3. Were you surprised, or did you see it coming?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Did you get the number of that truck? There’s a hot redhead driving it and laughing.

In all seriousness now, Anya’s working on a book about godspousery, which I think is sorely needed. The questionnaire she sent out is smart and thorough, and I hope it will take some of the wank out of the discussion. Loki and I have had some chatty chats about why this path freaks me out, even though now I know it’s possible, and one of the things he managed to get out of me is that I don’t care much for the way that the sacred sexuality has been played up and sensationalized. Whether we care to acknowledge it or not, most of us grew up either in a family that worshipped an asexual god and treated the very notion of sacred sex as blasphemy, let alone the act. And yet, in this very same environment, asexual individuals get NO privilege at all (WTF is that??). But we’re left with the cultural notion that if you are engaged in a sexual relationship with a god, you’re an OMG PERV. And if you’re having kinky sex with your god/dess, double OMG PERV. SEE?? There’s the PROOF! It’s unnatural!

I know I haven’t written about my marital relations with Loki at any length at all (He is laughing at the euphemism, considering the fact that I write erotica), but at the moment I don’t think it’s needed of me. If it is, I will. The greater point that I’m trying to make is that the focus on sex takes away from the scholarship that is going on in this branch of the community. I am more than a little skeptical in nature, and it has been a relief to me to see how open the Rokkratru have been when it comes to separating lore from Gnosis, and that they are asking the hard questions about diversity and race, both in the lore and in how we practice in our daily lives. While I don’t demand that everyone practicing be as keenly interested in social justice and gender equality as I am, the fact is that these are discussions that we need to be having as 21st century Pagans and Heathens, regardless of which god/desses we follow.

Personally, I’m inclined to believe that most deities have associations with all four elements — at least if we dig deeply enough into their lore — and that relatively few of them are truly specialized by element.

Many modern Pagans have a tendency, inherited from ceremonial magick (via Wicca), to pigeonhole almost all deities by element. Some Pagan Reconstructionists have criticized this tendency as a superficial oversimplification, as failing to appreciate the multi-faceted personalities of the Gods. I’m inclined to agree with that criticism.

Some gods really do seem to have a strong preponderance of one of the four elements. An example is Hephaestus, God of metalworking. Clearly He is associated primarily with fire. Another example is Hermes, who, as the God of communication and travel, is associated primarily with air.

But consider Prometheus. In the best-known myth about Prometheus, He steals fire from heaven and teaches humans to use it. Hence He is commonly associated with fire. But Prometheus’s name means “fore-thought” — the opposite of the impetuosity we normally associate with fire. And, in Prometheus Bound by Aeschlylus, Prometheus is described as having taught humans “all the arts” (i.e. all technologies) — not just those arts that directly involve fire. “The arts” in general require knowledge (air) and practical skill and discipline (earth). Insofar as there is any creativity involved, “the arts” also require intuition (water). There are also myths of Prometheus being an omniscient seer who refuses to tell the future but gives people hope instead, inspiring people to do the best they can to make the future as good as it can be. That myth isn’t easily classifiable by element, although, if you absolutely had to squeeze it into just one element, I suppose it would be air.

Prometheus is one of my primary deities, and, in my personal experience, I strongly associate Prometheus with all four elements.

Consider also Athena. As the Goddess of (among other things) wisdom, She is often associated with air. But She is also a Goddess of various crafts, such as pottery (which literally involves earth and fire), shipbuilding (water), weaving, leatherwork, and shoe-making. She is said to have introduced the plough (earth) and animal-taming. Much of Her wisdom is of a practical nature (earth). She is the Goddess of civilization, which exists primarily for practical economic reasons. She is also a Goddess of war (fire), especially military strategy, which is very multi-faceted, requiring knoweldge (air) of terrain (earth) and the psychology (water) of both your own and the enemy’s troops.

