Very intelligent move to introduce a fallen angel here. How symbolic. Since your original question specifically named Lucifer, at
newadvent.org/cathen/09410a.htm I found:
Lucifer
(Hebrew helel; Septuagint heosphoros, Vulgate lucifer)
The name Lucifer originally denotes the planet Venus, emphasizing its brilliance. The Vulgate employs the word also for “the light of the morning” …(and) finally to Jesus Christ himself (2 Peter 1:19; Apocalypse 22:16; the “Exultet” of Holy Saturday) the true light of our spiritual life. (underline mine)
The Syriac version and the version of Aquila derive the Hebrew noun helel from the verb yalal, “to lament”; St. Jerome agrees with them (In Isaiah 1.14), and makes Lucifer the name of the principal fallen angel who must lament the loss of his original glory bright as the morning star. In Christian tradition this meaning of Lucifer has prevailed; the Fathers maintain that Lucifer is not the proper name of the devil, but denotes only the state from which he has fallen (Petavius, De Angelis, III, iii, 4).
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“Lucifer” originally means “Light Bearer” or “Bearer of Light.” As an Archangel he represents one of the higher faculties given to Man, similarly to the twelve Apostles each representing a faculty of Man unified and elevated under the power of the Christ, or God realization. This Archangel “fell” because he so loved God he refused to bow or acknowledge the hypostasis of Man, or the material form manifest as a particularization of God Himself in Creation.
Lucifer represents the loss of Right Identity made necessary by the descent into material sense of the undifferentiated Divine Consciousness. The baby, “flying” over the abyss of materiality, doesn’t yet distinguish itself as different from its surroundings. So far, it is yet united as awareness to Consciousness and Identification as “I AM.” But eventually it “falls” for the suggestion of “me” and “that” as it experiences sensual distinction between its body, which it’s awareness seems associated with, and objects that are not portable with the bodily sense of “me”. Thus arises the mode of subject/object awareness, which clouds the fact the even the object portion of experience yet takes place in the mind of the perceiver. Without that mind present, there is no experience, or the necessity of creation, as '56 has correctly explicated. In other words, Creation is a phenomenon interiorly experienced in Mind refracted on the infinity of possibility within itself.
This is a description of the particular fall as distinct from the alleged fall of Man as a species. It is analogous to the particular and general judgments. In this case the general “fall” is in fact the rise of the awareness through the unfolding of creation on our space/time line to the point where the material vehicle was capable of supporting self-reflection, an ability beyond that of animals. Mostly. But this self reflection brought with it the ability to see “good” and “evil,” or polarities of identification relative to feeling of self integrity. In the sense intended here, that means the advancement from an instinctual participation in the animal phase of awareness to the ability to perceive and feel projected and immediate consequences with “self” as object. This ability to see oneself as object primarily distinguishes man from the animals and gives rise to the phenomenon both of s/o awareness and the ability to manipulate the laws of matter and energy, even psychic energy. It also includes the potential, at least, of perceiving and identifying the “other” as “self” which is love beyond the instinctive, but including it.
That synopsizes the idea of the fall of Lucifer, and opens the stage for the idea of “Michael” to enter, and for the further meaning of redemption and salvation relative to the human mode of awareness relative to Consciousness, IS, or I AM.
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What I find continually astonishing about the Church is that, IMHO, it uses its phenomenal and formidable intellectual might to sustain one particular stream of the mythology surrounding transformation as *history*, thereby suppressing and denying the actual spiritual dynamic of incarnation, redemption, and salvation. That is why I underlined above. The misunderstanding of the Lucifer figure is simply part and parcel of what I think is the metaphysical tragedy of Catholicism. The Church, it seems to me, devotes itself to the propagation of an artificial way of keeping God at arms length by using an actual Teacher and his self appointed ad-man, Paul, as unwitting props in a power play. (see early Church history) The destruction is incalculable, but imaginary, as well, so ultimately it matters little if any. The story of the star fish on the beach applies here.
The accuracy of the individuals who have penetrated the myth despite the Church bears its own authority, despite the distortions of those who do not have the experiential capacity to understand them. I include in that litany of the accomplished many, such as Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, St. Catherine of Sienna, St Francis, and many others. They didn't and couldn't have known, given the ways and means of their times, of their cadres of Brothers and Sisters in other lands and times. Had they, as we can today, been able to know of them, we would have, no doubt, had far different contextual report from them than what they necessarily left in the context of Catholicism. A survey of the summations of the higher realizations of these Saints, compared to those other non-Catholic Sages throughout history, would easily reveal this to the critical student. But unexamined pious faith, as I have previously delineated, is a prophylactic to this most fruitful of studies in synthesis.
