“Lilith’s themes are freedom, courage, playfulness, passion, pleasure and sexuality. Her symbol is an apple. In Hebrew legends, Lilith is a dangerously beautiful Goddess who refused to subordinate Herself to Adam, feeling She was created as an equal. This makes Lilith perhaps the first true liberationist, and She resolves to make modern life similarly equal for all people. She also boldly instructs us to stand up for what we believe in, unbridled and courageous, no matter the cost. According to legend, Lilith was turned away from paradise for Her ‘crime’, and She has been depicted in art as a demon.
Leap Year occurs every four years to keep our calendar in sync with the solar year. Customarily, women break loose today, asking men out or proposing marriage. In today’s liberal society, actions like this aren’t overly surprising. Nonetheless, Lilith charges us with the duty of ever seeking after equality, not just for women but for all of earth’s people. If there’s someone you’ve wronged with presupposition or prejudice, make amends today.
To internalize Lilith’s fairness, bravery, or exuberant lustiness, eat an apple today. Quite literally take a bite out of life, and enjoy some daring activity to its fullest without fear or guilt.
Like Lilith, you are the master of your destiny!”
(Patricia Telesco, “365 Goddess: a daily guide to the magic and inspiration of the goddess”.)

Lilith is depicted on a Babylonian clay plaque from 2000-1600 BCE as beautiful winged woman with bird’s feet and claws.
“Lilith dates back to the bird-serpent Goddess of antiquity. In Sumeria, She was portrayed as having both the wings and claws of a bird. Some reliefs show Her lower half as being the body of a serpent or She is shown as a serpent with the head and breasts of a woman.
There are many possibilities as to Her early Goddess names: Belil-ili, Belili, Lillake, or Ninlil.
She was a Goddess of agriculture as well as the “hand of Inanna”. She was said to dwell in the trunk of the Huluppu-tree:
‘Then a serpent who could not be charmed
Made its nest in the roots of the huluppu-tree.
The Anzu-bird set his young in the branches of the tree.
And the dark maid Lilith built her home in the trunk.’
Lilith also helped women in childbirth and nursed infants.
Recent translations of Her name are varied and range from ‘screech owl’, lilah which is darkness or night in Hebrew, to Lilitu which is said to be the Babylonian word for ‘evil night-spirit.’
Her symbols are the crossroad, owl, serpent, tree, and dark moon.
The Hebrew Lilith
When Jewish patriarchy overtook the land, they made Lilith evil in order to stop the people from worshipping Her.
In Kabbalistic tradition, Lilith was made the first wife of Adam. Some sources say that Lilith was Adam’s spirit wife. Other sources claim that Lilith was fashioned from the earth at either the same time as Adam or before Adam. This made Lilith Adam’s equal.
As Adam’s equal, Lilith refused to lie on Her back while Adam took the dominant position in sex (missionary style). Lilith believed that they should make love as equals (the beast with two backs). Adam was adamantly against this, wanting his wife to be submissive, and Lilith left the Garden of Eden.
God then supposedly gave Adam Eve, a docile woman of the flesh.
Eventually, Lilith was portrayed as the foe of Eve. It was Lilith in serpent form who seduced Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge. No doubt the first wife wanted the second wife to see what a jerk Adam was and that Lilith also wanted Eve to open her eyes and come into the fulness of herself, her womanhood.
When both Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, Adam endured a period of celibacy as penance. During this time, Lilith was said to have caused nocturnal emissions from Adam (night hag). She collected his semen and impregnated Herself with it, giving birth to demons. These children of Lilith were called Lilin or Lilim, ‘night-demons.’
The Goddess who once protected mothers and infants was now portrayed as a demoness who caused abortions and murdered infants in their sleep. The Jewish people believed that when a baby laughed or smiled in its sleep, it was being entertained by Lilith, and the parents would quickly bop the infant on the nose to distract the infant from the Goddess. It was also believed that She came to children in the form of an owl and drank their blood.
Despite the Jewish attempts to erradicate this ancient Goddess, She can still be found in Her truer, albeit symbolic, form in their literature:
‘During a protracted and dangerous confinement take earth from the crossroads, write upon it the five first verses of this Psalm, and lay it upon the abdomen of the parturient; allow it to remain until the birth is accomplished, but no longer. . .’ (The Complete Edition of the 6th and 7th Books of Moses: or Moses’ Magical Spirit Art).
