{"id":70668,"date":"2026-02-19T01:09:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T00:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=70668"},"modified":"2026-02-19T01:10:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T00:10:01","slug":"lilith-the-first-rebellion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/lilith-the-first-rebellion\/","title":{"rendered":"Lilith: The First Rebellion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The demon Lilith has wandered the Earth and featured in the mythical imaginings of writers, artists, and poets for more than four thousand years. Something menacing surrounds this contradictory figure. Her significance has changed over the course of history. What does she signify today?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

We encounter her in Sumerian records and in both Babylonian and Mesopotamian mythology. Later, she appears in Jewish sources as Adam\u2019s first wife, before she is increasingly portrayed as a winged and seductive demon and succubus. In recent times, feminists have embraced her as a representative of independence and sexual liberation.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the Sheer Pleasure\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first time I encountered Lilith was when I read the Polish-Jewish author Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902\u20131991, Nobel Prize for Literature 1978). In the book Love and Exile<\/em>, which he calls a \u201cspiritual autobiography,\u201d he describes a daily life steeped in Jewish folklore, where demons, ghosts, and other shadow creatures lurk in nooks and crannies\u2014among them the demon Lilith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a young man in Warsaw\u2019s intellectual circles, Isaac begins a relationship with Gina, who is twenty years his senior. Through her, he comes into contact with an erotic, primal world characterized by darkness, chaos, and desire. Isaac is plagued by guilt and hears inner voices from his orthodox family blaming him for having desecrated his soul, because through Gina, he has mated with the demon queen Lilith herself. Gina is red-haired, as Lilith is also depicted, and she in no way fits into the orthodox ideal of a passive, submissive woman. Gina and Isaac are swept up in a storm of boundless desire; they fall asleep but wake up again \u201cin exactly the same fraction of a second, and we threw ourselves at each other with a hunger that astonished us.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The short story \u201cA Gentleman from Cracow\u201d revolves around the inhabitants of the town of Frampol who, in their great distress and poverty, are visited by the demon Ketev Mriri<\/em>, disguised as a wealthy doctor. By showering the people with bread and money, the wealthy doctor from Krakow immediately becomes a prime candidate for the town\u2019s promiscuous women. Eventually, they all gain free access to elegant clothes so they can dress up for a lavish ball where the gentleman will choose his bride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one he ultimately chooses is none other than Lilith, disguised as the seventeen-year-old Hodle, known as the town whore: she was \u201ctall and lean, with red hair and green eyes [.\u00a0.\u00a0.]. She had the shrewdness of a bastard, the quick tongue of an adder [.\u00a0.\u00a0.]. [H]er face was freckled, and her hair disheveled.\u201d<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Her future husband asks her if she has slept with Jews or Gentiles, to which she replies, \u201cWith both.\u201d When asked if she did it to earn money, she answered: \u201cNo, for the sheer pleasure.\u201d She does not regret what she has done and does not fear the torments of hell: \u201cI fear nothing\u2014not even God. There is no God.\u201d<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> \u201cAnd then the gentleman from Cracow revealed his true identity. [.\u00a0.\u00a0.] [A] creature covered with scales, with an eye in his chest, and on his forehead a horn that rotated at great speed. His arms were covered with hair, thorns, and elflocks, and his tail was a mass of live serpents.\u201d Now, \u201cHodle\u2019s dress fell from her, and she stood naked. Her breasts hung down to her navel, and her feet were webbed. Her hair was a wilderness of worms and caterpillars. [.\u00a0.\u00a0.] Then it was understood that Hodle was really Lilith, and that the host of the netherworld had come to Frampol because of her.\u201d<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The black magic that the demon couple Ketev Mriri and Lilith unleashed on the inhabitants also set the city\u2019s buildings on fire. When dawn broke and the sun rose \u201ccrimson with shame,\u201d Frampol lay in ashes. Worst of all were the infants: their \u201ccribs were burned, their little bones were charred. [.\u00a0.