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Lilith,
the feminine principle
Images and
symbols are the language into which the creation stories of all
nations and cultures are expressed. They refer to mighty powers and
effects from the primordial wellspring. Thus we can also attach a
meaning to the story of Lilith other than that of a couple,
struggling for equality. Two principles can be recognised behind
those personalities: Adam, the life-giving heaven, and Lilith, the
receiving earth. Both principles are absolutely equal.
When God had created
the first human being, he said: ‘It is not good that the man
should be alone’, and created for him a woman like himself, from
earth, and he called her Lilith. Lilith: created from earth, linked
with the air by wings. Soon they began to struggle… She said to
him: ‘We are both equal, we have been created from earth.’ But
Adam wanted to rule over her, and thus it happened that Lilith rose
into the air and disappeared. Thus it has been written in the
Babylonian Talmud. History further relates that God sent three
archangels to bring Lilith back. They found her in the desert, near
the stream of the Red Sea, but she refused to return.
The god, of whom we
are speaking here, cannot be considered the one Spirit, the original
Light field that encompasses everything and from which everything
originates. The Nag Hammadi manuscripts clearly explain that the
story from Genesis in the Old Testament concerns a second, lower
spiral of creation. The primordial principle of spiritual creation
from the Father-Mother-deity in a continuous cooperation of the
comic-masculine and the cosmic-feminine has already been disturbed
here. A lower, dialectical creator-god, Yaldabaoth or Jehovah,
creates a distorted projection of the spiritual Light, Adam.
In the
Apocrypha, we can read about this Yaldabaoth: ‘To him, the
Conceited One, they gave power and served him by praising him, so
that he inflated himself by (all this) praise of the powers. He
became jealous and wanted to make an image to replace [an image] and
a figure to replace a figure. And he commanded the powers under his
rule to mould dead bodies.’ Therefore, Lilith, the bearer of the
primordial feminine principle, did not resist the divine Light, but
the laws of Authades, a fallen aeon.
In the myth of
Lilith, it becomes clear how a separation, waiting for conscious
reintegration, occurred in the collective higher self of humanity.
The distorted projection and substitute creation of Yaldabaoth can
only exist as long as the masculine and feminine principles are
confused and unable to achieve cooperation in an absolutely
equivalent unity. In the original plan of creation, in the works of
the pleroma, the cooperation of both streams which are after all
cosmic and completely surrender to each other, is an elementary,
fundamental law: ‘This is why a spiritual image, in which
masculine and feminine are not united, is not of a heavenly
nature… In a place, where masculine and feminine appear not to be
united, what is only holy does not dwell. The blessing, too, is only
found in a place that unites masculine and feminine.’
In this way,
Lilith ends up in the desert near the Red Sea, lost and cursed in
the astral turmoil of the creation of Yaldabaoth. There, in the
deepest wilderness of dialectical life, she is cursed as a female
demon, as seducer of men, as devourer of children, and her name is
‘mother of the stillborn’.
Life-giving
heaven and receiving earth – idea and design
The myth of Lilith can be found in countless texts. Lilith is
seen as the archetype of the wild, untamed woman, and also as the
first radiant heroine in the struggle of the sexes, as the person
who does not allow herself to be oppressed and holds onto the
equality of man and woman. Images and symbols are the language into
which the creation stories of all nations and cultures are
expressed. They refer to mighty powers and effects from the
primordial wellspring. Thus we can also attach a meaning to the
story of Lilith other than that of a couple, struggling for
equality. Two principles can be recognised behind those
personalities: Adam, the life-giving heaven, and Lilith, the
receiving earth. Both principles are absolutely equal.
