Lilith and Vampires
The history of vampires begins in Mesopotamia before the Torah or the Bible, and the Book of Genesis was ever written. That's not to say the contents of the Bible are untrue, just that the inspired word had not yet been penned. The Book of Genesis is believed by some scholars to be a Hebrew apologetic work in response to Mesopotamian religions and the Epic of Gilgamesh. The first vampire was not the fictional Carmila or Dracula but the mythological Lilith.
The myth of Lilith was, in part, based on Mesopotamian demonology, and some scholars believe she is loosely connected to the demon Lamashtu. Lamashtu was depicted as a female deity with the head of a lion or owl. This is interesting as Satan is described as a ravenous lion that roams the Earth searching for souls to devour 1 Peter 5 8 and the Terror by Night Psalm 91:5 was not only associated with owls but other nocturnal birds of prey representing Lilith. Others identify Lilith with the Babylonian goddess Inanna or Ishtar. The name Lilith is derived from the Hebrew terms lilû, lilitû, and lilî, words used for screech owls, night hags, and night terrors. She is associated with owls and serpents, and, like Baal or Beelzebub, is sometimes a generalized reference to a certain type of pagan deity. She is associated with nighttime impurity and infanticide. It was believed she stole men's seed to birth hellspawn and would strangle babies in their crib, which could be an allegory for SIDS. The myth of Lilith, however, predates the writings in the Talmud, and she was generally thought to be a daughter of Cain who took one of the Watchers for a husband and became herself a hideous harpy-like demon who terrorized people during their sleep as a nightmare or a succubus, stealing the seed of men to give birth to monsters. In the Latin Vulgate Bible, Lilith is translated as Lamia in Isaiah 34:14. The Lamia is the Greco-Roman counterpart to the Hebrew Lilith.
Antoine Augustin Calmet, a French Benedictine monk (26 February 1672 – 25 October 1757) and author of Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, et al., has this to say about Lilith and vampires.
"Some learned men have thought they discovered some vestiges of vampirism in the remotest antiquity; but all that they say of it does not come near what is related of the vampires. The lamiae, the strigae, the sorcerers whom they accused of sucking the blood of living people, and of thus causing their death, the magicians who were said to cause the death of new-born children by charms and malignant spells, are nothing less than what we understand by the name of vampires; even were it to be owned that these lamiae and strigae have really existed, which we do not believe can ever be well proved. I own that these terms [lamiae and strigae] are found in the versions of Holy Scripture. For instance, Isaiah, describing the condition to which Babylon was to be reduced after her ruin, says that she shall become the abode of satyrs, lamiae, and strigae (in Hebrew, lilith). This last term, according to the Hebrews, signifies the same thing, as the Greeks express by strix and lamiae, which are sorceresses or magicians, who seek to put to death new-born children. Whence it comes that the Jews are accustomed to write in the four corners of the chamber of a woman just delivered, "Adam, Eve, be gone from hence lilith." ... The ancient Greeks knew these dangerous sorceresses by the name of lamiae, and they believed that they devoured children, or sucked away all their blood till they died."
The Strigae, or Strogoi as they are called in Romania, were not your suave, seductive gentleman vampires, but more like Count Orlok from the 1922 silent film Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror, or the 2024 remake. They are described as being bald on the top of their heads and having an elongated spine and tail covered in hair. They avoid garlic, onions, incense, and holy days such as the Feasts of St. Andrew and St. George. The book Dracula makes reference to the Eve of St. George, as the superstition was that on the night before the Feast of St. George, all manner of dark and evil creatures would be unleashed upon the world until they were incapacitated on the Feast of St. George. Other similar traditions are found among the Irish on All Hallows' Eve (the night before All Souls' Day), and in Germany on Walpurgis Nacht (the night before the Feast of St. Walpurgis). Strigoi are said to sleep outdoors as the Feast of St. Andrew approaches, signifying their weakened state, and on the Feast of St. George, the boys of the village water the girls to keep the strigoi at bay and prevent their own transformation.
Strigoi were said to take milk from cows, wheat from the harvest, the strength, good health, and life of people and animals, and they were said to bring about drought by preventing rain. The presence of a drought was a sign of a nearby strigoi, and rain with hail was a sign that God was punishing a strigoi, and if there was sunshine during rain, it was a sign that a strigoi had been killed.
