books on angel therapy, and certification programs from roughly the early 1990s through the mid-2010s. Her work essentially defined the popular modern image of angel work as a gentle, validation-heavy practice involving card pulls, color rays, and messages of unconditional love.
In 2017 Virtue publicly converted to evangelical Christianity and renounced her entire body of oracle work, calling it occult, demonic, and spiritually dangerous. Her cards are still sold by Hay House and still in active use, often by practitioners who have no idea their own originator now considers them tools of evil. Whatever one makes of her conversion, the fact that the woman who built modern angel oracle culture now thinks she was wrong about the entire project is a piece of context that ought to be in circulation.
In the end, the division of angels as inherently friendly and other entities as more dangerous is something that a real practitioner might wish to think carefully about, instead of simply assuming this to be the truth of the matter.