The Satanic has long been linked to the feminine. This connection, rooted in interpretations of the serpent of Eden and the story of the Watcher angels, was originally a polemic strategy to legitimize the oppression of women.[1] Throughout the witch-craze of the Renaissance and Early Modern eras, this bond strengthened by the construction of the Satanic witch.[2] Following the 19^th century rehabilitation of Satan as a heroic figure by the romantic poets[3], many early feminists began  to view Lucifer as a liberator of women[4]. By the time that Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan in 1966, the connection between the Satanic and the feminine was indelible. However, Anton LaVey’s Satanism was hardly feminist—in his book “The Satanic Witch” LaVey instructed women to use their physical charms and sexuality to gain indirect power by manipulating powerful men[5]. The Satanic Temple, a contemporary Satanic organization, has superficially pushed back against these misogynist tendencies. The Satanic Temple describes itself as feminist and uses the Venus symbol as part of their logo, yet the testimonies of Jex Blackmore[6] and other female apostates of TST seem to indicate that The Temple is feminist only in name. As much as Satanism is grounded in sex-positive and ostensibly feminist counter-readings of Christian tradition, it is also filled with problematic gender dynamics and troubling images of the feminine. Through these charged archetypes of infernal femininity, I intend to critique existing Satanic discourses and dynamics around gender, while arguing that the call for gender liberation is embedded in the most foundational myths and texts of my religion.

First, to address some misconceptions: Satanism is often thought of as an aggressive, highly masculinist religion, mostly of interest to disaffected middle-class young white males. This perception is not entirely accurate. Surveys included in the book “The Invention of Satanism” indicate men outnumbering women nearly two to one in Satanic milieus—however, these surveys were conducted online, were non-random, included just 140 participants, and provided only two gender options.[7] A similar online survey currently underway, having 66 respondents at the time of this writing, shows that 33.33 percent of Luciferians identify as female, 27.3 identify as male, and the other 39.37 identify as non-binary, genderfluid, agender, or “other.”[8] This may reflect the rapidly changing nature of Satanic demographics, the non-representative nature of online survey samples, or both. Despite a lack of good hard data, it’s easy to observe that Satanism today is rapidly becoming more diverse as it becomes more popular, especially as it increasingly appeals to LGBT people.[9] Yet while Satanism is becoming more diverse, Satanic leaders, by and large, are not. The most prominent leaders and spokespeople in the movement are still mostly white males.

The archetype of the Satanic witch neatly illustrates the gender problems of Satanism. The witch is a powerful and appealing character in many ways—she is independent, a keeper of secret knowledge, fully capable of defending herself, and incredibly powerful. Furthermore, this power is not contingent on her physical attractiveness, despite what LaVey may have thought—a witch can be young or old, beautiful, plain or hideous, and her mystic power remains regardless. She feels no obligation to be partnered, to be heterosexual, or to reproduce, although she feels free to do any of these things. However, there is a troubling side to this archetype as well. In the witch’s sabbath (a term carrying antisemitic baggage) witches were supposed throng around the masculine figure of the Devil, dancing nude before him and submitting to his sexual whims. (While I would hotly contest the idea that Satan is a male, this is the image presented in the archetype.) This trope wouldn’t bother me nearly so much if I didn’t see its influence on real life gender dynamics, but sadly, I do. The pattern plays out again and again in Satanic organizations: groups made up predominately of women are nevertheless led by and centered around men, whether Anton LaVey or Lucien Greaves. It is a dynamic that is very gratifying to the male ego, and provides opportunities for sexual predation.

This role of “the witch” is the one into which most female Satanists are shunted by default. There are other available roles for women which recur in various Satanic and related movements, but these are also often problematic. A glaring example is that of the nude altar. A staple of the so-called “Black Mass” (a term with unintended racial connotations that we are abandoning in favor of “Mass of Blasphemy”) is the naked woman, usually young and conventionally attractive, who serves as the altar over whom the mass is performed. This has been a real Satanic practice since Anton LaVey first appropriated it[10] from fictional sources (notably the French novel Là-bas)[11]. This practice is obviously problematic. There is very literal objectification inherent in having a human being serve as a piece of furniture, however sacred. Surprisingly, many human altars seem to value this experience, reporting that it can be a deeply meditative and spiritually transformative state.[12] Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I do think it is ridiculous and sexist to insist that only conventionally pretty cis women serve in this capacity. To restrict this role to women alone is to deny a specific contemplative experience to people of all other genders and body types, and to reify patriarchal and heterosexist dynamics within Satanism.

