re: 3.12 - something to think about...
Feb. 21st, 2008 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ella_menno...tomorrow.
So now that we have the big "Lilith" reveal, I had to go poke around to see what I could find. Here's a half-hour's worth of google-fu for you:
Lilith Lore
(items are bolded for emphasis; items in parentheses are my comments)
"a multitude of sins is in her wings." (a quote from the first link I followed. It'll be a great title for a 3.12 coda, don't you think?)
-Two primary characteristics are seen in legends about Lilith: Lilith as the incarnation of lust, causing men to be led astray, and Lilith as a child-killing witch, who strangles helpless neonates. (child-killer, hm? Not the same methodology as our YED, who was more about claiming the children.)
-[Lilith is] a female demon of the night who supposedly flies around searching for newborn children either to kidnap or strangle them. Also, she sleeps with men to seduce them into propagating demon sons. (How wrong is it that my brain immediately went to a place where child!demon-Lilith captures Sam in order to force herself on him in order to have his wee little demon babies? *cuddles the darkfic bunnies*)
-to worship Lilith is to use the power of the Holy Spirit for negative purposes. (Fascinating: an acknowledgment that there is a power for good, even though it's being misused.)
-One story is that God created Adam and Lilith as twins joined together at the back. She demanded equality with Adam, failing to achieve it, she left him in anger. This is sometimes accompanied by a Muslim legend that after leaving Adam Lilith slept with Satan, thus creating the demonic Djinn. (emphasis mine; I'd love to see this woven into a WIAWSNB-related fic.)
-Men who experienced nocturnal emissions during their sleep believed they had been seduced by Lilith and said certain incantations to prevent the offspring from becoming demons. It was thought each time a pious Christian had a wet dream, Lilith laughed. It was believed that Lilith was assisted in her bloodthirsty nocturnal quests by succubi, who gathered with her near the "mountains of darkness" to frolic with her demon lover Samael, whose name means "poison of God" (sam-el). (*boggles* My excitement about this idea (samuel=samael??) cannot be textually rendered.)
-Samael and Lilith are in the shape of an androgynous being, double-faced, born out of the emanation of the Throne of Glory and corresponding in the spiritual realm to Adam and Eve, who were likewise born as a hermaphrodite. The two twin androgynous couples resembled each other and both "were like the image of Above"; that is, that they are reproduced in a visible form of an androgynous deity.[49]
-Another version establishes Lilith as the first of Samael's four wives: Lilith, Naamah, Igrath, and Mahalath. Each of them are mothers of demons and have their own hosts and unclean spirits in no number.[50] The marriage of Samael and Lilith was arranged by "Blind Dragon", who is the counterpart of "the dragon that is in the sea". Blind Dragon acts as an intermediary between Lilith and Samael:
-Blind Dragon rides Lilith the Sinful -- may she be extirpated quickly in our days, Amen! -- And this Blind Dragon brings about the union between Samael and Lilith. And just as the Dragon that is in the sea (Isa. 27:1) has no eyes, likewise Blind Dragon that is above, in the likeness of a spiritual form, is without eyes, that is to say, without colors.... (Patai81:458) Samael is called the Slant Serpent, and Lilith is called the Tortuous Serpent.[51]
-The marriage of Samael and Lilith is known as the "Angel Satan" or the "Other God," but it was not allowed to last. To prevent Lilith and Samael's demonic children from filling the world, God castrated Samael. (There's a correlation there, I'm sure of it, in how all the women we've 'seen' Sam sleep with in canon have died.)
-After Samael became castrated and Lilith was unable to fornicate with him, she left him to couple with men who experience nocturnal emissions. A 15th or 16th century Kabbalah text states that God has "cooled" the female Leviathan, meaning that he has made Lilith infertile and she is a mere fornication.
-The Pentagram, which in Gnostic schools is called the Blazing Star, is the sign of intellectual omnipotence and autocracy, and it is also the symbol of Satanism. It is the Star of the Magi; it is the sign of the Word made flesh; and, according to the direction of its points, this absolute magical symbol represents order or confusion, the Divine Lamb of Ormuz and St. John, or the accursed goat of Mendes. It is initiation or profanation; it is Lucifer or Vesper, the star of morning or evening. **It is Mary or Lilith, victory or death, (<<--NOTICE THE OPPOSITION THERE???) day or night. The Pentagram with two points in the ascendant represents Satan as the goat of the Sabbath; when one point is in the ascendant, it is the sign of the Saviour. By placing it in such a manner that two of its points are in the ascendant and one is below, we may see the horns, ears, and beard of the hierarchic Goat of Mendes, when it becomes the sign of infernal evocations.
