The Satan myth has long been a man’s game, but there’s at least one feminist folktale that refuses to lie down and let just one gender have the devil all to itself. So who is Lilith, and how did her name become synonymous with feminism, Satanism, and other things that go bump in the night for religious chauvinists past, present, and future?
Praise, condemnation, questions, and positions of your own can be sent to blackmassappealpod@gmail.com.
SHOW LINKS
- Heartbeat Bill Gets Science Wrong (Wired)
- Lady Flying In Darkness, Rabbi Jill Hammer
- Lilith in the Bible (sometimes)
- Lilith in the Epic of Gilgamesh
- Lilith and Babylonian Demonology (Jewish Virtual Library)
- Midrash on the “First Eve” (Jewish Women’s Archive)
- The Alphabet of Ben Sirah (JWA)
- Lilith In the Zohar (Samson Books)
- Samael, Lilith, and the Concept of Evil In Early Kabbalah, Joseph Dan (Association For Jewish Studies)
- The Coming of Lilith, Judith Plaskow (JWA)
GET IN TOUCH WITH BLACK MASS APPEAL
- Patreon
- Tabitha Slander’s Instagram
- Discord server
- Leave a voicemail any time! Just call 1 (415) 579-2055.
SATANIC BAY AREA
- Website
- Twitter (as @SatanicSF)
- Sign up for Satanic Bay Area’s newsletter
- Coffee Hour is the third Thursday of every month from 6 – 8 pm at Wicked Grounds in San Francisco
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Simone 0:04
Welcome to Black Mass Appeal, a podcast that brings modern Satanism to the masses. Today on Black Mass Appeal: lock your doors and windows tight because we’re exploring the myth and marvel of Lilith, history’s most powerful and profound, feminine devil archetype. And in the news, US lawmakers are aborting bodily rights in the mother of all power plays. Joining me today, I’ve got Daniel.
Daniel 0:30
Hi, my name is Daniel. I’m an organizer for Satanic Bay Area and I’m a member of the Satanic Temple, and my name is not the ephemeral name, therefore, I have not flown away. If you don’t get that reference, listen to the rest of the show. We’re being educational today. You’ll understand by the end.
Simone 0:44
And also joining me I’ve got Tabitha.
Tabitha 0:47
Hey, this is Tabitha. I am an organizer with Satanic Bay Area and a member of the Satanic Temple, and my name could have been Lilith but I went with Tabitha instead. Cuz different different, which, but still good. There’s a lot of rules to go around. That’s true. Yeah.
Simone 1:04
And rejoining us, from our movies episode, we have Jane.
Jane 1:10
Hey, my name is KJ Thomas. You can call me Jane. You can talk to me directly on Agnostic calm in the satanic diagnosis group. Or you can also read my long form writings on vocal media also under the name KJ Thomas.
Simone 1:26
And Jane is of course, also a member of Satanic Bay Area. And then you’ve got me, Simone. I am also also a member of Satanic Bay Area and a member of the Satanic Temple.
Simone 1:38
And I have never been to Lilith Fair, because you might say it’s not my kind of music, but still: hail Lilith. Anyway, just our usual disclaimer that Black Mass Appeal is a product of Satanic Bay Area and is not associated with any other Satanic groups. This is a podcast for Satanists to discuss modern Satanism, its history, left-leaning political activism, and how Satanism relates to current events – definitely current events – and pop culture. We’re for people who want to learn more about modern Satanism, whether you’re a newbie, or you’re already involved in Satanic groups. And speaking of Satanic groups, Satanic Bay Area is gearing up for some stuff.
Daniel 2:19
Yeah, actually, we are reaching out to Satanic groups across the country, we’re quite lucky that we are here in California, where everybody’s bodily autonomy and abortion access is about as secure as it’s possibly going to get. But a lot of other Satanists and a lot of our listeners might not be so lucky. Some of you might, in fact, live in states where really scary things are happening. You sure you know what we’re talking about. And if not, we’re going to get to the news in a few minutes. So we are gearing up to do some outreach and some direct action out of state, a lot of involving our most recent Satanic “Chick tract” “Abort, Abort!”, and we are putting out a call if you are a Satanist, or you know any say this, we’re living in any part of the country where these political power plays are happening. Get in touch with us, put us in touch with some folks who are organizing in your area, we might have a few things to send your way.
Simone 3:12
Yeah, we’re looking to help support Satanists in affected areas, both materially through our Chick tracks. And also, hopefully, monetarily, we’re still working out the details. So get in touch with us, or, you know, we’re going to do some outreach ourselves, for the people that we already know those areas, and we will try and hammer something out. And of course, if your local Satanic group is already springing into action, let us know, we will, you know, be happy to promote your projects as well.
Tabitha 3:46
And don’t forget, we have our South Bay Satellite Coffee Hour, June 2 at 3pm. At SOFA Market in San Jose, it’s on our calendar. But we’ll also have a thing up on Facebook about it. So you can check it out, come and see us.
Simone 3:59
Yeah, and all of our public events are on our calendar, which you can go to. So you could go to either Black Mass Appeal or Satanic Bay Area.com. It’s the same calendar, and you can get a look at everything that we have coming up. So be sure to check that out. And of course, our website always has all these really cool resources like the reading lists and the ritual libraries that Daniel has put together. So if you’re not checking out the website, you’re missing out on a whole part of the experience.
Daniel 4:30
Though, I will say speaking of upcoming events, we finished a really busy six month period from just to be for Halloween to just after Walpurgisnacht, and now we’ve kind of entered a slightly quieter period which is actually a little bit nice. You don’t have anything immediately on the calendar on the horizon. But we do have some summer events coming up. We’ve got a salon and BBQ coming up. We’re planning a field trip ahead of us. We’re planning an end of summer black mass for a couple of months. None of the all those are in the early enough stages that we’re not quite ready to talk about them specifically yet.
Daniel 4:59
But keep an ear out for that, particularly if you’re a local and you’d like to join us.
Simone 5:03
Indeed. Okay, so speaking of joining us, you can do so virtually by sending in an iTunes review. Our iTunes reviews, you know, they really help us out, help people find us on iTunes and whatnot. I’ve started to hear people leaving reviews or leaving comments in our Discord or whatever saying, I was just typing Satanism into iTunes and I found you guys and I’m like, it’s, it’s it’s working. Let’s say it’s not a miracle because that doesn’t, that doesn’t exist. But, you know, you know what I’m saying?
Daniel 5:34
Satan be praised.
Tabitha 5:36
Yeah, the algorithm is smiled upon us.
Simone 5:38
So our first iTunes review comes from Toxic Tom who we know from Discord. Hey, Tom! He says, “Best well-rounded Satanic podcast. I started listening just last week, and I’ve already finished all the current episodes.” Holy shit.
Tabitha 5:52
Holy Mackerel.
Simone 5:53
How did you do that? That’s —
Daniel 5:54
Yeah, fuck how do people do that? I’ve heard that before.
Simone 5:56
Yeah. Do you have a time turner from Harry Potter? Anyway, if you do, let me know because I could use one. “The topics vary from Satanic fundamentals to pop culture. They also have been growing a fun community on Discord.”
Tabitha 6:08
Yay.
Simone 6:09
Which is true.
Tabitha 6:10
It’s super true.
Simone 6:11
One of our latest arrivals to our Discord server, like just said that we’re all super nice. Yeah. I’m just like so flattered. And I’m like, yeah, I’m really proud that our community that the people who like this show and want to talk to each other and join this Discord are cool.
Tabitha 6:28
Yeah, they’re really cool.
Simone 6:29
Like, we don’t have to police anybody if they’re being assholes. Everyone’s just been cool. So.
Daniel 6:37
I think we’re actually the least cool people on the Discord. So this is the floor. This is how…
Tabitha 6:42
I don’t know. I think I think I’m pretty cool.
Daniel 6:45
That’s fair. That’s fair.
Tabitha 6:46
I also spend the most amount of time there, so.
Daniel 6:49
Also, I want to say a “best well-rounded Satanic podcast” sounds like an extremely specific Grammy category that’s probably going to come up in 50 years.
Simone 7:00
When they have podcasts on, on the Grammys, definitely which they’re gonna have to do to stay relevant or something.
Tabitha 7:05
Yeah, that’s gonna be amazing. I look forward to that day.
Daniel 7:10
They’re gonna have to come around to podcasts and Satanism.
Jane 7:12
Yeah.
Simone 7:13
Yep.
Daniel 7:13
It’s got to be a one-two punch.
Tabitha 7:15
And we’re gonna win the very first Grammy, the very first podcast Grammy. You heard it here first, folks.
Simone 7:23
Our second review comes from Christian the Satanist who again, we know you from Discord.
Tabitha 7:28
Hey.
Simone 7:29
Who says “It good. Name Pronunciation Guide: Brad.” Which, something gives me a feeling that that’s not accurate. “I looked up a podcast to see what other Satanists were up to. This show was 40% news. 40% cool topics. 25% Simone mispronouncing things, 15% the word ‘cathartic,’ 10% trashing Anton, and 100% Tabitha being cute. I rate this show,” you know that that kind of carrot looking thing with the heart?
Tabitha 7:59
Less than three?
Simone 8:00
Yeah, but less than three. So thank you, Christian.
Tabitha 8:04
I’m cute, huh?
Tabitha 8:05
Uh oh, I’m gonna keep rubbing it in. Also, you know, Simone’s cute too, just gonna put that out there.
Daniel 8:10
Can I ask a question? Am I the one who’s saying cathartic a lot, because I didn’t realize that was a thing. I feel like that’s me.
Simone 8:15
I think we all say it, especially in regards to talking about ritual and why we do it. Because that is a large part of it.
Jane 8:23
Catharsis is very important.
Simone 8:25
Yeah.
Daniel 8:26
I bring this up because a fan on Twitter the other day pointed out I guess I have this habit of like inhaling sharply before I talk a lot. I had no idea this was the thing I was doing. But I guess it’s a trope now because you specifically pointed it out. So now I’m trying to pay att — it’s like, what other shit do I do that? I don’t know that I do. Do I have another arm? Where is it?
Tabitha 8:48
You’ll find it one of these days.
Simone 8:50
Well, the other helpful thing you can do to support Black Mass Appeal is to donate to our Patreon. The Patreon is what funds the actual show itself and some other stuff that is surrounding the show and coming up in association with the show. We have some new contributors to think we have Brianna. And then we got a whole mess of Mark of the Beast Club members. A herd of Mark Mark of the Beast Club members. What’s the plural of beasts?
Daniel 9:17
A damnation?
Simone 9:18
There you go. We have Non Serviam, Capra, John, Melissa, Mr. S. Sam Cove, York Satan, Kat who is a Mark of the Beast upgrade. Christine, Gunner Dakota and Tabitha.
Tabitha 9:34
But not me.
Simone 9:35
Yeah, so we’ve got multiple Daniels and now we have multiple Tabithas.
Tabitha 9:38
Where’s the Simones dammit?
Simone 9:40
We’re unique.
Daniel 9:42
That reminds me Simone. Is it kosher to talk about your your search for a pseudonym?
Simone 9:48
I don’t know if I’d use the word kosher, but.
Daniel 9:54
I’ll just say like, listeners probably realize that Tabitha and I are not using our full legal names here. And Simone, you’ve never worried too much about your name. But now you say you at least want like a surname.
Simone 10:05
Yeah.
Daniel 10:05
For when the media starts paying attention to us, that’s not Googlable back to you.
