Edit/Update** NICE. She didn’t use ‘the peacock angels’ name. That’s why I didn’t see it. She just called him ‘The Peacock Angel’. 

I have so much respect for this author now!

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And now I must express my disappointment. Not just with a book in particular which I am reading, but also with the pagan community at large. I’m noticing a repeat pattern and I have to admit it’s a tad insulting.

Background on this post. The latest volume I’ve picked up to add to my library is The Encyclopedia of Spirits, by Judika Illes. Now, let me say; so far, I’m a fan. Not only has Miss Illes, in both her previous works and in this latest one I happened to have picked up, mentioned the idea of Godspouses in actual decent length, all of her work, based on what research I’ve been able to do, seems to have solid foundation, either in tradition itself, or with every bit of correspondence and elemental line-ups that I’ve been familiar with over the years. I’ve come to enjoy her work a lot. She’s easy to read, speaks pleasantly, and there is a treasure trove of information in what she publishes. Before this afternoon? I had not one complaint.

Until, of course, I caught her in the act. What act, you say? This author has fallen into the same pitfall that so many  other pagans before her have. I noticed, on flipping through the volume of these ‘spirits’, that they did not contain one. single. mention. of. Lucifer. 

And I’m not just talking the name Lucifer. No no-even though I certainly don’t think it’s right, I’ve come to expect the phobia the larger magical community seems to have about His Infernal Highness, and seldom to I expect more than a blip of a mention of him in any of the books at all-if anything. So I was a little disheartened to see that I was proven right-again, but just out of the sake of curiosity, I went hunting to see if I could turn up any of his other epithets in this book. As The Peacock Angel, or The Morningstar, or even Eosphoros. Did anything come up at all?

Nada. 

Not even anything *resembling* him, or his myth. Not his corresponding Greek “Twin”, not his Yezidi persona. . . nothing. It almost seems to me that the author of the book nearly went out of their WAY to eliminate “the devil” from their book of spirits.  And I was a tad sickened by it.

It happens, as I’ve mentioned, often enough. All over the tags and headings in various pagan and neo-wiccan communities, you see it. “Witchcraft is not Satanism!” the banners proudly proclaim. Almost as if to include the subheading. . . ‘those durn Satanists, with their goat heads and their pigs blood and their dying chickens in the kitchen sink’ (This is satire, we don’t actually do this). Never to mention that not all Luciferians identify as Satanists anyway-but since some people would ironically say, ‘eh, apples and oranges’, we’ll set aside that particular argument for another day. Lets talk erasure, here.

Of course, Lucifer isn’t surprised. And the second I complained to him about what I’d found (or hadn’t found, I should say) out loud, his response was only to raise the proverbial eyebrow at me, as if to say, ‘what did you expect’? Nothing less, of course, for an entity who is so vilified. But maybe it’s more ironic that, even moreso that Judeo-Christian paradigms, Lucifer seems to experience a level of phobia and ‘not touchin’ that’ attitude that would make mention in a church seems like a picnic. Why is that?

I’m sure there would be finger pointing all around. Anything the Christians didn’t like back in the day, they demonized. So a lot of gods were made into the opposition of Christianity’s God, and nearly everybody was an agent of satan. Now that the smoke of those fires (do pardon-pun not intended) have cleared a bit, and people are starting to take their gods back from the hands of vilification, they seem to be taking elaborate steps to say, ‘satan? satan who? Nah that guy doesn’t exist’.

Rude.

And as his wife, it’s almost worse than having a stigma attached. There is one, obviously. Call yourself a Luciferian in public and see how that goes down. I’ve heard the Lokeans don’t exactly have a cup of tea waiting for them when they do the same thing in some Heathenry circles. That being said, at least he’s there. Which is not to play the ‘this stinks more than THIS stinks’ game-that’s not the point. But it does get rather tiresome when people are constantly, in many communities, having discussion about “canon” and myth and lore and interactions with those same gods. . . and it seems at the same time, if you are a devotee of Lucifer, you spend a lot of the time just expending the energy to keep from getting swept under the rug.

Lucifer is a god. Funny how spirits like Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Ariel are mentioned in the books of entities to work with. Lucifer? Almost never. Interestingly enough, I did see mention of Ba’al as an ancient Sumerian deity, and Beelzebub also. So was Azazel. And Lillith, of course, albeit the Jewish accounting of her myth completely erased. The question I have to ask is, what are pagans so afraid of with these deities. . . . and their worshipers?

Is it so unthinkable to some of them (you?) that these entities might HAVE followers? Devotees? Oracles? Spouses? If so, why? This is a question I am challenging all of my followers to ask themselves, and discuss. Why the need to delete us and our gods from the books? Is it because we’re too “dark” for you? Do you fashion us evil? Is there blame on our shoulders for the actions of the Judeo-Christian clergy?

What seems to be the problem? I ask you.