...1855-56 & 61, translated into English by A. E. Waite under the title Transcendental Magic?
-According to legend Lilith's attraction for children comes from the belief that God took her demon children from her when she did not return to Adam. It was believed that she launcheda reign of terror against women in childbirth and newborn infants, especially boys. (Hmm.)
-"The wife brought the mirror and all of the fine furnishings in the cellar to her own home and proudly displayed it. She hung the mirror in the room of their daughter, who was a dark-haired coquette. The girl glanced at herself in the mirror all the time, and in this way she was drawn into Lilith's web.... For that mirror had hung in the den of demons, and a daughter of Lilith had made her home there. And when the mirror was taken from the haunted house, the demoness came with it. For every mirror is a gateway to the Other World and leads directly to Lilith's cave. That is the cave Lilith went to when she abandoned Adam and the Garden of Eden for all time, the cave where she sported with her demon lovers. From these unions multitudes of demons were born, who flocked from that cave and infiltrated the world. And when they want to return, they simply enter the nearest mirror. That is why it is said that Lilith makes her home in every mirror...
"Now the daughter of Lilith who made her home in that mirror watched every movement of the girl who posed before it. She bided her time and one day she slipped out of the mirror and took possession of the girl, entering through her eyes. In this way she took control of her, stirring her desire at will.... So it happened that this young girl, driven by the evil wishes of Lilith's daughter, ran around with young men who lived in the same neighborhood."
-The evil Lilith,
who causes the hearts of men to go astray
and appears in the dream of the night
and in the vision of the day,
Who burns and casts down with nightmare,
attacks and kills children,
boys and girls.
-Another legend says that Jehovah (god) and Lilith are actually god and goddess. Although usually the feminine half of god is known as Yahweh.
Suggestions also say that because Lilith never ate the forbidden fruit, like Adam and Eve did, Lilith is not tainted by original sin, and thus can never die. She is immortal like an angel. Angels can be destroyed however. As can demons. Begging the question of whether Lilith is invincible also.
Srsly - this kind of stuff fascinates me. This is one of those times I'm so in love with fandom, because I know there are plenty of other people out there who are going to take stuff like this, run with it, and we're all going to end up with some truly amazing fic.
*glee*
So now that we have the big "Lilith" reveal, I had to go poke around to see what I could find. Here's a half-hour's worth of google-fu for you:
Lilith Lore
(items are bolded for emphasis; items in parentheses are my comments)
"a multitude of sins is in her wings." (a quote from the first link I followed. It'll be a great title for a 3.12 coda, don't you think?)
-Two primary characteristics are seen in legends about Lilith: Lilith as the incarnation of lust, causing men to be led astray, and Lilith as a child-killing witch, who strangles helpless neonates. (child-killer, hm? Not the same methodology as our YED, who was more about claiming the children.)
-[Lilith is] a female demon of the night who supposedly flies around searching for newborn children either to kidnap or strangle them. Also, she sleeps with men to seduce them into propagating demon sons. (How wrong is it that my brain immediately went to a place where child!demon-Lilith captures Sam in order to force herself on him in order to have his wee little demon babies? *cuddles the darkfic bunnies*)
-to worship Lilith is to use the power of the Holy Spirit for negative purposes. (Fascinating: an acknowledgment that there is a power for good, even though it's being misused.)
-One story is that God created Adam and Lilith as twins joined together at the back. She demanded equality with Adam, failing to achieve it, she left him in anger. This is sometimes accompanied by a Muslim legend that after leaving Adam Lilith slept with Satan, thus creating the demonic Djinn. (emphasis mine; I'd love to see this woven into a WIAWSNB-related fic.)
-Men who experienced nocturnal emissions during their sleep believed they had been seduced by Lilith and said certain incantations to prevent the offspring from becoming demons. It was thought each time a pious Christian had a wet dream, Lilith laughed. It was believed that Lilith was assisted in her bloodthirsty nocturnal quests by succubi, who gathered with her near the "mountains of darkness" to frolic with her demon lover Samael, whose name means "poison of God" (sam-el). (*boggles* My excitement about this idea (samuel=samael??) cannot be textually rendered.)
