First appeared on: www.israjung.co.il

The figure of Hephaestus occupied me in the past, during my own analysis and has occupied me to this day in my work with clients and patients, as a possible major archetypal figure for rectifying the inner feelings of inferiority, of being different and a victim. These feelings, to a varying degree, reverberate within us, consciously at a very deep level and most often unconsciously. There is always someone who is more successful than us, more wanted, preferred, loved than us. For many of us, life circumstances have made us feel different than others, be it because of an illness, an inability of some kind ,loss of a parent or lack of a parental presence, or being a victim of wars and their outcome or of aggression towards us. Some of us have felt unwanted, rejected at some level and humiliated.

Nowadays, ourworld is full of wars and aggression. Competition, excellence and material gains are over valued. People are evaluated by success and failures. In this reality I find the figure of Hephaestus most valuable.

Hephaestus is known as the God of metal, the God of the blacksmiths. It seems,he portrays the anti-hero. He is lame, distorted and disfigured. He does not fit into the norm or the usual and he needed to find his own way in life.

According to The New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (1) Ptah of Memphis in ancient Egypt, is seen as the guardian of the artisans, like Hephaestus. He was recognized by the Greeks as Hephaestus. In Egypt he was depicted as an embalmed figure, his head covered with the embalming material, only his hands were free and they held a scepter, symbolizing the union of balance and omnipotence in life. He was known to use metals forged in fire to create and build thrones, shrines, jewelry and utensils as well as arms and shields.

The Greek name Hephaestus comes from the word "hearth" and "to kindle" He symbolizes the fire of the earth, the Vulcan. Boccacio called Vulcan (which is the Latin name for Hephaestus) "the foundation of civilization"(2). According to Homer, "it was Hephaestus who taught man to work."(2).

According to myth he lived on the vulcanic island of Lemnos. Some versions depict him as symbolizing the fire of heaven and the God of thunder. His lameness is depicted as the lightening zigzag. Hephaestus used fire for building and creating and everything he did was most beautiful. Only twice did he use fire in its destructive form, in order to protect, mostly others: the first time was for protecting himself. This was when Ares, as messenger of Zeus, tried to bring him to Olympus from the bottom of the sea, in order to free Hera from the throne. (I shall elaborate on this later on). Ares did not succeed in passing through the veil of fire that Hephaestus formed. The other incident (3) was when Hera asked Hephaestus to set fire to the river where Scamander, the God of the Rivers, was threatening Achilles. Hephaestus turned the river into a river of fire. Only when Scamander begged Hera to stop, and she turned to Hephaestus to do so, did he stop.

His figure, in the eyes of the Greeks, is sturdy, even fat, bearded, with a strong neck and hairy chest. He is lame in both legs and he holds in his hands a hammer and thongs.

According to Hesiod, Hera bore Hephaestus alone, i.e. without the intervention of a man. He was called "wind child" in the Orphic epics (4). There is also another version to his birth. Hera conceived Hephaestus by Zeus, before they were married and out of shame and fear of Zeus`s reaction she made up the story of her becoming pregnant without the intervention of a man. Be it as it may, it is known that Hephaestus was born ugly and lame in both legs. Hera was appalled to see him and she threw him from mount Olympus into the sea. According to another myth, it was Zeus, appalled at the sight of the baby, who threw him to the sea. He fell for a whole day and on landing he broke both legs. In both cases, he was thrown away from Olympus as an outcast; deprived, ugly, lame and unwanted.

However, Hephaestus was saved by two nymphs or fairies: Thetis, the daughter of Nereus, and Eurynome. They hid him in a cave at the bottom of the sea and raised him there for nine years.

Esoterically, number nine symbolizes man. Marie Louise von Franz (5) mentions that "in number symbolism, nine stands for the number of the Holy Ghost... and for all particularly potent dynamisms". Irene Gad in her paper on Hephaestus (6) writes that number nine stands for completion of truth, the end cycle of all single numbers. After nine combinations of numbers start. It also symbolizes the balance between body, psyche and spirit, between the material and spiritual worlds. Number nine also signifies the highest degree of initiation (7). It is interesting, though, that Hell has nine arches or circles and nine gates. So, nine, in fact, can symbolize not only the positive but also the gate to the negative.