Simone 10:09
My, my only concern is that, you know, during our whole Christmas tree thing, I let my last name out. And so in some of the publications that we’re talking about our whole Christmas tree, Christmas ornament thing that happened this past December, it got reprinted in places like the the Blaze, which is Glenn Beck’s rag, and thankfully, you know, nothing came of it, nothing happened. But it was, you know, for someone who spends as much time online as I do, and you know, is as involved in media matters as I am, it was still a little bit of an eye opener. Also, though, I have, you know, a new gig that I’m not too particularly concerned about, but it would be nice to have like a little firewall of protection. So you know, again, just a layer of firewall protection, just a thin little layer, so that if you know, you Google my name, it’s not like the first fucking result.
Daniel 11:08
I bring this up, because I liked the one you were toying with the other day. I don’t know if you want to commit to that, but just yet.
Simone 11:14
Yeah, well, so I just thought it would be easy to go through older family names, because I actually got a cool couple family names. On my mom’s side. We have someone up in there who’s named Electra, which I thought was cool. Yes. My grandmother’s maiden name is Mead. Which, you know —
Jane 11:32
So good.
Simone 11:33
Well, and we know someone who makes mead so I was like, should I try and angle this and some free mead?
Tabitha 11:39
There you go.
Simone 11:39
No, we’re not going to do that. Unless you want to, just anyway, but also, somewhere in the family, there are folks who have the last name Lasher, which I kind of like because it’s kind of aggro and also reminds me of that Anne Rice book that I never actually got around to reading. Someone made a reindeer joke. That’s Dasher, guys. That’s different. Dashing through the snow. This is giving you 40 lashes for being a naughty boy.
Tabitha 12:08
That’s a different reindeer entirely.
Daniel 12:12
I think Lasher is one of Krampus’s reindeer or his Satanic goats or whatever pulls his sled.
Tabitha 12:18
Yeah.
Daniel 12:19
But I think Simone Lasher — that’s, that’s pretty good. That’s got a good ring to it.
Tabitha 12:22
Yeah. I’m into it.
Daniel 12:23
I mean, we’ve never really talked on the show — sometimes people have asked me about like picking a Satanic pseudonym. And it’s surprisingly hard if you never had to. And so I don’t know if we can parlay that into a whole show. But maybe, if anybody out there has like a cool story about how they picked their name, let us know.
Jane 12:39
I have to say that I am using my grandmother’s maiden name as well.
Tabitha 12:42
Nice.
Daniel 12:43
That’s a good one.
Simone 12:43
You know, it just occurred to me because we’ve talked about having an episode about the different names of Satan himself, maybe we could kind of have like a supplemental of Satanic names and Satan names.
Daniel 12:56
Like that kind of a sidebar in that episode.
Simone 12:58
Yeah, that’d be fun.
Tabitha 13:00
Yeah, cuz everyone wants to hear about how I do it, which is really stupid. So be excited to find out what stupid thing Tabitha does to come up with names.
Simone 13:09
No, but you know, the name that you choose to call yourself, you know, especially with adopted names, especially with you know, when you have the autonomy to choose the name that people will know you by, it really does speak to, you know, how you want to be perceived in this world. You have more control over it, then what the, you know, your parents or guardians gave to you. So it’s, I think, you know, more personal, more interesting and revealing. And I think it’s, you know, those stories are more interesting. Rather than, “yeah, my parents couldn’t come up with anything. So they just named me after my dad’s uncle.” That’s not…
Tabitha 13:52
Yeah, when it’s like, Oh, I got, I got named after cartoon character.
Daniel 13:58
Okay, sorry, I got us on a tangent here. I do want to say thank you very much to Toxic Tom and you Christian the Satanist for getting us up on iTunes. Thank you to all of our Patreon backers. And if you are a Patreon backer, you don’t just get our thanks. You also get a few extra bonuses. For example, this episode is coming out a couple of days after Tabitha and I did a stream of the game Doom II with the Patreon backers and celebrating our recent interview with John Romero. We haven’t done that yet. So I guess we’ll just speculate about how it went. Tabitha, how do you think we’re gonna do on Sunday?
Tabitha 14:30
I think my computer is not going to crash. And the stream is going to go super, I mean, HAS gone super, super well. And everybody had a really good time. And we were really, really good at Doom. And the computer didn’t crash. Again.
Simone 14:47
For so many of our events that we talk on the show, we have to use like this weird future past tense, right? Because it’s something that will have happened.
Daniel 14:57
Anyway, well, I am predicting that not only will the stream go really well, but it’s going to turn into a Jumanji like scenario where the game spills out, but we’re fine because the kids in Jumanji are fine.
Tabitha 15:08
Okay, I don’t want to turn into a monkey.
Daniel 15:11
Or what was that John Favreau sequel do Jumanji that nobody saw on the spaceship?
Tabitha 15:16
Okay, I always — this is the — I have a very small tangent. I thought that that movie was called Bridge to Terabithia. So I read the book Bridge to Terabithia.
Simone 15:26
Oh no.
Tabitha 15:27
Thinking it was going to be a space romp, and I cried a lot, so, don’t do that. It’s because whatever it’s called, it sounds like not exactly like Bridge to Terabithia.
Simone 15:36
Are you thinking of that… Zathura? The…
Daniel 15:39
That’s it.
Tabitha 15:40
Yes, yeah.
Simone 15:40
‘Cause because there was an actual Jumanji sequel with the Rock and Jack Black and Kevin Hart and Karen Gilliam.
Tabitha 15:49
Oh, but wasn’t that a remake?
Simone 15:51
I think it was like an offshoot. I didn’t see it.
Tabitha 15:53
I didn’t see it.
Simone 15:53
It’s like a different concept because the kids like embody the the bodies of these adult actors. So —
Jane 16:00
I was thinking, if this Doom game does come to life, what kinds of things do I need to be prepared to be fighting against? Because I don’t know anything about this Doom video game.
Daniel 16:08
I didn’t know we were playing, so.
Jane 16:10
No, I don’t know what you guys are talking about.
Tabitha 16:12
Oh, well, while you’re gonna need a chainsaw and a gun called the BFG.
Jane 16:17
Alright.
Tabitha 16:18
I totally forgot about that movie, the Jumanji movie that just came out. I was really thinking of Zathura, which is basically the same movie except in space, which for some reason is what I thought you meant when you said sequel.
Daniel 16:31
Isn’t it? That was exactly what I was talking about.
Tabitha 16:33
Oh, wait, good, well, great. That’s what I was talking about. I thought it was the Bridge to Terabithia. And then I read the book that I was not wholly prepared for.
Simone 16:41
Bridge to Terabithia. I mean, no spoilers here for books most folks in America read in the eighth grade. Most folks were SUBJECTED to in America in the eighth grade. Because it wrecked me. And I don’t recommend it.
Jane 16:56
There is also a Bridge to Terabithia movie, also terribly painful.
Tabitha 17:02
I wonder if maybe they came out at the same time, the movies came out at the same time, which is why I got my wires crossed about it. Not prepared.
Tabitha 17:10
Anyway, let’s —
Simone 17:11
Anyway, so we’re gonna have our we will have had our Doom stream, which takes place of our Hellraiser movie night. This one’s going to be a little bit more interactive.
Daniel 17:24
We’ve also get if you have not joined our Discord yet. First of all, you should, it’s good times. Second of all, we will be doing an extra stream coming up. Specifically, not just for Patreon backers. But for everybody on the Discord just to help you get a little bit of motivation to get in there if you haven’t. I don’t think we’re ready to be quite specific about that. But what else out within the next couple of days. Also, if you’re a Patreon backer, you get to decide what the show is about. We’re having this episode right now, because our Patreon backers voted for it. On our last backer poll, the last episode was far and away the most popular out of the options. And also that Names of the Devil episode Simone mention is coming up next, specifically, because that was also very popular on the poll. And in fact, we’ve got a few more episodes planned based on those results as well.
Tabitha 18:08
Yeah.
Simone 18:09
Yeah.
Daniel 18:11
And also, we have one very specific one time only Patreon goal that is on the horizon. Simone?
Simone 18:19
It’s, you know, it’s a celebratory thing for when we cross over that $666 threshold. It was a joke that I think came out of the The Omen episode that we did, but I said I would get a 666 tattoo on my scalp. And I’m facing this as a reality. I actually don’t — I’m actually kind of excited. Like, I already have a ton of tattoos. So I clearly like getting them. I warned my hairstylist that this will be happening, so don’t be surprised when I have a small shaved patch the next time you hear me and so the next step after that is a actually talking to my tattoo artist. So like Daniel said, it’s a one time only thing to celebrate, you know, our Mark of the Beast Club members and other Patreon backers pushing us over the number of the beast. Okay, now we will… Okay, we’re, we’re…
Tabitha 19:15
… Pox is literally pushing a box.
Simone 19:21
We’re taping at my house this time which, you know — no, no, Jesse this week. So we have a little bit of a difference in sound quality. But we also have a kitten running around being —
Tabitha 19:35
Totally bonkers.
Simone 19:36
Yeah.
Jane 19:36
And adorable.
Simone 19:38
And adorable. But I do, we do actually have to stop the show like every five minutes to take something away from her. So now I guess it’s a box. Pox has a box.
Daniel 19:47
Simone still breaking in the new familiar.
Tabitha 19:48
Including a box that I literally hid behind Jane because she was starting to bite it and then she dragged it out and dragged it across the wall.
Daniel 19:58
Weren’t there crackers in that box?
Tabitha 20:00
They’re still crackers on the box. Yes.
Simone 20:02
How are there crackers in the box?
Tabitha 20:03
Yeah, it’s a cracker box.
Simone 20:05
Okay, we’re gonna take a break. I’m going to take things away from Pox and we’re going to come back with the news.
NEWS
Tabitha 20:24
Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee doo!
Simone 20:28
Those doots mean it’s time for the news. And this time we’re reading from Wired, by Adam Rogers. The title is “Heartbeat bill gets the science of fetal heartbeats all wrong.”
Simone 20:43
“Last week, Georgia governor Brian Kemp, the narrow winner over Stacey Abrams, in a contentious sketchy election last year, signed into law a ban on abortions after more than six weeks of pregnancy. That made Georgia the sixth state to institute such a ban and the fourth this year, Ohio’s elected officials put theirs in place in April, with seven more states kicking around the idea.” And just side note, as the time of this recording, Alabama went through with theirs as well.
Simone 21:12
“The political aim of so-called heartbeat bills is pretty clear. Some Americans would like to ban abortion altogether. But the Supreme Court says it’s unconstitutional. So they advocate for increasingly draconian laws that walk up to that line. Less straightforward, though, is the science. What the bill is called a heartbeat, it’s not that. These bills generally say that a quote unquote fetal heartbeat helps predict whether a pregnancy will result in a living baby. The model legislation many states use refers to that fetal cardiac activity as a marker of quote, an unborn human individual, unquote, defining a moment where a liveliness starts. And yes, it’s true that detection of cardiac rhythm is a marker for the health of a pregnancy and a good sign that it’ll continue. That is, if everything works out, it’ll result in the birth of a living baby. From there, the issue is what that heartbeat actually is. Quote, at six weeks, the embryo is forming what will eventually develop into a mature system. There’s an immature neurological system, and there’s a very immature cardiovascular system, says Jennifer Kearns, an OB GYN at UC San Francisco and a director of research in obstetrics and gynecology at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.” Also, side note, still weird for me to read that…
Tabitha 22:28
Always will be weird.
