The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

History of Lilith
00:18 Mar 25 2009
Times Read: 663

Lilith and other ancient vampire entities:



in Babylonian myth a deity known for drinking the blood of babies, Lilitu or "Lilith", was discovered.

She was reputedly the first wife of Adam according to old Hebrew texts removed from the Old Testament,

and left her husband due to his sexual ineptitude, becoming the Queen of Demons and Evil spirits.



Lilith:

Isaiah 34:14f

Wildcats shall meet with hyenas,

goat-demons shall call to each other;

there too Lilith shall repose,

and find a place to rest.

There shall the owl nest

and lay and hatch and brood in its shadow





Lilith (Hebrew) is a mythological female Mesopotamian storm demon associated with wind and was thought to be a bearer of disease, illness, and death. The figure of Lilith first appeared in a class of wind and storm demons or spirits as Lilitu, in Sumer, circa 3000 BC. Many scholars place the origin of the phonetic name "Lilith" at somewhere around 700 BC.[1] Lilith appears as a night demon in Jewish lore and as a screech owl in the King James version of the Bible. She is also apocryphally the first wife of Adam.

The Gilgamesh passage has in turn been applied by some to the Burney relief, which dates to roughly 1950 BC and is a sculpture of a woman with bird talons and flanked by owls. The relief is Babylonian, not Sumerian or Assyrian, as sometimes described. While the relief may depict the demon Kisikil-lilla-ke or Lilitu of the Gilgamesh passage, it might be a goddess. The piece is dated roughly about the same time as the Gilgamesh fragment featuring Lilith, this, in turn was used translate it as Lilith/Lillake, along with other characteristics of the female being in the Gilgamesh passage. The key identification is with the bird feet and owls. She is wearing a multiple-horned mitre and has wings, both indications of high divinity. The objects in both her hands are symbols of divine authority. However, the relief is also thought to be of the Sumerian goddess Inanna or her underworld sister Ereshkigal and some scholars currently regard the connection with this relief and Lilitu/Lillake as dubious. The relief was purchased by the British Museum in London for its 250th anniversary celebrations. Since then it was renamed "Queen of the Night" and has toured museums around Britain. Modern pagans have been allowed by the museum to organize religious ceremonies around the relief. A similar relief dating to roughly the same period is preserved in the Louvre (AO 6501).

The Book of Isaiah 34:14, describing the desolation of Edom, is the only occurrence of Lilith in the Hebrew Bible:



Hebrew (ISO 259): pag--uiyyim et---iyyim w-sa--ir --al-r----hu yiqra --ak--am hirgi--ah lilit u-ma?--ah lah mano?

morpho-syntactic analysis: "yelpers meet-[perfect] howlers; hairy-ones cry-[imperfect] to fellow. liyliyth reposes-[perfect], acquires-[perfect] resting-place."

KJV: "The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest."

This passage refers to God's day of vengeance, when the land will be transformed into desolate wilderness. Thus, Lilith was known in ancient Israel of the 8th century BC. The fact that she found a place of rest in the desert from this passage seems to allude to the Sumerian Gilgamesh incident: after Lilith fled into the desert she apparently found repose there.

Schrader (Jahrbuch für Protestantische Theologie, 1. 128) and Levy (ZDMG 9. 470, 484) suggest that Lilith was a goddess of the night, known also by the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Evidence for Lilith being a goddess rather than a demon is lacking. Isaiah dates to the 6th century BC, and the presence of Jews in Babylon would coincide with the attested references to the L--l--tu in Babylonian demonology.

The Septuagint translates onokentauros, apparently for lack of a better word, since also the sa--ir "satyrs" earlier in the verse are translated with daimon onokentauros. The "wild beasts of the island and the desert" are omitted altogether, and the "crying to his fellow" is also done by the daimon onokentauros.