Kedalion taught Hephaestus the art of working with metal. According to one version, it is said that Hera asked Kedalion to teach Hephaestus. According to another version, it was Thetis who sent him to Kedalion to learn the art of using fire to melt metals. Kedalion was forever faithful to Hephaestus and never left him except once, in order to help the blind Orion to go to the west in search of a remedy for his eyesight. During these nine years Hephaestus created and built for both nymphs everything they needed and also beautiful jewelry.

Hephaestus is never a victim. It is us who may see him that way. Despite his being rejected by his parents, thrown from Olympus, not belonging, distorted, ugly, deprived and lame, despite all this, never is he depicted in mythology as a humiliated figure. Even when Aphrodite betrayed him he exposed her and her lover in shame not himself. Therefore he cannot symbolize the victim or the scapegoat. As an archetypal figure this seems to me to be of utmost importance. Hephaestus can teach us what inner strength can mean, also the enjoyment of being efficient and the joy of success in the execution of small tasks in everyday living. He can become an example and a guide for the ability to turn a destructive power into a benevolent creative one, and for the courageous ability to utilize whatever there is in us in a positive, responsible and efficient manner and, especially, for feeling the joy of creativity in whatever we do, no matter what.

From a simple psychological point of view one can understand the reaction and development of Hephaestus as a non-pitiable figure. Arnold Modell (8) says that the child, who experienced his mother as emotionally non-available, whether she was depressed or rejecting the child, chooses to be different from the mother, although unconsciously, he identifies with her. One of the ways he does this is by not trying to win the love of the mother by being like her, but by not needing her. Everything that reminds him of the mother threatens his sense of "being", or as we would say, his sense of Self. Therefore, the child does not get lost in the psyche of the mother but forms an individual personality based on separateness. Instead of continuing the insensitivity of the mother to the psychic state of the "other", the child develops, as a compensation, super sensitivity to the other person`s psychic state. In the case of the figure of Hephaestus, his ability to express emphatic feelings and his understanding of Prometheus`s suffering, or of Thetis and Hercules, can be examples of this.

According to myth, Hephaestus was saved and rescued by two feminine figures, not Goddesses but fairies, or spirits, symbolizing femininity or a soft feminine spirit, warm and relating. Eurynome, whose name is death, is the mother of the Graces, who are fairies of joy, excitement and the enjoyment of all the basic aspects of Nature and Life.

We can surmise that only when we are not denying death can life be experienced in all its poignancy, sharpness and fullness. Many books and films have been written and shown, especially recently, emphasizing the change in attitude of people facing death, whether they have experienced it themselves or with loved ones. People`s lives became meaningful after having been stricken by a terminal illness, or have been exposed to death experiences in themselves or around them. In their encountering death they started to utilize the remainder of their lives in the most meaningful manner for them.

We also see a masculine figure presiding in Hephaestus life, Kedalion. Through him Hephaestus learned the use of fire for work and creativity, also the fire of the senses, life and sex (9), as well as steadfastness and loyalty.

The two fairies or graces, who rescued and saved Hephaestus, did not try to get him out of the depths of the sea, to where he had been thrown by his horrified rejecting parents. There, in the depths they found for him a safe and a secure cave. That means that in the depths, under the water, in the cave, in the innermost place, at the source of feminine essence he was not rejected. By the Great Mother he was not rejected. He was nurtured at the source of femininity as an inner energy. We all know that beyond the parents, beyond the personal mother and father images there is the archetype per se. When we succeed in passing the block of these personal images and get in touch with the archetype itself, new opportunities for development open up. It seems to me that the helping forces that were there for Hephaestus (and it is important to take note that none of them were Gods but fairies, that is between god and man) helped him from identifying himself as a scapegoat and a victim. The archetype carriers, that is, these helping forces, can appear in the life of the child as a person who is warm, benevolent and understanding, either within the family as an aunt, a grandmother, or a caretaker figure, a maid, a teacher or even a neighbor. They can also appear as an inner imaginary figure, an angel, a voice or a literary image figure. They can also be represented as an object, such as a tree, an animal, a doll, a blanket or a cloth that the child hangs on to. These are not to be confused with what Winnicott called "transitional objects", but they serve as Self substitutes that help the child to survive.

The story of Hephaestus growing up is similar to the story of the Hero growing up, without his biological parents. But, there is a major difference between the figure of the Hero and that of the Anti Hero. It seems to me that the difference lies between intra-psychic exteriority and interiority. By exteriority I mean that heroic side in us that conquers the world, that paves its way despite being rejected by the parental figures. The Hero is the one who overcomes all the pitfalls and at the end gets his "Kingdom". The Anti-Hero, like Hephaestus, was never meant to get or receive his "Kingdom". He creates his world in the depths, and remains there, not wishing to get out. Even when Hephaestus returned to Olympus, he continued with his former tasks, namely, creating. He did not become a domineering king. He remained faithful to himself and to his inner interior being, continuing his work of serving others, without becoming their victim.

