The Mother of Abomination: The Tales of Lilith

The legend and lore surrounding Lilith is something that I have studied for a long time. When researching religious history, there aren't many women that can compare with her in regards to her wrath, seductive powers and variations of existence. Most claim that she was the first wife of Adam and left him after she refused to be submissive whilst in the act of sexual intercourse. One of the most popular myths about her is that when she left the Garden of Eden she fled to the Red Sea, made a pact with Satan and bore him a son. After seeing the power that the child had, she spawned with demons and produced a tremendous amount of offspring. Adam told God that he wished for another companion but God decided to give Lilith one last chance to return to Adam. The ultimatum was delivered by three angels, Sanvi, Sansanvi and Semangelaf [in the Talmud they are called Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof]. If she returned to him, all would be forgotten. Lilith, enraged and offended, swore that she would never bow before a man. God destroyed all her children, including the 'first son' sired by Satan, God then created Eve as a subordinate to Adam whereas Lilith was created as an equal.

You have to really read into what is being said to get the meaning of Lilith and her symbolism. When you stop to think about it, when Lilith was created as an equal she had the same intelligence as Adam, Eve was more of a second class person however the twist to this is that Eve was the one that ate first from the Tree of Knowledge (thus creating the Original Sin). From what you read in the bible, Eve was like the worker bee that followed the lead of Adam - if that were 100% true then she wouldn't have the ability to make the choice to listen to the snake (Satan) that told her to not fear God and eat from the tree. Most bibles don't make mention of Lilith as the first wife of Adam but she is alluded to in later books and passages (after the creation).

Isaiah 34:14

Wildcats shall meet with hyenas, goat-demons shall call to each other;
there too Lilith shall repose, and find a place to rest.
There shall the owl nest and lay and hatch and brood in its shadow

In a lot of ways Lilith takes the blame for the darker side of things; malformed babies were said to have been bewitched while in the mothers womb, a crying or fussy baby was said to have been touched by her and if a child refused to breast feed it was because she tasted Lilith's milk first and craved no other. Even though she was only alluded to a few times in the bible, her lore was adopted by many religions and cultures. It was extremely easy to tell a mother who had just lost a child that it was because of Lilith than to try and find some medical explanation. It was also used to teach young girls the value of purity; if they strayed for their moral roots, Lilith would be there to enlist them in her legion of darkness.. If a religion can get a hook that works, they'll ruin with it every time. Look at what they did to masturbation; it is never said in the bible that it is a sin yet it is said that if you engage in such acts, not only is it a sin but that if you don't repent, you will burn in hell. That seems like a pretty steep price for relieving "tension".

You do have Lilith to thank for the terms incubus and succubus; her sexual appetite was so fierce and demanding that special deities were created to help her satisfy her hunger. Before she was immortalized by the Greeks as the Hecate Incarnate, it was the Jewish people that feared her and documented her existence. After that, every group of people had some variation of Lilith in their bibles or spoken history. Known by at least 50 different names, she is often associated with stealing or murdering children, seducing men and being the bringer of sexual fantasies. In one of the strangest twists, nocturnal emissions were said to have been the work of Lilith trying to steal semen from sleeping men by forcing sexually charged dreams on them. This was how some cultures explained deformed, still born or mentally retarded [before there was ever a term for them] children; that somehow Lilith planted someone else's seed inside the woman and it was natures way of correcting the "mistake". That might sound like a harsh statement to make but we are talking about things that happened hundreds and thousands of years ago.

She makes for a very convenient scapegoat when things go wrong. She can be held in blame for everything from sexual daydreams to missing children. It wasn't until I started to do a lot of research about her that I realized something - something so basic that I felt like driving a fork between my eyes. Could it be that some parts of the bible were created or rewritten to explain that which could not be explained? More often than not it is easier to come to an assumption about something or create an answer when one doesn't exist. This is something that really tormented me; it made me think about other aspects of the bible and what structured religion was all about. In one word, control. You are told from a very young age, at least in the Catholic church, that if you don't follow the Ten Commandments you are committing a sin. It doesn't say that kicking a dog or making fun of someone isn't a sin but we know that they aren't right. This goes hand in hand with the sexual aspect of things; Lilith wanted to be sexually dominate over Adam and he refused to allow her to be "on top" that eventually translated to sex being for reproductive purposes instead of pleasure. But I digress ... back to the subject of Lilith.

One of the most interesting takes on Lilith is that she stood at the gates of the underworld, bearing no face, only a swirl of darkness. In the tale she is the mother of all things living and breathing but in exchange for the balance of life and death, sacrifices needed to be made to keep her happy. This is where things get a little confusing because there are several different deities that are said to have dwelled at the gates of the underworld; some wanted a fee to be taken across the lake [this is why some religions put coins over the eyes of the dead, the fee to be taken across the lake] as well as Lenithiesus [Lenith]. To make things even more confusing, there comes the story of The Ocean of Blood in which Lilith demands sacrifices or promised eternal torment when the person dies. She was also said to be the "wife" of one of the ferrymen on the river Styx who would play tricks on people to try and steal their soul or at the very least, the money they needed to pay to get across.

Regardless of what nationality you are or what faith you follow, there is some version of Lilith that propagated over the years. Known by the names Belili et Mali, Lillake, Baalat, Mother of Djinn, Lillium, Layla, Lahuswa [not to be confused with Yahushwa] to name a few. The Japanese and Chinese stories have Lilith as a thief of the night and 'the grand seductress'. In Mexico I heard stories about a female demon that came out once a year, usually around the time of Halloween, that would fill the minds of children with dreadful images and nightmares. No matter where you go, if you ask about a female demon, it's usually some version of Lilith that you will hear. What strikes me as odd is that her good points are almost never mentioned. While she is regarded as a true threat to children, pregnant women and men while they are sleeping, she is also the keeper of lost soul. If someone arrives at the gates of the underworld without knowing their name she offers them asylum and a place to dwell unharmed by some of the nefarious occupants.

So where am I going with all this? Your guess is as good as mine. I think the bigger picture here is that there are a lot of things that can be learned from reading the bible. When I was at the bookstore reading through various religious books a few friends of mine spotted me and were curious as to what I was reading. The words, "Stand back, that book is going to burst into flame any second" had me laughing ... and thinking. Could someone who opposed standard religion so much really be seeing answers from these 'holy books'? To me bibles are stories that people wrote down after they were spoken from generation to generation and should be taken with more than a few grains of salt. This all goes back to having religion crammed down my throat for years while everyone in my family seemed hell bent on breaking as many commandments as possible. The educators weren't much better; you were told to believe and read the bible and believe that but when you had questions about it ... they either had no answers or told you that you weren't behaving properly because you were challenging the word god. I'm still waiting for someone to explain the Garden of Eden - if Adam and Eve were the only people there and then they were cast out - doesn't that make us all products of incest? Moreover, if they had only two sons - who did they breed with? Their mother?

Lilith is just one of the many characters in religious history that goes overlooked; if you sit down and read any type of bible you will see elaborate stories, battles, bloodletting and sin. Its best left up to individual interpretation but for me, I can't put a whole lot of faith into a book that talks about a sea parting, towns being destroyed in the blink of an eye and an entire world of people being created from one single man and woman. But that's just me and it doesn't mean that I lack faith or the power to pray ... I just choose to be thankful for the stars above, the ground below and whatever good fortune I am blessed with while I am alive.