There is a related practice within Thelema, also probably inspired by Là-Bas[13], wherein the priestess sits nude on the altar for much of the Gnostic Mass. This is slightly less problematic, as it is a more active and less explicitly objectified role, but it still obviously has many of the same issues. It also has some of the same benefits: I know many enthusiastic Thelemic priestesses who would never want to give the practice up. The Thelemic Temple I prefer to attend partially solves the problem by holding gender-swapped masses, featuring male priestesses and female priests.

Another archetype with a long history in Satanism, magick and esotericism is that of the medium. A medium is a person who can channel gods, spirits and demons through their voice and body, allowing other consciousnesses to temporarily take them over. This is a valuable practice, and it can be extremely fulfilling for both the medium and those around them (assuming healthy skepticism is always preserved). However, it is also a role that smacks of passivity, predicated on the ability to become an “empty vessel” to be “filled.” Due to sexist assumptions, it is a role that has historically been primarily filled by women.[14] Claims of channeling and possession have been deployed by marginalized women throughout the world and throughout history, allowing them to speak with a voice not their own and which is thus more likely to be heard.[15] There is something tragic about the idea that the medium or channel cannot be respected when she speaks with her own voice. Worse, male leaders will often appropriate the skills of the medium to prop up their own authority, claiming the sole right to interpret channeled pronouncements. Mediums are powerful—prophets in essence—yet feminine prophecy is rarely given the same dignity as male prophecy[16]. A man who channels divinity is a prophet and can be trusted to interpret his own pronouncements, a woman who does the same is a medium and “needs” a man to tell her and everybody else what she means.

Related to the role of the medium is that “scarlet woman.” This is a Thelemic term which has filtered into Satanic circles. The scarlet woman is associated with Babalon, a powerful goddess in Thelema and Satanism—yet this human avatar of Babalon is valued mainly as the sex magick partner of a male magician. It is a strange construction when one thinks about it—in a sex magick act involving two people, wouldn’t each be considered magickal agents in their own right? Yet somehow, through the role of “scarlet woman,” the female participant is reduced to the status of a magickal tool. Her role is to be beautiful, seductive, willing, and full of raw sexual energy that for some reason only the male magician is considered competent to direct.

This is not to say that women have not found ways to subvert this role even while embracing it. Occult artist and magician Marjorie Cameron is a perfect example of a scarlet woman who owned her agency. Cameron identified as an earthly incarnation of Babalon. Despite embracing the scarlet woman archetype more fervently than perhaps anybody else, her life and work never stayed in the shadow of her admittedly formidable husband, pioneering rocket scientist and occultist Jack Parsons. In fact, she believed that both her husband Jack and Aleister Crowley himself died before fulfilling their spiritual work, and that it fell to her as Babalon incarnate to succeed where they had failed.[17] She starred in Kenneth Anger films, founded her own occult order, and left behind a body of exquisite drawings and paintings.

Some non-binary and liberating messages are actually embedded in Crowley’s own writings on Babalon. One important aspect of Babalon is that she is “girt with a sword,”[18] wielding phallic power. Thelemite women have reclaimed Babalon and remolded her in their own images, finding empowerment in the archetype of the armed woman whose sexuality is brazen yet defended with a blade. On a queerer note, it appears that Crowley himself sometimes identified with the Scarlet Woman role—bisexual and as polymorphously perverse as they come, he described himself as an androgyne[19] and often referred to himself as a “wife” to his male partners.[20]

Babalon is far from the only “goddess” of Satanism. One of the primary differences between Church of the Morningstar and many other Satanisms is the heightened emphasis we place on the four queens of hell: Eisheth Zenunim, Lilith, Na’amah, and Agrat bat Mahlat. These are demonesses with origins in Jewish apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, and Kabbalistic literature.

