Archetype of the Devil

In Western culture there is a long history of struggle with sexuality. Even to dream of sex was considered a sign of the devil’s influence.

This internal struggle with ones own drives is still a large part of life for many of us. The image of the devil represents this struggle, and also a force of negation which pulls us down, away from the possibility of personal happiness and transformation.

Jung felt that an urge to evolve or move toward personal growth was inborn in all of us. Certainly it is a potential we all have. In connection with this the devil represents all those forces within and outside of us that war against this power of positive life and change. In Freudian theory each of us meet enormous resistances to meeting the very experiences or insights which would lead to healing. In this sense the devil or Satan embodies all our habits born out of the pains of our childhood and the ignorance of the culture we imbibed. The resistance we feel to change comes about because to change means to move into the unknown, into a sort of ignorance. It also means letting who we are at the moment die. It means acknowledging the impoverished aspects of oneself, and being willing to let go of them.

Grof, in observing the experiences of many people facing the agonies of their birth during therapy – Realms of The Human Unconscious – noticed the imagery that often arose was of being in hell tortured by the devil. When these same patients moved toward pleasure, the images became heavenly or cosmic.

The struggle with and fear of ones own natural drives – the resistances to change and wholeness – the fundamental pain of life in birth – all of these have a place in the archetype of the Devil or Satan. The following example graphically describes some of this.

It seemed I was fighting against the Devil for hours in my sleep last night. I was with a group of people doing this. The only parts I can remember clearly are that we had got hold of the Devil’s sword, put it in a church and locked the door. We had then thrown the key down a well, thus preventing the Devil from getting his main power or weapon. At one point he was forcing a man down the well and under the water to get the key, but he didn’t get it. I think being forced made the operation difficult. In another scene I was in a dormitory with the group of people. The Devil attacked a woman. He was invisible. The woman turned black as he raped her. She didn’t die. At this point I woke and went to the toilet. On returning to bed I continued the dream, particularly wondering what I was in conflict with in the image of the Devil. I found it disturbing and frightening to be confronted by such a powerful opponent. Partly because of the rape, I realised it was my held back sexual needs. I then approached the ‘black’ woman with tenderness and this transformed the Devil into available energy, sexual or emotional. I tried this again and again. Each time it worked, and I could observe the connection between the Devil and how I repress my sexual needs.

The Devil, as in the example, is usually connected with repressed natural drives, particularly sexual (one can express sex physically yet still repress sexual longing and feelings of real connection and tenderness). It is what is unlived in us – ‘devil’ is ‘lived’ spelt backwards. The reason the devil is such a useful symbol of our struggle with our own urges, is that if you have a conflict with an urge such as eating or sex, you can make up your mind to stop, but if you do so it feels as if a force other than your own will pushes you in another direction. This otherness is depicted as the devil.

Any code of conduct, whether accepted from parents or peers, leaves aspects of our total self unlived. The struggle with paternal authority or power within oneself is also often represented as the devil. If we change our code of conduct, we may meet the devil because we release the previously unlived area of self. Of course it only appears in the image of the Devil or Satan if we are frightened of or disgusted by this emerging aspect of ourselves.

As Pan: the same, except that Pan represents losing oneself or abandonment to the natural urges. See: devil.

Useful questions are:

What relationship do I have with my own natural urges such as sex or eating?

Have I turned my own urges back on themselves, transforming ‘lived’ into ‘devil’ by a reverse process?

Can I dare to meet this devil and release the repressed energy as living flows of personal life and love?