Consider also Hestia. As the Goddess of the hearth, She is often associated with fire. But She is also the Goddess of domesticity in general, which involves a lot more than just fire. Food preparation, for example, often involves water as well as fire. For those who believe in astrology, domesticity is associated with the fourth house, which corresponds to the sign of Cancer, a water sign. Hestia is also associated with stillness and stability (earth) — pretty much the opposite of “fiery.” So Hestia has strong associations with at least three of the four elements: fire, water, and earth. (She even has at least a minor association with air, insofar as the domestic arts, such as cooking, do require know-how.)

Even Hermes and Hephaestus have at least minor associations with other elements besides their primary element. For example, metalworking requires not just fire but also know-how (air) and metal ores extracted from the Earth. Hermes was associated with the domestication of animals, which involves all four elements. However, in the case of Hermes and Hephaestus, there is at least a very strong predominance of one of the four elements. Not so in the case of Prometheus, Athena, or Hestia, in my opinion.

Outside the Greek pantheon, one obviously very multi-faceted Goddess is Ishtar, said to be the Queen of Heaven and Earth, Goddess of love, Goddess of war, and a fertility Goddess, among other things. Clearly She can be associated with all four elements, although this page on a Pagan site pigeonholes Her as “Air” for whatever strange reason.

More generally, it seems to me that gods with a strong specialization in just one of the four elements are the exception rather than the rule. On this point I disagree with many Pagans, especially many Wicca-based and other ceremonial magick-based Pagans.

The ritual practices of many occultists and Wicca-based Pagans require that deities be pigeonholed by element, to determine altar placement and the direction one faces during the ritual.

I too associate directions with elements. But, with most deities, instead of pigeonholing the deities themselves, I think it would be more respectful to use the elements to symbolize different aspects of a given deity.

Many deities do have multiple names and epithets, some of which may be more element-specific than the totality of the deity’s character. Such names can be taken as representing element-specific aspects of that particular deity. Finding out these names/epithets/aspects in the first place may require quite a bit of digging into the lore, but I think this is necessary if one is going to interact with one’s deities in an element-specific way while still treating Them with respect as multi-faceted Beings.

In ritual, I would then suggest facing whichever direction corresponds to the element most relevant to the purpose of the ritual, but also, at some point during the ritual, turning to face the other directions and acknowledge other aspects of the deity one has called upon.

That’s what I do with Satan/Azazel. I strongly associate Satan/Azazel with all four elements while using other names to refer to His element-specific aspects: Leviathan or Ancient Serpent for water, Iblis for fire, Lucifer-Azazel for air, and Belial for earth.

Anyhow, I certainly agree with Anya Kless that Lilith can be associated with all four elements.

If such a group were to perform a public or semi-public ritual, what kind of ritual format would be appropriate?

One type of ritual that some people I know have done, and which might be fine for some people in some contexts but would clearly not be appropriate for a group like Lilith’s Tribe, is a standard Wiccan-style ritual with Lilith and Samael plugged into the standard Wiccan-style Goddess-and-God format.

Problem: Too many Lilith devotees are wary of Samael for one reason or another. Quite apart from the folks who are just freaked out by anything having anything to do with Satan or Satanism, there are other issues at stake here.

Even Anya Kless, who does work with Samael, gives a bunch of warnings about Samael in her blog post Samael: God of the Left Hand. Her warnings conclude with the advice that seekers work with Lilith first and then “Allow Lilith to introduce you” to Samael. “Go slow with Him,” Anya says. So I would guess that, even in Anya’s paradigm, a group ritual involving Samael would be appropriate only at a private gathering of people who know each other reasonably well, and who have all been introduced to Samael by Lilith already. (Anya, is that correct?)

Even some theistic Satanists are wary of Samael, due to the ambiguity over whether Samael is a servant or an opponent of Yahweh. I discussed my own thoughts about Samael in my blog post on Lilith and Samael, according to Anya Kless.

