The Mythology of Supernatural

by Nathan Robert Brown

  Domine, exaudi orationem meam. Et clamor meus ad te veniat. Dominus vobiscum Et cum spiritu tuo.

  Deus caeli, Deus terrae, Deus Angelorum, Deus Archangelorum, Deus Prophetarum, Deus Apostolorum, Deus Martyrum, Deus Virginum, Deus, qui potestatem habes donare vitam post mortem, requiem post laborem: quia non est alius Deus praeter te, nec esse poterit verus, nisi tu, Creator caeli et terrae, qui verus Rex es, et cujus regni non erit finis; humiliter majestati gloriae tuae supplico, ut hunc famulum tuum de immundis spiritibus liberare digneris. Per Christum Dominum Nostrum. Amen.

  Here is a translation of the first few paragraphs, since translating the entire thing would be incredibly lengthy:

  I exorcise you, unclean spirit. Every incursion of the opposite party is every specter from Hell, every legion, rooted up in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, driven away from this creature of God. He commands you, who was with you and cast you from Heaven into the lower parts of the Earth. He commands you, creature of the sea, to the winds, and a storm impervious. Hearken, therefore, and tremble in fear, Satan, enemy of the faith, the enemy of the human race, of the death being drawn back, a robber of life, of justice, you root of all evil and vice, seducer of men, the traitor of the nations, instigator of envy, the origin of their greed, the cause of discord, and maker of sorrows: Why are you standing, and resist, knowing as you must that Christ the Lord will destroy thy ways? The one you fear, who in Isaac was sacrificed, in Joseph sold, was killed as a sign, in the body of a man was crucified, and gained victory over Hell. Get thee back, therefore, in the name of the Father, the son, and the Holy Ghost: give place to the Holy Spirit, by the words of Jesus on the cross, by the sign of the holy Christ, Our Lord who with the Father and in the same Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God forever, world without end. Amen.

  O Lord, hear my prayer. And let my cry come unto thee. May the Lord be with you and amend your spirit.

  And the defender God, creator of the human race, “that man is formed according to your image”: look down upon this your servant, the unclean spirits within, who desire to deceive, whom the old adversary attacks, the old adversary of the Earth, surrounded by fear and horror, and astonishes the soul, and causes the mind to fear, and starts the body to trembling.

  [Please note that the above interpretation is not the authorized translation commonly used by the church.]

  DEMONS SUCK AT MATH

  In Supernatural, demonic possession basically occurs in a sort of one-to-one fashion, meaning one demon to each human possessed. However, in many cases of possession it is not one demon but many who take up residence in a single human body. Physical concepts like numbers don’t really apply to nonphysical beings such as demons.

  This element of demonic possession is well illustrated by a story from the New Testament of the Christian Bible, in which Jesus encounters a possessed man in Mark 5:1–9. The demons within the man recognize Jesus, and he rushes up begging for mercy. When Jesus demands a name from the demons possessing the man, he receives the reply, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” Jesus then casts the demons out of the man and into a herd of pigs, which then run into the sea and drown themselves. And what did Jesus get for his troubles? He got asked to leave town. Apparently, even the Messiah had trouble with the locals sometimes. Hunters can relate to that, right?

  When it comes to dealing with demons, there are a good many that hunters probably would rather not come up against—Azazel and Alastair, for example. But there is one scary bitch who easily puts both of them to shame. Her name is Lilith, and you don’t want to get on her bad side.

  8

  LILITH IS ONE SCARY BITCH

  Look. Lilith is one scary bitch. When I was in the pit, there was talk. She’s cooking up something big—apocalyptic big.

  —RUBY, “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER” (4-9)

  Ruby wasn’t kidding when she said Lilith was “one scary bitch.” After all, what’s creepier than a demonic chick who possesses innocent young girls, slaughters people by the dozens, eats babies, and whose idea of vacation is possessing the young daughter of a suburbanite family and then tormenting them for days while she kills them off one by one. Lilith . . . yeah, she is not a nice lady.