\u00a0.] The wailing and crying [of the mothers] lasted long.\u201d<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magical Source of Power and Anti-Mary<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In Singer\u2019s work, we encounter two essential characteristics of the Lilith figure. The first is that the driving force behind sexuality is detached from norms, precepts, and traditional forms of coexistence. Here, it is all about pleasure and ecstasy. The orgy described by Singer may evoke associations with the Babylonian-Assyrian Ishtar mysteries. Ishtar, the goddess of sensual love, definitely has some \u201cLilith-like\u201d traits. In the Ishtar rituals, she was served by eunuchs and a procession of men and boys who dressed as women and gave themselves over to women\u2019s activities. According to Assyriologist Archibald Sayce, the temples of Ishtar \u201cwere filled with the victims of sexual passion and religious frenzy, and her festivals were scenes of consecrated orgies.\u201d<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Like Lilith, Ishtar could also have love affairs with mortal men, but for the most part, she brought ruin and death to her lovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second characteristic of Singer\u2019s portrayal of Lilith is the danger she poses to pregnant women and infants. Lilith, as a child murderer, is a complex and complicated theme. Certain Christian circles, especially in the US, associate her with women\u2019s right to abortion. There is even an aid organization in the US called the Lilith Fund, which provides financial and emotional support to women living in states where abortion is prohibited.<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Catholic theologian Scott Smith writes that Lilith is a parallel to the Antichrist, namely Anti-Mary. According to tradition, Lilith is a sexually lustful demon who comes at night and steals newborn babies; she is, according to Smith, \u201cthe tailor-made patroness of the abortion movement.\u201d<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Lilith, the illumined one, shares the fruit of knowledge with Eve. From an edition of Anon., Speculum humanae salvationis<\/em> [Mirror of human salvation], 1473.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

In the feminist journal Lilith<\/em>, Jewish psychologist and feminist Evelyn Torton Beck writes that Singer showed sympathy for the feminist project when he claimed that \u201cJudaism had made a historical mistake by not teaching women the Torah [.\u00a0.\u00a0.].\u201d<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Singer also believed that Jewish women should have full religious rights in the synagogue, including the right to ordination. At the same time, Beck criticizes the parts of Singer\u2019s work that she sees as chauvinistic stereotypes, as when he portrays women as sirens and temptresses, demons and witches. In doing so, Beck argues, Singer repeats a \u201cmale-centered\u201d positioning of women as \u201cthe other.\u201d<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is something in Singer\u2019s portrayal of female demons that contrasts with that of male demons: the latter\u2019s evil comes from sources outside themselves, while the evil of female demons seems to point to something corrupt in the woman\u2019s own soul. Can a more flexible concept of gender overcome this interpretative dichotomy? Can both male and female beings and demons be interpreted as different aspects of human beings as such, regardless of gender? In my own exploration of the figure of Lilith, I see that human beings can experience Lilith as an inner mental entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Adam\u2019s Partner to Deadly Seducer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The perception of Lilith as a succubus who seduces men already appears in Sumerian texts. Ethnographer and orientalist Raphael Patai writes that the Babylonian Lilith visited men at night and bore them ghost children. One gets the impression of a sterile sexuality where the result never ends in a sensual child but rather in a supernatural demon child. According to historian Vanessa Rousseau, Lilith devours men\u2019s sperm until they are completely exhausted, and she also abducts and devours children, which Rousseau interprets as her \u201csuffocating all reproductive creatures until they are sterile.\u201d Lilith thus drives men to \u201cunproductive use\u201d of their energy.<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The Sumerian Lilith is further portrayed as \u201ca beautiful maiden,\u201d but also both a \u201charlot and a vampire, who once she chose a lover, would never let him go, but without ever giving him real satisfaction.\u201d<\/span>13<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Adam and Eve, woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1523.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