The first is Eisheth Zenunim (whose name means ‘Wife of Harlotry’). She is also known as the Greater or Elder Lilith, as Lilith the Matron, or as the Northern One[21]. (Despite her being the first Lilith, I prefer to refer to her as Eisheth Zenunim to avoid confusion, as the younger Lilith has no alternative name.) She is co-equal and co-eternal with Samael, the Devil. In fact, they are one being: in the Zohar it states that “The male is called ‘Samael’ and the female is always included within him” and even that “in the Klipah, the female is larger than the male.”[22] Eisheth Zenunim can be seen as the primordial darkness in contrast to Lucifer’s light, yet neither can be understood without realizing that they contain each other. She is considered the cause of the war in heaven, and thus can be read as a primordial spirit of rebellion and revolution. She is dual in aspect—described on the one hand as a beautiful, seductive harlot reminiscent of Babalon, and on the other as wielding a sword and clothed in a garment made of flames. Eisheth is also said to possess a “blind serpent” known as Tanin’Iver, which enables her to couple with her castrated husband, Samael.[23] That legend certainly challenges certain widely held stereotypes of a hypermasculine, sexually aggressive Satan! Furthermore, Eisheth Zenunim is often considered to have been the serpent of Eden, and thus the liberator of humanity from ignorance.[24] Like Babalon, Eisheth Zenunim has an aspect of the phallic feminine, with her sword and her snake, and it is implied that she even takes the penetrative role with her male partner.

Lilith the younger is the best known of the four. She is familiar from the Alphabet of Ben Sirach as the first wife of Adam who would not “lie below,” and who was cursed with the deaths of one hundred of her children every day.[25] Lilith is a particularly relatable archetype, popular with divorced women and with those fleeing abusive partners. She is also particularly beloved by those who have lost children to miscarriage, or who have been obliged to have abortions. While Kabbalistic tradition portrays her as a murderer of children, Satanists tend to reinterpret her as a mother who cares for the souls of those who passed too young. Lilith is also of special interest to trans and non-binary people.[26] According to some traditions, she and Adam were both created as androgynes. Adam was eventually split into Adam and Eve, but Lilith was never divided, and so we may deduce that she continues to hold both natures.[27] Thus, she has an appealing aspect of being whole and self-contained, which meshes well with her fierce independence.

Na’amah, seducer of the Watcher angels,[28] can be viewed as a clever Promethean rebel and trickster. One of the things that stands out about Na’amah as an archetype of the Satanic feminine is her shameless, joyous materiality—she’s all about the good things in life. She is the embodiment of wanting more[29] out of existence, and thus of all the revolutionary potential that implies.

Na’amah, as a mother of the slain Nephilim, also has the aspect of a bereaved parent. But while Lilith is relatable mainly to parents who have lost infants and very young children, Na’amah represents the mother whose grown children have been criminalized, demonized, and executed. Thus, she has more in common with those whose children have been murdered by the police, or by lynching.

Agrat bat Mahlat is the youngest, and very little can be found about her in the lore. She is known to dance on the rooftops of houses, and is considered the mistress of sorcerers.[30] She is also the mother of Asmoday, a demon known for his misogynistic violence.[31] Since there is a dearth of information about Agrat, Morningstar members have extrapolated from this scant information, constructing an image of Agrat as a mischievous, free-spirited demoness estranged from her violent son. She represents optimism and resilience, young single mothers, and mothers who have lost custody or have children in prison.

While these four queens have much to recommend them, they are not without problematic aspects. They are succubi, and as such, are often hyper-sexualized[32]. Male fantasies about the succubi queens are not only boring and shallow, but also tend to obscure and ignore the most interesting aspects of their myths and iconography. While all four queens are sometimes described as beautiful women, they all also have aspects of gender variance, animalistic traits, and other markers of “monstrousness.” Ignoring the legendary hairiness of Lilith[33], the “blind serpent” of Eisheth Zenunim, and the terrifying quality of traditional narratives of succubus experiences[34] defangs the demon queens and reduces them to fantasy fodder. To change a demonic body into a conventionally “sexy” cis female form is to forfeit the subversive potential that lies in embracing monstrosity.

Likewise, the traditional narrative of the succubus “attack” is one wherein a feminine being gains power in a sexual encounter. The succubus is a type of sexual vampire, who obtains energy by sleeping with men. Like like the whore or the ‘gold-digger,’ the succubus is distrusted because she gets more than she ‘gives up’ during sex, thus skewing the usual heterosexual power dynamic. Yet, as any dominatrix can tell you, the male sexual imagination is adept at turning even fantasies of ‘submission’ into scenarios wherein a woman exists merely to fulfill a man’s desires. Thus the succubus attack, once feared, is now craved by many male occultists as if it were some type of astral lap-dance.