  The demonic character Lilith, as she is portrayed in Supernatural , has her origins in the very earliest days of human myth and civilization. In fact, it is now speculated by many mythology and history scholars that Lilith was once a major deity in the pantheon of a now-lost prehistoric civilization. The oldest evidence of Lilith that has survived the passage of time is a four-thousand-year-old series of clay tablets, commonly called the Tablets of Inanna.

  Lilith’s portrayal in Supernatural is primarily based on her later depictions in Judaic mythology. However, even in Judaism it is said that Lilith was once human (which is in line with the show’s mythos that demons were originally human). In fact, according to a number of apocryphal or, at best, noncanonical Judaic texts, Lilith was the first wife of Adam and therefore the first woman to be created.

  ANCIENT SUMERIAN, AKKADIAN, AND BABYLONIAN LILITH DEPICTIONS

  And it is written, that the first demon will be the last seal. And you busted her open.

  —RUBY, “LUCIFER RISING” (4-22)

  While the Lilith character of Supernatural is heavily based on her portrayals in Judaic demonology as a seductress with a penchant for infanticide, she is actually older than even Judaism. In fact, the first myth to mention Lilith’s name is found in the Tablets of Inanna, some of the oldest existing written works in human history. Many of the stories from these tablets tell of the exploits of an ancient Mesopotamian goddess named Inanna. The tablets that survive today are dated at roughly between 2000 BCE and 1950 BCE. These clay tablets have been a matter of close study and debate ever since the first of them were found during the initial excavations of ancient Mesopotamian cities such as Ur and Uruk in the mid-nineteenth century, smack dab in the middle of modern-day Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

  Believe it or not, the surviving tablets are not likely to be the oldest written accounts of these ancient stories; they are just the oldest that have survived. Scholars now believe that these tablets were copied and/or updated from an original set that was probably transcribed by Sumerian scribes sometime around 4000 BCE, and those were likely recorded from an even older orally conveyed version of the story. Most known myths originate from oral traditions long before being first written down. These ancient tablets were composed with a system of writing known as cuneiform, whereby characters were composed in wedge-shaped forms. Cuneiform, a written pictographic language (in which symbols represent words instead of sounds), was originally developed by the ancient Sumerians but was later forcefully adapted into a phonetic alphabet by the Akkadians for use with their own language, Akkad or Agade. This system of writing consists of tiny wedges and lines that can be combined in a variety of ways in order to make symbols. A small, flat stick, or stylus, was used to make indentations into slabs of wet clay that then hardened into solid tablets, which could be cataloged and preserved.

  One myth from these tablets, sometimes called “Inanna and the Huluppu Tree” or “The Huluppu Story/Myth,” is part of a larger ancient Mesopotamian creation myth. In fact, it may have been one of the first primal myths to be written down. Because of a number of striking similarities, many scholars now believe that the Judeo-Christian Eden story was likely inspired by or modeled after a number of elements from the huluppu tree story.

  The story tells of how there was once a special tree, called the huluppu, which grew along the fertile banks of the Euphrates River. However, one day the South Wind blew in and uprooted the tree, sending it floating along the waters of the Euphrates. Eventually, a young goddess finds the tree as she walks alongside the river (she is unnamed in the myth, but it is generally believed that this figure is likely Geshtinanna, who served as handmaiden to the goddess Inanna). The goddess pulls the tree from the waters and is urged by the gods Anu (god of the sky/heavens) and Enlil (god of air/wind/breath)
to take the huluppu tree to the great garden of Inanna located in the city of Uruk. Inanna receives the tree from the goddess and has it replanted in her splendid garden. Inanna tends the tree with a little tender loving care and decides that she will give it another ten years so that it can grow to maturity. Inanna’s intention is to use the wood of the huluppu to construct for herself a throne and bed.