And, of course, a ritual featuring any male deity wouldn’t go over well with those people who are specifically Goddess-oriented.

So then, what kind of ritual format would be suitable for a group like Lilith’s Tribe?

Something like a “darker” version of the typical Dianic Wiccan Goddess-only ritual format might be suitable for many, if not all, Lilith devotees. If done by a group like Lilith’s Tribe, such a ritual would include participants of all genders but not any male deities. The Dianic Wiccan ritual format is in the family of ceremonial magick-based ritual formats that are used by the majority of people in the Pagan/occult scene, and by most theistic Satanists too, as far as I can tell.

But not all Pagans use a ceremonial magick-based ritual format. Reconstructionist and Reconstructionist-based Pagans generally don’t. Then again, I would not have expected a Reconstructionist-based Pagans to revere Lilith — given that, as far as I can tell, even Lilith’s Babylonian form Lilitu was NOT revered as a Goddess.

But it turns out that Anya Kless, author of Lilith, Queen of the Desert, is a Reconstructionist-derived Pagan — of a relatively eclectic kind, obviously. (Pagan Reconstructionissts aim to revive some particular extinct religion of some ancient pre-Christian culture, typically confining themselves to just one ancient culture and just one pantheon. Anya is an adherent of the Reconstructionist-derived (but not strictly Reconstructionist) Northern Tradition, in which, according to Raven Kaldera, “it is fine to work with non-Northern deities in one’s own private practice, or belong to non-Northern-Tradition religious groups, unlike some reconstructionist groups who encourage theological separatism.”)

Since Reconstructionists and Reconstructionist-derived Pagans typically have ritual formats very different from the ceremonial magick-based formats common among most of today’s Pagans and occultists, it will be very interesting to see what kind of ritual format is recommended in Lilith: Queen of the Desert.

It’s possible that there just isn’t any ritual format suitable for a group like Lilith’s Tribe, because Lilith devotees are just too diverse. Currently, Lilith’s Tribe does not do any rituals but just holds discussion meetings. It remains to be seen whether that’s how it will always be.

I can relate to the experience of being “God-owned,” although I’ve tended to use different terminology to describe it.

As Laura Patsouris puts it:

Recently I have run into lots of people who have recently been claimed by a Patron Deity. Sometimes they have been the ones to initiate the contact, but more frequently the Deity in question has swooped in out of the blue to claim ownership. When this occurs it can be intense, disorienting and a bit scary, especially if the Deity in question is from a different tradition or pantheon than the person in question expected. This is something I’m quite familiar with, since I was scooped up by a Norse God after primarily practicing Afro-Caribbean religion for most of my life. Even when the Deity is from the expected tradition and pantheon, suddenly being God-Owned always comes with a big paradigm shift.

Let me take a moment to say that not everyone who is pagan will be scooped up by a Deity. For whatever reason, some folks can work quite well as free agents and will be given the latitude to do so and others will get claimed. Bottom line is; if it is your fate to serve a Deity, whether you consent consciously or not, you cannot outrun Wyrd. I know this concept is controversial; that a God or Goddess can pop in and lay a claim on whom They choose without the express consent of the human involved.

That’s how I became a theistic Satanist. Back in 1991 C.E. I had a sudden, very unexpected, very disorienting series of intense spiritual experiences involving Satan. For several years before that, I had been a Wicca-influenced Goddess-oriented eclectic Pagan, and I had bought into a lot of the usual neo-Pagan attitudes toward Satanists.

My experiences led me to feel, almost immediately, that “Satan chose me, not vice versa,” and that I was in some sense “owned” by Satan. But I was, and usually still am, shy about using such terminology in public.

So, instead of talking about being “chosen by Satan,” I came up with a concept I call “spiritual orientation,” analogous to sexual orientation. Just as different people are sexually drawn to different genders, so too different people are spiritually drawn to different gods. In both cases it is not a conscious choice by the person involved and may even go against one’s conscious beliefs and attitudes.

