Evil, Astrologically: Lucifer
I have what might be a tome about evil gestating in my innards. For a few years I’ve been working with the asteroid Lucifer (1930), making notes, numerous false starts on that tome and working extensively with clients on the archetype as it plays out in their lives. It’s just not time for the big statement to come out. But today, I’m inspired to share a tiny bit of one corner of it.
The only useful definition of evil is that which we can use to move away from what we think of as good. Each of us has an internal goodmeter that’s a part of our makeup as conscious beings; it’s the part of us that is the God nature. Whether yours is informed by someone else’s moral system (religion) or your own inner compass, you have one and you use it constantly to one end or the other. When you behave in line with what you understand is good, you feel good about yourself and life. When you behave out of line with that, for any reason, you feel bad about yourself and life. It’s that simple. There’s a soul sickness we engender as we go against what we know is good, what we know is the vibration of God.
As soon as I began putting it in charts and mentioning here and there that I use this asteroid and work with the notion of evil, I drew people who needed deeply to learn to understand this part of themselves. Many times it appears in my clients’ nodal configurations, indicating that there are karmic issues with doing or the perception of doing, or the fear of having done, or the fear of being, evil.
The Lucifer archetype is the part of us that makes the decision about which way we’re headed, toward the good or away from it. The heart of what I want to share in this post is that each of us has this part of ourselves, and each of us is always choosing which direction we’re headed. It is very important to learn to understand this part of ourselves, and why we allow it to do what it does (if it ever gets to run the show), and it is very important to understand that the things that we do are, simply, the things that we do. They’re part of the journey of experiencing what it is to be a human.
I encourage people who have suspicions or memories (or reports from psychics, etc.) that they have done evil in the karmic past and in this life to understand the archetype of Lucifer as it plays out in their psyches, hearts and lives. We’re talking at root here about the choice to recognize and be aligned with something greater/bigger than ourselves, or refuse to do so and invest everything in our own egos. The human experience is defined on a key level by navigating the terrain of relationship with ego, and I note that all existential questions are Lucifer questions. So, when people come into the counseling room with a sense of having done wrong, I help them understand what the energy is about, help them sort out the past from the present, and work to give a solid ground to their understanding of their options.
This post was triggered by an e-mail conversation with a colleague having Lucifer square the nodal axis, indicating a misuse or perception of misuse of ego energy in the karmic past to evil ends, ends that achieved what was understood at the soul level to be not good. His response in this life is to make sure that he speaks what is true. There’s more to it than that, but I want to share that even with the knowledge or memory of having done wrong, which, frankly, we all have, the healthy response now is learn what is our choice and choose what is best right now. Allowing ourselves to restrict living in the here and now because of memories of having done wrong (and so being defined as bad, or evil), is a self hate that does no one any good. This healing work is about recognizing how the energy of evil, the move away from good, can be turned around with understanding and some heart-opening, forgiveness work to become the energy of the light bearer (Lucifer is Latin for light bearer), the servant of good/God - the healing opportunity offered by Lucifer work is the healing of the relationship with God.
My efforts to get this teaching together in a cohesive fashion have been stalled due to my own lab time in the lessons of Lucifer. Or, better put, they’re slow in coming as I live my own Lucifer story and learn about my own choices. As I wrote to that colleague, I’m usually quiet about the fact that this asteroid is conjunct my natal Sun. Pretty much no one who fears he or she might have done wrong in the past will tell you, but here we are. I know my present choices are in line with what I know is good - I’m determined never to forget what the power of choice can create - and so I’m okay with telling you here. Part of my hesitation, incidentally, is due to the myopic understanding and terror in some parts of our culture regarding the name Lucifer. But as you’ll see if you stay tuned to my work, the real Lucifer inside each and every one of us has nothing to do with Judeo-Christian notions of the devil. That, my friends, is a red herring to keep you from integrating this powerful part of yourself and living with your own understanding of serving good as your compass.
In the mean time, I’m working with clients who are open to understanding themselves fully, and I recognize that their openness to this archetype inside them is part of my lab experience in the Lucifer course: The more they accept their Luciferian natures, the more I can accept mine. Who knew that becoming an astrologer would be my path to heal karma?
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July 26, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
July 26th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
show me where to lay my ear