In Horace (De Arte Poetica liber, 340), Hieronymus of Cardia translated Lilith as Lamia, a witch who steals children, similar to the Breton Korrigan, in Greek mythology described as a Libyan queen who mated with Zeus. After Zeus abandoned Lamia, Hera stole Lamia's children, and Lamia took revenge by stealing other women's children.

The screech owl translation of the KJV is without precedent, and apparently together with the "owl" (yan--up, probably a water bird) in 34:11, and the "great owl" (qippoz, properly a snake,) of 34:15 an attempt to render the eerie atmosphere of the passage by choosing suitable animals for difficult to translate Hebrew words. It should be noted that this particular species of owl is associated with the vampiric Strix of Roman legend. This possibly evolved from the early 5th century Roman Church Latin Vulgate Bible, which translated the same word as Lamia instead.[37] [38] [39]

et occurrent daemonia onocentauris et pilosus clamabit alter ad alterum ibi cubavit lamia et invenit sibi requiem

Isaiah(Isaias Propheta) 34.14, Vulgate

Later translations include:

night-owl (Young, 1898)

night monster (ASV, 1901; NASB, 1995)

vampires (Moffatt Translation, 1922)

night hag (RSV, 1947)

Lilith (Jerusalem Bible, 1966)

lilith (New American Bible, 1970)

night creature (NIV, 1978; NKJV, 1982; NLT, 1996)

nightjar (New World Translation, 1984).

A Hebrew tradition exists in which an amulet is inscribed with the names of three angels (Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof) and placed around the neck of newborn boys in order to protect them from the lilin until their circumcision. There is also a Hebrew tradition to wait three years before a boy's hair is cut so as to attempt to trick Lilith into thinking the child is a girl so that the boy's life may be spared.



Dead Sea scrolls



The appearance of Lilith in the Dead Sea Scrolls is somewhat more contentious, with one indisputable reference in the Song for a Sage (4Q510-511), and a promising additional allusion found by A. Baumgarten in The Seductress (4Q184).



The first and irrefutable Lilith reference in the Song occurs in 4Q510, fragment 1:

"And I, the Instructor, proclaim His glorious splendour so as to frighten and to terrify all the spirits of the destroying angels, spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith, howlers, and [desert dwellers… and those which fall upon men without warning to lead them astray from a spirit of understanding and to make their heart and their desolate during the present dominion of wickedness and predetermined time of humiliations for the sons of light, by the guilt of the ages of [those] smitten by iniquity – not for eternal destruction, but for an era of humiliation for transgression."



Akin to Isaiah 34:14

this liturgical text both cautions against the presence of supernatural malevolence and assumes familiarity with Lilith; distinct from the biblical text, however, this passage does not function under any socio-political agenda, but instead serves in the same capacity as An Exorcism (4Q560) and Songs to Disperse Demons (11Q11) insomuch that it comprises incantations – comparable to the Arslan Tash relief examined above – used to "help protect the faithful against the power of these spirits." The text is thus, to a community "deeply involved in the realm of demonology," an exorcism hymn.



Another text discovered at Qumran, conventionally associated with the Book of Proverbs, credibly also appropriates the Lilith tradition in its description of a precarious, winsome woman – The Seductress (4Q184). The ancient poem – dated to the first century BC but plausibly much older – describes a dangerous woman and consequently warns against encounters with her. Customarily, the woman depicted in this text is equated to the "strange woman" of Proverbs 2 and 5,[citation needed] and for good reason; the parallels are instantly recognizable:

"Her house sinks down to death, And her course leads to the shades. All who go to her cannot return And find again the paths of life." (Proverbs 2:18-19)



"Her gates are gates of death, and from the entrance of the house she sets out towards Sheol. None of those who enter there will ever return, and all who possess her will descend to the Pit." (4Q184)