An important difference between sexual orientation and spiritual orientation is that most people know their sexual orientation from an early age, whereas the age at which a person is forcibly awakened to one’s spiritual orientation, if any, is probably much more variable. Yet it seems to me that “spiritual orientation” may be another way of expressing the concept of “God-ownership,” in a way that’s reasonably accurate but less likely to ruffle feathers (and less likely to sound, to the uninitiated, like just plain crazy talk) than speaking of oneself as “owned” or “chosen” by one’s deity.

Mystics through the ages have used sexual metaphors to describe spiritual experience. As far as I know, I’m the first person to add a sexual orientation analogy to that set of metaphors. I like it better than the rape analogy. Of course, neither analogy is a precise description.

The rape analogy comes up in P. Sufenas Virius Lupus’s objections to the concept of “God-ownership”:

Yes, a good deal of what Laura talks about in terms of the benefits of being in a relationship with the gods is true, in my experience. However, couching it in terms of some random god swooping in and “claiming” someone without their consent is, to put it very bluntly, divine rape apologetics, and the worst sort of slippery slope, as far as I’m concerned. I heard a very wise woman say a few years ago, “Religion is like love-–you can’t force it. Forcing it is rape.” And that should apply on all sides of the equation, with all agents in a relationship, and in every aspect of a religion or religious phenomenon. One would never put up with a human acting as a rapist, so why should one do so with the gods? (“Because they’re more powerful than us and we have no choice” is a complete and utterly steaming bullshit answer, incidentally, in my opinion–-living under a totalitarian tyranny of that sort on a divine level is not living! It’s exactly what exists in certain exclusivist fundamentalist creedal monotheistic religions, but has no place in paganism, in my opinion.) Yes, there is a long heritage of describing certain types of divine/human relationships with this terminology of rape-–but, that comes most often in Christian contexts (that’s what “mystical rapture” really means). That doesn’t mean it’s right or positive or to be glorified above all else, or should be emulated within paganism.

Problem with the rape metaphor: If you believe that the Gods are immanent as well as transcendant, then your God is a part of you already (as well as existing outside yourself). Likewise your natural inclination toward a particular God is a part of you already, too, even if that inclination hasn’t yet been acknowledged or awakened.

Back in 1991, the experiences that led me to become a theistic Satanist were totally unexpected and felt very disorienting on some levels, but on other levels felt like coming home, like I was finally acknowledging hitherto unacknowledged parts of myself. As I described it at the time, it was as if I had been wearing a suffocating veil all my life and finally figured out how to take it off.

So, even though my experiences happened without my conscious consent, they weren’t at all like rape. In my opinion, a rape metaphor would be appropriate only if one feels like one has been invaded by something utterly foreign.

In a comment below Laura Patsouris’s post, Wendi Wilkerson wrote:

I’m not completely convinced that Gods swoop in and lay claim without our consent; maybe without our express conscious consent, but not without our soul’s consent. I do believe that when they appear in this fashion, it’s because even if we are deaf to our own longing, our souls cried out for the kind of growth and fulfillment than only such a difficult and intense relationship with Them can provide.

I don’t yet know enough about “God-owned” Pagans and Heathens to know whether any of them have experienced anything truly rape-like. As far as I can tell so far, the Pagans who talk about “God-ownership” seem to be primarily from Reconstructionist-based paths (e.g. Northern tradition) rather than Wicca-based paths. And I get the impression that Pagans on Reconstructionist-derived paths are less likely than Pagans on Wicca-derived paths to insist that their Gods are immanent. So perhaps the idea of divine “rape” might be at least conceivable in a Reconstructionist-based context. But so far my feeling is that, even for Reconstructionist-derived Pagans, the experience of becoming “God-owned” is likely to have more in common with an initially-reluctant acknowledgement of one’s sexual orientation than with rape. Even Raven Kaldera, who identifies as a “full-out god-slave,” says, in a comment below P. Sufenas Virius Lupus’s post:

The goddess who owns me has been there since the beginning, since my youngest days. She did eventually tighten her grip and enslave me in a way that was certainly without my consent at the time.