In Jewish mysticism, according to Jungian psychologist Barbara Black Koltuv, she was portrayed as a demon queen who mated with the evil angel Samael. Lilith-Samael emanated from beneath the throne of glory and was a distinctly androgynous being with two faces that later separated. Samael was also equated with Satan as a high-ranking and leading demon. In the Kabbalistic text, the Zohar<\/em>, \u201cthe female of Samael [i.e., Lilith] is called a \u2018serpent,\u2019 \u2018a wife of harlotry,\u2019 \u2018The End of all Flesh\u2019 [.\u00a0.\u00a0.], and the end of days.\u201d<\/span>14<\/sup><\/a><\/span> According to Rousseau, Lilith represents an ambiguous sexuality, and one sees a clear \u201candrogynous nature of this primordial woman.\u201d<\/span>15<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Jewish commentaries, Koltuv writes, the first human being, as described in Genesis, is also an androgynous creation with two faces turned away from each other. Only later did God divide Adam in two and create a back for each of the faces. Lilith is therefore the first Eve, the female Adam, also called Adamah.<\/span>16<\/sup><\/a><\/span> In the Zohar<\/em>, it is written that there is a fiery female spirit in the depths of the great abyss named Lilith, who was the first to cohabit with man. In the earliest material on Lilith\u2019s biography, the Alphabet of Sirach<\/em> [c. 700\u20131000], it is stated that she considered herself equal to Adam. Since she too was born of the earth, she demanded the same sexual rights as him; she wanted to be active and refused to settle for a lying position during intercourse. But Adam disagreed. They could not find peace with each other, and Lilith broke with Adam and at the same time broke the taboo: she spoke God\u2019s name, which was not to be uttered, and later became a night demon, a winged creature with long flowing hair who sought out sleeping women and men. She became morally dangerous, first and foremost, for men who slept alone but also for women. According to Koltuv, she could plant hot, erotic dreams that caused nocturnal orgasms for anyone who slept alone, regardless of gender.<\/span>17<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through her break with Adam and God, Lilith was increasingly portrayed as a threat to pregnant women and infants, indeed to the family structure as a whole. \u201cThus, the daughters of Eve,\u201d writes Koltuv, \u201csuffer the two aspects of the feminine: [.\u00a0.\u00a0.] Eve is the life-nourishing side of the instinctual feminine, while Lilith is its death-dealing opposite.\u201d<\/span>18<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The stories about Lilith as a child murderer are also full of contradictions. She is both the Lilith who plays with infants while they sleep and makes them dream and smile\u2014but she also causes the hair on the back of their heads to become tangled when she plays with them, tickles them, and makes them roll around in laughter and delight. But, Koltuv mentions, the same Lilith also causes epilepsy, suffocation, and death.<\/span>19<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nordic Lilith<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In Nordic folklore and tradition, Lilith is associated with Lucia or Lussi (Latin, \u201clight-bearing\u201d). Here, Lucia is\u00a0not the Catholic saint but a dark, demonic figure. According to\u00a0ethnologist M\u00e5lfrid Sn\u00f8rteland, \u201cthe old Lussi was [.\u00a0.\u00a0.] the complete opposite of the Lucia celebrated by kindergartens and schools today. [.\u00a0.\u00a0.] Professor of folklore Olav B\u00f8 has pointed out that Lucia has the same etymological origin as Lucifer. Lussi is said to have been Adam\u2019s first wife and was considered the ancestress of the underground people.\u201d<\/span>20<\/sup><\/a><\/span> In V\u00e4rmland,\u00a0Lucia was portrayed as both a whore and a ghost, and in V\u00e4sterg\u00f6tland as a child\u00a0murderer. In\u00a0Askvoll, too, the underground people are her descendents.<\/span>21<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Lucia has also\u00a0\u201ctaken on traits from the dark and demonic underworld\u00a0of popular belief.\u201d<\/span>22<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Lussi Night (Lussinatta<\/em>), which has also been called the Lussi Journey (Lussiferda<\/em>) and Lucifer Night (Lucifernatta<\/em>), has clear similarities with the pagan Norse\u2019s Wild Hunt of Odin (\u00c5sg\u00e5rdsreien<\/em>, \u201cRide of Asgard\u201d),\u00a0where an army of demonic dark forces ravaged the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1908, folklorist Levi Johansson refers to\u00a0a farmer who believed that Lucia was actually called Lilith and was Adam\u2019s first wife. Here,\u00a0too, she is described as red-haired, brown-eyed, and evil. \u201cHe had heard this in his childhood from an old woman who went around the parish carding wool.