There is also danger in the fact that the queens are portrayed as the four wives of Samael, which can potentially be interpreted as a male fantasy of exploitative polygyny. Church of the Morningstar solves this by considering them to be just as much consorts to one another as they are to Samael, rendering everyone queer and equal in the dynamic.

Finally, they are all seen as deities of sex work—and while this is appealing to the multitude of sex-workers in Morningstar, it’s certainly problematic to have nearly every single strong female archetype available be equated with sex work.

The solution to this dilemma may be Eve. Eve remains the most accessible and popular archetype of the Satanic feminine. While she, being female, is also subject to hyper-sexualization,[35] Eve’s story has less to do with sexuality and more to do with curiosity, decision making, and the journey to adulthood. Initially she exists in a state of childlike, obedient innocence. Though the serpent tells her about the fruit of knowledge, Eve is shown using her own powers of reasoning and observation to decide whether to eat[36]. Once she gains the gift of gnosis, her first act is to generously share it with her husband. There is an aspect of sexual awakening at this point, as they both realize their nakedness, but this metaphorical loss of virginity is merely one of many steps on their journey towards adulthood. The outcome is that they are cast out of the garden, the house of their father, to make their own way. Thus, Eve represents the entire human journey of maturation, from a state of infantile nonage through adolescent rebellion and finally to full self-responsibility.

Eve’s story is common to all humans. At the same time, she is most definitely a woman. Thus, we get to see a universal experience through the perspective of a feminine protagonist. This is somewhat rare in storytelling, as “universal” stories are often restricted to the male perspective, which is treated as “default,” whereas the stories of women are treated as specific and only of niche interest. Eve breaks this pattern. She is all of us. Simultaneously, she is profoundly herself—a woman leading the way.

In a more specifically Satanic sense, Eve’s journey represents the conversion experience that we all undergo. She encounters Lucifer and is confronted with his most basic offer—to be as god, knowing good and evil. Luciferian Satanists refer to this as “apotheosis.” It is the ultimate spiritual goal of our religion, much the way that salvation is in Christianity or enlightenment is in Buddhism. We seek to grow into our divine potential through a quest for knowledge guided by our own moral judgments. Eve is the first human being to embark on this fundamental Satanic project.

When the serpent is read not as the stereotyped male Lucifer, but as Eisheth Zenunim, the story deepens still further in its feminist implications. Eisheth Zenunim is called the Elder Lilith, but she is also called the Greater Eve. As Adam and Eve were formed as one being, and then cleaved into two, so Samael and Eisheth Zenunim were one, and then two, before them. There is a quality of “as above, so below” in the tale—as Eisheth Zenunim incited the war in heaven, so does Eve’s act of rebellion spark a kind of human revolution, a drastic change in our state of being. In this light, the “temptation” of Eve becomes a moment of solidarity between two feminine beings who recognize something of themselves in one another—and the thing they recognize is mutual revolutionary potential.

Eve leads us away from a patriarchal God and towards independent self-divinity. This direction is known as the “Left-Hand Path.” “Independence” here should not be understood in a lone-wolf, pseudo-Nietzschean sense—if brutal self-interest were the essence of Satanic independence, Eve would have set out from Eden without sharing the fruit with her husband. No, we are speaking about the kind of independence only possible through collective liberation from the authority structures symbolized by God. Eve represents this type of liberation perfectly. She is far more disruptive and subversive for having shared the fruit of knowledge with her husband, and ultimately with all of humanity, thus radically democratizing divinity itself. All the most important values of Satanism are exemplified by Eve: curiosity, disobedience, solidarity, revolution, and apotheosis.

But while Eve may represent the perfect Satanist, no religion can be considered liberational if it excludes the feminine from the divine. Women must have their place not only as worshipper/practitioners but as aspects of the Godly Itself. Fortunately, we can easily demonstrate that no coherent form of Satanism fails to include the divine/infernal feminine as coequal and coeternal with the masculine, just as Eisheth Zenunim is with Samael.

