Lilith. An enigma.

We have heard so much about her.  But somehow, it seems like the more we hear, the less we know.

Who really is Lilith?

In order to understand who Lilith is, we have to go much further back than most people are willing to go.  To the very beginning.

Because as long as we try to understand Lilith through the very limited lens that most people use to try to understand her, we never will.

Lilith as Divine Mother

Lilith is the divine mother in embodiment.  That part of God that the world refuses to acknowledge.  The feminine part of God.  That’s Lilith. She has lived many lifetimes on earth and gone by many names – Isis, Semiramis, Queen of Sheba, Medusa, Jezebel, Cleopatra, and many other names lost in history.

Unless we look at Lilith through this lens, we will keep going round and round, never quite understanding who she is and why she faced so much hatred, fear and opposition.

Lilith is the mother of all life.  She is the creatrix, experiencing life within her creation.  She is God the Mother, consort to God the Father.  She is the foundation of all life. 

This is the reality about who Lilith is that has been hidden and denied by those who do not accept that God has a feminine side, those who only see God as masculine.  They have tried to demonise Lilith, tried to erase her, and tried to separate her from her children.

But still, she keeps rising.  The more they try to bury her, the more she rises.  In a world that tells us that we have a father but no mother, Lilith is gently calling us back to herself, back to her mother’s love. 

In Christianity, Lilith is the Holy Spirit.  That mysterious third person of God that everyone knows exists but can’t quite explain or understand?  That’s the divine mother.  That’s Lilith.

In a patriarchal world that refuses to acknowledge the divine mother and has tried to erase her from the collective consciousness, Lilith is hated and demonised.  But Lilith refuses to bow down to a patriarchal society that demands that women submit to men. She willingly gave up paradise rather than submit, and for that she was punished, hated and demonised.

All the lies we have heard about Lilith were invented by the patriarchy.  They called her a demon, a vampire, a witch, and a child killer.  In reality, it’s the patriarchy that has been killing her children. 

But she has never given up.  She refuses to go away, and, in the end, it is the patriarchy that must give way to her.  You cannot erase the creatrix.  You can tell lies about her so that people fear her and run away from her, but you cannot erase her.  She will always find a way to rise up.

And she is rising up today.  Women are starting to wake up, to reject the role that has been assigned to them by the patriarchy, and to realise that they have as much power and autonomy as Lilith did. 

Lilith as High Priestess

Proverbs 1:20-21

Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
    in the markets she raises her voice;
at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
    at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:

Lilith is Wisdom, the woman described in Proverbs chapter 1.  She is the voice crying out in the street and in the markets, and at the entrance of the city gates.  As the handmaiden of the goddess Ishtar, Lilith went out into the streets to invite men to the temple to worship the divine mother through sacred sexuality.  This is Lilith as high priestess of the divine mother.

One of the most demonised aspects of Lilith was her sexuality.  Because she refused to accept the patriarchy’s view of female sexuality, she was demonised by a patriarchy that fears female autonomy. 

In a world that feared female sexual autonomy, Lilith was known to be promiscuous and was said to have been a sacred prostitute in the temple of Ishtar.  In those days, sex was seen as sacred and a way to worship the divine.  But when the patriarchy took over, they turned sex into something evil, something to be suppressed, especially in women.

Today, many deny that sacred prostitution ever existed, because they cannot conceive of a reality where sex is seen not as evil or bad, but as a way to worship the divine.

Lilith, as high priestess, reminds us that sexuality is sacred and a form of worship.  She wants us to know that women are not objects made for men’s pleasure.  She reminds us to honour ourselves, each other and God through sacred sexuality.  By freeing sex from the false beliefs created by the patriarchy, we are honouring Lilith.

Lilith as Samael’s Wife

Lilith has always been described as Samael’s wife.  The truth is that Samael was the divine father in embodiment, and therefore Lilith’s divine consort.  Together, they worked to free humanity from the many lies created by the false gods and fallen angels.

Lilith and Samael were in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve were imprisoned in a false reality created by the false god.  Lilith and Samael were responsible for awakening Adam and Eve by telling them the truth about who they were.