However, what this association does not take into account are additional descriptions of the "Seductress" from Qumran that cannot be found attributed to the "strange woman" of Proverbs; namely, her horns and her wings: "a multitude of sins is in her wings." The woman illustrated in Proverbs is without question a prostitute, or at the very least the representation of one, and the sort of individual with whom that text's community would have been familiar. The "Seductress" of the Qumran text, conversely, could not possibly have represented an existent social threat given the constraints of this particular ascetic community. Instead, the Qumran text utilizes the imagery of Proverbs to explicate a much broader, supernatural threat – the threat of the demoness Lilith



Talmud

Although the Talmudic references to Lilith are sparse, these passages provide the most comprehensive insight into the demoness yet seen in Judaic literature which both echo Lilith's Mesopotamian origins and prefigure her future as the perceived exegetical enigma of the Genesis account. Recalling the Lilith we have seen, Talmudic allusions to Lilith illustrate her essential wings and long hair, dating back to her earliest extant mention in Gilgamesh:

"Rab Judah citing Samuel ruled: If an abortion had the likeness of Lilith its mother is unclean by reason of the birth, for it is a child but it has wings." (Niddah)

"[Expounding upon the curses of womanhood] In a Baraitha it was taught: She grows long hair like Lilith, sits when making water like a beast, and serves as a bolster for her husband." ('Erubin)

More unique to the Talmud with regard to Lilith is her insalubrious carnality, alluded to in The Seductress but expanded upon here sans unspecific metaphors as the demoness assuming the form of a woman in order to sexually take men by force while they sleep:

"R. Hanina said: One may not sleep in a house alone [in a lonely house], and whoever sleeps in a house alone is seized by Lilith." (Shabbath)

Yet the most innovative perception of Lilith offered by the Talmud appears earlier in 'Erubin, and is more than likely inadvertently responsible for the fate of the Lilith myth for centuries to come:

"R. Jeremiah b. Eleazar further stated: In all those years [130 years after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden] during which Adam was under the ban he begot ghosts and male demons and female demons [or night demons], for it is said in Scripture, And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot a son in own likeness, after his own image, from which it follows that until that time he did not beget after his own image…When he saw that through him death was ordained as punishment he spent a hundred and thirty years in fasting, severed connection with his wife for a hundred and thirty years, and wore clothes of fig on his body for a hundred and thirty years. – That statement [of R. Jeremiah] was made in reference to the semen which he emitted accidentally." ('Erubin 18b)

Comparing 'Erubin 18b and Shabbath 151b with the later passage from the Zohar: "She wanders about at night, vexing the sons of men and causing them to defile themselves (19b)," it appears clear that this Talmudic passage indicates such an averse union between Adam and Lilith.in Babylonian myth a deity known for drinking the blood of babies, Lilitu or "Lilith", was discovered. She was reputedly the first wife of Adam according to old Hebrew texts removed from the Old Testament, and left her husband due to his sexual ineptitude, becoming the Queen of Demons and Evil spirits.



In China during the 6th century BC, traces of the "Living Dead", or revenants as they are known, were also found. More legends continued throughout all the world, including India, Malaysia, Polynesia and the lands of the Aztecs and Eskimos. According to the Aztecs, the offering of a young's blood to the Gods ensured the fertilization of the earth. But truly, the vampire proper originates from European civilization...ancient Greece to begin with. There were numerous bloodthirsty Goddesses in both Roman and Greek mythology, known as Lamiae, Empusae and Striges. These names eventually evolved into the general terms for Witches, Demons and Vampires. But these Vampires, though they do drink blood, were only Goddesses...not "living Dead", but disembodied divinities capable of taking on human appearances so that they might seduce their victims. As time passed on, and Christianity grew in popularity, the redemptive value of blood became apparent. Holy Communion, which includes drinking wine symbolizing Christ's blood and Bread symbolizing his flesh was at times taken quite literally. Some people, confusing pagan beliefs with transubstantiation (the actually presence of Christ's flesh and blood during Communion) took part in feasting on human flesh and drinking human blood



In China during the 6th century BC, traces of the "Living Dead", or revenants as they are known, were also found.

