One of the most popular topics that people in these circles end up discussing is the nature of these two archetypes, entities, deities, or what have you. In the general succubus threads it’s only a matter of time before one or both of these are brought up, and understandings about them are a matter of hot debate. On the one hand you have people claiming Naamah is a sort of motherly figure and that Lilith is more about tough love, on the other Christians telling people to not cavort with demons, a third group calling everyone crazy, and very little in the way of actual history. In this post I’d like to talk about both of them; what they actually represent, and some discussion relating to these alternative modes of viewing them.
I’ll also be referring to them from here as daemons; though some may prefer demon, and some may prefer deity, I think the term fits well and helps this blog-post retain a level of neutrality that it would otherwise not have if it went with either of those other terms, and it fits well enough for where I’d place them personally. I may seem like I’m emphasizing Lilith more, and this is entirely because Lilith has far more material than Naamah.
Who Actually Are Lilith and Naamah?
If you’ve lived under a rock for a while or just haven’t been interested in them, these two daemons are really only mentioned in the actual bible once. The Name Naamah references one of the descendants of Cain (which means she was a person, not a Daemon, though they are considered the same Naamah generally), and Lilith is referenced by name only once as well, regarding a prophecy. Both of these daemons are mainly expounded upon in the Zohar and in Talmudic and kabbalistic discussion, especially Lilith. Lilith also has references that may point to her from Mesopotamian mythology and some greco-roman discussions, but I won’t discuss these, as we’d be getting too broad.
There is a large argument about who she is within the bible, if anyone, and these all revolve around the creation myth. She’s either Adam’s first wife, not Adam’s wife at all, reflective of a side of Eve on the spiritual realm, an evil temptress, or sometimes even related to the snake. There’s not any real consensus about her place in genesis if she even has one as a result.
Let’s start with the most commonly shared story about her. Lilith was created before Adam (or sometimes with him), and Adam declared she should be below him when they mated. She said no and fled off. Angels were sent after her to punish her but in the end she stayed away and started cavorting with and creating demons. Then god created Eve from Adam so that she would be subservient to him, and the story goes from there. This story was born mainly because the creation of man is essentially told twice in Genesis, so people claim Lilith was the first woman and then Eve was the second so that both stories can be true.
I won’t go into too much length into the veracity of this idea. I personally find it questionable, and I find the dual creation myth is instead designed to reference creation at various levels, if it was even designed for such at all. It’s important to note that in the initial creation myth man is said to be ‘created’ while he is instead ‘fashioned’ from clay in the second one. We can argue that man was already built, and that he was then given form on earth within the second one. It’s also very important to note that the two myths seem to have come at different times and from different sources and were in response to different things, so any intention for the first to specifically reference Lilith and the second Eve seems to be a very far fetched idea.
Some believe that before this the soul of Lilith was residing in the abyss, and that she was attached to Adam as a single person. This goes well with the idea of the pre-physical man, and the idea that Eve was sawed at the spine from Adam rather than created from a rib is itself not a new one (and seems to be more accurate; a convenient explanation at the time for the rivets within the spine along with it seeming to be a better translation), however this myth again does not necessitate Lilith. In a way she’s treated in these ideas like a daemon of the gaps, used to fill in narratives rather than having her own entirely.
Let’s then move to ideas that don’t use her in this way. The earliest story that seems to depict Adam and Lilith and wasn’t about this genesis argument is from the 10th century, and claims that when Adam realized the nature of sin, he separated from Eve, slept alone, and fasted for 130 years. Lilith as well as Naamah came and raped him and bore demons and jinn from him. In the treatise on the left emanation she’s labeled as the counterpart of Samael, born together, similar to how Adam and Eve were in the ‘sawed at the spine’ interpretation, and reflected them, and while the sawed from the spine interpretation seems to be better for Adam and Eve, this interpretation isn’t widely held for Samael and Lilith, unless we considered them the negative sides of Adam and Eve, which is appropriate in some ways. She’s also one of the four consorts of Samael along with Naamah and two others. in Jewish mythology Samael is more or less the Christian equivalent of Satan (though he had good aspects in Jewish Mythology), which is an important note a lot of people tend to miss in surface interpretations of him, especially if they were raised Christian. In the Zohar Lilith takes on her more succubus-like persona, going and stealing seed from men at night (presumably this was used as an explanation for wet dreams at the time, as well as the symbolic meanings that the Zohar is chock full of). In any case Lilith is a very disputed daemon born entirely from rabbinic interpretations of the text.