The false God had kept them trapped in a false reality in which they were created to serve him.  But Lilith and Samael helped them understand their divine origins as children of the divine father and mother.  They gave them the knowledge that the false god never wanted them to have.

Unfortunately, in the biblical retelling of what happened in the Garden of Eden, the truth has been kept hidden, and instead, a story concocted about how the serpent deceived Eve, who then went on to convince Adam.  This was a clever way of blaming women for all the problems that face the earth, something that has continued to this day.  This was also a clever strategy for justifying the subjugation of women, on the grounds that it was the woman who caused the fall of man.

The truth is that Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden because they had gained knowledge that they were never meant to have.  They understood that they were not servants of God, created to serve him, but rather they had their origins in the divine itself.

Samael and Lilith were also known as the King and Queen of Hell, which is not actually a negative thing.  Humanity had been deceived into fearing death through the belief that they would receive eternal punishment for disobeying god.   Lilith and Samael helped humanity overcome the fear of death.  Death is simply a transition into a different place where beings go to heal and prepare for the next lifetime.

As King and Queen of Hell, Samael and Lilith acted as righteous judges who helped human beings evaluate their lives on earth and prepare for their next embodiment.

Lilith as Demon, Vampire and Witch

In early stories about Lilith, she was known as someone who helped women during childbirth.  When she refused to submit to the patriarchy, she was turned into a vampire who drank the blood of children.   This is how the myth of Lilith as a vampire and mother of all vampires began.  It was nothing more than patriarchal fear-mongering.

Lilith was also called a succubus, which is a sexual demon.  Men were forbidden from sleeping alone in case Lilith came at night to steal their sexual energy.   Men in those days lived with a lot of guilt due to their repressed sexuality, and who better to blame for their nightly emissions than a woman?  Apparently, women are to blame for everything, even men’s bodily functions.  This pattern of blaming women continues even today.

Lilith was also accused of being a witch, probably due to her understanding of natural healing that she used to help women during childbirth.  Women have always been accused of being witches for having abilities that men can’t control, such as natural healing, wisdom, knowledge, intuition and magical abilities through their connection with the divine.

Since men could not control these gifts, they termed them as witchcraft and burned such women at the stake.  Women were thus taught to repress their natural gifts, to keep their heads down and do what they were supposed to do. 

Although witch hunting is something that is supposed to have ended after the Dark Ages, it is still practised today in many parts of the world.  Violence against women has always been one of the most effective weapons the patriarchy wields against women, and it is what has allowed them to control women for so long.

Other forms of violence against women that are used to control and silence them include domestic violence, rape, femicide, female genital mutilation and public undressing of women.  What happened to Lilith is yet another example of how the patriarchy treats women who refuse to submit.

Another example of how the patriarchy demonises women is found in Queen Jezebel, who is today referred to as ‘the spirit of Jezebel’.  Her legacy has been transformed from a powerful queen and high priestess into a demon who is guilty of all manner of things.  She was accused of sexual immorality, even though there is no evidence that Jezebel was ever immoral.  Men in the church love to blame her for their inability to lead moral lives by claiming to have been influenced by ‘the spirit of Jezebel’.  How very convenient for men to have someone to blame instead of taking responsibility for their actions.

Lilith Today

Lilith is awakening.  The dark goddess, whom many tried to bury, is rising out of the ashes, like the proverbial phoenix.  She is calling on the world to remember.  To remember the divine mother, whom they erased and refuse to acknowledge.

We are seeing Lilith more and more in the entertainment industry, in movies and video games.  People are becoming curious and starting to ask: Who is Lilith?

Many of the answers we are getting are leaving us with more questions.  This is because we are not being told the real truth of who Lilith is.  Unless we acknowledge Lilith as the divine mother, we will have more questions than answers, and we will not be satisfied with the answers we receive.

The dark mother is arising, and she wants the world to know who she is, to dig back into their collective unconscious and remember their origins.  Because as long as we refuse to acknowledge the divine mother who is the source of all life, we cannot hope to move forward on our spiritual journey. 

Our healing will only begin when we start looking at the forgotten aspect of the divine and start the long journey towards remembering who She is.