An idea without the
possibility of manifestation would remain likewise powerless as
producing countless form manifestations without the framework of an
underlying idea. However, by breaking up the unity of both masculine
and feminine, cosmic principles, one of the many stages of the fall
of creation into matter takes place. The archangels find Lilith in
the flood of the Red Sea: the female astral principle has been lost
in its own turbulence. The name Lilith also means the girl that
seized the light. This makes the relationship with the fallen
archangel, Lucifer, visible. It is certainly not a coincidence that
the legend tells about the marriage between Lilith and Lucifer. In
this way, Lilith becomes the ‘mother of the stillborn’. On the
one hand, the stillborn are the people of this nature; we may also
see them as the many, inner emotions, which turn our hearts into the
projection planes of desires, feelings and passions.
For their survival,
the powers of dialectics, symbolised by the lower creator-god,
Yaldabaoth, require that one of the two primordial principles is
‘cursed’. That this fate strikes the feminine principle in the
figure of Lilith, and later also in that of ‘sinful’ Eve, can be
explained by the fact that the culture of the Israelites was
profoundly patriarchal. It was a culture that had to maintain itself
against the existing matriarchal cultures of the Orient which
worshipped the great goddesses. In the oldest known representations
of Lilith on Sumerian terracotta reliefs, she always bears a ring in
her raised hands. These symbols are exactly the same as those of the
representations of the Egyptian goddess, Isis. Owls are sitting on
either side of Lilith. The owl not only symbolised night and death,
but also wisdom, and is, for example, also dedicated to the Greek
goddess, Athena.
Lilith has wings and
her feet are standing on the back of a lion. Wings are often, just
as lions, the attributes of great goddesses. The Indian goddess,
Maya, for instance, is riding a lion. The face of the image of
Lilith certainly does not have the features of a demonic fury, but
offers a friendly sight and resembles the face of the Sumerian
goddess, Innana, visible on an alabaster mask, found during
excavations in Uruk (in present-day Iraq).
Fear of
the binding powers of the feminine spirit-soul
An explanation of the image of women, developed during a period of
thousands of years, may be found in the fact that they were cursed
and in the separation of the feminine primordial principle. This is
also the cause of a large part of the fear of the feminine
principle. The other part of this fear stems from the unconscious
knowledge concerning the enormous dimensions and effects of
everything astral. This fear speaks from almost all stories about
Lilith. When we speak of Lilith’s dark, disturbing powers and
dangerous sexuality, this evokes the picturesque, helpless
description of the ‘dangers’, hidden in the depths of the
feminine principle. The ‘fear of women’ is actually a warning;
it is the fear of the magical and binding effects of the
spirit-soul, of the far-reaching nature of astral power, which works
equally in women and men. Women are familiar with it as the
primordial, feminine principle. From this familiarity, the knowledge
concerning the negative aspects develops.
The effect of the
primordial, feminine principle also underlies the emergence of many
beauty cults and continuously new ideals of beauty. They seemingly
only hide the desire to please, but the need of the feminine
principle for self-reflection is rooted in the desire for the
reflection of what is divine, for the restoration of the original
state.
In the Treatise on
the Soul, we can read: ‘And she adorned herself even more, so that
she would please him that he would stay with her. … And in this
way, after the soul had [made up] herself in (all) her beauty, she
[was enjoyed] of her beloved [again]. And [he, too,] loved her.’
To men, the effect of astral powers often seems strange and awkward.
Sometimes the fear of the forces from their own inner being is
projected outward onto women, and results in a rejection with a
simultaneous strong attraction, because essentially both principles
are longing for liberation, for reunification.
A shadow of the
desired reunification is demonstrated by the sexual union of man and
woman. This is dominated by great confusion and an endless dance of
the sexes between the poles of rejection and attraction. In the
inner being of a person, the same dance of the principles takes
place in the struggle between heart and head. While in times of
matriarchal (moon) cultures, the world was nourished and nurtured on
the level of the spirit-soul, of astral effects, since the emergence
of patriarchal (sun) religions, the head, rationality, is dominant.
Thus we can also see the suppression of the feminine principle,
described in the myth of Lilith, as the transition from the
matriarchal to the patriarchal period.
