One Man’s God is Another Man’s Demon

Last updated on: August 25, 2018 at 7:52 am by Lyn Thurman

One Man’s God is Another Man’s Demon 2018-08-25T07:52:04+01:00 Lyn Thurman

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I’ve been lucky enough in all my years online not to have acquired a troll. The odd grumpy comment, yes but who hasn’t? The day I released my book Goddess Rising marked not only the hard work of birthing a book but also being officially recognized in the trolldom.

I was given a one-star review on Amazon because I didn’t know what I was writing about. And to make sure I was properly penalized for my lack of knowledge, the troll proceeded to find The Inner Goddess Revolution and give that a one-star too, even though they admitted they’d never read it. [Aside: Amazon eventually removed both reviews].

The thing that irritated the troll the most is that Lilith is a demoness and not a goddess.

Lilith - Goddess or Demon

Lady Lilith by Rossetti / Wikimedia Commons

Lilith is claimed to be the first wife of Adam, created as an equal. Adam didn’t want to share equality and Lilith didn’t want to be subordinate. They clashed. Lilith packed her bags and went to live in the desert. Angels were sent by God to bring her back but she refused to come, preferring to take her chances in the wilderness than go back to possible servitude with Adam.

It ended with Adam finally getting a mate in Eve and Lilith being demonised as a baby-eating monster who populates the Earth with demons.

Lilith has become a popular goddess (or goddess figure) in recent years particularly with women because she is strong, independent and won’t take any rubbish from anyone. Her likely origin is Sumeria and all we know for definite is she’s classed as a spirit.

This is where the name calling of god, goddess, spirit, demon, guides etc. becomes messy because who can say what makes a demon or what makes a god? They all reside somewhere on the spirit realm and are all spirit in nature (at least as far as we know).

There is a saying that history is written by the victors. Think about it: our history books are biased because the ‘winners’ have a different perspective on what happened in human history than those who came out worse for wear. This is no different in spiritual history.

As humans, we have a terrible track record of having rigid beliefs when it comes to spirituality. We wage wars and throw bombs because one group’s god is the true god and all others must be fakers (and their followers misguided, enchanted or just evil). When we understand that there is only one path to the source – the individual’s path – we’ll all sleep a little easier at night.

The gods and goddesses in pre-Christian times didn’t just get shoved to the side, put in a cupboard to take out for later, so the Christian god could rule for a while. They were either demonised, transformed or eventually forgotten. Unless you adopted a Roman-like attitude of embracing other belief systems and enfolding them into your pantheon, newly conquering religions made the old gods into bad guys and made it punishable to worship them.

With such animosity towards Lilith, it’s likely she once was a goddess in her own right. Now, of course, she has evolved into a modern goddess to cater for the needs of people in these times. That’s cool. Gods and goddesses (and demons) can evolve too.

About Lyn Thurman

Lyn Thurman is a witch and priestess on the south coast of England. She's the author of The Inner Goddess Revolution and Goddess Rising, and the creator of the Sea Whispers oracle. When she's not writing, she is breathing magic into business through Biz-Witchery (or obsessing over vegan cakes). You can read more about the author here.

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