I would appreciate comments by any “Deity-owned” Pagans who happen to read this.

I don’t know if I’m ready to say that anyone who works with Satan is actually working with Samael (or one of His faces), but it seems quite possible. Considering the eye-rolling I used to do about Satanism, it’s actually rather ironic that, if the Satanists are right, I’m working with Him. Gods are funny that way.

I am, of course, relieved to see that past-tense “used to.” She also references a website called “Severity of God” (about Samael) by a LaVeyan Satanist who is also an Aztec reconstructionist.

Anyhow, Anya Kless’s post is an interesting compilation of lore about Samael, plus a brief account of some of her own personal spiritual experiences involving Samael.

She notes that the lore about Samael is tangled and contradictory. Among other tangles:

There seems to be some uncertainty as to whether Samael acts on Yahweh’s behalf in this role or as an evil freelancer. This would seem to explain how He can appear as both “Prince of the demons’ and “chief of Satans” as well as “the great prince in heaven.”

I would add that the same “uncertainty” applies also to the name/title “Satan” in Jewish lore. In the Bible, the Satan of the Book of Job is not an enemy of Yahweh, but rather is the heavenly prosecuting attorney and enforcer. Later, during the Second Temple era, Judaism was strongly influenced by Zoroastrian dualism; hence the appearance of a Devil figure, seen as the enemy of Yahweh. Since then, mainstream Judaism has moved away from belief in a Devil, although the idea of Satan as an “evil freelancer” never disappeared entirely from the Jewish world. I once knew an Orthodox Jew who told me he believed in the existence of two distinct Satans: (1) the “lesser Satan” (the heavenly prosecuting attorney and enforcer in the Book of Job) and (2) the “greater Satan” (the Devil, the rebel against Yahweh).

I would say that there is not a one-to-one correspondence between entities and names, or even a one-to-one correspondence between deities and deity-mythologies. For example, the God who is worshiped by the nice liberal, justice-loving Christians who march in Gay Pride parades is, in my opinion, clearly NOT the same entity as the God worshiped by the more conservative kinds of Christians. I would similarly distinguish the Gods worshiped by different kinds of Jews. Thus, in my view, there are at least two distinct deities that go by the name Yahweh. I think of these two distinct though mythologically almost identical gods as Yahweh-E and Yahweh-P (E for enlightenment, P for patriarchy, or P for “purity”). They differ in, among other things, their relationship to other deities. The devotees of Yahweh-P tend to regard all other deities as either evil demons or outright frauds, whereas the devotees of Yahweh-E are more apt to see other gods as guises of Yahweh-E. (I don’t agree with either view, but the devotees of Yahweh-E tend at least to be much more tolerant.) Also, the devotees of Yahweh-E tend NOT to believe in a Devil and hence are not classified by me as being among Satan’s avowed enemies (SAE’s).

Similarly it seems to me that there are at least two distinct entities known as “Satan”: (1) Satan the servant of Yahweh-P (as per the Book of Job) and (2) Satan the enemy of Yahweh-P. I tend to think of the former as “Samael” and the latter as “Azazel”/”Belial.” However, the name “Samael” has been used to refer to both, whereas the names “Azazel” and “Belial” refer unambiguously to the demonized Other, the source of all “impurity” — and, in the case of “Azazel,” to a source of forbidden knowledge as well. Thus, “Azazel” and “Belial” are unambiguously precursors of the Christian Devil concept.

So, could it perhaps be that the “Samael” that Anya Kless has encountered is actually Azazel, or at least closely related to Azazel? After all, her “Samael” does not seem — at least at first glance — to be a servant of Yahweh-P.