Now we can discuss Naamah who will be a lot easier to discuss, because there’s far less material on her. As stated before her name comes up as a daughter of Cain, a wife of Solomon, the wife of Noah, and the daughter of Lamech, and there’s not much else to say about any of those. She shows up in a law text as well. In the Zoharic interpretation, which is more or less where her demon-hood was born, she would take the desires from men and bear demons with them. She wouldn’t have sex with the men or any such thing, just take their desires (though creation is itself relatable to sex, so there’s still a sexual idea there, it’s just not explicitly sex). These sons will then bear spirits with women that will go to Lilith, and we can say Naamah will take their desires later too, creating a circle. Essentially she manifested their desires as demons, the symbolism of which I will discuss later.
This more or less sums up the basic mythological history of the two, aside from their adoption into popular culture these days, which will be covered later. Lilith is a far more disputed figure than Naamah and has a bulk of material, but in both cases they aren’t much in the way of actual biblical figures, instead being the product of discourse, later texts, and mythological holes.
Lilith, Naamah, and the Qliphoth
It’s within Kabbalah that we can dissect the symbolism most appropriate for these two mistresses of the night. Lilith is associated with the qlippah Gamaliel, and Naamah with Nehemoth (yes, qlippah is the singular of qliphoth, the word means husk or shell). We can consider these as the negative sides of Yesod and Malkuth; the foundation and the kingdom, most commonly conflated with the Astral light and the Earth. The short of it is that Yesod is the place where the final forms that will reach Malkuth take shape, and Malkuth is, well, Earth. Yesod also is commonly related to the sexual organs, and Malkuth often to the anus and feet which connects man with the world he’s standing on. The Qliphoth serves as a shadow of the tree of life; representative of the same ideas but not with the same clarity and with a negative perspective. Studying it in any capacity will make this clear, and Thaumiel, the qlippah of Kether, which reflects division that is counter to the unity of kether, explains the entire notion of the Qliphoth in one fell swoop: a different perspective of the same tree, a perspective that can not exist without human logic and dichotomy which itself would have formed when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of good and evil, opening their eyes not just to good and evil, but to dichotomy itself.
Therefore, Gamaliel is the place where the polluted images that will manifest on Malkuth are, and Nehemoth is the strange and warped desires of mankind that lead to those strange and warped actions (you can also conflate desire with action here directly, or manifestation). Therefore, Lilith represents the final thought process of man and the final negative formations that will reach earth, and Naamah the warped desires that are their warped or evil actions among humankind. Refer again to the myth of Naamah, how her sons will bear further spirits that will go back to Lilith. This represents the idea of evil inspiring evil: how polluted desires spread into the minds of men and then into their actions that inspire further evil over time. That’s where the cycle the two create happens. Creation and manifestation, which these two are closely tied to, has a very strong connection to sex in general, so the fact these two are so closely associated with sex is very appropriate, and it’s not incorrect to see them as the sexual daemons they tend to be seen as.
In this interpretation, however, we can see their use as archetypes and within ritual. Through Naamah we can learn to conquer our desires and negative actions with her serving as our foe, and through Lilith we conquer those negative thoughts that we have considered making manifest. They are therefore very useful for that introspection, a look into the dark side of one’s mind and actions if you will. These are the main associations to be concerned with in regards to what they symbolize and why you’d choose to work with them, and these are very helpful angles to handle on the path to self mastery. They do not serve well as forces to make use of, however, due to what they represent.
However, these are far from the only ways they’re looked at. We’ll analyze a couple of the other common ways they’re looked at in the next section.