\u201d<\/span>23<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Anthropologist Katarina\u00a0Ek-Nilsson points out that \u201cLucia was a light-shy and, according to many records, dangerous creature. She could take the form of a bird of prey that wanted to eat children.\u201d<\/span>24<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The Norse Lucia\/Lussi also has a male counterpart. In Swedish and Norwegian folklore, the connection between\u00a0Lussi and Lucifer is obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ancestors of the Hulder People<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In Hardanger (Norway), Lussi had characteristics of a hulder [a seductive forest creature] and a\u00a0female Lucifer (Lussif\u00e6r<\/em>). \u201cIn front, she was beautifully adorned like a Hardanger bride,\u00a0with a silver crown on her head, silver jewelry, and silver chains on her chest, a silver belt\u00a0around her waist, and a red skirt or dress. But behind, Lussif\u00e6r was hideous and\u00a0repulsive, resembling a half-rotten linden tree.\u201d<\/span>25<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The Nordic Lilith was, therefore,\u00a0also perceived as an archetype for the Nordic huldra, and in popular belief it was said\u00a0that the ancestress of the huldras was \u201cAdam\u2019s first wife, Lussi [.\u00a0.\u00a0.]\u201d and that the huldra\u00a0or hulder were descendants of fallen angels.<\/span>26<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social anthropologist Marit Myrvoll, who researched the beliefs of the coastal S\u00e1mi people, describes the huldra \u201cas a seductress and\u00a0temptress for the men of the village\u201d who, when they took a break from work, \u201ccould\u00a0dream of how the huldra came and made sexual advances [.\u00a0.\u00a0.].\u201d In S\u00e1mi folklore, too, we\u00a0encounter the biblical story of creation as the origin of what later became the huldra\u00a0people.<\/span>27<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Vigdis Ellingsen describes them as \u201ccunning, sophisticated, sensual, and\u00a0alluring.\u201d It is also said of the subterranean beings\u00a0(the hulder) that they were \u201cLucifer\u2019s angels who rained down from heaven for three days.\u201d<\/span>28<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0The hulder could also be dangerous to women and infants:\u00a0\u201cHumans were particularly vulnerable to the hulder during transitional phases. Women\u00a0who had just given birth and had not yet had time to baptize their child [.\u00a0.\u00a0.] were\u00a0particularly vulnerable.\u201d<\/span>29<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Norwegian folklore, too, we also find stories about how to protect infants from the hulder. It was considered a good\u00a0remedy to place the Bible under the pillow of an unbaptized child, a tradition that is said to\u00a0have continued into our time.<\/span>30<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The Nordic Lussi-Lussif\u00e6r also has features of the duality we\u00a0saw in Lilith: something beautiful and attractive \u201cin front,\u201d that is, in the immediately visible,\u00a0but \u201cbehind,\u201d more hidden, corrupt, decaying, deadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lilith is a complex and powerful figure. In Babylonian-Sumerian and Jewish sources, we discover layer upon layer of beauty and ugliness, fiery striving for freedom and destructive seduction, family breakdown and sterile sexuality. Etymologically, we also find an interesting contrast between darkness and light. Lucia\/Lussi means luminous, and she was also\u00a0called Lucif\u00e6ra<\/em>, a feminization of the male name\u00a0Lucifer (Latin, \u201clight bearer\u201d). At the same time, Lilith is etymologically related to\u00a0the Hebrew female name Layil and the Arabic Laila, both of which mean \u201cnight.\u201d Dark\u00a0and ugly are attributes associated with Lussi and Lucia, but at\u00a0the same time, she was the ancestor of the hulder, who are portrayed as both beautiful\u00a0and bright. In the Qabbalot<\/em>, Lilith is also portrayed not only as\u00a0fearsome but also as beautiful:\u00a0\u201cLilith has the body of a beautiful woman from her head to her navel, but from her navel\u00a0down she is flaming fire.\u201d<\/span>31<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Lilith’s character is fundamentally contradictory; she is beautiful but ugly and\u00a0dangerous; her name and character are at once dark and luminous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lilith and Lucifer<\/h3>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"
A Norwegian huldra, illustrated by Ronja Irving. From Tommy Kuusela, Skogsr\u00e5 and Huldra: The femme fatale of the Scandinavian forests<\/em> (PhD, Department of Archives and Research in Uppsala, 2020).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