She cites an angelology website which (without citing sources) claims that Azazel is another name for Samael. Not everyone agrees with this. For example, on a website called Bitter Waters, the Sotah, and Lilith, with pages about Lilith and Azazel, it is claimed that Azazel is the son of Lilith and Samael and combines aspects of both — and is more powerful than both. (I have yet to track down the original Jewish sources on which this claim is based.)

My feeling is that Anya Kless’s Samael and my Satan/Azazel/Belial are not the same entity, although they do have commonalities. Before I compare her view of Samael with my own view of Satan/Azazel, I should perhaps give a little bit of the flavor of the latter by quoting the brief description in a ritual I wrote for the Church of Azazel proto-congregation:

God of freedom!
God of this world,
God of our flesh,
God of our innermost will,
and
God who beckons us beyond the comfortable and familiar.

Anyhow, Anya Kless describes some of her own personal perceptions, in the context of a ritual, as follows:

Samael is bound.

[...]

He is bound because He would unleash destruction, destroying even Lilith Herself. As Death, as Bloodlust, as Vengeance, as Hunger, Samael must be contained. He is simply too insatiable and would throw off the balance between Death and Life, Justice and Violence, Order and Dissent. Interestingly, Lilith does have the power to free Him, but She refuses to do so.

I do not perceive Satan/Azazel as being “bound,” although there is indeed a myth of Azazel being bound, in the Book of Enoch. He is said to have been bound at the command of Yahweh, as a penalty for teaching humans such forbidden arts as metal-working and the use of eye makeup. I consider the binding of Azazel, in the Book of Enoch, to be a metaphor for social constraints against further technological development, similar to the binding of Prometheus. But those constraints were only temporary, and Prometheus was eventually unbound. (I do NOT consider Prometheus and Azazel to be the same entity, though there are commonalities.)

As for her perception that Samael desires to “unleash destruction, destroying even Lilith Herself”: I do not see that as literally true of Satan/Azazel, though there’s a metaphorical sense in which I do see Him as threatening to “destroy” even Lilith. I see Satan/Azazel as a Being who challenges ALL dogma and ALL human social orders, just or unjust — NOT out of an obsessive desire to destroy, though it can seem that way, but more like putting them all to the test. On the other hand, I see Lilith as championing a new, more egalitarian and more individualistic social order, against the authoritarian patriarchy of Yahweh-P. I see Satan/Azazel as sharing Lilith’s opposition to the social order favored by Yahweh-P, but I also see Satan/Azazel as challenging Lilith’s preferred social order too. Only in that very limited sense would I say that He “would unleash destruction, destroying even Lilith Herself.”

All social orders need to be challenged from time to time. Even a basically just social order — or social movement — can all too easily turn totalitarian, with disastrous consequences. Example: How the feminist movement and the child abuse survivors’ movement endorsed the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare back in the 1980′s.

This doesn’t mean we should get rid of all social orders or all dogma. We humans need organized societies in order to survive, and human societies need to be bound together by at least a few shared assumptions (dogmas). We need a balance between the maintenance of our social orders and challenges to same.

A big difference between Anya Kless’s Samael and my Satan/Azazel/Belial is that I do not perceive Satan/Azazel as “hungry,” or as being motivated by “hunger.” To my way of thinking, “hunger” of any kind is a mark of a lesser spiritual being, not a transcendantly powerful God. Thus, for example, I do NOT believe that Yahweh-P is genuinely the highest God, because Yahweh-P is endlessly hungry for the attention of as many humans as possible and is admittedly a “jealous god” toward all those many human devotees. On the other hand, I see Satan/Azazel (though supposedly a “Fallen angel”) as a more genuine “God of this world” who simply does not care what most people think of Him.

My view of the relationship between deities and “hunger” is somewhat similar to that of the Yoruba religion, in which sacrifices are NOT offered to Olorun, the highest God, but are offered only to intermediate gods, the Orishas. I see Satan/Azazel as too powerful a God, in His own right, to be “hungry” for anything from us humans.