More legends continued throughout the entire world, including India, Malaysia, Polynesia and the lands of the Aztecs

and Eskimos. According to the Aztecs, the offering of a young victim's blood to the Gods ensured the fertilization

of the earth. But truly, the vampire proper originates from European civilization...ancient Greece to begin with.

There were numerous bloodthirsty Goddesses in both Roman and Greek mythology, known as Lamiae, Empusae and Striges.

These names eventually evolved into the general terms for Witches, Demons and Vampires. But these Vampires, though

they do drink blood, were only Goddesses...not "living Dead", but disembodied divinities capable of taking on human

appearances so that they might seduce their victims. As time passed on, and Christianity grew in popularity,

the redemptive value of blood became apparent. Holy Communion, which includes drinking wine symbolizing Christ's

blood and Bread symbolizing his flesh was at times taken quite literally. Some people, confusing pagan beliefs

with transubstantiation (the actually presence of Christ's flesh and blood during Communion) took part in feasting

on human flesh and drinking human blood

Questions and Answers about HikaruCoven
00:09 Mar 25 2009
Times Read: 665

Q: what does Hikaru Coven mean?



A: Hikaru is a Japanese given name that can be given to a boy or to a girl. "Hikaru" can also be a surname. Its meaning is usually "Light" or "To Shine". as I am referred to as the lighthouse, I felt it appropriate.

Coven: A group of vampires, witches, or other group of peoples who come together for friendship, protection and mutual understanding





Q: Are you just recruiting right now?



A: Right now we are going to focus on the 38000 members I have gained in the past 8 years, even though Hikaru has been around for a few years. I finally decided to make it something everyone can be apart of.

we are a community of vampires, Goths, witches, social outcasts even. we are all races, religions, beliefs, and cultures, we are world wide.





Q: So what are you?



A: right now we are a group of people who live the vampire lifestyle and enjoy being apart of an organized group that allows each other to express each others feelings and lifestyles without feeling like we don’t belong or being forced to hide who we are.





Q: But it seems mostly online what you do offline



A: gatherings, meetings, local chapter leaders throw meetings for their area members 2 times a month it’s like a support group that does fun shit based on their lifestyle

once a year we all are going to gather in 1 place to be who we are, a family.





Q: Aside from your myspace do you have any literature on it yet



A: My web designer quit after I made payment, so the website is no where near being done, I have pretty much been using what I can to communicate with those who might be interested Myspace is a good outlet for finding people who would be comfortable being a part of an organized vampire community.





Q: Is there anything else you do. besides gather and kick back?



A: We are also focusing on helping our local communities as a whole, we are working on Charity events to help our non vampire communities, the ones we live in and deal with on a daily basis. Charity an event precedes goes towards a lot of things. here are a few examples:

Horses helping the handicapped programs.

Charity Balls (vampire and non-vampire oriented of course) to help fund research for cures.

Food drives to help our local shelters and families going through hardships.

(no matter what kind of vamp you are, these issues do affect us as well.)





Q: I was curious to what you define a vampire as?



A: Any one that lives a lifestyle different from typical society can be considered a vampire some people have authentic abilities to attract others, natural leadership skills, the ability to read minds, anyone who is not accepted or believed by society can be a vampire some have a true taste for blood it all depends on the person if you feel you are a vampire, who is to say your not? besides closed minded idiots? there are many people who feed and thrive off negativity; however that’s not necessarily an energy vamp. people these days know nothing but anger, hate greed, its become a part of humanity as a whole. well, my goal is to get people to open their eyes and see what can be accomplished without those things. and to make a difference in the process.





Q: I have a lot of hope in the coming years for change. I have a feeling it's going to take a great tragedy for that to happen though.



A: That’s the goal of the Hikaru, hopefully we will have enough people to help those that need help when that happens.





Q: Is there a place to meet in the event something happens? You know where we can't talk to each other online or via phone or something, but an actual physical place?