Let us return to the myth. Hephaestus, during the time he was in the cave, built a most beautiful throne for his mother Hera. She was delighted to receive his gift. However, when she tried to rise up from the seat she could not extricate herself from the unseen bands that chained her to it. When she tried to free herself from the seat it was thrown up to the sky with her chained to it. No one, no God, not even Zeus, could help her. It is interesting that when everyone on Olympus, from Zeus to all the other Gods and Goddesses, asked Hephaestus to free his mother he answered that he had no mother (10). And yet, he was the one who created the throne for his "absent" mother.

From an intra-psychic psychological standpoint we can say that the rejecting parental "absent" figure, whether by an inner experience or by an actual death of the parent, exists in its absence most forcibly. Andre Green (11) points out that the psychic "absence" of the mother following loss, whether by the death of the husband or by her mourning of any kind, or by depression, is experienced by the child as catastrophic. On the one hand he feels impotent, powerless in front of the situation he has no control of, and on the other hand he reacts with irritability, sleep problems and anxieties. Also when the mother actually dies and the father is non-available, either because of his own loss and mourning or because of his closing up or his inability to give the child the psychic support he needs, the child will react similarly. A kind of a "hole" is formed in the ability to have an authentic relationship with the "other", especially with the mother/wife and women or the father/husband and men. The child will identify with the "hole" that was formed because of the absent parent. The result will be an inability to love (11). From my experience in my work I have found that a fixation is formed on a yearning for an unreachable ideal utopian figure, which is continuously transferred onto persons one meets during one's life, thus experiencing ensuing disappointments. The person is never satisfied with what he or she has, not only with people but also with everything. There is always something missing. There is neither a holding matrix nor a containing matrix.

The other result (11) is lack of meaning. Green mentions that the child can feel that that is his way of "being", without understanding that it works as an inhibition, or better a decree, forbidding him to "be" just as it forbids him to enjoy. I can add that when he does enjoy something, he will have to destroy, eliminate, minimize or nullify the cause of the enjoyment. In therapy the patient will continue to foster the absent mother or father by becoming the obedient son, in an unending process and thereby continue the existence of the absent mother or father. He does not help himself and remains in a kind of passivity also in the therapeutic process. Moreover, he fosters his relationship to the "absent" parent as a mother or a father to a son or a daughter. He identifies with the "absent" parent, becomes "he" or "she" in his relationships to women or men, that means, to be present but not really to be there. This can also happen in therapy. He or she is there but not relating, just as the parent behaved towards him or her, causing the therapist to feel the frustration and even desperation that the patient had felt in childhood.

The inferior, injured, lame side in us, according to myth, fosters, in the depths, the energic bonds to the parent and binds him or her, to the royal throne, namely, to the unquestionable domineering parental image, intensifying, thereby, the feelings of being rejected and inferior that exist within. This becomes an ideation judgment, even a sort of an ideal fixed thought, the throne lifted up to the sky, meaning, that it is not connected to our reality. We all know how we tend to become prisoners of patterns of feelings and behavior, even when we know that the reality proves otherwise. Still it does not change the inner image or feelings. Here we are witnessing a situation where on the one hand there is a fostering adoration for the mother or father who are very much there in their absence, and on the other hand it is clear that, according to the myth, only this injured and rejected side within us can, and ultimately be able to, untie these bonds. One has to will it not from an ego-will and standpoint, but when there is an inner constellation, an inner readiness and trust. I think it needs an inner intentionality of choice.

Before this can, hopefully, happen, the therapist, in such cases, quite often confronts a wall that is hard to penetrate, because, it may appear that nothing is happening or changing. Also in the transference and counter-transference relationships there exists a hidden, concealed blockage, a wall. The patient will not allow anyone to come in or fill the missing empty space, the "hole", even when the relationship is on the whole good.