According to Kabbalistic writings, Lilith was the last to leave the Garden of Eden after\u00a0the expulsion, and the reason for this is that she played a decisive role in bringing it all about. She transformed herself into the very serpent that lures and tempts Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. In\u00a0medieval consciousness, Lilith and Eve were closely linked as\u00a0representatives of sinfulness. In a woodcut from 1470 [cf. image], Lilith is depicted with a crown, wings, and a serpent\u2019s tail under the tree of knowledge, where she offers the\u00a0forbidden fruit to Eve. The fact that the serpent Lucifer is portrayed as both male and female suggests that it has\u00a0been perceived as an androgynous being. Within sections of the Christian anti-trans\u00a0movement, Lucifer is portrayed as an occult transsexual entity: \u201cLucifer is indeed the \u2018god\u2019 of the modern transgender movement,\u201d according to a Bible study site.<\/span>32<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julian Strube examined the demon Baphomet,\u00a0which some have interpreted as a version of Lucifer\/Satan. This demon is characterized\u00a0by a goat\u2019s head, wings, and female breasts, i.e., an androgynous form.<\/span>33<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0In occultism, Lucifer is not described as exclusively evil and dark. An interesting\u00a0contribution in this regard comes from the founder of theosophy, Helena Petrovna\u00a0Blavatsky. For her, it was self-evident\u2014already in the 1870s\u2014that women had the same\u00a0rights as men, and many of the female members of the Theosophical Society were also\u00a0associated with the early modern feminist movement. Blavatsky claimed that Lucifer\u00a0brought autonomy and divine wisdom to humanity and is \u201cthe spirit of intellectual\u00a0enlightenment and freedom of thought.\u201d<\/span>34<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This sympathy also had political and feminist implications. According to Per Faxneld, theosophy emerged as a \u201cprotest movement and counterculture culture, and [has] links with socialism and feminism.\u201d<\/span>35<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lilith-Lucifer thus becomes the\u00a0symbol of both the active, sovereign woman who refuses to be merely a product of man\u2019s\u00a0rib and the Luciferian seduction that tempts humans with freedom and\u00a0independence. Lilith is sometimes portrayed as Lucifer\u2019s sister, which I interpret as a metaphor for\u00a0Lucifer\u2019s androgyny. In the early twentieth century, the poet George Sylvester Viereck\u00a0wrote: Like Lucifer, Lilith is a rebel. She is not attracted by morality but by an indomitable\u00a0intellectual curiosity. She transcends sex, even in its sexual perversions. Lucifer recognizes her as his kin; by this sign, she honors him as her brother.<\/span>36<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Viereck describes Lucifer and Lilith as inner dimensions of human beings themselves. Such anthropomorphism of external religious\/spiritual figures into internal\u00a0mental figures, as seen in Viereck through poetry and Koltuv through psychology, is clearly evident in feminism\u2019s\u00a0use of the Lilith figure as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feminist Icon<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

According to Koltuv, \u201cThe war between Eve and Lilith rages on [.\u00a0.\u00a0.]. Eve can have her needs met in a relationship. Lilith cannot. She must cut and run. She refuses dependency and submission. She will not be bound or pinned down. She needs to be free, to move, and to change.\u201d Thus, she becomes \u201can aspect of the individuating feminine ego that can only develop\u00a0in the wilderness, unrelated, without eros and childless, ever jealous of Eve,\u00a0who remains in man\u2019s embrace.\u201d<\/span>37<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judith Plaskow treats the Lilith\/Eve\u00a0dichotomy somewhat differently. Here, the separation ends in a productive\u00a0reconciliation. In a short story, she rewrites the story of Lilith, Adam, and Eve as a\u00a0metaphor for recent feminist thinking. In Plaskow\u2019s short story, \u201cLilith is banished by God, at Adam\u2019s request, for not being the subservient woman, thus epitomizing the birth of feminist thinking.