  When the ten years are up, Inanna returns to the huluppu tree. However, she is horrified to discover that she is prevented from approaching it owing to the fact that three rather nasty figures have taken up residence in it. Over the years, you see, a “snake/ serpent that could not be charmed” had built a nest at the tree’s roots. In the branches of the tree, Inanna found that a powerful creature known as the Anzu (or Zu bird, which was a mythical winged creature that was often portrayed somewhat like a winged lion, other times as a kind of cross between a sphinx and a gryphon) was raising its young there. To make matters worse, the “dark maiden” known as Lilith had made a home of the huluppu’s trunk. Inanna wept, realizing that she did not have the power (though the reasons for her powerlessness are unspecified) to remove these unwanted guests from her beloved huluppu tree.

  Luckily, Inanna’s brother Gilgamesh hears of his poor sister’s situation and comes to help her out. He takes up his heavy shield and ax and rushes in with a warrior’s fury. With his giant bronze ax that weighs “7 talents and 7 minas” (in modern terms, this adds up to just over 475 pounds!), Gilgamesh slays the serpent that couldn’t be charmed. Seeing this, the Anzu bird flies away with its young. Lilith, terrified by Gilgamesh’s fury, tears down her own home. She then flees from the huluppu and goes away to the “wild uninhabited lands.”

  Now that the huluppu has been cleansed of all unwelcomed inhabitants, Gilgamesh loosens the tree’s roots and, with help from the “sons of the city” (meaning the young men/warriors of Uruk), cuts the mighty branches from the trunk. The huluppu is then used to make a throne and bed for Inanna, as she’d planned, as well as a number of additional luxuries, tools, and similar useful items considered to be symbols of ancient Sumerian civilization.

  The above story obviously bears a number of elements that are comparable to those of the Judeo-Christian story of Eden from Genesis:

  1. A special tree

  2. A “garden,” in which the special tree is planted

  3. Presence of a snake or serpent

  4. Forced exile from the garden by a patriarchal god

  5. Conflict between man/god, woman/goddess, and an evil entity

  THE EXPULSION OF LILITH

  The expulsion of Lilith from the huluppu tree (and, by association, the cities of ancient Mesopotamia) marks the beginning of a theme that has stayed with her throughout the available Lilith mythology. Across the board, Lilith is portrayed as a troublesome goddess or woman, a dark maiden who must be expelled by a patriarchal deity or male sky god. While next to nothing is known about Lilith’s true origins, this reoccurring theme actually serves as a clue that suggests she may have once been very important to one or more ancient, possibly prehistoric, culture groups.

  In the ancient world, politics and religion were often one and the same thing. In an age of “god-kings,” when rulers commonly deified themselves and were worshipped by their subjects, the creation of corresponding religious myths was often commissioned in order to validate the “godhoods” of those who founded or ruled over ancient cities.

  While the formation of cities stands as a landmark in the advancement of human civilization, these walled settlements were sources of conflict as well as frequent targets for raids and violent campaigns of conquest. And for thousands of years, the cities of ancient Mesopotamia passed from one ruling culture group to another. The Al-Ubaid people, believed to have been among the first to conquer agriculture (but, apparently, not warfare), were conquered and absorbed by the Sumerians, who were in turn conquered by the Akkadians, who were eventually forced out of power due to constant and frequent raids by nomadic Semitic tribes. The Sumerians took back the land for a brief period, until it was once again taken from them by an alliance of warring Assyrian-Semitic kings. These kings were eventually weakened by infighting (and, likely, inbreeding) and bouts of widespread civil unrest, which led to a period of violent warfare. When the smoke cleared, all that remained was the Babylonian Empire.

  Since nearly all of these ancient Mesopotamian kings claimed to be gods or, at the least, the descendents of gods, conquered populations were left with a unique problem. Their thoughts might be explained as going something like this: “If our old god-king (may he rest in peace) was supposed to be all-powerful, then what does that make this new god-king?” The solution to this came in the form of myths that one might best categorize as “My deity beat up your deity.” Many such myths exist, which tell of how the gods of a conquering culture group defeated and/or exiled the gods of the recently conquered culture. Even Christianity has given birth to myths of this nature. Saint Patrick, for example, is said to have exiled all of the snakes from the island of Ireland when he brought Christianity to the “pagan” Celts. Same song, new tune.