Simone 22:29
“The rhythm specified in the six week abortion ban she says quote, is a group of cells with electrical activity. That’s what the heartbeat is at that state of gestation. We are in no way talking about any kind of cardiovascular system. science doesn’t seem to be a strong point of many states anti abortion bills. You might have read about an additional bill Ohio is considering that would ban most birth control and require the surgical reimplantation of ectopic pregnancies, a dangerous to the mother condition in which an embryo implants somewhere other than the uterus. That’s not something scientists know how to do. Quote, no, just never I mean, never, never ever current says ectopic pregnancies are medical emergencies. And indeed, courts have largely judged six weeks to be an unreasonably early time for pregnant people to realize that they’re pregnant and get an abortion. None of the state laws banning abortion at six weeks are in effect. Some are too new, some are overturned by courts and some are under legal challenge. This kind of slippery language and shoddy science has consequences. Even if it wasn’t an attempt to put a veneer of scientific finality over a difficult ethical question, it still open up the possibility of serious health risks to pregnant women. Some of the legislation under consideration doesn’t acknowledge the possibility of a miscarriage after detection of fetal cardiac activity, meaning women who do miscarry could be subject to prosecution, which could deter them from seeking necessary prenatal merit medical care, quote, We absolutely know that when you ban abortion, maternal mortality increases current says, But in addition, it marginalizes poor women and women of color, who are often the ones who can’t then access abortion across state lines, who can’t take days off of work, organize childcare, and have the finances. It just exacerbates was already in an equitable system. But the confirmation of Trump’s nominee Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court tipped the balance of that court toward the right, abortion opponents see the possibility that that new lineup would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion in the United States if the right case came before it. Aggressive bans like heartbeat bills or any of the other 300 anti abortion laws passed in the first quarter of 2019 could be it. Fetal cardiac activity is usefulness as a diagnostic marker might turn out to be less important than the powerful noise it can make in Washington.”
Tabitha 24:57
Well, I’m depressed.
Simone 25:01
Our news section does tend to be a little bit of a bummer. But you know, like last time, we can at least make fun of the people who didn’t like the mural in Florida. This is not like that.
Daniel 25:14
I’m gonna try to get some happy Satan news next time. Just going to put that out there. I’ll do my best.
Simone 25:20
Satanic puppies and kittens. Maybe.
Tabitha 25:23
Yes, please.
Simone 25:24
But, you know, we have talked about reproductive rights on this show, in various contexts, the, you know, the most. The one that we did the most in was actually our interview with Lucian Greaves, which I believe was Episode 13?
Daniel 25:40
Mm-hmm.
Simone 25:41
I got a number, right, hey! And this just goes against so many Satanic beliefs, especially for those in the Satanic Temple. The Satanic Temple, specifically, the third tenet, of course, is about one’s bodily autonomy. And we also have a tenet about, you know, believing in the best scientific knowledge, you know, going off the best scientific information that we have on hand at the time. These abortion bills are stomping all over both of those. But of course, if you’re not a follower of TST, and you’re just a believer in personal autonomy, and you know, the the right to do with your body as you will and just believe in general human rights and the rights of, you know, all people. Yeah, this is bad on all fronts.
Tabitha 26:33
Yeah, this is pretty much the worst. I — in fact, just the idea of this kind of just hating people that can get pregnant so fucking much, is baffling.
Simone 26:47
And some of the politicians, I believe, some of the folks in Ohio, the the same folks who think that you can just magically re-implant an ectopic pregnancy, which — that is science fiction, fellas. Also, you know, someone asked about what happens if someone’s us doing in vitro fertilization, and there are fertilized eggs in you know, a petri dish, do those then also take on the same rights as the ones, as the rights that these people are trying to give to fetuses? And the politician in this conversation was basically like, “Oh, no, well, they’re not you know, they’re not inside of a woman, a woman isn’t pregnant. So it’s not the same thing.”
Simone 27:28
Which so it’s, you know, they’re saying the quiet part out loud, that it’s all about pregnant women and has fucking nothing to do with the actual quote unquote, babies or the things that will become babies.
Tabitha 27:42
Right. It’s just, it’s just powerplay. That’s all it is.
Jane 27:45
Don’t forget to vote, people.
Tabitha 27:46
Yeah, no shit.
Jane 27:47
And get involved in your local elections. This is a really good lesson about making sure that you’re involved.
Daniel 27:54
A couple notes that I want to make more on this topic. One being this is about this was sort of written in response to the Georgia bill. The Alabama abortion ban is far more aggressive. That’s a straight ban on all abortions across the board, far more aggressive than anything they’ve ever tried before. And that’s the one that has provoked the most profound emotional response for most people, justifiably so. I wanted to bring this up, this fetal heartbeat bill, which is a six week ban, which is bad enough specifically to point out that they call it a heartbeat bill, but the fetus does not have a heart at six weeks. So that right there should clue you in about the game that people are playing here. I also want to bring up the fact that we should point out that it’s not just women who can get pregnant, trans men often need access to the same kinds of reproductive health care.
Simone 28:37
Non-binary folk.
Daniel 28:38
Yeah, so non-binary folk, however, for the most part, women tend to dominate this conversation, because I don’t think the people writing six week abortion bans are even aware of the trans men and non binary people exist. Certainly they never seem to acknowledge it.
Tabitha 28:50
Well, I think if they do, they probably just want to send them to the moon instead, you know, or some other awful, awful thing that I don’t want to think about.
Daniel 28:57
Yeah, I think the John Beckers of the world are fucking over trans men by accident, but if they were aware of it, I don’t think they would care. I also want to bring up this point that John Becker is the Ohio politician who we mentioned there who wrote the mysterious ectopic pregnancy clause in his ridiculous bill, and who also wants to make it very difficult to get contraception even though contraception is the easiest way to prevent abortion. But that’s the point, is it’s not really about abortion. It’s not about fetuses. It’s not about babies, it’s about asserting as much control over people’s bodies as possible. There’s — we talk about the fallacy of the slippery slope, the idea that people will make these weak arguments saying, “Oh, if you do this the next thing you know this is going to be happening.” You know, if we let gay people get married, next people will be marrying toasters, or whatever the fuck stupid shit Glenn Beck said.
Daniel 29:45
Um, the problem is, that’s a dumb argument. That’s a fallacy. However, it’s only a slippery slope argument if A does not actually lead to B. Here we see that partial abortion bans DO lead to stricter abortion bans, and strict abortion bans do lead to attacks on contraception and to basic reproductive care and to any degree of control that people want to assert over their own basic health and bodies and reproductive cycles. And so that’s what it’s all about. There’s a bill in Texas that would make it possible to prosecute women criminally for murder, up to and including the death penalty, if they get an abortion. Now that bill is not going to pass in the current Texas Legislature. But the fact is, people are introducing it because they’re thinking about 10 years down the line, 20 years down the line, if they win these fights, that’s where they’re going to next. They’re not shy about this. They’re telegraphing it, they’re telling us right out loud exactly what they want to do. So.
Simone 30:42
So this is less of a slippery slope argument to me than it is the “raptors testing the fences,” because, you know, in Jurassic Park, they talk about the raptors, they’re testing the fences, they throw themselves against the electric fence to try and, you know, find the weak spots or find where they can finally break through. And to put it in this context, it’s them trying to find how they can get Roe v. Wade, again, in front of the Supreme Court. Again, you know, which one, which one of these cases is going to finally break through and get in front of Supreme Court, the Supreme Court that has now been designed to overturn.
Tabitha 31:22
I have slightly, I have a little bit of good news, Washington State just approved a bill that says that if you offer maternity leave on your insurance, then you also have to offer abortions, insured abortions. Which I think is great.
Daniel 31:41
That is good news.
Tabitha 31:42
So yeah, I everything’s awful and and super shit ball crazy. I mean, not good right now, but tiny bit of solace. Yeah, thank you, Washington.
Simone 31:53
Seattle’s cool. We’ve been there.
Tabitha 31:54
Yeah, it’s nice.
Simone 31:55
We got some cool Satanists up in Seattle as well.
Daniel 31:58
I will also say like, you know, don’t let this this blitzkrieg that they’re doing fool you. Everything is not shitty. In most states, abortion access, although it has been chipped away the last couple of decades, is much more robust than these states that we’re talking about here. And even in the state, like for example, this this, you know, six week abortion ban, total abortion ban is not in effect yet. And it is going into the courts and odds are the courts are going to back it down. Abortion is still 100% legal in all 50 states. It’s a constitutional right as enshrined by over 45 years of firmly established constitutional law. Don’t let them fool you into thinking that they’ve got you in the shackles already. They don’t. Nevertheless, we do still need to be as vigilant as ever because — I was going to compare it to an escalator. But I think Simone’s raptors attacking the fences: first of all, cooler. Second, yes a much better analogy.
Simone 32:49
And also, you know, I don’t, you know, even though the majority of states do still have these rights enshrined and protected. We can’t just abandon the states where it is being attacked.
Tabitha 33:01
Oh, absolutely not.
Simone 33:02
You know, some people say, “Oh, well, why don’t you just leave the state and go get an abortion there and go home?” First of all, a lot of people can’t do that. Second of all, some places like Georgia, they still you know, they have a clause in their law that says if you are found out to have gone to another state to get an abortion, you will be charged with what was it, accessory to murder?
Daniel 33:27
Conspiracy.
Simone 33:28
Conspiracy. So —
Tabitha 33:30
Which means that they’re saying that people who can get pregnant are a property of the state.
Simone 33:36
Yeah. And of course, should this go to any sort of federal level, then we’re all fucked. So we have to protect the states that this is happening in.
Jane 33:48
And just don’t forget that there is also a strong resistance going on. If you’re feeling hopeless, or worried about abortion rights, get involved at the local level, or get involved at the national level, there will be something you can do to help and then we’ll defeat this whole thing and you’ll feel a lot better.
Simone 34:06
One last quick note that was brought up by our friend the Tooth Fairy. She just wanted to remind everybody that if you’re going to donate monetary funds to a national organization, it is very important to earmark your donations, so that they are specifically attributed to the places you want them to go. Or just go ahead and do some research and donate on a more local level so that you can be more sure that it will reach the people you want it to reach.
Tabitha 34:39
Well, that was a fucking bummer.
Simone 34:40
And on that note, let’s go ahead, take a break and we’ll come back with our discussion of Lilith: one of the representations of the Satanic feminine as you might put it.
MAIN TOPIC
Simone 35:56
Unfortunately, the Satan myth has long been a man’s game. But there’s at least one feminist folktale that refuses to lie down and let just one gender have the devil all to itself. So who is Lilith? And how did her name become synonymous with feminism, Satanism, and other things that go bump in the night for religious chauvinists, past, present, and future?
Simone 36:19
So yeah, this is our discussion about the, the figure of Lilith, some of the different incarnations. Lilith seems to be pretty present in Satanic culture, if not discussion. We know a lot of people who have chosen the name Lilith as their adopted Satanic name. And also just, you know, want to go ahead and make the disclaimer that the language used around her uses the pronouns, you know, of she and her, she’s portrayed as feminine. But again, this is kind of like an energy that can be relatable to people across spectrums of identity. So, you know, we’re going to use those — that, that kind of language, but understanding that, you know, it encompasses more than just that. So before embarking on our Lilith journey…
Daniel 37:17
Lilith Fair?
Tabitha 37:19
Oh, come on.
Simone 37:23
I knew there was gonna be Lilith Fair jokes. I mean, the title of this show is Lilith Fare, F-A-R-E. But you got me with that one. Anyway, before we actually started looking into it, from like an academic and research perspective, what was everyone’s perception or conception of the figure of Lilith? Daniel, let’s start with you.