Lilith and Sexuality
Lilith, as ‘hand of Inanna,’ would gather men from the streets and lead them to the temples of the sacred prostitutes. Later, as the first wife of Adam, She refused to lie beneath Adam and be his submissive. Instead She chose to have sex with “evil” spirits and beget more demons. (Who could blame Her?)
Lilith was comfortable with Her sexuality, something that frightened the Jewish patriarch who believed that merely having sex for pleasure was a form of abortion. In recent times, Lilith has morphed into the succubus and incubus or the night hag who sits on the chests of men and causes them to have perverse dreams so that they will ejaculate. She could take the form of either a man or a woman:
‘. . .who appear to mankind, to men in the likeness of women, and to women in the likeness of men, and with men they lie by night and by day.’
Men fear Lilith because She knows the power of Her sexuality and She knows that Her sexuality has power over men. Like Circe, She turns men into beasts or pigs by opening the doorways to their deep and primal sexual desires. Such desires are forbidden by the Jewish and Christian cults.
Women, who are like the submissive Eve, also fear Lilith because of the power She holds. But, as has been shown in the myth of the garden of Eden, Lilith is not an enemy of womankind. She holds the ancient fruit of knowledge, the secrets of our deepest sexual nature, and She is willing to offer this fruit to us.
Lilith as Vampire
As the mother of all demons, Lilith has recently been linked to either giving birth to the first vampires or being the first vampire.
This fallacy is linked to past Jewish superstitions in that Lilith drank the blood of children while in the form of an owl.
In a Rabbinical frenzy to drive Lilith’s worshippers away from the Goddess, they made up lies such as this which contradicted Her earlier functions as a protectress and helper of birthing mothers and infants.” [1]
For your listening enjoyment, I had to add this song into this entry that I came across a few days ago. This song is amazing, written by a talented artist named Zefora, and dedicated to Lilith.
Sources:
Yetter, Eliza. Sacred Spiral, “Lilith As Goddess” (When you click on the link, it will bring you to her page where she has posted her citations/selected bibliography.)
Suggested Links:
All Things yOni, “Lilith“
Enkidu, Leah. Shrine, “Return of the Holy Prostitute“.
Jewish and Christian Literature, “Lilith“
Kocharyan, Lilith. Lilith’s World, “Goddess Lilith“
Leitch, Aaron. Aaron Leitch Homepage, “Lilith“
Monaghan, Patricia. Goddesses in World Culture, “Lilith: The Primordial Female“. (55 – 67).
Saradwyn. Order of the White Moon, “Lilith“.
Took, Thalia. A-Musing-Grace Gallery, “Lilith“
Wikipedia, “Lilith“
Yours is the best explanation I’ve found so far.
Lovely.
I really love Lilith and everything she stands for.It is so unfair that just because she refused to be submissive to her husband,she was thrown out of paradise and labelled a demoness.Lilith stands for femininity and it’s raw,uncontrollable power.Heck,she could have gone crawling back to Adam and God to beg their forgiveness,but she stayed strong and instead took quite a few matters into her own hands!Now THAT is a confident and powerful female…!
I loved your explanation and the way you chose to tell her story.It was truly beautiful..:-)
I love all that Lilith truly stands for. I always felt that the male-chavonist theory was always wrong. Lilith is my Goddess!
she stood up for women with out turning back with courage against God and Adam i think she say stand up for what you believe only going forward don’t back down don’t give up we all need that kind of courage
Help yourself woman….because u have been lured
Lilith is the best character in the bible
Eve is a Punk
and Adam is a Bitch
I agree
that comment ROCKS. I giggled.
Thank you for this blog post. I am trying to learn about Lilith, and this has started me off well I think between your post and all the sources linked.
Thank you for the website and all the postings. I wish to be your friend to guide me and to lead me on how to invite goddess lilith to be my friend.
I grew up hearing this story. I am Irish and she is our goddess of love and protector of children. I was told this story so I would grow up to be a strong woman and never give into a man. Best part is it was always my papa and dad telling the story. For a man to tell his daughter to be like her and stay strong that shows true strength and equality.
I love Lilith. I am going to do a spell to invoke her tonight during the full moon. Thank you for this post.
