A keeper is someone who looks after part of the library. The word was chosen with care. A keeper does not lead, teach, initiate, or advise. Under Article II of the Charter, none of them may stand between a reader and that reader's own practice, and none may speak for the House beyond what the Charter says.
The keepers write under the names they use within the House. They have ordinary occupations and private lives, and they would like to keep both. None of them can be contacted through this site.
Vesper Ardane
Keeper of the Charter
Vesper convened the first reading circle in 2011 and drafted the text that the seven adopted three years later. Her duty is to keep the Charter and to read it aloud whenever a proposal would breach it, which she reports is about twice a year. She came to the study of Lilith after leaving the religious community in which she was raised, and her writing returns often to the difference between leaving and being sent away.
She wrote the first of the House Papers, "The Same Earth," and looks after the pages on self-sovereignty and spiritual independence, and the Rite of Refusal.
Maelis Thornwood
Keeper of the Library
Maelis is responsible for the historical pages and for the accuracy of every claim about the sources. She trained as a translator and works with texts for a living. Within the House she is the one who asks for the date. She has the least patience of the five for invented traditions, and the most for the people who made the old amulets.
She maintains Origins and Sources, the timeline, the glossary, and the source list.
Oriel Sabbatine
Keeper of the Mirror
Oriel developed the four-movement method of shadow-work that the House publishes, and tests every revision of the practices on himself before it is published. He spent many years in hospice work, and credits it with teaching him to sit beside what cannot be fixed. He insists that the cautions on the practice pages are the most important sentences on the site.
He maintains Shadow-Work, Mirror Work, and the symbols page.
Ilse Corvane
Keeper of the Calendar
Ilse works out the dates of the dark moon each year and keeps the text of the Night Office. She worked night shifts for most of her adult life and says that she joined the circle because it was the only group she knew that took the small hours seriously. She keeps an honest count of how often the keepers themselves observe the night.
She maintains the Dark Moon Observance and the Night Journal.
Taven Rooke
Keeper of the Threshold
Taven thinks about the reader who has just arrived. Because the House holds no correspondence, the work consists of anticipating questions and writing the pages a newcomer needs first. Taven is the keeper most concerned with the ways this path goes wrong, and wrote the fourth House Paper on the temptations of the left-hand path. Taven changes position on what Lilith is roughly once a year and regards this as a qualification.
Taven maintains First Steps, Questions, Misconceptions, and the page on the left-hand path.
How the keepers work together
- Two readers for every page. No page is published or changed until a second keeper has read it against the sources and against the Charter.
- Signed opinions. Anything that goes beyond evidence and agreed interpretation appears in the Journal under its author's name.
- Disagreement is left standing. The keepers hold different views on what Lilith is, and the site is written so that it does not depend on any of them.
- Equal shares. Costs are divided by five. So is the washing-up.
Those who left
The Charter was signed by seven. Two of the seven have since laid down the work, one in 2016 and one in 2020. Under Article IX they owed no explanation and gave none that the House will repeat. Parts of this library are still theirs, and the keepers remain grateful to them.