Daniel 37:46
Let’s see. I don’t quite remember if this actually was the first time I heard the story. But the earliest exposure to the myth that I think I have is from the 90s comic, the Sandman, where there is an issue in which Eve relates the story of Adams three wives, one of whom is Lilith. I swear, I must have heard it somewhere before then, because it seemed familiar at the time, but I couldn’t place my finger on a specific source. And I would guess that a fair number of people probably also first ran into the mythology that exact same way. By the way, if you’ve never read that comic, I’m probably the first person to bring it up. But go check it out.
Simone 38:24
Sandman, like, was transformative for me.
Tabitha 38:27
Same.
Simone 38:28
In high school. I’ve been Death a couple of times for Halloween.
Tabitha 38:32
I mean, it’s an easy costume.
Simone 38:33
I know, right?
Tabitha 38:35
Just gotta be able to do your makeup all right. I actually have the same — actually. No, I’m trying to think. I think the first time I ever heard of Lilith was like, in conjunction with like the Lilith Fair. And I feel like the first time I heard of that was because of Hedwig, because there’s that part where there at like the little mini stage at the Lilith Fair. And I feel — and I think I saw Hedwig before I read the Sandman. So I think that’s my very first exposure. Although not to — that isn’t to say that I knew anything about what Lilith meant. But is the first time I heard the name and that it was seen as a very feminine sort of figure. But yeah, my first, the first time I ever heard the story was also Sandman.
Simone 39:20
Jane, what about you?
Jane 39:21
So um, in the late 90s, I was a person who was deeply practicing a lot of pagan magic. And I knew about this book, The Book of Lilith by Barbara Black, which I chose from the bookstore just because I recognized Lilith from Lilith Fair.
Tabitha 39:40
Oh, that’s funny.
Jane 39:41
That’s really the only thing I knew about it.
Simone 39:43
And so we really have Sarah McLaughlin to thank for a lot of…
Jane 39:45
Yeah, pretty much. So I get this book, Barbara Black, it’s very long. It’s a great mythological research and exploration and I read it a bunch of times and I really loved it and it’s been really influential on me ever since.
Simone 40:02
I, I don’t have anything concrete to point to about my first exposure to the story of Lilith. I was, I was the president of Celtic Club in high school. And I, we, we liked to pass our time making jokes about Beltane and, you know, whispering dirty mythologies to each other. And I think that’s probably where I heard some of it because, you know, there’s the, the story that Lilith rebelled or left Adam, left Eden, because she refused to be on on the bottom during sex.
Tabitha 40:42
Yeah, subservient.
Simone 40:42
Yeah, that she insisted on being on top. And of course, when you’re in high school that is quite scandalous and intriguing —
Tabitha 40:50
And hilarious.
Simone 40:50
And hilarious. So yeah, just the the giggly stories about this mythology, also, because, you know, when you’re first discovering sex, you kind of feel like you’re the first person to do so. And so it sort of blows your mind a little bit to think that people in olden days had sex and —
Tabitha 41:12
And they — yeah, they weren’t just doing like missionary, like boring-ass missionary.
Daniel 41:16
Yeah. Like, yeah, not only were they having sex, they were arguing about positions.
Simone 41:19
Yeah. Blows your 15-year-old mind.
Jane 41:23
I have to say that 15-year-old me, part of what happened was I read the book. I was really obsessed with it. And then I would try to tell other people around me and I constantly was running into these old people who thought I was making the whole thing up and really not believe that that story ever existed at all.
Simone 41:39
Oh, no.
Tabitha 41:41
Like, “Okay, Jane, whatever you say.”
Jane 41:43
Also before Google; couldn’t just tell them to go look it up.
Tabitha 41:46
Right?
Daniel 41:47
Oh, you know, that reminds me. Actually, as soon as Jane said the phrase “Book of Lilith” — I did remember where I’d heard of Lilith before the Sandman. If anybody out there played Vampire the Masquerade in the 90s, you’ll remember that Lilith is a really obscure, opaque figure in the mythology of that game. And her role is like never really that clear. There’s the implication that she was really instrumental in the vampire Genesis story, and kind of got shafted and put out to pasture and left out of that history. And so they’re just kind of references to her around, but it was concrete enough that I heard that story about her getting booted out of Eden for being a little too in touch with her needs.
Tabitha 42:25
Being too cool for the room.
Daniel 42:27
That’s a good way to put it. Yes.
Simone 42:30
I also have like a super-cool reference. You know, I am in the midst of a Frasier rewatch. That show is fucking hilarious. I don’t care.
Jane 42:43
Completely forgot about this.
Simone 42:45
That his wife is named Lilith. And she’s portrayed as a very severe, like, you know, a very feminist but very severe. You could like you know, from in sitcom parlance, she’s a ballbuster. But her name is Lilith. Fraiser’s ex-wife is named Lilith.
Tabitha 43:04
So funny. I forgot about that.
Simone 43:06
Yeah. Bebe Neuwirth, who is fantastic. But yeah, so so we hear the name a lot in culture, mostly associated with like, generally like a strong, you know, untameable woman or feminine figure. Yep. Even down to Cheers spin off sitcoms.
Daniel 43:28
So we want to get started with the, with the serious shit here? Okay. And I want to say my number one most valuable resource for putting the show together is an essay called “Lilith, Lady Flying in Darkness,” which was written by Rabbi Jill Hammer, which, by the way, an excellent name for both a rabbi and a punk band. So it’s very versatile. This is a spectacular essay because it is accessible and well informed and relatable and eloquent. And most importantly, she cites her primary sources in the text. Nobody on the internet does that. I was blown away. I almost sent her a thank you email just for that. I might do it.
Daniel 44:06
Here is some of what Rabbi Hammer has to say about this quote, “Lilith is the most notorious demon in Jewish tradition. In some sources she is conceived of as the original woman created even before Eve, and she is often presented as a thief of newborn infants. Lilith means the night and she embodies the emotional and spiritual aspects of darkness, terror, sensuality and unbridled freedom. More recently, she has come to represent the freedom of feminist women who no longer want to be quote, good girls.” So that’s a good primer, I feel, and then we get into kind of…
Tabitha 44:39
I’m kind of in the “fuck yeah” school of things here.
Daniel 44:43
We can even wrap up the show right there almost that kind of says it all. But I do find it interesting that, as we talked about when we did our Satan in the Bible, Episode 33. Jewish mythology and theology doesn’t have a very well defined concept of the devil, they don’t really have a Satan as we think of him, but they do have a lot of demonology and angelology; a lot of it is really weird, deep granular shit. And doing the show was actually the first time I dug into a lot of that and I am —
Simone 45:13
That sounds fun as shit.
Daniel 45:14
Yeah, I’m surprised and confused. Also, I don’t know what to make out of a lot of it. But I am a little gratified to hear that Lilith apparently has a very prominent place in that practice, according to the rabbi here.
Simone 45:26
So I mean, that is a mwuah! Fantastic overall description. But let’s get into a few more specific examples. And so we have here a citation of well, Sumerian myth. Jane, do you want to read this one?
Jane 45:44
“The story of Lilith originated in the ancient Near East, where a wilderness spirit known as the “dark maid” appears in the Sumerian myth ‘The Descent of Inanna’ (circa 3,000 BCE). Another reference appears in a tablet from the seventh century BCE found at Arslan Tash, Syria which contains the inscription: “O flyer in a dark chamber, go away at once, O Lili!” Lilith later made her way into Israelite tradition, possibly even into the Bible. Isaiah 34:14, describing an inhospitable wilderness, tells us: “There goat-demons shall greet each other, and there the lilit shall find rest.” Some believe this word “lilit” is a reference to a night owl, and others say it is indeed a reference to the demon Lilith.”
Simone 46:33
I just like that because you know, first of all, you know how we feel about goats. So goat demons, rad.
Tabitha 46:39
Super rad.
Simone 46:40
Owls, also rad, and if they’re a Lilith-type demon or feminine demon in the form of an owl, super rad.
Tabitha 46:49
Super duper rad.
Jane 46:49
I also have to say that “goat demons shall greet each other and there the lilit shall find rest” needs to be the message on our next really good party invitation.
Simone 47:00
RSVP!
Tabitha 47:02
Yes. When I listen to the stuff that we’re going to cover? Well, when I read it — I tend to make an audio file of like somebody, you know, like I dumped the text into one of those websites that will just change it into someone speaking, because I like digest it better when I can hear it and also read along — at this point where it said Isaiah 34:14, the website that I use said “Isaiah 34 hours, 14 minutes.” And I was like, whuuu?
Simone 47:14
Sounds like an episode of 24.
Tabitha 47:28
Exactly.
Daniel 47:32
So I want to bring up that Isaiah passage there. When I read the fucking Bible, it didn’t say anything about goat demons and lilets, I felt kind of cheated. But this is an interesting point, you’ll hear people wrangle about translations of the Bible a lot. And at first, it just seems like horseshit. I mean, who cares? It all should say basically the same thing, right? Until you actually sit down and compare different passages and realize, no, this shit is all over the board.
Daniel 47:56
For example, if you open up your King James Bible, Isaiah 34:14 says, quote, “The wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow, the screech owl also shall rest there and find herself a place of rest.” So pretty close, kind of close to what we just heard.
Tabitha 48:14
Right.
Daniel 48:14
But a radically different interpretation. And I also want to bring up if you go to the New International Version, which I guess is the most commonly cited one these days, that passage just says, quote, “Desert creatures will meet with hyenas and wild goats will bleat to each other. There, the night creatures will also lie down and find for themselves places of rest.” So now we’re really far away from that original Hebrew text. And Lilith has long since left the picture. And so I want to bring that up, because we’re going to be going through some primary sources here. And we’re going to be working on just the most readily available English translations, which I tried to vet as best I could. But you have to remember, there’s an awful lot of give and take in these things. And there’s an awful lot of interprolation, even from a good translation and a good translator. And there’s never really any such thing as a perfect one to one movement from one language to another anyway, so we’re going to do our best but I at least wanted to raise this point here about how again, scripture changes radically over the centuries also, apparently it gets more metal the further back you go. Who knew?
Simone 49:17
I’ve just said you know, it’s so funny how it’s just the, the simple word choices, you know, from from goat demon to beast to something specific like a hyena. I mean, word choice really makes such a huge difference, because in that last quote, I’m picturing something kind of Lion King with hyenas, and then the goats? Whereas the you know, the first one the, the Sumerian myth with the goat demons, I’m definitely picturing something a bit more metal. So.
Simone 49:47
The next source that we have is the Epic of Gilgamesh, which I think I read when I was taking a history class my freshman year of college. It’s a, you know, one of those pretty commonly known, quote unquote first myths, where you can trace a lot of the common events or characters that come in myths for from later cultures. You know, it’s it, it has a flood myth. So, you know, you can see where maybe some other books might have gotten that idea.
Simone 50:21
But in reference to Lilith, there’s this passage here that says, “A huluppa tree, which had been planted on the bank of the Euphrates and nourished by its waters, was uprooted by the south wind and carried away by the Euphrates. The goddess who is wandering along the banks seized the swaying tree, and brought it to Inanna’s garden and attended the tree carefully and lovingly. She hoped to have a throne and a bed made for herself from its wood. After 10 years, the tree had matured,” — I guess to a god 10 years is not a long time.
Tabitha 50:54
Nope.
Daniel 50:54
Yeah, by the way, for context, Inanna is a fertility goddess.
Tabitha 50:58
Okay.
Simone 50:59
“But in the meantime, she found to her dismay that her hopes could not be fulfilled. Because during that time, a dragon had built its nest at the foot of the tree. The zu-bird was raising its young in the crown, and the demon Lilith had built her house in the middle.” Those are some cool neighbors. Like I want to go to that block party.