Reblogged this on thegipsiewonderer and commented:
“Lilith’s themes are freedom, courage, playfulness, passion, pleasure and sexuality. Her symbol is an apple. In Hebrew legends, Lilith is a dangerously beautiful Goddess who refused to subordinate Herself to Adam, feeling She was created as an equal. This makes Lilith perhaps the first true liberationist, and She resolves to make modern life similarly equal for all people. She also boldly instructs us to stand up for what we believe in, unbridled and courageous, no matter the cost. According to legend, Lilith was turned away from paradise for Her ‘crime’, and She has been depicted in art as a demon.”
http://www.asphodel-long.com/html/lilith.html
Asphodel Long wrote an essay on Lilith and who she truly is. This is the Lilith I honor.
That was a fantastic piece! Thank you so much for sharing that here!
I can Paint Lilith better.
it is absurdly pathetical to ascribe human behaviours to entities of the “level” of Lilith. All the energies described by this blog are, as Nietzsche could say, “human, all too human”. Lilith is far beyond all of this. Indeed she is The Female One in the most raging sense, but this means that everything that approach Her is devoured and sucked down into her ever hungry womb. This does not mean she is evil or she is to be discarded from our spiritual path: but she is to be intended as Kali, as the ever devouring, heartless, anti-empathy Time that only destroys and very rarely creates. She is Divinity from the Ying side and therefore is the “transform-destroy” side of existence, as the Yang side is the “create-mantain”. The fact that she gives birth to demons instead of men means that she is sterile from our side, she doesn’t create new things, she only makes stronger what already exists, and destroy all that is weak, just like Time does. This doesn’t mean she is our enemy: but she exists to test us and not to have fun with us. She is sadistic and merciless, inherently devoted to the use of “evil” to test and harden our souls and our daily characters. All that is human-like in our lives is erased by Her: she deletes our psyche and turn it into a perfectly plain, desolate black desert, as Umberto Eco said, “…the nameless and barren divinity where works and images and thoughts do not exist, nor ever existed, either”. This is good from the perspective of our spiritual liberation as it is the mind-set which is sought through meditation and she just give it to us without effort, but it is painful to endure and dangerous to approach, and the tapping of her power can cause lobothomy or ictus, as well as mental illness.
She is the ultimate sadisticly aroused mistress, the punisher of our “sinful” condition of limited creatures, as her lust for sexual and dynamic energy is so powerful that she would just destroy us, f***ing us to death. Her motto could be, just to quote Satyricon, “…damn you all for being so small”. To play with her is to invite the ultimate surrender, is to invoke the demise of our identity and our individuality, as she will tear our habits (and our mind, either) apart and lead us to Nirvana, the everlasting darkness that preced birth, where we will feel a never ending sensation like the one of an orgasm, so powerful and unending that we will never strive for anything else and we will never reincarnate. But to reach that requires to be utterly destroyed and she is out to do that. And bi*ch is painful. And dangerous. If you fail, if you doesn’t understand that it is a gift and not something to be boisterous of, you will become a raving maniac. Your karma will become awful and you will become N*1 in the Cosmo’s “to destroy” list. You will be an abortion from her path. The exact opposite of what she strives to turn us into.
There is nothing wrong in the energies described in this blog. But the entities that patronize them are others, and Lilith is not one of them. She is from a more distan layer of the real Earth pantheon. She is just more like the Cenobytes of Hellraiser than like a sweet-hearted bi*ch like Inanna of the Sumerian myths.
Agreed. You only have to read The Devil’s Ark to find out.
I do not know about this book but I’ll try to get my hands on it ASAP. It is intereseting that somebody quoted my post, it has been here for ages without anybody replying to it. I guess it is because people love those entities which are the way people (wronlgy) believe Lilith is, and therefore people talk about Her like a gothic version of the Mother Goddess, which She obviously is not. People are not interested in what She really is because that kind of experience is not so interesting for the vast majority of people. The funny thing is that I personally love those Goddesses that are the way people misinterpret Lilith (like Inanna or other exemple of “dark sexy goddess”) and sincerely prefer to contact them instead of Lilith, because it is impossibile not to be abazed by the respect She command, but it is not quite funny to be in Her presence! Those Goddesses which really are the way people of this blog think that Lilith is, they not only DO exist, but are very pleasurable too. I am just say that Lilith Herself is NOT one of Them. She is not a “Dark Goddess”. She is DEATH. You go in front of Her when you want to be torn asunder because you are fed up of your ego and want a near-death experience so to change drastically, dramatically, and forever.
