Meditating while waiting for messages from any entity at all that may be interested in you could be called a spiritualist approach, like "Is there anybody there from Beyond the Veil?", not a magical one where you conjure and address a specific being. Josephine McCarthy has this to say in a
:
All that is happening is the ritual actions create a pattern that triggers a request. But if the receiver, the magician, is not ready for such contact it will not happen. What can happen at best is that the pattern created via the ritual actions creates an open door for contact and any other being that feels like it will step in and chat away happily with you. The magician needs ‘ears to hear and eyes to see’ and getting to that magical state can be a long drawn out process, or it can happen in childhood. It is not a connection that can be forced by ritual action.
Granted, she is a bit paranoid about the danger of contracting parasites but you probaby understand what she means. Proper focus is required, and when your mindset is (and I'm exaggerating here) "I'm desperate for anything to come through, anything!", you might end up talking to yourself without even noticing.
Another aspect Josephine McCarthy is stressing in this article is
receptivity which is in stark contrast to the traditional Medieval and Rennaissance approach where you basically force an entity to appear. The (ok, also Medieval) Abramelin method, however, is more in line with McCarthy's philosophy - those endless confessions, prayers, purifications, etc. are just other, more traditional methods of increasing receptivity.
My own approach and my understanding of the HGA is very much informed by Damon Brand's
"Magical Destiny" which adds another twist to the receptivity consideration: friendship and trust. The book is about
getting acquainted with one's HGA instead of forcing a supernatural apparition from out of thin air - which is how many people understand the process. I strongly urge you to ditch your meditation approach and try Protocol One (p. 56) instead. In this Protocol, your intention is unequivocally directed at your Angel and what's more, you might discover within yourself unknown obstacles that impair your receptivity - not feeling worthy enough, fear, shame, guilt, what have you. It may sound easy but it's a lot harder to speak to your Angel from the heart than repeating rituals and prescribed prayers by rote over and over again.
Addendum: There a three books with personal experiences with the traditional Abramalin procedure in the Library, just search for "Abramelin" in the title.
