devil

Dreaming Lens: Was it a devilish being in your dream, or was it actually Satan? Were you the devil? Were you in danger? Were you fearful or nonchalant? What was the devil doing in the dream? Were you a witness or a victim? Were you being tempted by the devil? Were you being asked to sell your soul?

Personal Focus: Most people will fall into two categories regarding the Devil: the religious and the non-believers. There is a third category of people who don’t necessarily believe in the Devil, but were raised in environments that embedded certain beliefs that they may have consciously rejected, but still have great power in the unconscious mind.

The origins of the Devil as Satan or Lucifer come from the Old Testament. One would have to be a religious scholar to identify all the different references to this character; however, there is one basic story line that most people recognize—Lucifer was a beloved angel who challenged God on his love for his human creations. God punished Lucifer by banishing him out of heaven and casting him into the lower realms of hell, where he reigns supreme over everything that is not God-like.

The first and foremost quality of the Devil is temptation. The ultimate motivation for the temptation is for ownership of a person’s soul. In the world of psychology and dream work, the soul is akin to your spiritual nature and the totality of your experience as a human being. The presence of God and the Devil in our world offers each of us a choice: with whom will you align yourself and on what will you base your life choices? Your higher nature through the choice of love, or your lower nature through the choice of fear? The presence of the Devil in a dream indicates that powerful degrees of fear are being expressed.

Bondage is another important element associated with the Devil. The contract he offers is permanent, with severe consequences. In symbolic terms, the Devil could illuminate areas in your life where you feel you have sold out. Look for situations in which you feel stuck for reasons of obligation, financial insecurity, or outmoded satisfaction. Often, we make choices that initially provide us with something we desire, only to discover that we pay a price we hadn’t counted on.

Real soul searching may be called for when the Devil appears in a dream. What thoughts or old ways of being must be cast aside for your greater good? From a lighter perspective, what devil-may-care attitude might be inviting you to discover that which your inner critic won’t give you permission to explore? Friend or foe, the term “the devil made me do it” can be either a misguided excuse for bad choices, or a call toward letting go of judgment.

(2) The evil connotations of the devil figure may reflea the dreamer’s fear of those repressed contents of the unconscious that are, in fact, the very forces that - if mobilized and utilized - could bestow new and fuller life. What we repress is invariably something that had great value for us but on some occasion in the past gave rise to guilt-feelings or a fear of punishment.

It is our fears that invest the unconscious with the fearsome characteristics of a dark underworld inhabited by evil monsters. In reality, the unconscious contains all the energy and wisdom we need for healing and wholeness.

It might be said that our fundamental human task is the conversion of the devil within ourselves, that is, converting negatively charged (dissident, destructive) psychic forces into positively charged (life enhancing and unifying) powers. Bur you won’t convert the devil with brute force, only with love. The negatively charged psychic forces are the ones you neglect and despise or fear. They become positively charged when you acknowledge them and integrate them into vour conscious life.

If we do not recognize the ‘devil’ within ourselves, we shall project him on to others and thereby give more scope for hatred and destruction (the real devil!) in the world.

See also Evil.

(3) In certain contexts - if, for example, he has horns or is sexually involved with naked women - the devil may be a sexual symbol.

If sexuality is represented in such a guise in a woman’s dream, it is possibly because she has a fear of sexual relations. In a man’s dream the indication might be that he has a guilt-ridden attitude towards his own sexuality (which Freud might trace back to anxiety’ arising out of the normal male infant’s erotic feelings for his mother).

The first and foremost quality of the Devil is temptation.

The ultimate motivation for the temptation is for ownership of a person’s soul. In the world of psychology and dream work, the soul is akin to your spiritual nature and the totality of your experience as a human being.

The presence of God and the Devil in our world offers each of us a choice:

With whom will you align yourself and on what will you base your life choices? Your higher nature, through the choice of love, or your lower nature, through the choice of fear? The presence of the Devil in a dream indicates that a powerful degree of fear is being expressed. Bondage is another important element associated with the Devil.

The contract he offers is permanent, with severe consequences. In symbolic terms, the Devil could illuminate areas in your life where you feel you have sold out. Look for situations in which you feel stuck for reasons of obligation, financial insecurity, or outmoded satisfaction. Often we make choices that initially provide us with something we desire, only to discover that we pay a price we hadn’t counted on. Real soul-searching may be called for when the Devil appears in a dream. What thoughts or old ways of being must be cast aside for your greater good? From a lighter perspective, what devil-may-care attitude might be inviting you to discover that which your inner critic won’t give you permission to explore? The phrase “the devil made me do it” can be either a misguided excuse for bad choices or a call toward letting go of judgment.