The Many Faces of Lucifer

The biblical story of Lucifer's fall from grace is well known to most Christians and even non-religious peoples. In the beginning, in an age before time as we know it, he was God's most beloved and trusted angel. But eventually he conceived, in his pride, the ambition to be the equal to God. Some versions of the story claim that the creation of Man was the catalyst for Lucifer's change: God commanded his Angels to bow to this newly-created race, but the Light Bringer refused. Whatever his motive, this greatest of the angels rebelled - and managed to seduce many in the angelic host to his side. This sparked a war in Heaven, which resulted in Lucifer and his minions being cast out of the Eternal realm to fall to Hell, where the only way they could wreak their vengeance forever more was to tempt and corrupt the souls of mankind.

There is, in fact, only a slim body of material in the Bible with which to paint some sort of picture as to the real character of Satan, as Lucifer came to be called after his downfall. Much of his attributes have appeared because of necessity - i.e., if God was to be all love and goodness then his enemy, Satan, had to be the epitome of evil. Thus the strict definition of Lucifer has typically been he who fell to darkness and became the sworn antagonist of the Creator.

When Christianity began transforming from a relatively small and secretive mystical circle to a widespread religious and political force, one of the objectives of its various leaders was to stamp out the various nature-based religions that had predominated before its time. These were collectively called pagan religions. They embodied traditions that proved to be too tenacious to be destroyed entirely, however, so the Church began to assimilate what it could not wipe out. Many of the symbols and rituals that are now associated with the Christian Church had their origins in paganism. The Devil, meanwhile, took on some of the imagery of old pagan divinities such as Pan, with his cloven goat hoofs and pointed ears and beard.

There were other spiritual traditions, however, that acknowledged the myth of Lucifer but made a different interpretation of it. Theosophy is one example. The Theosophical Society was an occult and mystical organization founded in New York in 1875. It endeavored to create a brotherhood of man, without making false distinctions on the basis of race or creed - and also to seek for the development of divine powers in humanity. Theosophical tradition paints a more sympathetic portrait of Lucifer, seeing him as a personification of independence.

His "rebellion", in this and other "underground" mystical schools, is interpreted as the journey of the mind towards greater consciousness. It has been pointed out that the Fall of Lucifer and the Fall in the Garden of Eden tell essentially the same story. In each case, events move the central players out of a perfect state of undifferentiated grace and into an experience of struggle and the world of opposites. Some mystical schools of thought insist that this process if necessary; it is the journey by which we become aware of our reality as separate beings and gain the knowledge of our unique identity. Lucifer is seen as the archetypal will within humans to break free of dogma and established forms and live life on their own terms.