I received an email, a while back asking me if I was disregarding Succubi as vampires or thinking the idea too far-fetched to even mention it. The fact is I just didn't really research the subject and couldn't write about something I didn"t know. Still today, I do not know much about it, but I will be using what little information I could gather on the Internet to talk about these creatures. Hope not to offend anyone with my lack of knowledge!
Showing posts with label Succubus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Succubus. Show all posts
Origin of Lilith
We dunno what you've heard. You could have heard Lilith is a model for Oppressed Womanhood. You could have heard she's a succubus who gives men wet dreams. You could have heard that she's a demoness who murders babies. You could have heard that she's a goddess, the wife of Death.
Lilith: From Demoness to Dark Goddess
Lilith: Queen of the Night, Mother of Demons, First Wife of Adam, and one of my own patron Goddesses. Unfortunately, I have found that modern authors often leave much to be desired on the subject of Lilith. Modern interpretations of Her nature are presented as historical, and the historical facts themselves are regularly misrepresented. Does She originate in ancient Sumeria, a maiden connected to the Temple of Inanna? Was She once a benevolent Mother Goddess Herself, later demonized by patriarchal religious leaders? Is it female strength She embodies, or has She persecuted women for centuries via birth complications and crib death? Was she actually deleted from the story of Eden? These are some of the questions, myths, facts, and errors that will be covered in this essay- hopefully laying to rest the many misconceptions that surround this ancient and powerful figure.
Lilith
The Identity of Lilith
Early theologians had a real problem with the status of women in regard to Genesis. Here is this supposedly weak creature twisting Man around her finger and bringing death on the entire race. A "logical" answer presented itself in splitting woman into the Madonna/whore dichotomy. There was even a Biblical basis for Lilith. Genesis 1:27 reads, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Set opposite Genesis 2, in which Adam is created first and Eve is an afterthought to appease his loneliness, many see this as evidence that Adam had two wives.
Early theologians had a real problem with the status of women in regard to Genesis. Here is this supposedly weak creature twisting Man around her finger and bringing death on the entire race. A "logical" answer presented itself in splitting woman into the Madonna/whore dichotomy. There was even a Biblical basis for Lilith. Genesis 1:27 reads, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Set opposite Genesis 2, in which Adam is created first and Eve is an afterthought to appease his loneliness, many see this as evidence that Adam had two wives.
The Vampire and Holy Symbols
Did you know?
In the late 1400s, Pope Innocent VIII released a treatise recognizing the phenomena of incubi and succubi, male and female nocturnal demons. In the mid-1700s, Christian Monks wrote about various beliefs in the Undead that had developed in Western Europe, with hopes of dispelling the stories as superstition. These books of accumulated tales were available to the population at large, and the Undead within - previously known by any number of terms - were systematically named 'vampire'. As a result, the term vampire, vampyr, vampyre, wampire or wampirus - and all it's other translations - has become a household name (probably not the Monks' initial intention ...).
In the late 1400s, Pope Innocent VIII released a treatise recognizing the phenomena of incubi and succubi, male and female nocturnal demons. In the mid-1700s, Christian Monks wrote about various beliefs in the Undead that had developed in Western Europe, with hopes of dispelling the stories as superstition. These books of accumulated tales were available to the population at large, and the Undead within - previously known by any number of terms - were systematically named 'vampire'. As a result, the term vampire, vampyr, vampyre, wampire or wampirus - and all it's other translations - has become a household name (probably not the Monks' initial intention ...).
Jewish Vampirology
The Blood Is the Life
"The blood is the life", states the Torah, and also declares "the life-force of all creatures resides in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11). Eating blood is strictly forbidden by the Torah. Yet if one were to do so, he would acquire some measure of the semi-spiritual nature of the demons. They are not truly spiritual, since they must eat blood to live; yet they are not strictly bound to physical matter, insofar as they possess the power of invisibility, and the ability to travel great distances quickly. These are precisely the attributes ascribed to vampires! As the Sforno explains (Leviticus 17:7):
"The blood is the life", states the Torah, and also declares "the life-force of all creatures resides in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11). Eating blood is strictly forbidden by the Torah. Yet if one were to do so, he would acquire some measure of the semi-spiritual nature of the demons. They are not truly spiritual, since they must eat blood to live; yet they are not strictly bound to physical matter, insofar as they possess the power of invisibility, and the ability to travel great distances quickly. These are precisely the attributes ascribed to vampires! As the Sforno explains (Leviticus 17:7):
Creatures of the Night
There is no known culture on this planet that has not at one time or another cowered in fear because of the savage attacks of a nocturnal predator known as a therianthrope, a human-animal hybrid such as a werewolf, "werebear," "werelion," or a "were-something." Such creatures were painted by Stone Age artists more than 10,000 years ago and represent some of the world's oldest cave art—and they probably precipitated some of the world's first nightmares.
Vampyric Myths and Christian Symbolism: The Love Story of Bram Stoker's "Dracula"
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror we are still just able to bear
Rainer Maria Rilke: "The Duino Elegies"
In this paper, I will present my reflections and thoughts on the myth of Dracula in particular, and the vampyre in general, as a love story and show the deeply rooted links between the two myths and Christianity, as refracted through the prism of Francis Ford Coppola's film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
Vampires: Origins of the Myth
The Blood is the Life
"My Friend -- Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence [traveling party] will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land."
The Succubus
Synopsis: A short story is about a 1271 trial of a she-devil succubus in the guise of a woman, who amongst other things could use her hair to entangle victims.
Prologue
A number of persons of the noble country of Touraine, considerably edified by the warm search which the author is making into the antiquities, adventures, good jokes, and pretty tales of that blessed land, and believing for certain that he should know everything, have asked him (after drinking with him of course understood), if he had discovered the etymological reason, concerning which all the ladies of the town are so curious, and from which a certain street in Tours is called the Rue Chaude.
Prologue
A number of persons of the noble country of Touraine, considerably edified by the warm search which the author is making into the antiquities, adventures, good jokes, and pretty tales of that blessed land, and believing for certain that he should know everything, have asked him (after drinking with him of course understood), if he had discovered the etymological reason, concerning which all the ladies of the town are so curious, and from which a certain street in Tours is called the Rue Chaude.
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