  Considering all of this, Lilith’s expulsion during the huluppu tree story gains a greater significance. Anzu and the snake/serpent that could not be charmed were mythical beasts likely associated with Lilith’s cult (the word cult, when used to refer to ancient religions, does not have the negative modern connotations—it just means a religious group) before the Inanna stories were written. Even in her Judaic form, Lilith is still associated with similar animals such as snakes and birds of prey. So why would the ancient scribes make a point of writing a story in which Lilith is exiled along with these mythical creatures? The answer is that she was likely the ruling deity of a popular cult from some preexisting culture group. And just as Lilith was defeated by a new pantheon of gods and goddesses, so were her followers defeated by a conquering society.

  This exile element of the first-known Lilith myth could have been intended to send a very strong message to Lilith’s followers: “Your goddess is no longer in the city. If you want to worship her, then you will need to leave.” In the ancient world, cities offered safety, laws, and protection. Life outside was dangerous even for armed trade caravans, and traveling on one’s own would have been nothing short of suicidal. During the period of the Sumer-Akkad Empire, it is likely that one ruler commissioned the writing of the huluppu tree myth in order to either forcefully convert or exile the remaining members of Lilith’s popular goddess cult. However, we will discuss what may have happened to the exiled followers of Lilith later on in the chapter. For now, there is one more element to this myth that needs to be addressed.

  Challengers to the idea of Lilith’s prehistoric godhood often point to the fact that she is never directly referred to as a goddess in the huluppu tree myth. But while Lilith might not have been named as a goddess, the same cannot be said for Inanna, who is well known to have been a popular and powerful goddess in the pantheon of the Sumer-Akkad culture group. And yet Inanna does not have the power to banish Lilith from the tree on her own. This raises yet another very interesting question: why would a powerful goddess such as Inanna be unable to do something as simple as kick a dark maiden and a couple of her creepy pets out of a tree? The answer is quite simple: Lilith must be a goddess as well and therefore equal to or greater in strength than Inanna. So, in keeping with the patriarchal mind-set of the ruling Sumer-Akkad culture, only a male warrior god (in this case, Gilgamesh) would be powerful enough to do such a thing.

  This brings us back to the question of how Lilith’s cult survived her expulsion from the cradle of civilization. Let’s examine what may have become of her loyal, exiled adherents. There are extensions of Lilith throughout world mythology . . . you just have to know how to look for her.

  OTHER FACES OF LILITH

  LILITH: Hi. I’m looking for two boys. One’s really tall, and one’s really cute.

  NANCY: Well, what’s your name sweetie?

  LILITH:
Lilith.

  —LILITH AND NANCY, “JUS IN BELLO” (3-12)

  So, just how did Lilith’s name survive for so many years, when the names of the very gods who mythically banished her in the ancient Mesopotamian story were lost and rediscovered in only the last few centuries? Just as Lilith is able to change her appearance on Supernatural, the goddess Lilith managed to disguise herself in the mythological traditions of other culture groups. Obviously, Lilith eventually made her way into early Judaic mythology, but how? One theory asserts that the remaining loyal followers of the Lilith cult chose to flee the cities of the Fertile Crescent. Some members went east until they eventually reached what is now India. Others likely traveled north along the Euphrates River until they reached the Taurus Mountains and were forced to turn west. They stopped once they reached the Mediterranean coastal region of Sidon and eventually came into contact with the seafaring Phoenicians. At this point, some Lilith cult followers may have chosen to stay and integrated themselves into the Phoenician group while others, it would seem, chose to continue traveling south along the Mediterranean coast. Unfortunately for these goddess worshippers, this journey brought them into the lands of Judea.