-Samael and Lilith are in the shape of an androgynous being, double-faced, born out of the emanation of the Throne of Glory and corresponding in the spiritual realm to Adam and Eve, who were likewise born as a hermaphrodite. The two twin androgynous couples resembled each other and both "were like the image of Above"; that is, that they are reproduced in a visible form of an androgynous deity.[49]
-Another version establishes Lilith as the first of Samael's four wives: Lilith, Naamah, Igrath, and Mahalath. Each of them are mothers of demons and have their own hosts and unclean spirits in no number.[50] The marriage of Samael and Lilith was arranged by "Blind Dragon", who is the counterpart of "the dragon that is in the sea". Blind Dragon acts as an intermediary between Lilith and Samael:
-Blind Dragon rides Lilith the Sinful -- may she be extirpated quickly in our days, Amen! -- And this Blind Dragon brings about the union between Samael and Lilith. And just as the Dragon that is in the sea (Isa. 27:1) has no eyes, likewise Blind Dragon that is above, in the likeness of a spiritual form, is without eyes, that is to say, without colors.... (Patai81:458) Samael is called the Slant Serpent, and Lilith is called the Tortuous Serpent.[51]
-The marriage of Samael and Lilith is known as the "Angel Satan" or the "Other God," but it was not allowed to last. To prevent Lilith and Samael's demonic children from filling the world, God castrated Samael. (There's a correlation there, I'm sure of it, in how all the women we've 'seen' Sam sleep with in canon have died.)
-After Samael became castrated and Lilith was unable to fornicate with him, she left him to couple with men who experience nocturnal emissions. A 15th or 16th century Kabbalah text states that God has "cooled" the female Leviathan, meaning that he has made Lilith infertile and she is a mere fornication.
...1855-56 & 61, translated into English by A. E. Waite under the title Transcendental Magic?
-According to legend Lilith's attraction for children comes from the belief that God took her demon children from her when she did not return to Adam. It was believed that she launcheda reign of terror against women in childbirth and newborn infants, especially boys. (Hmm.)
-"The wife brought the mirror and all of the fine furnishings in the cellar to her own home and proudly displayed it. She hung the mirror in the room of their daughter, who was a dark-haired coquette. The girl glanced at herself in the mirror all the time, and in this way she was drawn into Lilith's web.... For that mirror had hung in the den of demons, and a daughter of Lilith had made her home there. And when the mirror was taken from the haunted house, the demoness came with it. For every mirror is a gateway to the Other World and leads directly to Lilith's cave. That is the cave Lilith went to when she abandoned Adam and the Garden of Eden for all time, the cave where she sported with her demon lovers. From these unions multitudes of demons were born, who flocked from that cave and infiltrated the world. And when they want to return, they simply enter the nearest mirror. That is why it is said that Lilith makes her home in every mirror...
"Now the daughter of Lilith who made her home in that mirror watched every movement of the girl who posed before it. She bided her time and one day she slipped out of the mirror and took possession of the girl, entering through her eyes. In this way she took control of her, stirring her desire at will.... So it happened that this young girl, driven by the evil wishes of Lilith's daughter, ran around with young men who lived in the same neighborhood."
-The evil Lilith,
who causes the hearts of men to go astray
and appears in the dream of the night
and in the vision of the day,
Who burns and casts down with nightmare,
attacks and kills children,
boys and girls.
-Another legend says that Jehovah (god) and Lilith are actually god and goddess. Although usually the feminine half of god is known as Yahweh.
Suggestions also say that because Lilith never ate the forbidden fruit, like Adam and Eve did, Lilith is not tainted by original sin, and thus can never die. She is immortal like an angel. Angels can be destroyed however. As can demons. Begging the question of whether Lilith is invincible also.
Srsly - this kind of stuff fascinates me. This is one of those times I'm so in love with fandom, because I know there are plenty of other people out there who are going to take stuff like this, run with it, and we're all going to end up with some truly amazing fic.
*glee*
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Date: 2008-02-22 05:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 12:02 pm (UTC)How wrong is it that I am all PLEASE WRITE IT?