A: We are working on that. Currently each chapter has a clubhouse (usually their chapter leaders house which is open as a safety net for those who need it due to any number of reasons including natural disasters. DO NOT be surprised if you are asked to pay a small boarding fee to cover food costs or other bills, and if your local leader does not require that from you, do what you can to help around the place anything from washing dishes after a meal to getting the meeting room straightened up before and after each meeting, that common courtesy and shows respect.

A bit about the HikaruCoven
00:03 Mar 25 2009
Times Read: 668




The Hikaru was set up initially by Andrea in 2002 and has moved and grown increasingly with the help of the internet and dedicated members who are getting the word out. The prime objectives of the Hikaru are to bring together those who have similar interests and are often seen as different from what society calls the norm. Also to bring some support to our local communities in the way of drives designed to help some of the existing charitable bodies.

Andrea and the Hikaru are all intent on making our communities a better place and that the beneficiaries are advantaged by what we do.

Currently there are many members worldwide and is growing rapidly. Dedicated members are what the Hikaru depends on for these events and fundraisers to happen.



There is a current drive to grow the Hikaru in Australia with a chapter now in Sydney and Orange as well as Queensland at this very moment.



The Hikaru is also currently putting a band together (Drummer needed) as well as a jousting troupe here in Australia and we are also looking at the possibility of running various workshops in the very near future.



Andrea has also started up a new age, Pagan/Goth shop. All proceeds of which go to the HikaruCoven animal rescue, the Red Cross, and our Horses helping the handicapped program.



www.thehikaru.net



feel free to check out what we do

Vampire History
23:52 Mar 24 2009
Times Read: 671

The modern day vampire comes originally from a Gene called porphyritic decarboxylase

(It is actually a gene carried in the human body, when this gene mutates it causes heme problems. It is responsible

For the 5th step in the production of heme, the iron containing part of hemoglobin, which is the oxygen-carrying Protein in red blood cells)?

porphyry is the actually the disease stemmed from this gene.

It became extremely prevalent in the dark ages.

Science and medicine was not what it is now, the disease caused Extreme sensitivity to sunlight, excessive hair growth and tightening of gums.(which explains the myths of sunlight, causing pain and discomfort to those affected with the disease) The tightening of the gums caused the "fang" appearance.

The bubonic plague that was going on at the time also Made the rumors and scares more tangible as the bodies of the deceased were staked in the heart due to bloating of the body. The bodies of the diseased dead were then buried in shallow graves where animals soon dug them up (mostly wolves). So when graves were found unearthed and no corpse it was believed that these beings were brought back from the dead.( back then they would assume that the person was alive after being dead and had morphed in to an animal usually wolf).

The reality of it is that the bodies were dug up, drug off and consumed by animals. The myths of these beings turning into bats were caused by the Romanian bat (obviously not to be confused with the South American Vampire Bat) that made their homes in the mausoleums and caves spread throughout the countryside.

Natural energy
10:09 Mar 22 2009
Times Read: 697

I have also noticed (and incorporated an animal rescue into my organization because of it) that people living the vampire lifestyle, although happy to be with others of like mind, religion, beliefs, social status, and spiritualtiy prefer to be around Nature and animals more than people. I am guilty of this as well, as I prefer sitting next to a stream, waterfall or other moving body of water and soaking in the birdsong, the sound of moving water and watching nature blossom before me each morning, and evening more so than dealing with ungrateful cockheads who prefer to piss me off rather than just using their brain and avoiding me. In general, Vampires are not constantly feeding, and I have found that many still have not figured out that energy is just that, so causing negativity with others in order to feed, although hard to avoid at times uses more energy than if one were to feed off positive energy. Not just from people, but everything around us, and there is nothing more positive than being in nature, whether its a trail ride through the Forrest, or a hike up the hill in the backyard. and the great thing about it is, you can feed as much as is needed and the energy used for such activities balances out the excess or malignant energy absorbed, thus making one feel very well even without the ups and downs of under/over feeding. Perhaps I am just rambling on and not making any sense . Perhaps I have no clue in which I am speaking of......... Perhaps



