Page:Heavenly Bridegrooms.djvu/57

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

of innocence by means of a great serpent, the AzisDahaka.

"For a long period Yiena and his subjects were in the power of this evil serpent, Azis Dahaka, the demons * * * * Yiena himself in order to oblige his masters, had to abandon his own wife, who was also his sister, and to take a female devil for his wife, and to consent to the union of his former wife with a demon. From these unions were produced apes, bears, and black men. During this evil period women much preferred young devils to young men for husbands, and men married young seductive "Paris," or "female devils."

[The Serpent in Paradise: The Serpent in Mythology.]

The psychic who can sustain marital relation on the Borderland must above all be sensitive at the extremities of the nerves of touch. Neither blind people nor deaf people are hindered by their respective infirmities from marrying in this earth-life and on the Borderland a psychic may be clairvoyant and clairaudient to only a limited extent, and yet be a partaker in connubial joys. For the Borderland husband must materialize more or less fully to enable her to understand the relation clearly upon the physical side: Whereas for most men this is unnecessary, and the spirit bride may remain in all save a few essentials, invisible, inaudible, intangible a veritable "woman of air."

Hence her ghostliness and her philological connection with the idea of pale blue or pale purple the color of air and the mist.

Lilith is said to come to young men's bedsides at night to seduce them, under the aspect of a beautiful and finely dressed woman with golden hair. And, afterwards she strangled them, and they are known to be Lilith's victims because one of her golden hairs is found tightly wound around the victim's heart. In the Zoroastrian legends, she is much connected with night and night-dreams; and men are cautioned not to sleep alone for fear of the evils of Lilith. She also lies in wait for children to kill them if they are not protected by "Amulets."

"Herodotus says that the Arabians called the moon 'Alilat the Assyrian word for night is Lilat,' and Talbotsupposes