Something I see discussed quite often in paganism, the occult, and especially with Lilith is the idea of imposters: a spirit posing as the entity one is trying to connect to, but in actuality is some sort of villain playing interference, to whatever end.
This always takes quite a particular form when it’s said about Lilith. That form can be neatly summarized by one of the opening sentences of this forum post I stumbled on some time ago (I will address the absolute absurdity of equating her to Ninlil at some later point for the sake of both brevity and my sanity):
I have come to conclusion that this sex-goddess-Lilith people are working with is actually a huge and dangerous parasite.
“Is actually”?
Let’s review some history.
Lilith originates as Ardat Lili, the nubile, sexual face of Lamashtu, goddess-demon of child death and population control. Her essential function was to steal the essence of men, drive them to madness through sexual obsession, and often drained them to the point of death.
Lilith is also perhaps the most legionous being in all of spiritual history. In my library alone, I have recorded nearly 90 names as of this writing, and the list is nowhere near complete.
Lilith has always been huge, dangerous, and vampiric, since the dawn of recorded history.
Why is it that the edgy corners of the occult internet, claiming to be so at peace with the dark and the difficult, see this as trickery, and deny that she could possibly have these qualities?
Why are these supposed Satanists so hell-bent, if you’ll pardon the pun, on trying to twist the world’s original vampiric divine into a compliant, harmless mother goddess?
In the West, where myself and most other people involved in this discussion are from, we grow up with a very simplistic, almost cartoonish idea of what the divine is supposed to be, vis-a-vis a certain type of watered down Christianity. The divine is always “good,” whatever we’re defining that as. It exists simply to make us feel nice. It always goes along with whatever we find comforting, or whatever it is we believe ourselves to be.
Religion is supposed to be a comfort blanket. A platitude we tell ourselves as we lay on the floor at our worst, to paper over and avoid addressing the questions that may prevent us from having to wind up there again relearning the same lesson, because we fear momentary discomfort more than repeated suffering for some odd reason.
Most Western occultists, Satanists, and pagans have this Christianity-lite history, and just because they have left behind that title doesn’t mean they have left behind the mindset.
They take their simplistic view of divinity with them into the deep, and it ends in self-destructive confusion, like the cognitive dissonance of denying the danger of the divine by declaring, “imposter!”
No.
The huge, dangerous, lethally vampiric Lilith is not an imposter.
She is exactly what you asked for.
Divinity is agnostic to any given human’s idea of what is good or bad. These are nothing but shallow judgements about what one considers beneficial to them personally. These judgements have no value or objective criteria in the cosmos. Your death is as natural and as necessary as your life. The scales of divinity measure them just the same, and all divine has a face of death and a face of growth. Yahweh is the most prolific murderer in mythological history. Kali enlightens by decapitation and revels in the blood. Zeus is infamous for his propensity to rape.
And if you come drooling to the mother of vampires demanding that you be drained, you will be.
You will give of your life essence as requested. You asked to be a slave, and you will be made one. You will look into her bottomless eyes and be driven to madness and obsession and give and give and give, until you are husked, empty, and dead.
The scales remain balanced, and the cosmos unmoved. Mother Lilith fills her belly, and the stars move on.
Lilith’s path is a particularly dark one, no matter which side of her face you choose to look at. But the Mother Lilith who is the fire coursing through the veins of her children who she strengthens and nurtures is no different from the monstrous vampire that drives men to their self-defiling autoerotic suicides.
There is no imposter.
There is only you, your destrudo, and the shadow behind you that you invited past your threshold.
There is simply your decision that you would rather lose yourself in illusion and consumption, than work for spiritual understanding and growth. And if you believed you would be able to manipulate a demon into behaving like a sexual servant in order to make that a favorable situation for you, then you are a fool.
If you wish to be lost in illusion, divinity grants your wish. Lilith, as in all things, does so with more enthusiasm than most.
The scales do not care which path you choose. Illusion is as natural as growth. Life is as natural as death. Ecstasy is as natural as torture. And to those with no self-awareness, narcissistic drives, or self-destructive hearts, the difference between the two can be imperceptibly small.
Lilith does not care if you choose the fires of growth, or the fires of self-immolation.
She values freedom perhaps more than any other entity I can think of. If you wish to destroy yourself, she will steady your hand with the blade at your throat.
It’s your life, and the scales will balance your weight no matter where you choose to rest it.
When you cry imposter, you are only accusing your own reflection in the mirror. And perhaps that is so.
But Lilith is the same as she has ever been for all the ages past, and for all the ages to come.
She is the mother of vampires, the undertaker of children, and the void to which all things return.