However, while I don’t see Satan/Azazel Himself as “hungry,” I do see Him as manifest in our own innermost Will, including our own deepest passions and “hungers.”

Anyhow, while I can indeed find commonalities (sort of) between Anya Kless’s Samael and my Satan/Azazel, these commonalities are a bit of a stretch. My gut feeling is that her Samael and my Satan/Azazel are not the same entity. But then, who and what is Anya Kless’s Samael?

As I said earlier, we humans need a balance between maintenance of social orders and challenges to same. Most religions emphasize the former, whereas Satan/Azazel is a God who emphasizes the latter, and Lilith (in my view) is a Goddess who has long opposed an old social order but now champions and maintains a new, rising social order. The latter role of Lilith is consistent with Anya Kless’s vision of Lilith as a “judge, determining right and wrong.” She writes:

Both Lilith and Samael come to me as Bringers of Justice, but They enact this Justice in different ways. Lilith acts as a Judge, determining right and wrong. Samael acts as a Debt Collector, taking what is owed and is being wrongfully withheld. Both are bound by rules, and neither one punishes indiscriminately or harms the innocent. The word that comes to mind when I see them in this role is “Righteous.” Not “self-righteous,” but a genuine sense of enforcing what is Right. Their system of Right/Wrong does not always line up with the dominant paradigm’s system, but there is a Justice there that even deities from other pantheons seem to respect.

Hmmm, Samael’s role here as “Debt Collector” is actually reminiscent of the role of Satan/Samael the servant of Yahweh. Perhaps Anya Kless’s Samael is the same entity as Yahweh-P’s enforcer after all? Perhaps He is not committed to serving any one particular divine judge — Lilith or Yahweh-P — but can play the enforcer role on behalf of any or all divine judges? If so, perhaps that might explain why Anya Kless’s Samael is “bound” — he is constrained always to act as the servant of some divine judge, even if it doesn’t matter to Him which judge?

One possible objection to this picture is that Samael is Lilith’s mate, not merely Her servant. However, in Anya Kless’s vision, “Lilith does have the power to free Him, but She refuses to do so” — implying that Lilith does have power over Samael, even if She also loves Him and chooses not to exercise Her power over Him in a tyrannical way. That Lilith has power over Samael is also implied by Anya Kless’s advice that anyone who wants to work with Samael should first work with Lilith, for “protection”:

Meeting Samael

If you wish to begin working with Samael, I highly recommend you begin a relationship with Lilith as well. She brings balance and protection, and if She’s well-honored and approached with humility and respect, She can also keep you grounded as you work with Them. Samael is a magnificent force, but He can also be seductive—-the ultimate tempter. He will take advantage in ways Lilith will not, particularly if you make offers of yourself to Him without an understanding of the consequences. Making deals with Him is not recommended—-He tends to omit mentioning what things will cost you. And He is perfectly willing to watch you ignorantly skip down His path towards something you can’t handle. Allow Lilith to introduce you. Go slow with Him.

Ouch! I have a VERY different understanding of what the issues are, but I do have to admit that the theistic Satanist scene is chock full of impulsive people who ignorantly rush headlong into things that they can’t handle and/or which impel them to make utter fools of themselves. [SIGH!]

As for Anya Kless’s question about whether anyone who works with Satan is actually working with Samael (or one of His faces): I would say that many Satanists are probably working with Samael, usually without realizing it. Perhaps that may be one of the reasons for the sorry state of today’s Satanist scene?

I personally do not revere Samael. Indeed I use the name “Azazel” for the specific purpose of disambiguating the Satan I revere from Samael — or at least from Samael the servant of Yahweh-P. Perhaps I might eventually include Samael in my pantheon too, because my pantheon does include Lilith. But I think I’ll always see Azazel (my main deity) and Samael as very distinct entities, not just different facets of the same entity, despite their commonalities.