Other Ways They’re Seen
These two daemons have taken on new life in current culture. The most infamous is Lilith as a feminist icon. Lilith is commonly taken as a big ‘you go girl’ emblem, having stuck it to Adam and done what she wanted instead of been a submissive wife, a fate that for some is seen as worse than death. Feminists that appropriate her for this use are frankly shooting themselves in the foot. Lilith is not a positive figure as an archetype by any stretch, and in the story they reference (the Lilith is Adam’s first wife story), which is itself a product of debate and the filling in of perceived gaps, she is clearly meant to reflect a negative side of femininity and womanhood. She destroyed her own life with those actions and is forced to bear demons for all time. She doesn’t represent anything good in that story. She’s simply another prop or pawn in the never-ending political game played by so many sides, and this is frankly a sad fate for a rich in meaning and hotly debated character like Lilith.
Next let’s discuss the idea of Naamah as a motherly figure and Lilith as a tough love figure. It’s fine if you want to see these archetypes in this way. It is also fine, if sort of missing the point, to see them as feminist icons if you so choose. How you view archetypal daemons, deities, or whatnot is entirely up to you, and as we’ve seen in the ritualism post, personalized symbolism is very useful, so viewing them this way can be useful to you. However, I do want the people who do this to understand something.
What you are doing is imprinting your own desires and needs on these figures. You are creating a Naamah, or creating a Lilith for this purpose with your own ideas, and they are therefore reflective only of your own needs or own desires or own energies, not of the universal ideas the normal archetypes are designed to reflect. Though the microcosm is reflective of the Macrocosm in terms of philosophy and theurgy, drawing up ideas as a microcosmic entity, so to speak, is far different than contact with an external archetypal energy. The ‘Lilith’ or energy you’d encounter working with a conventional understanding of the figure and the side of femininity she represents will not be the Lilith that some people have built up online, whether it be the feminist one or this motherly one, because the energies designed to be contacted by those rituals are entirely different. That’s the most important piece of the problem; saying your experiences with Naamah or with Lilith reflect these things about them as an actual fact, or that these entities have a side like this, is not correct in regards to their archetypes and what you’d encounter working with the energies they represent from conventional and non-basic ritualism (in other words, ritualism with a lot of symbolism, not just a sigil or an enn, which can just as easily serve as the equivalent of targets or names for your ideas).
You have imprinted your desires or personal beliefs onto these long held ideas, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it can lead to bad things. When working with entities or any magical system the process for confronting one’s subconscious or tendencies ritualistically can be very similar to the process to summon an entity. In fact many theurgists would argue there is only the former. When working with spirit-work we would generally accept or assume that there are individual entities and energies that posses their own perspective, and that we can set these apart from the subconscious daemons, as otherwise we have no reason to pursue working with spirits themselves. We would strive to experience these external entities on a personal and direct level to confirm this hypothesis.
When working with these archetypes or working with basically any external force, your preconceived notions or lack thereof must be recognized. If this is not done, you will have no idea whether you’re drawing things up from your subconscious or contacting something external when you have a powerful set of ideas about a certain force. That’s when it becomes very dangerous, because if you can’t discern that, then you have no idea what you’re working with. When you put a lens in front of your understanding of these entities and don’t understand you’re putting that lens there, you’re losing the ability of discernment. This can lead to you believing all sorts of fanciful things, because you can’t separate your more biased thoughts and ideas from your perception of reality. You’re polluting your perception.
So the short of it is you can view them in that way if you wish, but understand that you’re imprinting these ideas upon them due to preconceived desires and creating a Naamah or a Lilith, and be careful for failing to recognize this fact will lead to long term delusion.
This post took a while to get out, and it’s a big one. I hope it doesn’t bore you guys, if it does though let me know here, and I’ll try to keep them shorter next time if that’s how a lot of people feel. Feedback is, as always, appreciated. Given the two are brought up so often in discussion, I thought it would be good to write about it. It’s been a long July, I’ve been able to get out more this month so things are a lot better.
Also, there’s a weird idea in some small circles going around that the book, Liber Lilith, was not inspired by Lilith and was by an angel. I have a good amount of trust in Tyson when it comes to scholarly work at least, he wouldn’t accidentally work with the wrong kind of energetic influences or report the wrong ideas when preparing these works. The book wasn’t inspired by anything like that guys, the idea it was inspired by Lilith is probably symbolic for the energies he worked with in its design. Many, if not all, of the rituals within the grimoire portion shouldn’t be performed literally because they’re clearly not meant to be, not because the book was inspired by some other entity. Honestly the arguments that fly around sometimes are ridiculous.
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