What is kept here
The House began as a reading circle, and the library is still its center. Everything else on this site, the essays, the practices, the Charter itself, came out of seven people reading the same texts aloud and arguing about what they said.
This section holds the reference material that the other sections lean on. It is meant to be consulted more than read through. If a word on another page is unfamiliar, the glossary will define it. If a claim on another page seems doubtful, the source list will tell you where to check it.
How the House reads
Three rules, taken from the Charter, govern everything in the library.
Sources first
Before the House says what Lilith means, it tries to establish what the texts say, in what order they were written, and who wrote them. The origins essay is the result.
Debts named
The principal sources for Lilith are Jewish: scripture, Talmud, folklore, and Kabbalah, preserved and studied by a living community. Behind those stand Mesopotamian ritual texts recovered by modern scholarship. We are students of this material and not its heirs, and the library says so wherever it matters.
Labels kept on
Every statement in the library is meant to be recognizable as one of three kinds: attested in the sources, the House's interpretation, or a keeper's personal view. The distinction is explained under Three kinds of knowing.
How to check what you read here
We would rather be corrected than trusted. A reader who wants to test the library can do so in an afternoon.
- Pick any historical claim on this site.
- Find the text it rests on in the source list.
- Read that text in a scholarly translation, which any good public or university library can supply.
- Compare what the text says with what we said it says.
The House does not sell or distribute books and has no arrangement with any publisher or bookseller. We name works, not editions, so that readers can use whatever translation their own library holds.
In this section
Glossary
Plain definitions of the terms used in the study of Lilith and in shadow-work: lilitu, qliphoth, sitra achra, incantation bowl, Black Moon, left-hand path, and more.
Sources
An annotated guide to the primary sources on Lilith, from Mesopotamian incantations and Isaiah to the Alphabet of Ben Sira, the Zohar, and nineteenth-century literature.
Reference pages elsewhere on the site
- The timeline, which sets every source in order of date.
- The symbols, each traced to its source.
- Ten common misconceptions, checked against the evidence.
- Questions, for matters the other pages do not cover.