Tabitha 51:18
Yeah, no shit.
Simone 51:19
With Lilith and a fuckin dragon, shit. I don’t know why Inanna was so bummed.
Daniel 51:25
Yeah, I’m picturing this is kind of like that scene in Snow White with a little woodland creature is accepting so a little woodland creatures, his dragons and fucking demons.
Tabitha 51:33
And she’s like, “Ah-ah-aaa!” they’re like “rah rah rah rahhhh!”
Daniel 51:37
Also I think Inanna needs to keep a closer eye on her garden if all this shit went down., and apparently she didn’t even notice.
Tabitha 51:42
Right.
Simone 51:42
Well I mean, like we said, you know, 10 years to a goddess is not a long time. She probably was just like, oh, I’ll have a nap. And then she wakes up and she’s got a demon living her future bed. Why don’t you take the next little bit here?
Tabitha 51:56
About Gilgamesh?
Simone 51:58
Mm-hmm.
Tabitha 51:58
“But Gilgamesh, who had heard of Inanna’s plight, came to her rescue. He took his heavy shield, killed the dragon with his gigantic bronze axe, which weighed seven talents and seven minas,” which is, I totally —
Simone 52:15
I guess is a unit of measure in Gilgamesh times?
Tabitha 52:18
How many talents is that?
Simone 52:21
One “America’s Got Talent.”
Tabitha 52:24
And two “Midas car repairs.”
Jane 52:31
How much tap dancing is it?
Daniel 52:33
I was trying to —
Tabitha 52:34
16 and a half tap dancing.
Daniel 52:37
I’m was trying to force a Tolkien joke out of that, but yours is better.
Tabitha 52:41
No Tolkien! We only talk about Darmok and Jalad in this house.
Daniel 52:45
I knew it, I knew you would — yes.
Tabitha 52:49
Anyway.
Jane 52:50
Simone doesn’t know what Darmok and Jalad is.
Tabitha 52:52
Star Trek.
Simone 52:54
Oh.
Tabitha 52:56
Anyway, back to Gilgamesh. “Then the zu-bird flew into the mountains with its young” — later, zu-bird. “And while Lilith petrified with fear, tore down her house and fled into the wilderness.”
Simone 53:10
She had time to like do a whole demolition before taking off, like, she didn’t just leave it?
Tabitha 53:15
I guess. Maybe it takes a long time, maybe seven talents and seven minas takes a long time.
Daniel 53:21
I mean, she’s a demon. Maybe she can just fuck up houses like there’s — that’s the interesting thing about this is, there’s no context on who Lilith is or why this is significant. Obviously, the audience is assumed to know this reference, but we don’t know. So who is Lilith in this context, other than the fact that she’s scary and has a house in the middle?
Jane 53:37
Lilith can handle Gilgamesh, that is the lesson.
Simone 53:40
No, she seemed kind of scared of him. But, but you’re right. Like, you know, while later we might have some references to who she is in context, or in comparison with the Adam character. Here, not a lot is like said about her. Like we know she’s a demon. She built her house inside of a tree. If we go back to the earlier citation from the Sumerian myth, she’s some sort of night beast. Maybe an owl. But that’s it. Like we don’t know what she’s about. We don’t know what she’s into. What kind of music does she like? We don’t know.
Daniel 54:13
See, it’s really interesting —
Tabitha 54:14
Sarah McLachlan.
Simone 54:19
More of like maybe a Jewel person? Ani DeFranco?
Daniel 54:24
I can’t even get mad because I started this.
Tabitha 54:26
Um, you did.
Daniel 54:28
I find this, looking at reading this particular myth without thinking about any of the other sources. I find it interesting because Lilith these days is very often associated with various witchcraft practices. Reading this story, I picture her as a kind of Baba Yaga figure, some kind of like, weird, freaky dwelling-in-a-hut creature out there in the wilderness.
Simone 54:47
Yeah, something maybe something more animalistic.
Jane 54:50
Yeah, the thing with her being living in the middle of a tree reinforces her association with owls.
Tabitha 54:56
Yeah, that makes you think of an owl as well.
Daniel 54:58
Oh, you’re right.
Tabitha 54:59
An owl demon. I’m a big fan of those by the way.
Simone 55:02
If anyone is into true crime I highly recommend the documentary The Staircase so we could talk about the owl theory later. Spoiler alert, his wife was NOT murdered by an owl.
Daniel 55:15
Jane, you want to take the next person’s — you want to talk the Babylonian stuff?
Jane 55:18
From the Jewish Virtual Library. “Babylonian demonology identifies similar male and female male and female spirits – Lilu and Lilitu respectively – which are etymologically unrelated to the Hebrew word laylah (“night”). These mazikim (“harmful spirits”) –“
Simone 55:37
Oh, wait speaking of Sandman.
Jane 55:40
“– Have various roles: one of them preys on males, while others imperil women in childbirth and their children. Winged female demons who strangle children are known from a Hebrew or Canaanite inscription found at in northern Syria and dating from about the seventh or eighth century B.C.E.” That is SO long ago.
Simone 56:04
So that sort of sounds like incubus and succubus, no?
Jane 56:09
Right? Definitely. Yeah. Well, one of the things I know from my anthropology studies is that a lot of nomadic cultures or very ancient cultures have really high infant mortality rates. And so it would have been really common. All of us, if we were living at that time, we would know women who have lost children or who died in childbirth, it would be a really common problem and something that people dealt with all the time and it’s not really something we can relate to in the same way, which is kind of why Lilith is very interesting for us. When we are fighting for reproductive rights. We can all remember that fighting for reproductive rights isn’t just the fight for abortion. It’s the fight for control over our bodies and empowerment for ourselves and our bodies.
Tabitha 56:52
Hmm.
Daniel 56:53
Yeah, one note here, as Simone pointed out there you may have noticed that word for harmful spirits “mazikim,” I know some of our listeners are fans of the show Lucifer. No, that’s not a coincidence. That’s totally where the name comes from. So now you know.
Simone 57:08
So looking at this a second quotation here, has to go with what, what Jane was saying. “In sources dating from earlier centuries, traditions concerning the female demon who endangers women in childbirth and who assumes many guises and names are distinct from the explicit tradition on Lilith recorded in the Talmud. A man sleeping in a house alone may be seized by Lilith [from the Babylonian Talmud: ‘It is forbidden for a man to sleep alone in a house, lest Lilith get hold of him.’]” Which is interesting.
Tabitha 57:41
I mean, if there’s consent there, then I don’t see the fucking problem.
Jane 57:46
Okay, like, from the from the book, The Book of Lilith. And it’s also pretty obvious this is these are references to like wet dreams and masturbation. That’s really what this is about. Yeah. Apparently, people living at this time were really, really scared about the horrible fate of if you had a sex dream. And then you dirtied up your sheets or whatever.
Tabitha 58:07
Well, you can’t waste it.
Simone 58:08
Yeah.
Simone 58:10
You know, there’s, there’s all these myths that spring up from people who, you know, the incubus, succubus, whatever. There’s people who say that they feel like the demon is sitting on their chest. And, you know, we know now that this really has to do with sleep paralysis, you know, when you, your body is in a sleep state, and is basically paralyzed, but you are conscious, you wake up, but you no longer have control over your body. And before, you know, we had MRI magic machines, people just assume that naturally it meant a demon was sitting on your chest. And if you combine that with “Oh, I had a little accident in my sheets…”
Tabitha 58:49
A late night emission.
Simone 58:51
Yeah, then it’s a demon who sitting on your chest and doing stuff with you.
Jane 58:56
Either a really good dream or a bad dream.
Daniel 59:00
I mean, the succubus tradition that was that was largely a medieval development, because on the one hand, people believed that having an elicit orgasm in your sleep was a sin. But on the other hand, it’s not really something that you can do anything about. So they had to find some scapegoats to shunt that onto this idea that why would these pious holy people be having these sinful nighttime excursions? Oh, well, it must be not just a demon, but specifically a feminine demon, specifically some sort of evil, sexualized woman figure who comes to you in the night against your consent, because, of course, right that’s, you know, what else?
Jane 59:34
So much drama, because apparently, this is such a horrible problem.
Tabitha 59:38
Right?
Simone 59:38
Alright. So from here, our research, which I mean, Daniel put together an amazing amount of research. So it looks like here is where we kind of jump into the idea of the myth of Lilith as Adam’s wife.
Daniel 59:51
Yeah, can I take this bit?
Simone 59:52
Yeah.
Daniel 59:53
So yeah, we have this this long standing tradition of night demons with vaguely similar names and somewhat similar MOs. And I gotta say, by the way, before we get here into all of this Hebrew mythology, while I was doing — the research for this episode was really fun. It was also pretty hard, especially when it came to getting translations of primary sources that will make any fucking sense to me at all. I was reminded of that episode of The Simpsons with Krusty the Klown’s dad, and he’s just is like, “Okay, this is the best I can do without learning ancient Hebrew. No, I’m not learning ancient Hebrew!” Anyway, sorry. So the story of Lilith as a wife, as the Edenic figure comes out of the Midrash, a term that I’d heard before but never actually had any clue what it is. Midrash is essentially a contemporary interpretation attached to Jewish scripture. And by contemporary I mean 300 or 500 CE because, in fact, here all that this is Faustine Sigal — awesome name by the way — the International Director of Jewish Education for the international Jewish non-profit Moishe House, explained, quote, “The purpose of Midrash is to resolve problems in the interpretation of difficult passages of the text of the Hebrew Bible, using specific Rabbinic principles, to align them with the religious and ethical values of religious teachers.” So —
Simone 1:01:08
So this is kind of like the Cliff’s Notes, or the the notes scribbled in the margins of the original texts?
Daniel 1:01:14
Kind of? It’s more like an appendix. It’s later people’s reading the scripture and trying to reconcile it by creating this commentary that explains things about its — or they feel explain things about its later rabbinic writers. And so here’s the conflict, that —
Tabitha 1:01:32
Wait. So it’s fan fiction.
Daniel 1:01:34
Kind of.
Simone 1:01:37
Full of ret cons.
Tabitha 1:01:38
Yeah.
Daniel 1:01:39
So here’s a good example. Genesis 1 here, I’m going from the KJV version, by the way, Genesis 1 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him; male and female he created them both.” Notice that here both the men and the women are created in the image of god.
Daniel 1:01:46
Genesis 2 says, “The lord god caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the lord god had taken from man, made he a woman.”
Daniel 1:02:06
So did God create men and women at the same time as Genesis 1 seems to have? Or did he create first one and then the other? I never really considered that a contradiction. I assumed that Genesis 2 was just giving us more details on what happened in the previous passage. But apparently, this really bothers some people, so much so that a prominent Rabbi around the fourth century decided to do some Midrash about it. He suggested he that God created Eve twice.
Daniel 1:02:30
Here’s the quote from the Midrash. “Initially, he created Eve when she was full of secretions and blood, and he [Adam] cast her away from him. He created Eve a second time.” Supposedly, this midrash stems from a question where a woman posed to the esteemed rabbi, why did God create Eve while Adam was asleep? She thought this was kind of illicit, it’s just as there was something wrong with the creation of women that had to be hidden from Adam. I assumed it was just so Adam didn’t freak out about losing a rib. But again, apparently I don’t think about these things the same way people did in the fourth century.
Simone 1:02:59
Yeah, I think removing a rib without anesthesia would be pretty rude.
Tabitha 1:03:05
I love the idea that, like Eve was created, and she was like, on her period, and Adams like, “Ew nasty, get her away.”