Rise your c*ck in front of Inanna and She will reply “What a nice chance of having fun!”; do that in front of Lilith and She will cut it of with a single bite.
She is to be feared only. And respected as a door to Nirvana. She is not a door toward a darker kind of living. She is a door to Non-Return Ultimate Darkness.
It is possible indeed to obtain Her sympathies, but only if you wholeheartedly devoted yourself to Her and Her plan for mankind. In that case, She could patronize you and even love your daily life instead of trying to mash it up. But it is almost impossible, because people, at the present level of human evolution, are (nothing wrong in it, it is just far from Her membership) very keen on facing their own unconscious. And She is not concerned with that. She does not help you to become yourself (facing and colonizing your unconscious): after you became yourself by other meanings, She help you to become NOTHING, to become one with Her, and to forever worship Death. She will help you with your unconscious and daily life only if She foresees that your True Will is not to become yourself in order to enjoy being that for eternity, but in order to rapidly become one with Her: in this case, she will patronize your path toward Her regardless of the fact that you are very far from Her, at an evolution level that She usually do not patronize. But only in that case.
She is patronizing me (although I do not often contact Her directly because She scares the sh*t out of me) even if I am still filled with unconscious because She knows that I do not want to become myself in order to be me, but only in order to be HER asap.
Meanwhile She pointed me toward other “dark sexy goddesses” to grow with, but She is not that kind of entity. She told me that She is not uniterested in sex, is just the fact that nobody could ever withstand Her…
Well to be honest i,m a guy and worship her.
Her ways guide and teaches me, and my own mother raised me to be very respectful to women.
So when i found out about the great Goddess, i know she was the one i would like to learn from and be enlightened by her.
Maybe i’m a minority among guy’s but i’m proud to say that Goddess Lilith is my true Goddess.
Reblogged this on Dreams from the North and commented:
This is a pretty good general summary of Lilith for those who might be new to the topic. In addition to the suggested links, I’d recommend reading “Mysteries of the Dark Moon” by Demetra George, which, although it doesn’t solely discuss Lilith (venturing into discussions of other “dark” goddesses like Hecate and Kali), has an amazing look at Her nonetheless.
Lilith can be a daunting Goddess to follow, but for those who make it very clear to Her that She is the path they wish to follow, She can be very affectionate and helpful.
I admire the passion and strength she stands for.It’s My beleif that a woman and man be ikval in spirit. There’s no limit to a woman’s wisdom. It’s truly sad that Men don’t see how wonderfully optimistic and insightful women kan be. My Mother had suffered My father’s foolishness. I always stood up for her when My father poked fun At Her. He was apparently unaware of Her pains. I tried with every fiber of My being to rekindle the light of life. She was or is strong to withstand his the weight of his problems. Love is a powerful spirit and shield against harm. I hold beleif in the awen. Man and woman share the same life force ,energy and spirit. My Mom is connected to Me psychically she kan hear Me sing while I shower. Lol once all Men recognize the beautiful qualities women possess, then the world would be a wonderful place. I know I get My tender heart from Her kause My father didn’t have it.
Lilith is a victim. She was portrayed negatively due to the fear men held for women who stand against them. She was deemed a baby-killer so women would rebuke her and not sympathize. She was created to show that women should be obeisant and not seek their own desires. She is not who she is portrayed to be. When I read about her, I felt an instant connection. She speaks to women everywhere…stand up for yourselves and do not fear retribution. I am not afraid of her. She would do no harm to woman-kind. I love her.
You need to lose the misandrist undertones in this article. “Men fear Lilith because…” Rly? I’m a man and Lilith is one of my favorite goddesses. I honor her with a Lilith statue kept in my home. I recognize and am a proponent of the more healthy state of embracing oneself and one’s natural desires which she represents, both for women AND men. You need to realize that men are not the enemy – patriarchy is. By generalizing the crimes that certain men have commited and still do commit into being the fault of “men,” you alienate more enlightened males who mean to be your allies. This behavior is no better than the patriarchy stereotyping and pigeonholing women as “the weaker sex.” Rail against religions and the men who creat and perpetuate them all you want. That’s more than fair. But as soon as you generalize their failings into faults perceived of all men, you’ve officially become the thing you (and I) hate.