\u201d<\/span>38<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Eve, on the other hand, the submissive, good wife, appears as a\u00a0symbol of women who are still unaware of their rights. Lilith tries to\u00a0return to the Garden of Eden. But Adam and\u00a0Eve have built strong, high walls. Eve is told stories about how evil and dangerous Lilith is. One day, Eve catches sight of Lilith on the other side of the wall\u00a0and is deeply astounded to see only a woman like herself,\u00a0not the enormous monster that has been ingrained in her consciousness through the stories she was told. Eve and\u00a0Lilith meet, and an empathetic sisterhood arises between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the\u00a0relationship between God and Adam is turning sour, as their roles as creator and creature\u00a0become blurred and distorted. They become frightened and divided when Eve and Lilith\u00a0return to the garden, \u201c[.\u00a0.\u00a0.] bursting with possibilities, ready to rebuild it together.\u201d<\/span>39<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Plaskow emphasizes how destroying women\u2019s communities\u00a0and turning women against one another is an essential way of maintaining patriarchal\u00a0power. The end of the short story is \u201ca utopian hope for the future of\u00a0society but is also symbolic of the kind of experience women should have if they embrace the \u2018sisterhood\u2019 of feminism.\u201d The union of Lilith and Eve resolves the contradiction between the angry, liberated,\u00a0autonomous woman and the gentle, marital, maternal woman. \u201cInstead of being a reactionary monster,\u201d Plaskow hereby presents Lilith \u201cas a suppressed woman that managed to vindicate her freedom, becoming an admirable paradigm for all women in the world struggling with women\u2019s oppression.\u201d<\/span>40<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMen experience [Lilith] as the seductive witch, the death-dealing succubus, and the strangling mother. For women, she is the dark Shadow of the Self that is married to the devil. It is through knowing Lilith and her consort that one becomes conscious of one\u2019s Self.\u201d<\/span>41<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Lilith represents a strong and independent, at times chaotic, Eros. Her problem is that she cannot commit to a long-term relationship. Unlike Eve, she does not find peace in lasting marriage and family life but craves ever-new adventures and sexual seductions. Lilith is bound by her own restlessness, her desire to be desired. At the same time, in a feminist context, she appears as an independent, rebellious, and sexually liberated character. \u201cLilith is a myth that has evolved over time and been filtered through religious interpretations.\u201d<\/span>42<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it possible to approach the force field represented by Lilith independently of biological sex? For me, the answer is yes. Plato once had Socrates talk about the mythical figure Typhon. If we replace Typhon with Lilith, his statement can be summarized as follows: \u201cI look not into them but into my own self: Am I a beast more complicated and savage than [Lilith], or am I a tamer, simpler animal with a share in a divine and gentle nature?\u201d<\/span>43<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The Lilith\/Lussi force within us can embody repressed emotions and appear liberating, beautiful, and sovereign. If this sovereignty and beauty are also permeated by the urge to be desired, the force that should have a liberating effect can become an explosive, ecstatic rapture that tears people from their earthly roots, causing them to lose their connection to the familiar, the everyday, the committed, and the social. In the worst case, what should be liberating can trap people in a realm without norms, where lust and chaos reign, but gives no stable foundation upon which we can build individually and socially with one another for the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Translation <\/strong>Joshua Kelberman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The demon Lilith has wandered the Earth and featured in the mythical imaginings of writers, artists, and poets for more than four thousand years. Something menacing surrounds this contradictory figure. Her significance has changed over the course of history. What does she signify today? We encounter her in Sumerian records and in both Babylonian and Mesopotamian mythology. Later, she appears in Jewish sources as Adam\u2019s first wife, before she is increasingly portrayed as a winged and seductive demon and succubus. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22448,"featured_media":70186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8788,9201],"tags":[11756,8798,11757],"class_list":["post-70668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay-en","category-religion-en","tag-ausgabe-6-2026-en","tag-deepening","tag-english-issue-8-2026"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22448"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70668"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70698,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70668\/revisions\/70698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}