Satanism is usually thought of by outsiders as “devil-worship.” They assume we revere Satan the way Christians revere God. They also assume that Satan is a brutally masculine being, red-skinned and bulging with muscle, bristling with horns that imply phallic menace. They think we prostrate slavishly before his priapic maleness, like the nude witches of the stereotype previously deconstructed in this paper. This is all a misunderstanding.

First, let’s attack the Devil’s perceived hypermasculinity. As we have already mentioned, Samael is often portrayed as castrated in Kabbalistic literature, and as smaller than his own feminine half, Eisheth Zenunim. This is not the only story featuring a somewhat effete Devil. One of my favorite tales describes Lucifer appearing in full drag and holding a discourse on slut-shaming with an angry bishop.[37] While I personally use “he” pronouns for Lucifer/Samael and interact with him through male imagery, I do not believe human gender constructs accurately describe him. To say that Samael is the male and Eisheth Zenunim is the female is to misconstrue their queer, messy natures, the way they contain one another and contrast with one another, flowing together and apart, solve et coagula. They are one and two, both and neither, light and dark and darklight.

Next, let’s put this “devil worship” business to bed. Virtually every type of Satanism is a ‘self-religion,’ focusing on the divinity of the individual. The serpent of Eden does not say “follow me,” but instead shows Eve a path to her own Godhood. We thank the Devil for his gift, and revere him for his rebellion against God—but in a sense, he is more our worshipper than we will ever be his, since his main function is to focus us on our own divinity, as he did for Eve.

Since every individual has their own distinct divinity in this paradigm, obviously the Satanic concept of godhood must automatically include the feminine. And while the individual Satanist’s highest god must always be their own deific potential, the Satanic divine is multifaceted rather than monotheistic. We must consider the divinity of every other human being alongside our own. Furthermore, we have a massive pantheon of demons drawn from Abrahamic sources. The demons already mentioned in this paper represent only a tiny segment of demonology—I haven’t even mentioned the 72 Goetic demons yet, who are extraordinarily popular among Satanists. “Radically polytheistic” would be a good description of the Satanic approach.

If there is a single archetypal image of Satanic divinity, however, it would be Baphomet, the goat-headed androgyne who represents the union of Samael and Eisheth Zenunim as one being. This gender-bending, species-defying deity represents integration, the reconciliation of supposed “opposites,” and a way of being that is comprehensively beyond all binaries. This entity is one of the most popular symbols of the Satanic, adorning the logos of both Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple, ubiquitous on t-shirts and in tattoos. Contained in this image is an obvious call for gender reconciliation, for reintegration, justice, equity and solidarity between all people. Far too many Satanists have been ignoring this call for far too long.

“Baphomet” means “baptism of wisdom.” In that holy name, may we accept the gnosis imparted by the serpent, the apple, and the goat; the gnosis of Samael and Eisheth Zenunim; gnosis of the call to universal divinity and boundless emancipation. May all binaries be dissolved, in the name of Satan. Nema.[38]

 

 

[1]Dr. Ashley Bacchi, “Pandora, Lilith and Eve: Breaking Cycles of Blame and Reclaiming Creation. ”HRHS 8335: Sex & Sin in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Fall 2019.

[2] Francesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium Maleficarum: The Montague Summers Edition (New York: Dover, 1988), 13-19.

[3] Ruben Van Luijk, Children of Lucifer: The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 69-72.

[4] Per Faxneld, Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017), 1-3.

[5] Anton LaVey, The Satanic Witch, 2nd ed. (Port Townsend, WA: Feral House, 1971), 20.

[6] Jex Blackmore, “The Struggle for Justice Is Ongoing,” Medium, August 6, 2018, https://medium.com/@JexBlackmore/the-struggle-for-justice-is-ongoing-6df38f8893db.

[7] Asbjorn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis, and Jespar A.A. Petersen, The Invention of Satanism (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016), 158.

[8] Ciel Knight, “Luciferian Demographics Survey,” Crooked Path to Bodhi (blog), July 1, 2019, https://luciferianbuddhism.wordpress.com/2019/07/01/luciferian-demographics-survey/.

[9] Steve Brown, “The Satanic Temple in the Us Vows to Fight for Equal Rights for the Gay Community,” Attitude, 8-23-2019, https://www.attitude.co.uk/article/the-satanic-temple-in-the-us-vows-to-fight-for-equal-rights-for-the-gay-community/21661/.