Daniel 1:03:15
You know, it’s funny, you mentioned that because one of the other translations of this that I found but didn’t use because it wasn’t quite as good. But it specifically mentioned that when Adam saw all of the components of Eve’s body, he realized how different she was from him. And that was what scared him off. Whereas this idea that she created —
Tabitha 1:03:29
“Ew, boobs!”
Daniel 1:03:32
A second creation story where she’s made out of a part of him and is therefore, therefore he relates to her more directly. I don’t think it’s very hard to read some certain conclusions into that story. So anyway, in this Midrash the first Eve is not called Lilith. She’s not called anything except occasionally called the first Eve. But it introduces this idea that there was another character —
Tabitha 1:03:52
“Secretion Eve.”
Daniel 1:03:53
Yes. And also known as just like, she —
Simone 1:03:55
That sounds like the worst holiday ever.
Daniel 1:03:59
Or the best one.
Jane 1:04:01
Or an okay one.
Daniel 1:04:07
But the key part of this myth, of this essentially Jewish folk myth about Genesis is that this first woman character doesn’t die. She’s not destroyed. She’s just sent away. She’s kind of cast out into the wilderness.
Simone 1:04:18
She goes to live on my grandpa’s farm with the dog.
Daniel 1:04:21
Yeah, basically, yeah. Which then opened up the possibility like somebody along the line must have wondered, well, whatever happened to that person? And they don’t get an answer here, but eventually we do get some speculations down the line. So weird story. Anybody ever heard this before by the way?
Simone 1:04:35
Uh, no. I was not familiar with the story.
Tabitha 1:04:38
No, I hadn’t heard this either.
Daniel 1:04:39
Yeah, I was fucking fascinated by this.
Jane 1:04:40
I think I read this one, but I don’t know if I remember it in very much detail.
Simone 1:04:44
Okay, now the next one is the one that I had heard something about. So this is the The Alphabet of Ben Sirah. So Ben Sirah is probably the first work to identify Adam’s first wife, you know, with the name Lilith. And expands on the story that is only suggested at in the Midrash. So it says, “After God created Adam, who was alone, He said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’ He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight.”
Simone 1:05:19
I guess that first Tinder date didn’t go that great. “She said, ‘I will not lie below.'” Maybe they should have met on Fetlife where they could have figured this out earlier?
Tabitha 1:05:29
Right.
Simone 1:05:30
“And he said, ‘I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.'”
Daniel 1:05:39
Whoa.
Simone 1:05:40
I know, rude.
Tabitha 1:05:42
Lilith’s not gonna fuck if you talk like that, bro.
Simone 1:05:46
Un-match! Un-match!
Daniel 1:05:46
Not if you were the last man on earth.
Jane 1:05:48
Or the first!
Simone 1:05:51
We all got there! Lilith responded, “We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.’ But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air.” Which is how I would like to get out of most bad dates.
Tabitha 1:06:07
Seriously.
Simone 1:06:07
Just fucking fly away.
Tabitha 1:06:08
Just “Peace!” Is that the ineffable way, or ineffable name? “Peace?”
Jane 1:06:12
“Peace.”
Simone 1:06:13
“Peace out motherfucker!”
Daniel 1:06:16
I was following along until the ineffable name and then they lost me. Like that was not where I expected that story to go.
Tabitha 1:06:21
Right? At least I like that it was her choice though to she didn’t get cast out or something. She was like you know what, “Fuck this,” and like took off. I like that.
Simone 1:06:31
So the the next piece of this is… Tabitha?
Tabitha 1:06:36
“Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: ‘Sovereign of the universe!’ he said, ‘the woman you gave me has run away.’ At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent three angels to bring her back. Said the Holy One to Adam, ‘If she agrees to come back, what is made is good. If not, she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day.'”
Daniel 1:07:03
Well, definitely escalated.
Tabitha 1:07:05
Yeah, no shit. “The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God’s word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, ‘We shall drown you in the sea.’ ‘Leave me!’ she said. ‘I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.’ When the angels heard Lilith’s words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: ‘Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.'”
Tabitha 1:07:51
I feel like, when is this happening? Because are we still in the garden? Like this is what I’m confused about this, they’re like infants and children like those aren’t —
Simone 1:07:58
Those don’t exist yet.
Tabitha 1:08:00
Yeah, they’re not things yet. So I don’t know what, where we’re going with this. I mean, I get it. What they’re doing with this, is just like a shitty excuse to sell shitty amulets, but…
Jane 1:08:09
It does not make sense but I have to say that once I read this when I was 14, I did write Lilith’s name all over my bed and my bedroom door.
Tabitha 1:08:16
Nice.
Daniel 1:08:17
I’m gonna say for the first act of the story I was sympathizing with Lilith quite strongly. Let me catch up to them, she says no, “I’m here to cause infants — cause sickness to children that’s my, that’s my bag.” Well it’s been like two days since you left, what have you been doing?
Tabitha 1:08:34
The, see, you is not good for —
Simone 1:08:36
She just like you know had a bad — she was trying to find herself in like a Steve Jobs kind of way, went out and did LSD in the desert, and things took a turn.
Daniel 1:08:43
Yeah, the sea was angry that day.
Tabitha 1:08:46
Anyway, so to finish this off, says, “She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels’ names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers.” Yeah, she walks over, she’s like, “Ha ha, child!” And then she’s like, “Nuts.”
Simone 1:09:10
“Aw nuts, jewelry.”
Tabitha 1:09:12
“Damn, foiled again.”
Daniel 1:09:14
I find this fascinating that this anonymous writer, picked the name Lilith on purpose, and then later decided that he had to tie that back into the long-standing mythology about crib death and death in childbirth. So he didn’t pick that name randomly. He did that on purpose. I assume some sort of subversive agenda in mind, although what I can’t quite say.
Tabitha 1:09:37
Right.
Simone 1:09:38
Well, you know, so much of religion is about alleviating one’s fears about you know, common dangers. You know, crib death is something that happens; I’m sure that happened a lot more back then. So if you had some way of protecting your child, even if it probably wasn’t actually true or didn’t work, it still felt better. So if this story tells you that if you make an amulet with an angel’s name on it or whatever, you can protect your child, well, you’re gonna do it. If nothing else, it’s not gonna hurt.
Tabitha 1:10:11
I don’t know why when I read this the first time it made me think of going to like Great America and getting your name written on a grain of sand. And like wearing it —
Simone 1:10:21
Those nameplate tattoos are — not tattoos, those nameplate necklaces that were real popular around Sex in the City. It’s like your name in gold, which — we talked about my name earlier. You have to special order that shit, it’s really annoying.
Tabitha 1:10:37
“My son is also named Bort.” So to bring that back around to the Simpsons…
Daniel 1:10:44
Deep cuts with the Simpsons references.
Simone 1:10:47
We’re gonna throw throw in some Ralphie later just for the fun of it.
Daniel 1:10:49
Who wants to finish with Hammer’s comments here?
Jane 1:10:54
Jill Hammer: “Some believe that this story is a serious attempt to explain the death of infants, while others are convinced it is a humorous tale of sexual quarrels and unsuccessful angels. The Lilith of this story confronts both Adam and God: she defies patriarchy, refuses a submissive posture,and in the end prefers to become a demon rather than live under Adam’s authority.”
Tabitha 1:11:14
I mean, I don’t blame her. Fucking power to you, lady.
Jane 1:11:16
“Notice that Lilith flees to the Sea of Reeds: the place where the Hebrews will one day go free from slavery. In this version of the Lilith story, Lilith becomes what all tyrants fear: a person who is aware she is enslaved.”
Tabitha 1:11:28
Oh, damn.
Simone 1:11:29
Deep.
Tabitha 1:11:29
That’s super deep.
Daniel 1:11:31
I also want to bring up in some of the sources that we’ll talk about in a second and then also contemporary stories that repeat this myth. We’ll see this image of Adam as this kind of hapless idiot. And if that depiction bothers you, for some reason, I want to point out you got to blame the Alphabet of Ben Sirah, which — first of all, we don’t know who the author was. Second of all, the author was almost certainly some man who had some axe to grind about something or other and nobody knows what. But that’s, uh, yeah, like like it’s it’s, it’s very consistent with the characterization that we see in this story as unexplicable as it is.
Jane 1:12:05
Also don’t be that guy and it won’t bother you.
Daniel 1:12:08
Yes, fair enough. So the next major primary source after Ben Sirah is the Zohar which is a —
Simone 1:12:15
Which is not the the thing from Big. It’s not the fortune telling machine from Big. Just so you know.
Tabitha 1:12:20
Nor is it that really bad movie. From that really bad movie.
Simone 1:12:24
Oh, the Adam Sandler “Don’t Mess With the –“? That’s Zohan.
Tabitha 1:12:27
Don’t mess with the Zohar.
Daniel 1:12:29
I mean actually, no really seriously don’t because —
Tabitha 1:12:31
Okay.
Jane 1:12:32
Nor is it a character from Ghostbusters or HP Lovecraft.
Daniel 1:12:38
Now that we’ve established everything the Zohar is NOT everything possible. Might be from Lovecraft, I don’t know. Zohar is another Midrash from the 12th century. And here is what the editors of Samson Books, who I gather have published a copy of this although I did not read that particular one, had to say about it. “The Zohar is essentially a Kabbalistic Midrash (i.e. a collection of commentaries) on the Torah (first five books of Old Testament). The Zohar is thus the most important work of Kabbalah, as it largely defines Kabbalistic beliefs. The Zohar consists of twenty-two volumes penned by Rabbi Moses de Leon around 1200 CE in Spain.” Those who can’t place the reference: Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism.
Simone 1:13:14
It’s the thing that Madonna was into for a while.
Tabitha 1:13:16
Yeah the little red thing, red fabric on your wrist or what have you.
Daniel 1:13:21
Yeah, I mean, the Kabbalah was used as the basis for most of the ceremonial magic of the Renaissance and later occult periods. And I am most familiar with it because I recently read Israel Regardie’s 700-page book about the rituals and practices of the Golden Dawn. Israel was Aleister Crowley’s personal assistant. He came along after the Golden Dawn broke up, was like kind of fascinated and intrigued and obsessed with them. And so he gathered as much firsthand info as he could and later published it, which pissed off all of the other former order members because that shit is supposed to be secret.
Tabitha 1:13:58
Right.
Daniel 1:13:59
And I found a copy of the whole thing at Rasputin for $3 in the used bin, so I bought it. 700 pages worth of ceremonial magic. It’s not a light read. I can’t say that I got a lot out of it, although there was some intriguing material, and they’re mostly talking about the significance of the Kabbalah. So even though this is a weird, obscure source, it’s got a it’s got a deep footprint, and apparently it’s got some shit to say about Lilith in here too. Quote — again, it’s still the editors of Samson Books talking about their edition.
Daniel 1:14:29
“The Zohar supports all the fundamental elements of Lilith’s legend. It holds that she was created at the same time as Adam from the dust of the earth, but whereas Adam was animated by the perfect light of god, Lilith was animated with the defective light of Samael (Lucifer). Furthermore, the Zohar states that when Adam’s body was created, a thousand defiled spirits tried to preemptively enter and animate his body, but God’s spirit descended and drove them away. God’s spirit then entered and animated the man. Apparently, the defiled spirits did succeed in preemptively animating Lilith, for the Zohar holds that she was animated to life before God descended and Adam was completed.” What kind of weird Scientology shit did we stumble into there?
Tabitha 1:15:09
I just liked the idea that they’re like, “Oh ho, look at me, I’m Lilith,” flapping her arms around like she’s a puppet.
Simone 1:15:17
Yeah, like they’re Jim Henson and she’s Big Bird.
Tabitha 1:15:20
Yes, exactly.