Not only Valek wrote something absolutely true, but he also was kind and educated in writing it. I would have been much more brutal. I worship female goddesses (read my comment in this list to better understand my opinion about Lilith/kali) but I am a bit more angry and offended by all this misandrist undertones than Valek is. I really appreciate his respectable approach.
“not all men”
just because you are one of the few does not discount all of them men who are misogonistic. To suggest that it is sexist to admit to the atrocities commited against women is to say that I am being rude for saying excuse me after someone bumps into me. If you truly stood with her beliefs you would know that doesn’t apply to you but the fact that you made a point to call that out suggests that maybe it does…
Lilith is far, far from being a goddess, especially a feminist goddess. Almost all myths of Lilith portray her as the enemy of the female, things related to females or the goddesses. In Original story of Lilith was never mentioned in any part of Torah, she is a figure from Jewish mythology. She was the first wife of Adam, and then she left the paradise because she was pretty much angry with Adam and God. She mated with Samael (which can be equated to Satan of Christianity) and became one of his 5 fives. She gave birth to several monstrous beings. Then Gabriel came (attention here, Gabriel is the most feminine of archangels and Gabriel was portrayed either as a female or androgyne being in most of art history. He is also the archangel of the Moon) and asked her to come back to the paradise, she did not accept so Gabriel killed all of her babies.
As a result, she tried to enter paradise again with great anger but she saw Adam with another woman, Eve. She still loved Adam, so instead of attacking Adam first, she turned herself into a serpent and cursed Eve with the Apple. Main objective was to throw Eve from the Paradise to be with Adam once again but since Adam was in love with Eve, he also ate the apple which resulted both from falling from paradise. Lilith hated Eve so much that she swore to destroy everything who resembles Eve and her babies, which means all human females and human babies. Since Eve fell, she was transformed into a “mother-goddess-ish being”, she is literally called “Mother of all living” while Lilith became the destroyer of nature and females. Since then, Lilith was believed to attack newly borned babies and literally all females.
You think it’s just “Jewish Patriarchy” portraying Lilith as evil, right? But there are several different myths with figures that was equated to Lilith and most of them were pagan. First, Lamia! Lamia was a mistress of Zeus and when Hera, the Queen Goddess and protector of all women found her, she killed all her babies and cursed her. This made her unable to close her eyes so that she always saw corpses of her babies which drove her insane. As a result, she turned into a monster, half woman and half snake. She swore to beat Hera (again I emphasize she is the Queen of Gods and Goddess of all women) and ate babies.
Another figure who is closely associated with Lamia is Gello. Gello too hated all women and possessed them to cause infertility. She was known to devour babies inside of mother’s womb. Turkic Shamanic religions had the same figure, who was called “Alkarısı” which can be translated as “the red lady” or “red wife”, she wasn’t called that because of she liked red, she hated it in fact, that name was used to mock her. She was the biggest enemy of Umay the Highest Goddess of the whole pantheon. Umay was a goddess of fertility and protectress of women and children. When a woman gave birth, she was vulnerable against Alkarısı. People put objects sacred to Umay to scare this demon (like color red, bow and arrows etc.) or put dirty clothes of men because when she saw things belonged to men, she would be confused and would not attack (maybe it remined her Adam?).
Also in astrology, there is a fictional Moon of earth called Lilith. Moon is almost always connected with Goddesses because of menstrual cycle. Lilith the planet is the theoretic dark Moon of earth, not Black of the Moon or New Moon, Lilith the planet is called “anti-Moon” which means in astrology, Dark Moon Lilith always tries to destroy powers of the real Moon, new or full, which gave her another name, “Evil Moon”.
Also Lilith was never mentioned as a goddess in any mythology and the woman in “Babylonian clay plaque” is not Lilith. Archeologists thought the woman on it was Lilith which made her known as some sort of a “dark goddess” but now, this claim has been disputed over and over again showing that woman is either Ishtar or Ereshkigal, but this information never entered pagan or occult circles completely so people still think she’s a misunderstood goddess of some sort.
This was a fascinating read – thanks so much for posting.
