I was rewatching episodes and I noticed that in the end of 3×6 Sam is summoning a ghost. And some of the first words he says is “Castiel”. Am I just imagining things or did that really happen. If so, do you think it means anything?

mittensmorgul:

tinkdw:

Yeah it was one of the beings he invoked, but nothing seems to happen from it, I think it’s just a bit of nice foreshadowing they threw in there knowing he would come up later on 🙂

To clarify, they actually had no idea that angels would be a thing later on, let alone Castiel. Sam’s invocation in 3.06 actually comes from a very old book on necromancy (the 15th century is pretty old):

(I googled Lamisniel, who is the third angel Sam invokes there, because obvs searches for Castiel bring up millions of fan sites and not this original source…)

Sam’s invocation:

SAM: Aziel, Castiel, Lamisniel, Rabam. Ehrley, et balam, ego vos conuro, per deum verum, per deum vivum (pause) cuivos cuiaves eos supermontes et per eum, qui adam, et avum formovit. Et per eum,
(SAM shouting more Latin)

The first part of the invocation is word for word taken from this ritual.

But also remember that this episode (and all the episodes through 3.12) were also written before the Writer’s Strike. There was a good, long stretch where it looked like 3.12 might actually stand as the series finale, and Kripke had always insisted– right up until they returned to work to break s4 in the writer’s room– that angels would never be part of Supernatural.

The fact that they did eventually settle on Castiel as the primary angel who pulled Dean out of Hell was the simple fact that there was not a lot of lore attached to him in the real world, and he was an angel of Thursday. Which meant they could create their OWN lore for Cas more than they could for, say, Sachiel (the primary angel of Thursday in our world).