People become strigoi by leading a life of sin, committing suicide, death by execution for perjury, death from a witch's curse, dying unmarried, or having been born the seventh child of the same sex in a family. The strogoi could be killed by a priest's exorcism while it is stabbed in the heart with a sharp instrument like a knife or wooden stake made from oak, yew, or ash.
The Greek Vrykolakas are said to be created in a similar manner, through having been killed or dying after living a sacrilegious life, being excommunicated, being buried in unconsecrated land, or eating the meat of sheep wounded by a wolf or werewolf. The main difference is that Vrykolakas start out as werewolves upon being resurrected, and if killed as a werewolf, become vampires. These vampires do not decay and become stronger with age, and they can be killed through exorcisms, bodily dismemberment, beheading, impaling, and cremation.
They are said to roam around upon leaving their graves, engaging in poltergeist activity, spreading plague, and devouring humans. They are also known to call out the names of the living to trick them into opening their doors, and if a person opened their door, they would die days later. This is why it is a Greek superstition to answer the door after the second knock. During the Great Famine in Greece during WWII (1941-1942), many families were grieved that their relatives had not been given proper burial and were buried in mass graves on unconsecrated land. This led some Greeks to impale or behead the corpses of their loved ones to avoid a vampiric resurrection. Some of the ways that the Greeks and other cultures, such as those in the Balkans, prevented the dead from rising from the grave were through impaling the heart, beheading, cremation, placing coins on the eyes to pay their ferry to the underworld, or by placing a wax cross and a piece of pottery with the inscription "Jesus Christ Conquers" or "XC IC."
There are many other variations of vampires throughout the world, but one of the oldest comes from Mesopotamia and the Epic of Gilgamesh, which describes Lilith as a vampire. Lilith is an ancient evil, in some ways primordial, because she goes back to some of the earliest written records in human history. Besides Jewish and Christian folklore, she is venerated or worshipped by various occult groups. To name a few individuals and groups: Aleister Crowley, who founded the Thelemic order, recognized her as Babalon, the Mother of Abominations, or Biblically known as the Whore of Babylon (Revelation 17:5). He even named his first child after her: Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith Crowley (1904-1906). Other groups that invoke her in spells and rituals are the Ordo Antichristianus Illuminati and the Order of Phosphorus. Lilith is also recognized by Theistic Satanists and Wiccan and New Age followers, who associate her with various ancient goddesses or as Diana, the Chief of Witches. She is regarded as a sex demon and as a symbol of female independence and empowerment.
In Christian demonology, she is described by Catholic exorcists to manifest as an apparition of a demonic hag with bird feet. She is associated with nighttime, evil, and impurity, particularly in the area of lust or depravity. One could spiritually discern that she is the spirit of the age, meaning that she has a tight grip on the culture and society. She is a demon of fornication, adultery, prostitution, pornography, and sexual acts of impurity. She terrorizes some as a nightmarish hag who sits on people's chests, or as a succubus seducing men in their sleep through nocturnal emissions, or through diabolical sexual encounters during awakened states. She tempts men and women into impurity and, in ancient times, was associated with infanticide, which could mean abortion in today's world.
Besides Lilith, there are other evil spirits found in the Bible associated with lust of varying species, such as Asmodeus from the Book of Tobit, or Leviathan in Revelation, and Baal throughout the Scriptures. Vampires aren't just European fops that suck blood from the necks of lusty women; they can be malevolent spirits that drain us through addiction and excess, through sexual addictions or substance abuse, and many other addictions. Even though the Devil makes use of addiction, it's important to understand that addiction can be both a psychological and neurological disease, and it can also be inherited, and that a person should still seek out medical and psychological help in coping with and recovering from addiction. However, it's also important to treat addiction as a spiritual ailment too, as most 12-step programs teach.
Whether Lilith is the damned soul of a disembodied woman, perhaps one of the daughters of Cain, or if she is a fallen angel, we do not know. But what we do know is that, next to the Devil, Satan, or Lucifer, she is an ancient and powerful evil that can only be overcome through supernatural faith in God and constant vigilance and prayer, like King David wrote in his Book of Psalms.
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