Let me now put my own view of Lilith into context:

In the paradigm of the Church of Azazel proto-congregation, prospective members are encouraged to form a relationship not just with Satan/Azazel but also with at least one of the five Rising Gods — Lilith, Prometheus, Ishtar, Pan, and Lucifer-of-Sophia — each of whom is associated with one or more aspects of the modern world that are strongly at odds with Satan’s avowed enemies (SAE’s), i.e. the more conservative and authoritarian branches of the Abrahamic religions. Each of the five rising Gods has a long history of being demonized and/or associated with Satan within Western culture. But each also affirms, more-or-less consistently, some set of ethical values that are among the pillars of today’s emerging post-Christian social order.

As I said earlier, we humans need a balance between maintenance of social orders and challenges to same. In the paradigm of the Church of Azazel proto-congregation, this complementary balance is encouraged via relationships with both Satan/Azazel and at least one of the five Rising Gods.

Interestingly, for the past several years I have had the strong feeling that Lilith is not the mate of Satan/Azazel, at least not in the manner portrayed in the relevant Kabbalistic texts. The main polarity in the Church of Azazel paradigm is not between Satan/Azazel and Lilith, but between Satan/Azazel and the totality of the five Rising Gods including Lilith.

Anyhow, one gripe I have about Anya Kless’s post: It has a section titled “Christianity/Satanism: the Adversary.” The expression “Christianity/Satanism” appears to connote the common Pagan claim that Satanism is merely the flip side of Christianity. That’s true of only the specific form of theistic Satanism that I call “Christian-based duotheism.” Most forms of Satanism, including most forms of theistic Satanism, do borrow ideas from other sources too, not just Christianity.

This project aims to honor Lilith by recognizing Her many facets and faces, both historically and in modern practice. She is the untamed feminine, the wise counselor, the grieving mother, the shifting hermaphrodite, the first woman, and the sacred dominatrix. Perhaps because of Her complexity, it seems that She is making her presence known to more and more unsuspecting folk in recent years.

The first chapter of the book will attempt to collect and organize references to Lilith in various cultural lore and practice (Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Judaism, Kabbalah, folk tradition, and modern Western occultism). The majority of the book, however, will consist of devotional material and reflections from those who have experienced Her.

I am currently accepting rituals, poems, essays, songs, and other original material for this volume. The book already has a publisher (Knickerbocker Circus Press) and should be available in the early part of 2010. Please email questions and submissions to anyakless@gmail.com

This project aims to honor Lilith by recognizing Her many facets and faces, both historically and in modern practice. She is the untamed feminine, the wise counselor, the grieving mother, the shifting hermaphrodite, the first woman, and the sacred dominatrix. Perhaps because of Her complexity, it seems that She is making her presence known to more and more unsuspecting folk in recent years.

The first chapter of the book will attempt to collect and organize references to Lilith in various cultural lore and practice (Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Judaism, Kabbalah, folk tradition, and modern Western occultism). The majority of the book, however, will consist of devotional material and reflections from those who have experienced Her.

I am currently accepting rituals, poems, essays, songs, and other original material for this volume. The book already has a publisher (Knickerbocker Circus Press) and should be available in the early part of 2010. Please email questions and submissions to anyakless@gmail.com

Submission Deadline: December 1st

What was the inspiration for your images?

What did you learn about yourself from the experience?

Do you feel you are in the same state of mind as when you started?

“Moon and Moon” – Bat for Lashes
“Golden Age” – TV on the Radio
“The Pharoahs” – Neko Case
“Silence” – Portishead
‘Blue Ridge Mountains” – Fleet Foxes
“Strong Black Vine” – Tori Amos
“50ft Queenie” – PJ Harvey
“Sawdust and Diamonds” – Joanna Newsom
“Ave Maris Stella” – Monteverdi

Read Anya’s blog here