For more information read The Devil’s Ark
Finally somebody wrote something real and not emotional about this entity. Obviosly I remain convinced that myths from all around the world are just symbolic and often occult reality is different from myths… for example, to me Lilith and Eve are the same entity, a female which betrayed clayborn Adam to “eat the fruit” -a sexual metaphor- from the Serpent, thus becoming mother of Cain, the Antichrist, immortal but deprieved of powers due to God’s symbol, awaiting to reclaim them and start the End of Days.
But at least what Angelos wrote was archeologically correct, ad abov all revealing that Lilith is dangerous, and not a sweet-hearted entity devoted to protect women from men (both sexes are equally guilty for nowadays sex war).
Do not broadly state that men fear lilith. Some embrace her because they find women or goddesses that do not have her fierce power to be too weak, too white lighting, lacking in sexual power and prowess. In occultlism Lilith has been paired with Lucifer. The man who seeks that power and brings it forth would also seek the power of Lilith to pair with, and the balance of such pairing is necessary. While true, it is not most men, there are some of those out here who do so.
Do not broadly state that men fear lilith. Some embrace her because they find women or goddesses that do not have her fierce power to be too weak, too white lighting, lacking in sexual power and prowess. In occultlism Lilith has been paired with Lucifer. The man who seeks that power and brings it forth would also seek the power of Lilith to pair with, and the balance of such pairing is necessary. While true, it is not most men, there are some of those out here who do so.
Love the song, Wild Sister! 💖💖💖
Pardon me but I don’t understand all The Who-how about Lilith & the view of her as a goddess & patroness. She’s an interesting character I admit & I’ve done my fair share of research but correct me if I’m wrong, she was created as the “first woman”. Key word being “woman”. In addition to that of course she was created “HUMAN”. Key word being “Human” so I don’t get all this “Goddess” stuff. That she was created or already had existed at the start or even before the start of creation & that she was a goddess or higher being at the time. That doesn’t make any sense for the supposed “first woman”. Lilith if she wasn’t a woman & a human one at that shouldn’t have ANY meaning to us here today if this wasn’t true because you never would be able to relate.
Because if you really believe the “goddess” thing then you have to admit that she really wasn’t Adam’s equal or wanted to be but she deceived both him & us as she considered HERSELF to be superior which invalidates her argument as she secretly believed the former while professing the latter. You know as a being who always had existed & all. The way the story unfolds, I can see what happened & I don’t blame her for feeling the way she did & I do see her point, she had a valid argument but she could’ve taken the high road a couple of times & tried to stick it out at least for a short while. There goes “putting your best foot forward” & “trying to make the best out of a situation”. What kind of example is that for us all? Simply bailing? Humanity’s very first relationship didn’t work out & it didn’t take long for things to go to sh!t so how does this bode for us all?
How long did she exist before the “lay under me” request/command came from Adam? A few days, weeks, months? I’m amazed that they’d know what sex even was considering they were “unfallen” then. I’m asking because we all know a short while after she got frustrated with everything, she spoke the unmentionable name of God & turned into a demon & took flight, so she was a mortal woman who became something other than human after uttering the name & it was no “goddess” of any kind but something quite opposite although I”m sure many of you will debate me on this point.
Again, I don’t know of course what the timeline was for all of this & how long she actually lived on earth & in the Garden as a human woman but it’s important because it would be valuable to know how long she lived as a human & had her humanity. If it was’n’t for all that long then that says something because that would affect how she viewed herself & all of you who are seemingly infatuated with her as well as God & Adam.
My other main gripe is man (Adam & Eve) supposedly didn’t “fall” until they both partook of the apple but with the events that supposedly came beforehand in the creation of Lilith then it apparently seems that they already knew & had “sin” way before then. With the arguing, the fighting, the pride, the vanity, disobedience & the ultimate rebellion, so that contradicts man & woman first sinning when eating of the apple, because common sense it seems that both she & Adam had already had it by then. But all of this is my humble opinion, I understand that you all may have another.
Reblogged this on Shad's Blog.
Reblogged this on Die Goldene Landschaft.
Lilith teach me so much
I think she’s simply amazing I think that she sets a bar for women today I think that she’s yet a demon but she’s also a healer and a mother and a woman and so she has the potential of being a man she’s perfect I adore her