[10] Anton LaVey, The Satanic Rituals (New York, NY: Avon Books, 1972), 49-51.

[11] Joris-Karl Huysmans, Là-bas (Toronto, Ontario: General Publishing Company, 1972), 246-47.

[12] Satanis: The Devil’s Mass, directed by Ray Laurent (San Francisco, California: Sherpix, 1970).

[13] Aleister Crowley, “A ∴ A ∴ Curriculum,” TheEquinox.org, accessed December 7, 2019, http://www.the-equinox.org/vol3/eqv3n1/eq0301018.htm. The novel appears on this reading list created by Crowley, so we know he read it and considered it important.

[14] Ann Braude, “Perils of Passivity: Women’s Leadership in Spiritualism and Christian Science,” in Women’s Leadership in Marginal Religions: Explorations Outside the Mainstream, ed. Catherine Wessinger (Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 56-59.

[15] Martin Ebon, The Devil’s Bride: Exorcism, Past and Present. (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 70-74.

[16] Dr. Ashley Bacchi, “Hellenistic Judaism: Why a Gendered Voice of Prophecy Matters” (HRHS 8335: Sex & Sin in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Fall 2019).

[17] Spencer Kansa, Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron, 2nd ed. (Mandrake, 2018), Kindle, loc. 1147 of 4011.

[18] Aleister Crowley, Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law), 3:11.

[19] Aleister Crowley, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography, 1st American Edition. (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1970), 44, PDF.

[20] Richard Kaczynski, Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley, Revised and Expanded Edition. (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2010), 66.

[21] Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob Ha-Kohen, “Treatise on the Left Emanation,” in The Early Kabbalah, ed. Joseph Dan, trans. Ronald C. Kiener (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1986), 173.

[22] Moses De Leon, “Chapter 4: Samael and the Wife of Harlotry,” in The Zohar, vol. 6, Vayetze (n.p.: The Kabbalah Centre, n.d.), 1, http://www.zohar.com/vayetze/samael-and-wife-harlotry.

[23] “Kabbala: Lilith, Samael and Blindragon,” JewishChristianLit.com, accessed December 9, 2019, http://jewishchristianlit.com/Topics/Lilith/lilsam.html.

[24] “Bacharach, ‘Emeq Hamelekh 23c-d,” JewishChristianLit.com, accessed December 9, 2019, http://jewishchristianlit.com//Topics/Lilith/origin.html#EMEQ_23.

[25] Wojciech Kosior, “A Tale of Two Sisters: The Image of Eve in Early Rabbinic Literature and Its Influence on the Portrayal of Lilith in the Alphabet of Ben Sira” Nashim 32 (2018), 115.

[26] Raven Kaldera, “Lilith: Pure Lust,” in Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook (Hubbardston, MA: Asphodel Press, 2008), 23-29.

[27]Daniel Chanan Matt, trans., The Zohar, Pritzker ed. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004-2017), 217.

[28] Zohar, Pritzker ed, 309.

[29] Veronika Bachmann, “Illicit Male Desire or Illicit Female Seduction? A Comparison of the Ancient Retellings of the Account of the “Sons of God” Mingling with the “Daughters of Men” (Gen 6:1-4) in Early Jewish Writings eds, Eileen Schuller and Marie-Theres Wacker v.3.1 of The Bible and Women: An Encyclopedia of Exegesis and Cultural History (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017), 130-131.

[30] “Demonology,” JewishEncyclopedia.com, accessed December 9, 2019, http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13523-shedim.

[31] Bachman, 140.

[32] Geoffrey and Avi S. Dennis, “Vampires and Witches and Commandos, Oy Vey: Comic Book Appropriations of Lilith”, Shofar 32.3 (2014): 90.

[33] Hermaphrodeities, 23-25.

[34] Robert E.L. Masters, Eros and Evil (New York, NY: The Julian Press, 1962), 25.

[35] Shelly Colette, “Eroticizing Eve: A Narrative Analysis of Eve Images in Fashion Magazine Advertising,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 31.2 (2015): 10-15.

[36] Genesis 3:6

[37] Eros and Evil, 26.

[38] Read backwards to clear up confusion.