Daniel 1:15:22
Rabbi Moses de Leon has got some shit going on here; is like what, what animated the first man? Well, obviously the perfect light of God. What animated the first woman? Obviously 100 demons. What else could it be?
Tabitha 1:15:32
A bunch of fucking demons. Shit. It was awful.
Jane 1:15:35
Like this is the first reference we’ve literally had to Lucifer in this whole story.
Simone 1:15:39
Yep.
Daniel 1:15:40
Yeah. And in fact, you’ll notice there the name they use “Samael.” If we go back to our Satanic symbols episode, Episode 30, where we talk about the Sigil of Baphomet. These days, I think most people leave off the Samael-Lilith inscription for whatever reason, but that’s where that comes from. Those two figures are tied very closely together in Kabbalah, or so I’m told. Tabitha, you wanna take the next part?
Tabitha 1:16:02
“The Zohar relates that Lilith was an unsuitable helpmate for Adam and fled from him. Lilith desired to mate with angels.”
Simone 1:16:11
Who blames her?
Tabitha 1:16:11
Yeah get on, get it girl. “She was also the serpent who tempted Eve.” Oh!
Simone 1:16:19
You’re meeting in the ladies room in a club and you’re like, he’s no good for you?
Tabitha 1:16:21
Yeah, or you’re like pumping, pumping somebody else up.
Jane 1:16:24
Try this knowledge instead.
Tabitha 1:16:26
Yes, knowledge is delicious. “The Zohar also confirms that Lilith is the slayer of children, and that her spirit is the slaying spirit of the bitter water trial.” What’s the bitter water trial?
Daniel 1:16:39
I don’t know. I’m sorry.
Simone 1:16:40
Is this like the whole like, if she floats like a duck, then she’s a witch?
Tabitha 1:16:45
I think it’s the new challenge, the bitter water challenge.
Xavier (off mic) 1:16:48
Bitter water is a thing they use to perform abortions in the Bible.
Daniel 1:16:53
Did the audience hear that? Should we repeat that?
Tabitha 1:16:56
See? Okay, I’ve just found out that apparently the bitter water trial is actually just an abortion in the Bible.
Simone 1:17:04
TIL. Today I learned. Okay, so moving on to the next one. It’s a piece called “Samael, Lilith, and the Concept of Evil In Early Kabbalah” by Joseph Dan, for the Association for Jewish Studies in 1980.
Daniel 1:17:20
By the way, the Association for Jewish Studies is an academic journal. It doesn’t refer just to the association itself. That’s not clear from the title. So I just thought I’d put that out there.
Simone 1:17:28
All right, good. Good to know, good to be specific. So our next passage here says “Rabbi Isaac, primary author of the Zohar described Samael and Lilith as a pair. It seemed that the literary development which brought forth this formula began with the myth of Lilith as presented in the satirical pseudo-Ben Sirah. And later revisions of that work, which included a description of a sexual relationship between Lilith and a great demon, who was later identified as Samael.” Oh, yeah, the the versions of the story that I had heard in high school was that she preferred to bang demons because they got big dicks. The passage continues. “Both Lilith and Samael in these stories are not principles of evil; this transformation probably occurred only in the work of Rabbi Isaac. Isaac formulated the myth of the evil worlds which were destroyed before this world was created, a myth which became a central motif in the kabbalah.” So the earth had a first draft, like Adam’s wife had a first draft.
Jane 1:18:32
Yeah. It kind of seems like it’s related to the fact that they are taking all this mythology from the Babylonians and trying to act like it’s theirs. Yeah, if like, there is a first version, but then the second version is better because it’s ours.
Tabitha 1:18:44
Yeah.
Simone 1:18:45
It’s polished. You know, we did another draft, we tightened some things up. We got Patton Oswalt to punch up the jokes, you know.
Jane 1:18:52
High times.
Daniel 1:18:53
I have actually I had two questions. Question number one. So are we to assume from this that Samael let her be on top because I assume that that must be —
Simone 1:19:01
Well, she wouldn’t get with him otherwise.
Jane 1:19:03
I feel like demons in general, obviously have better taste in sexual positions than —
Simone 1:19:07
Demons are freaky.
Jane 1:19:08
No kidding.
Daniel 1:19:10
I feel like I feel like there’s a lesson here in not letting your insecurities get in the way of a good relationship, you know?
Simone 1:19:15
That is right!
Jane 1:19:17
It’s not just the anatomical, be a little bit more creative. You’ll be fine.
Daniel 1:19:21
I also have a question for you, Jane. I’ve never read I did not read The Book of Lilith for this. I’m curious how all of this material relates to what you were familiar with.
Jane 1:19:28
Um, let’s see. Uh, one of the things I remember most about it is the fact that that author associates Lilith with the incubus and the succubus a lot. She also talks about how Lilith is represented by snakes and fire as visual images
Simone 1:19:46
Plenty of those in the Bible.
Jane 1:19:47
Right right. I remember the mythology listed a little bit in that book, but mostly what I remember about it is the way it was relates, related to modern times. Lilith is about feminine empowerment and embracing the darkness and facing the fact that like, there is darkness in the world, and you have to deal with it if you want to be safe and go around, and that’s kind of what it means that you need to write Lilith name on your doors and your bed posts. Like you need to acknowledge the fact that there’s danger and darkness in the world.
Tabitha 1:20:21
That’s very interesting.
Jane 1:20:22
Yeah.
Tabitha 1:20:23
From “The Coming of Lilith,” Judith Plaskow, 1972. “In the beginning, the Lord God –” I like, I just — sorry, as an aside, I like the “Lord God,” like I just wanted to keep going, I feel like the “Lord God Savior…”
Simone 1:20:37
First of his name. Breaker of Chains. Mother of Dragons.
Tabitha 1:20:44
I was wondering when we were —
Simone 1:20:45
Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea… How many of these can I do? Of the Red Keep…
Jane 1:20:51
Betrayer of all my hopes and dreams?
Simone 1:20:54
Protector of the realm… The king of the Andals…
Jane 1:21:01
Blah, blah, blah, all kinds of stuff.
Simone 1:21:03
It’s a long Starbucks name for the barista to yell out.
Daniel 1:21:07
I keep, I keep thinking of I think it’s in Rocky II where Apollo’s ring entrance goes on so long that Rocky interrupts him. “You got enough names for yourself?”
Tabitha 1:21:18
All right, anyway. “In the beginning, the Lord God formed Adam and Lilith. Created from the same source, they were equal in all ways. Adam, being a man, didn’t like this situation.”
Simone 1:21:32
Typical.
Tabitha 1:21:33
Mm-hmm. “But Lilith wasn’t one to take any nonsense. She picked herself up, uttered God’s holy name,” flipped off Adam, “and flew away.”
Simone 1:21:44
One of those pieces was added.
Tabitha 1:21:45
I added that.
Simone 1:21:46
It fits, it fits.
Tabitha 1:21:48
Well. “‘Well now, Lord,’ complained Adam, ‘that uppity woman you sent has gone and deserted me.’ And so God, after more careful consideration this time, created for him a second companion.”
Tabitha 1:22:01
“For a time, Eve and Adam had a good thing going. Adam was happy now, and Eve, though she occasionally sensed capacities within herself that remained undeveloped, was basically satisfied. The only thing that really disturbed her was the excluding closeness of the relationship between Adam and God. Adam and God just seemed to have more in common, both being men, and Adam came to identify with God more and more.”
Simone 1:22:28
It sounds sort of like a buddy cop movie, where Adam and God are partners and then like Adam’s wife was like, “You’re married to your job.”
Tabitha 1:22:38
“After a while, that made God a bit uncomfortable too,” I just really like that he’s like, okay, “Adam, you gotta like, go…” “And he started going over in his mind whether he may have made a mistake letting Adam talk him into creating Eve, seeing the power that gave Adam.”
Simone 1:22:59
Well, if Adam can talk ya into doing something and you’re God, then you know, who has the real power in this relationship
Jane 1:23:05
You should be questioning yourself in that situation.
Simone 1:23:07
I agree.
Daniel 1:23:08
So I just want to interrupt here. So this, is this is a short story that Plaskow wrote in ’72, as Tabitha said. Plaskow was a contemporary writer, she’s still alive. There’s a lot, a fair amount of contemporary fiction about Lilith. I picked this one because it’s a really great synthesis of all the other material we’ve covered. It’s also fucking hysterical and wonderful and spry, and lively. And the version we’re reading you is abridged for time, the full version is a little bit longer, and I powerfully encourage everybody to read the whole thing because it’s beautiful. It will stick but it’s exactly —
Simone 1:23:41
What does it just seems like sarcastic as fuck, like, like, God was having second thoughts because Adam was like, you know, inviting himself over and staying really late, like eating all of his food…
Tabitha 1:23:52
And he didn’t even bring beer, like…
Simone 1:23:53
He was like, “I gotta get out of here, man. I gotta go. I got work next morning.” Anyway.
Jane 1:23:58
Anyway, “Meanwhile Lilith attempted from time to time to rejoin the human community in the garden. After her first fruitless attempt to breach its walls, Adam worked hard to build them stronger, even getting Eve to help him. He told her fearsome stories of the demon Lilith who threatens women in childbirth and steals children from their cradles.” Again, with this reference to childbirth when we all know that childbirth doesn’t even exist until after the fall. It’s very weird. Sorry, this Bible stuff does not make sense. Their, their…
Simone 1:24:28
Chronology is a little wonky.
Jane 1:24:31
“One day Eve, wandering around the edge of the garden noticed a young apple tree she and Adam had planted and saw that one of its branches stretched over the garden wall.”
Simone 1:24:40
The HOA is gonna be so mad about that.
Jane 1:24:42
“She tried to climb it and swung herself over the wall. Lilith was waiting. They talked for many hours. Not once, but many times.”
Tabitha 1:24:52
Yeah, Friends forever.
Jane 1:24:54
I know this thing about Eve and Lilith becoming friends is so important. “Adam was puzzled by Eve’s coming in comings and goings, and disturbed by what he sensed to be her new attitude towards him. He talked to God about it. And God, having his own problems with Adam and somewhat broader perspective, was able to help out a little, but he was confused too. And God and Adam were expectant and afraid the day Eve and Lilith returned to the garden, bursting with possibilities, ready to rebuild it together.”
Simone 1:25:23
Because when the, the gals get together and realize that they have more in common, and they’re better friends, they’re just like, let’s just ditch these guys.
Tabitha 1:25:30
Yeah let’s ditch these dumb-ass dudes.
Jane 1:25:33
Solidarity is very powerful. And it’s also very important that like, Eve and Lilith are seen as being so different, like such different kinds of people, but they still have to have this thing in common.
Simone 1:25:46
Well, you know, like, you know, there’s, there’s nothing better to bond two people than talking shit about a third person.
Jane 1:25:51
Right, exactly.
Simone 1:25:51
So like, “Can you believe what Adam did the other day?”
Tabitha 1:25:54
“Did you hear God? He chews so loud.”
Daniel 1:26:00
Well, I will say one of the things that — the way I read this story, there’s a bit that leapt out of here that I probably shouldn’t have that I was reminded of with Jane just said that when Eve first sees Lilith again, she’s expecting her to be a monster, because that’s what she was told. And since realizes, “No, it’s just another woman, I didn’t know that was a thing.” And she becomes really fascinated about that idea. And I think it’s, I find it in the same way that Adam has another man to relate to, he has God. And here we see Lilith fulfill eventually kind of fulfilling the god role for Eve, in the same way that a lot of people eventually turn to Lilith to try to find a divine feminine, or in our case, a Satanic feminine archetype that they can relate to that same way that that fourth piece was missing until she comes back into the story. I think that’s that’s… Oh, God. All right. Beautiful.