Also looking back on my first Journal entry I should slap myself for this...... Variations, especially the 3 I wrote about does not mean that vampires cannot do all of them, it just refers to their individual preferences. Example of this is:

A sanguine can aural feed and Psy feed, but because of the extra energy involved in those forms of feeding, he prefers to feed on solid energy. Psy and Aural can in return take their feed in the form of blood But there are 2 very important reasons they may choose to feed in their ways, one being they like the challenge ( this is not a bad thing) and the 2nd reason being they dont feel feeding on blood appropriate or called for. That is their decision, their choice, and should NEVER be questioned or forced (thats like Jehovah's witnesses banging on your door at 6am Saturday morning to "spread the word" it just isn't cool and very annoying to say the least) The primary thing to remember is that everyone has their own style, and reasons behind how they do things, being there to support each other and accepting or at least respecting each others space and individuality is what makes this so mysterious and intriguing, to make everyone believe and practice the exact same thing is bordering on Catholicism and just makes gatherings and meetings feel like Sunday mass.



* these are my personal ideas and views of vampirism, in no way do I wish anyone to take my ideas or thoughts/insights as law, as I am freely giving my personal perspective on what we are all here for to begin with, and that's connecting and sharing what we as individuals feel vampirism is.

Vampires of today
07:53 Mar 22 2009
Times Read: 702

I have traveled the world and have met many very interesting people who live the vampire lifestyle, it is comforting to know that there are so many others that share common beliefs and ideas (not necessarily exact beliefs and ideas, but common principles) What amazes me is that there are so many variations and differences with the same common principles. Some feel bloodletting and drinking of blood is Taboo, while others welcome the practice as long as it is done in a sterile manner (thank goth for that) The different fields of vampire ism is amazing......... The primary and most well known being Sanguinarians or blood "drinkers"(thanks to hollywood for their contributing their 2 cents in which has done nothing but misguide and mislead people into thinking that vampires are only what Hollywood portrays them to be. They do not "drink" blood as much as is believed. Sanguine Vamps tend to only take very little blood as a means to obtain pranic energy in its whole form seeing as their bodies do not produce the energy needed to live a healthy normal daily life without feeling run down and spent. Sanguine vampires tend to have issues with Anemia, Gastronomic health issues from a very slow working metabolism and other heme deficiency related problems. I could write an entire book on everything I have learned about this particular Real life variation. The next well known yet not very open Variation is the Psy vampires who feed on psychic energy, in other words, they do not need to have physical contact with their "prey" in order to take in (feed) energy and the more advanced and controlled they are in their feeding rituals, the more they are able to feed from everything in their surroundings, not just people. I could go much more in depth and detailed on this variation as well, and probably will when I have the free time to do it. Another type of vampirism I have come across is Aural vampires who don't necessarily feed off the energy of others around them as much as they take in the auras of others through simple things like hand shaking and hugs. these victims in all 3 (but primarily the last 2) variations tend to feel a sudden need to Panic or get away from the vampire as fast as possible, and most of the time it is a subconscious reaction, the "prey" does not even know consciously what it is they have the sudden urge to get away from, it is usually followed by a light to moderate bout of depression and lack of energy due to the strain put on them from being fed on. In reflect though Vampires tend to have spikes in their energy levels as well, very erratic rollercoaster rides of massive amounts of energy and not being able to sit still, constantly jigging or moving to not even wanting to get out of bed (hence the insomnia which is caused by energy patterns primarily caused from feeding too much or too little amounts of energy from their "prey") I have also come across a Vampire religion, and this is all I will mention of it, as it is not my place to speak of it..............I shall elaborate more on everything I have entered thus far and much much more as time allows me to.