Shadow Suppression: Lilith, Lucifer and the Dark
It takes a lot of energy to keep out of your consciousness things you don’t want to see. This is the heart of the healing work surrounding wounding associated with Pluto, but it’s also associated with any archetype’s natural expression that we attempt for any reason to suppress.
Pluto’s the obvious example, but we’re talking about every archetype. There are varying levels of social sanction for the different sorts of explosions stemming from an individual’s inability to continue suppression. But all such expressions (explosions following suppression) are seen by society through the lens of Saturn, the glue that we use to hold ourselves in a meaningful sort of structure. They will therefore be seen rather one-dimensionally, as they would if viewed through the lens of any single archetype.
Associated with every archetype are shadow elements we’d rather not see. Mars offers an obvious example in those who use violence outside the structures of the military/police/civic rescue arenas and sports. Uranus offers the terrorist, Venus offers the heart-breaking and deceptive seducer, Sun offers the fascist and the tyrant.
But there are archetypal shadows for which we don’t currently have a vocabulary. Those offered by Lilith, for example, are what come to mind. As a matter of fact, everything about Lilith is made into shadow, leaving people with strong Lilith energy often terrified to again receive the brutal punishment they’ve gotten in the past from embodying the natural energy of this dark goddess.
What’s happened in our history is that we’ve forgotten how to face the dark. Which means that we have come to attempt to deny our true natures. We are light and dark. Each of us covers the whole range of possibilities. If this idea frightens you, take a moment to find out what part of you is conditioned to be afraid. I guarantee you that you have Lilith in you and she wants to find expression, and that there are parts of you that tell yourself that you’re bad for having this part.
Recently I understood that going deeply into Lilith requires me to give up my idea of what love is. I’ve had to confront my assumptions of what it means to support, honor and love others. Specifically, on one level, there are times when not helping someone is helping them more than they know. This is pretty obvious, but on another level entirely, one from which the journey of life is seen as the point of it (and not the pursuit or attainment of happiness, pleasure, ease or goodness), that I try to help you is absurd. No one but you can help you - your journey is in your hands and there’s nothing in reality that I do that actually helps, even if it looks like I do.
This is the level from which we can come to know Lilith. If we assume that destruction is always negative, we miss the point of what she would teach us. Who’s to say what’s good and what’s bad? Is there any such thing? Or is there just creation and destruction and the aftermath of each that forms the bulk of our lives?
So, this is the kind of stuff that makes a deep part of you nervous. Having a relationship with the dark doesn’t destroy existing relationships to moral systems, it only puts those moral systems into context. Perhaps they’re then dropped, but what follows isn’t automatically anarchy, as our conditioned fear of the dark tells us.
Similarly, stepping into Lucifer work doesn’t take us to a higher moral ground, but in truth tends to evaporate the boundaries of specific moral systems. Deeply meaningful Lucifer work takes one to the threshold at which it’s seen that all one can do about developing a relationship to the divine is to choose to do it or not to do it. To either manifest our idea of the divine through our actions or to manifest the opposite.
The path that takes us there is very often informed by the (conditioned) expectation that God is to be found somewhere, if only we were doing the right thing, looking in the right places, or trafficking in the right lingo. The darkness we find in Lucifer work is facing the terrible fact that we can choose to turn away from our idea of God - and there will be no penalty from an external power for doing so. The darkness is in accepting responsibility for ourselves by facing the truth that we have the choice to work for or against what we know is good.
Suppressing Lilith leads to all manner of destructive expression surrounding anger at not having power or being recognized for our true natures, or being forced to deny them. Suppressing Lucifer leads to all manner of destructive action to one’s self and to others, in varying kinds of expression based in anger of feeling abandoned by God and being afraid of aloneness. All these archetypes have in common is that we teach each other to be afraid to look them in the eye, leaving us afraid to look ourselves in the eye. We tell each other that expression of them brings darkness, oblivious to the fact that expression of any archetype can bring darkness.
The truth is that each of us has choice in how to use any energy. This truth is what we as defined as larger groups can’t handle, can’t deal with. That there is choice in each individual terrifies anyone in any sort of conventional seat of authority and power.
And yet, I write again, people will always have access to their true natures. No one will ever truly forget the truth of their nature. And they will in time figure out that the whole human suit game is about choice, and they will in time learn to decondition themselves and exercise free will, which will in fact require looking at these darknesses we carry, getting to know and accept them, and love ourselves for having them. Accepting your self fully, which is creating wholeness in your life and the only true measure of health, means seeing, integrating and loving each part of your complex, multihued nature.
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.
One Response to “Shadow Suppression: Lilith, Lucifer and the Dark”
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September 3, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
September 4th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Hi Tom! I’ve been out of town for over a week and I begin art school today…woo! Just catching up on your articles, you’ve given me much to think about and I’m grateful. Talk to you soon,
Chrispito