According to myth, only Dionysus eventually succeeded in bringing Hephaestus to Olympus. The relationship between Hephaestus and Dionysus was always close and good. Dionysus made Hephaestus drink enough wine to become drunk and thus he carried him to the Olympus. However, Hephaestus was not drunk enough to do what was asked of him without demanding that his conditions be fulfilled. He demanded Aphrodite as his wife in exchange for freeing his mother from the throne. The ugly, distorted uncomely Hephaestus demanded to be united with the most beautiful and loved Goddess. He got her as his wife, but this marriage was not neither happy nor successful. We often meet this phenomenon where one chooses, sometimes even unconsciously, a partner as a compensation for a lack we feel or think we have.

When we are captives in a bonded relationship with a rejecting parental image, quite often, we will look for a relationship with a partner who represents the ideal opposite of us, as compensation for our lack and injury. Unconsciously we shall burden the partner with the task of bringing "meaning" into our lives, to fill the "hole" that accompanies us. When we try to repair the wrong done to us by gaining the opposite (beauty, perfection as opposed to ugliness and lack) from an inner point of view we simply move from one extreme to the other. This is not the right solution. We remain on the same spectrum and never get away from of the opposites. We remain in the shadow domain, blocking the possibility for the transcendent function to open new venues for us. Even the myth confirms that this is not successful. Time and again we shall continue to experience the rejection and separation we had experienced in the past. The opposites are always together.

The feelings of inferiority can turn into feelings of superiority and an estrangement from real authentic feelings, as mentioned before. Often the rush and push is to excel in everything and attain the impossible. In relationships, both in men and in women, we encounter dependency on a woman, namely a mother figure, combined with feelings of hate and /or rejection. In a man, a kind of a split can be formed in the image of the woman. On the one hand, he is dependent on the necessary woman/mother or he turns the woman, who is very much needed, into a kind of an irresistible abhorrent whore. Yet, on the other hand, there remains the craving and adoration for the woman who is sacred, loved, the completely other. In a woman this can be portrayed as a dependency on the father/man up to complete nullification of herself, on the one hand, and at the same time fostering superior feelings and hate of the man/father. (12).

We may witness another phenomenon. According to Bollas (13), the pain caused by the original trauma, becomes the primary self-experience of the child. Instead of being emotionally open, as children naturally are, he closes up and creates inner objects that live his anger. The unconscious guilt feelings of the child, cause him to accuse and find fault with his parents or parental substitutes with whom he lives or is in contact. All this is as a projection of his inner world. He then has to find or invent negative attributes concerning the parental images and this is the way he reacts to their presence. Often he will try to evade meeting the parents or their substitutes. The child hides, unconsciously of course, his anger, forms inner negative parental images and verifies his hate by remembering only negative things regarding the parents, denying anything positive that happened. (13). He simply does not remember. This can continue through the years into adulthood.

Returning to the myth, there is another version in which Hephaestus asked for the hand of Athena as a condition for freeing his mother. The story of the relationship between Athena and Hephaestus is interesting. According to the myth, it was Hephaestus who created the hammer that opened Zeus`s head to enable Athena to be born out of it. It is recounted that he waited until she grew up to ask for her hand in marriage, but she rejected him outright. When he tried to have sexual relations with her she refused and his semen was spilt on her thigh. Athena immediately shook the semen on to the ground and thus Erichthonius was born. He is considered to be the son of the earth, of Gaia. There is another version of the special relationship between Athena, Hephaestus and their son Erichthonius. On a vase found in Chiosi in 1937 (l4), Athena is portrayed as looking at Hephaestus relating with warmth, as she is about to receive Erichthonius from Gaia. The little baby extends his little arms towards her in joy. The figure of Hephaestus is standing behind Athena. He looks calm and wise with naturalness, simplicity and peace-loving. He is the God who is closer to earth than to Olympus. Both Athena and Hephaestus are the patrons of art and artisans. In Athena`s sanctuary on the Acropolis Hephaestus also had his shrine. One can see that, despite their differences, there was a partnership between them. The child born out of this marriage was not a fruit of love but of partnership. People who experienced a collapse of their secure and safe life in their childhood, whether because of war, or holocaust, or loss of a parent, physically or psychically, but succeeded in building their lives and making something of them, may at some point look for a mate that will be a partner. As said earlier, they either cannot or know not how to love. The inter-relationship is built on partnership rather than on love and sex. Yet, quite often they will continue to feel that something in their lives is missing.

Back to the myth. It is known that Hephaestus was married to Charis, one of the three Graces, who, again, are spirits, or fairies, delicate, benevolent, living in nature, in the woods, on the trees and in the mountains (15). The name Charis is connected to charity and generosity. This marriage was very successful and happy.