In the West, the
nadir of patriarchal dominance was expressed by the burning of
countless women called witches. The drive to maintain this dominance
was and is the motivation for the oppression of women occurring
worldwide. Women are still deprived of their rights, defiled,
mutilated and killed. Therefore, the power of hatred for what is
feminine is still active in our time. We encounter it in various
forms of violence against women, and even in the seemingly innocent,
unequal treatment of women on many levels of social life. The
damage, inflicted on the feminine principle in this way, is deep and
painful.
Where did this lead?
Where did Adam end up as the alleged ruler over the feminine
principle? A world in which the rational, always forward striving,
dynamic and aggressive power of masculinity is dominant, is a cold,
warlike world of lonely fighters. It is the world of increasingly
effective weapons of destruction, technological genetic experiments
and a world of increasing exploitation of our field of life.
Through his fear of
the power of what is feminine, Adam lost his way in the labyrinth of
the cold intellect. The solution cannot be found in a reversal, in a
redevelopment of the matriarchal culture, although such a
development will probably naturally present itself one day. This is
because any development in our world must follow the laws of
dialectics, the laws of the gradual reversal of the opposite poles.
A reversal of the balance of power, exchanging masculine supremacy
for feminine supremacy, would, however, not benefit anyone, except
the creators of this world. The fulfilment of the great, liberating
task of humanity can only be achieved through equality in conscious
cooperation by the bearers of those two primordial principles.
Common
view on one goal
This task is meant for all people. It cannot only be found in the
origins of our Christian culture, but also in the myths of all
cultures in human history. As the great researcher of myths,
Friedrich von Schelling, ascertained, all myths stem from the inner
being of the consciousness itself. This shows that we are tested
down to the innermost depths of our being. Myths may bring us closer
to ourselves and to the recognition of what the true foundation of
our life and our task as human beings in this world is.
For this task, the
principles are always combined again, and yet time and again, one
rejects the other. Desperation, confusion and helpless anger then
result. Nonetheless, consciousness arises from crises. Consciousness
leads to recognition and acceptance of the other one. From this
acceptance of the fact develops that, though a great
‘approaching’ of the poles may be accomplished in a bipolar
world, a total merging is impossible. Time and again, separation is
experienced; time and again, imperfection is felt.
Only on the basis of
a developing, new ensoulment, which is able to embrace both
principles, can the inner integration of both poles be accomplished.
And this is true for both men and women. A complete purification and
restructuring of heart and head form the basis for this, enabling
renewing powers from the Supernature, in which both streams
cooperate harmoniously, to be realised in the human being. The
heart, the seat of all self-reflecting actions, becomes quiet,
balanced and still, a pure mirror of the impulses from the divine
field of life, which are then able to project themselves into the
head. By such a restoration of the heart-head unity in the human
system, the divine Light is enabled to unfold in the human being.
The result is the development of a new being in the greater human
system, a conscious being filled with love, filled with soul, and
linked with the Light field of eternity.
Are we, as human
beings, able to understand what miracle may be accomplished in us?
Do we understand the meaning of the ‘wondrous birth’? Do we
understand what it means when a new, divine human being wants to be
born? We can perhaps surmise it. This surmising hides a great, holy
silence, a silence that creates room for the work of the Light and
that leads the human being to inner withdrawal from the noisy
driving of this world, while he nevertheless is standing right in
the middle of it.
Even if the process
cannot be understood by the mind, its signs can certainly be
recognised. The divine hand remains invisible, but we often succeed
in grasping a part of the image that it designs. The process of the
reunification of heart and head has its external counterpart in the
cooperation of the people who are standing in this process. In this
context, they do not dwell upon each other’s failures, but look
together in the same direction, to the same goal, the goal of
reunification of all with what is divine.
When the
man becomes woman
and the woman man,
then they find within themselves,
beyond their mythical
double image of unity,
their true origin,
their unique primordial image in the ‘Ungrund’.
Then two is one again
as it is timeless.
O times which hear me,
give the woman her place,
equivalent,
above the depth. |