Jane 1:26:46
Yeah, yeah.
Tabitha 1:26:47
That’s really, that’s really nice.
Simone 1:26:49
All right, so let’s button this up with our last quote here. So this is also from Jill Hammer. “Lilith has become such a popular figure that whole enterprises (like the women’s music concert Lilith Fair and the Jewish feminist journal Lilith Magazine) are named after her. Once a source of fear, Lilith has been transformed into an icon of freedom. While some disapprove of this widespread embrace of a former demon, Lilith’s rehabilitation makes sense. The frightening character of Lilith grew, in part, out of repression: repression of sexuality, repression of the free impulse in women, repression of the question ‘what if I left it all behind?'” Fuck it.
Tabitha 1:27:31
Yeah.
Simone 1:27:32
“As modern Jews begin to ask questions about sex, freedom and choice more directly, Lilith becomes a complex representation of our own desires.” So I think that yeah, that I don’t think that Jill Hammer was trying to relate this to Satanic perspective, but that quote, does kind of, you know, help slot it in where, you know, you talk about freedom, autonomy, looking at things from the opposite perspective, you know, because that’s, if we’re looking at the story of Satan from the opposite perspective, where he is actually the hero and sympathetic, we can do the same for Lilith, basically, the Satanic value of saying, “Fuck it, I’m gonna do what I want.” You know. So, yeah, I think that that really helps to, to relate it to why we’re talking about her today.
Tabitha 1:28:24
I have to say, reading through all this stuff was very kind of emotional for me. Like, I’m not really used to reading a lot of like, older, feminine perspective stuff. Like, we just don’t get a lot of it in Christianity, but also in Satanism and stuff like it’s there, because we’ve injected it into there. But like, I don’t know, there wasn’t a lot of this kind of stuff. And it was really, really cool to learn a lot more about it and these different stories and where people have taken Lilith, and I don’t know, I didn’t realize how much I identify with her. And I’m really happy to know that now.
Simone 1:29:04
Yeah. Well, now it makes sense why so many of our Satanic femme friends have decided to adopt that name because it represents a lot of bad-ass-ness.
Tabitha 1:29:15
Badassery.
Jane 1:29:17
Nice. Yeah. So I have a quote that I failed to look up the name of the person who said it yet again. But it goes, “Mythology isn’t a story about the past. It’s a story about what’s happening now.”
Simone 1:29:27
Oh, yeah.
Jane 1:29:28
And Lilith has been really influential on me. I love reading about her and writing about her and not to reveal too much too early. But Lilith is going to be heavily involved in the Halloween project that we have coming up this year.
Simone 1:29:43
We’ve got such cool things coming up for Halloween. You guys don’t even know.
Jane 1:29:46
Yeah, just get ready. Just start anticipating.
Simone 1:29:50
Get your tickets now! But… you can’t because we don’t have a listing.
Jane 1:29:53
No, we’re not ready yet. It’s too early, all in due time.
Daniel 1:29:56
I’ll say, for my part, this was an incredibly rewarding exercise. I’m getting to dive a little bit more into this material. Unfortunately, there’s so much good stuff that we didn’t, weren’t able to include in this show because it is only so much you can do in an hour.
Jane 1:30:10
Just like 6,000 years of mythologies, so.
Daniel 1:30:13
But what I particularly loved about this is comparing Lilith directly to Satan. I always make the argument that, you know, Satan is not a Satanist figure, he’s not a Christian character. He is a composite. There is, there’s ancient religions and folklore and myths. There’s pagan elements in there, there’s Jewish elements in there, there’s Christian elements in there. And there’s also an awful lot of art and literature and pop culture that goes into creating the figure that we think of as the devil. Here, when we kind of trace Lilith from beginning to end we see, really even more, there’s a lot that went into the hopper on this one. It’s you know, starting with those very basic primal fears about death and mortality and the mortality of your children and the uncertainty of a world where you don’t have control over your own body. And then going from that to these ancient superstitions and myths that are so potent and powerful and strange.
Daniel 1:31:05
And then going from there into you know, theology and the Midrash and trying to make sense out of the traditions of your ancestors and then into apparently ancient Jewish sarcasm with Ben Sirah, which is phemonenal. And then feminism and art and literature and all of it and Lilith comes out the other side, is this, this sparkling, beautiful, weird, complex idea. It’s, it’s, it’s a little it’s almost overwhelming, honestly. I also found it very interesting that, you know, it is sort of — I wouldn’t say it’s a problem, but it is difficult sometimes that Satan is almost invariably portrayed as male. There are some exceptions of that women have played the devil in a lot of movies, for example, Jane talked about that on our previous episode that she was in. But for the most part, it’s kind of a masculine energy that goes into that, or maybe an androgynous one. Lilith is kind of the big exception. She’s the big feminine devil archetype. And it’s really cool to have that. At the same time, she doesn’t quite fit. She never, you know, she’s just not going to be, you know, Satan, but a woman, it doesn’t work that way, because — and looking at the myth that makes sense, because of course, she’s going to be her own force and her own person for lack of a better word. And so, I know a lot of Satanists revere her very explicitly, like our friends at Twin Temple are really into Lilith for fairly obvious reasons. And so trying to, trying to find where that element fits into your own practice and views is, I think an interesting exercise.
Simone 1:32:27
To kind of tie this back to our news story. So there have been a lot of, you know, protests against the anti abortion laws that have been passed in so many states. And some people in these protests will come — you know, will show up at the Capitol or what have you dressed as handmaids from The Handmaid’s Tale, and it’s supposed to be shaming, it’s supposed to be you know, suggesting that you’re putting us into The Handmaid’s Tale, but you know someone on Twitter, I wish I could remember who was saying, that’s maybe not the best position to take because by the time The Handmaid’s Tale has happened, women are subservient. We are role-playing subservient women, and it’s not shaming because these people have no shame. We don’t have like any kind of consensus on what Lilith maybe looked like, although I kind of like the idea of like, maybe some sort of owl motif, maybe an owl hat, a fetching owl hat. I think, you know, maybe we should be dressing up as Lilith for these for these protests, taking on a more powerful stance.
Jane 1:33:32
I’m into that.
Tabitha 1:33:33
Yeah, I like it.
Daniel 1:33:34
We don’t associate what good looks like there’s a particular artifact, it’s a relief that — it’s an image you’ve probably seen, it’s definitely going to be the cover image for this episode. It’s also on the cover of our “Abort, Abort!” Chick tract. And I, it’s often referred to as a carving of Lilith. I think the more recent archaeological consensus on that is that’s probably actually Ishtar which is a different, vaguely similar goddess, but she does have wings and owl’s claws for feet. So there is that. So if you want to if you want to design a look, there’s a good place to start. On the topic of depictions of Lilith, Jane, I know you want to talk. We don’t have a lot of time, but I know you at least wanted to touch on some pop cultural issues.
Jane 1:34:15
Okay. We all know how much I love the chilling Adventures of Sabrina. I think it’s great. And I — also Michelle Gomez, in particular, glorious and wonderful.
Tabitha 1:34:26
But what shall we say spoilers just in case people haven’t seen this or know?
Jane 1:34:31
If you have not seen part one of Sabrina yet. First of all, get on it.
Tabitha 1:34:38
Pause this. Yeah. Watch it.
Jane 1:34:40
Watch it before you listen to the rest of this part. Three, two, one. And Lilith is not supposed to be subservient to the devil. Lilith is not in opposition to the devil either. She is an aspect of the devil. And that’s about it. Right?
Simone 1:34:57
And this is portrayed in the show?
Jane 1:34:59
Right? Right. So that’s fine. I like the fact that Lilith is on the show. I like the fact that in the end, she sort of takes her position and everything. I don’t know, I was pretty frustrated by the way that Lilith first was portrayed on that show overall.
Daniel 1:35:13
Well, I think the way that they portray Lilith on Sabrina is, is very much the way that she’s portrayed in myth as somebody who thinks of herself as equal and wants to be on equal footing. And he’s denied that, which is kind of disappointing when the person shutting her down and Satan, but you know, pretty much everything about Satan on that show is disappointing.
Jane 1:35:31
Right.
Simone 1:35:32
Yeah. You know, I watched the first season of that show, I thought it was fine. I’m just not — super. I’m not going to continue. I got I got other stuff to watch. Like, like Frasier.
Tabitha 1:35:43
Yeah, I’ve seen none of it. I watched She-Ra instead.
Jane 1:35:47
I’m gonna continue watching it, I want to see what happens in the future.
Simone 1:35:51
All right. And well, if you want to continue and keep up with the happenings of Black Mass Appeal in the future, you can follow us on our website at BlackMassAppeal.com, you can email us at BlackMassAppealPod@gmail.com. And we are on most social media as “at” Black Mass Appeal. And if you want to join our Discord server, which we cannot stop talking about, because it’s so much fun, go to Black Mass Appeal dot com, and then go to our contact page, there will be a link because otherwise it’s just a long URL.
Tabitha 1:36:24
I know I always am like, oh, let me just say one thing about the Discord server, but — let me just say one thing about Discord server. They are putting together their own D&D game right now. There are members of the Discord server who are trying to put a game together and I bet there will be more so if that’s something that you want to get into an online D&D game, there could be one happening in a Satanic Discord server near you. So fucking roll for some initiative and get on Discord.
Daniel 1:36:51
In fact, we’re having our first voice chat about that the day after recording this episode.
Simone 1:36:55
Oh, nice.
Daniel 1:36:56
So yeah, again, not just an online D&D game, but an online D&D game composed entirely of Satanists to listen to Black Mass Appeal. So there you have it. If you want to find out more about to Satanic Bay Area, check us out at SatanicBayArea.com. You can follow us on Facebook at Satanic Bay Area and on Instagram as the same. Keep up on all of our doings. You can find us on Twitter at @satanicSF is the handle there. Or if you want to come down and compare some positions of your own, you can do it at Satanic Coffee Hour at Wicked Grounds Coffee Shop in San Francisco —
Simone 1:37:26
The most appropriate place for you to do that.
Daniel 1:37:28
Yes, indeed, the third Thursday of every month, used to be the second Thursday, we’ve moved. And next time we are at Wicked Grounds, which is, I’m going to remind everybody the official sponsor of Black Mass Appeal and our oldest friend and supporter. Tab, the next time we’re there, what are we having?
Tabitha 1:37:42
We’re gonna be having a spinach and bacon salad, which wasn’t on the menu, but I was looking at their Yelp page and is on the sign. So it is I guess, whenever the menu that I have because I have a PDF on my phone that I have had for like a year that I keep pulling from, but it isn’t, it isn’t on there. It’s just on there. So I’m assuming that is like their spinach salad, which I think has like walnuts and tomatoes on it. But also with bacon. And everything’s better with bacon, so eat it.
Daniel 1:38:17
Do we want to do a Hail Satan or a hail Lilith on this one, which would be more appropriate?
Simone 1:38:20
Can we do both?
Daniel 1:38:21
Uh, yeah, sure. Am I the only wone who finds Lilith hard to say, that double L is is kind of tricky for me.
Tabitha 1:38:27
Lilith.
Daniel 1:38:28
Hail Lilith is real — it’s like a lot of Ls in there, but I’m gonna try.
Tabitha 1:38:31
Hail Lilililith.
Simone 1:38:32
Hail Satan then hail Lilith.
Daniel 1:38:33
Okay, ready? Yeah. 3-2-1, hail Satan! And 3-2-1, hail Lilith!