We can surmise, then, if we adhere to the myth, that the injured part within us, can connect and be helped by inner feminine forces of being that exist within us and by relating with empathy towards our selves. They are connected to the natural simple essence of life, in day- to- day doings, adhering to the thing in itself, be it the simplest or the most complicated one.

Hephaestus was wise enough to know that. According to myth, he formed and created two golden feminine figures who helped him to walk. He enlivened them with life, sweetness, strength and mind and even gave them voice. These golden figures were very efficient and helped him in everything. It may point to a kind of a continuation of the two fairies who saved him when he was thrown out of Olympus by his mother, but with a difference. There is no continuation of a dependency on objective outward figures. He created them himself from within as helpful figures for his work, even when he returned to Olympus.

Taking the myth as containing and pointing to the solution of the feelings of inferiority and injury within us, we can realize that there is within us the possibility of activating, or even forming, helpful inner forces that had been within us in the past and had helped us to survive at all. However, this time we can activate and utilize them to conform to our present needs, and above all with empathy, charity and benevolence to the injured part within us.

It is mentioned repeatedly that Hephaestus helps those who helped him. Not once is it mentioned that he harbors negative feelings towards others nor that he declares war. He is always ready to assist anyone who comes to him for help. He is occupied with building sanctuaries, shrines to the Gods and Goddesses, he creates the thunder scepter for Zeus, the shield for Athena who gave it to Perseus as protection from the Gorgon. It is recounted (16) that Thetis came to Hephaestus, when he lived in his beautiful house made of bronze on Olympus, where he lived with his wife Charis and the two assistants that he created, and asked him to make a shield for her son Achilles. Both she and Hephaestus knew that Achilles`s life is near its end. (The time of death is predestined and there is no way to change it. Nevertheless, as long as one is alive, one should do everything to protect or fight the fight for life as is demanded.) Hephaestus answered "Be of good courage, and do not let this upset you, dear goddess. If only I could save your son from the power of Death as surely as I shall now make him armor so strong and so splendid that he will rejoice, and every mortal who looks at it will be filled with wonder."(17). He formed a shield depicting the whole universe: mountains and hills, animals and nature, people, wars, dancers and everything that exists in the universe. Around the shield he carved the ocean as an illuminating, crawling snake.

When Zeus ordered Hephaestus to make the chains that bound Prometheus, it is said, that Hephaestus suffered doing what he had to do, but he gave Prometheus the psychic support and talked to him in pain and empathy. However, what had to be done, had to be done.

There is a certain similarity between Prometheus, who stole fire for mankind and was punished for it, and Hephaestus who used fire to build and to protect and had been punished before-hand without blame, not for what he did but for what he was. It was his son, Erichthonius, the king of Athens, who gave the Athenians the use of fire for humankind.

It transpires that when we accept ourselves both outwardly and inwardly as we are, because this is our personal universe, and are ready to encounter whatever befalls us with an inner courage and an authentic relationship towards ourselves and others, as well as learn to better our lives by utilizing whatever lies within us with inner respect - there is a possibility for development and transformation. Hephaestus, as an archetypal figure, can serve us as a model and a guide to relate differently to the inferior, different, injured, lame and rejected side that so many of us carry within us to a varying degree. Hephaestus knew to contain the emptiness, the lack and turn it into fullness. He was not a victim of the fire, not even of the fire burning within as anger, hate and blame, but knew how to transform and use this energy of fire as the melting and welding pot of his character and personality, as well as using it to build, create and utilize sustaining forces.

Through his relationships to his mother, Hera, to Aphrodite, Athena and Charis we can see the possibility for the development of the inner relationship, intra-psychically, as well as inter-relationships: From bondage to freedom, from opposite, as compensation, to partnership and eventually to love, to cherish and to authentic relating.

In the analytical process of our individuation, we have to go through stages of releases and separations. We part from the parental images within, who continue to do to us what we have experienced in our lives in the past. This is a very necessary process though usually long and arduous. However, we also have to stop identifying with the parental images, unconsciously doing to ourselves and to others what our parents had done not only to us, but also to themselves. The last and necessary stage is to part from within, in our depths, from continuing to be the son or daughter of our inner parental images. This is an intra-psychic process of growth and freedom, like Hephaestus, the rejected, injured, sensitive, benevolent creative and independent hero, whole within himself and with the other. Homer was right in saying that Hephaestus taught man to work. To work on himself and for his life.

17. Ibid. page 455.