Recombining Near Eastern Devotion and Judaism
As an occultist, polytheist Jew a lot of my practices as far as most modern people are concerned don't have precedence. However, this is not necessarily true if you look at the Tanakh because you get lines like these:
Ashtaroth is the Near Eastern goddess known as Inanna (Mesopotamian/Sumerian), Ishtar (Akkadian), and Astarte (Levantine). She is later referred to as Astaroth in multiple medieval grimoires, including the Grimoirium Verum where she is described as male. "Baalim" is plural referring to multiple deities as "ba'al" was a common respectful title translating to "lord" used for more than one deity. In some passages in these texts, however, the name Ba'al most likely to refers to the Hadad (Ugaritic), Adad (Akkadian), or Set (Egyptian), which are the names of a prominent storm god. I will be talking about both of these two entities in later posts for certain.
In the meantime, I have been thinking about how to incorporate my relationship with Satan/Samael (Lucifer) with my Jewish background as part of a practice. So far, outside of other deeper discussions I hope to craft into blog posts later involving tikkun olam, the featured image and the following are a couple of expressions of this effort that feel good to me.
"Non serviam," Latin for "I do not serve" comes from the Vulgate Latin translation of Jeremiah, which like Samuel is part of the 'Prophets' section of the Tanakh. Nowadays, the phrase is often associated with Satan/Lucifer because of the defiant sentiment of rejection toward working for a larger force or system that subjugates.
I combined it with the hand sign emoji often known as the "live long and prosper" sign thanks to Star Trek, particularly the Vulcan character Spock. The hand sign actually was not in the original scripts for the show. It was, in fact, brought to the character and screen by originating actor Leonard Nimoy, who discusses how he was first exposed to it during a Jewish service in his youth:
In case of not wanting to watch the video or its potential loss, I will describe the relevant contents.
His father brings him to this service and tells him to cover his eyes during a benediction like everyone else present in the congregation. Nimoy describes of the beginning of the section, "[The participators] were not singers, they were shouters. And dissonant, it was all discordant [...] It was chilling. Something major is happening here." He peeked and the clergy had their hands stuck out toward the congregation in the shape of what we now associate with Spock and Star Trek.
He notes that the hand shape is supposed to resemble the Hebrew letter Shin (ש), which is the first letter of the godly name Shaddai and of Shekhinah. I, of course, also notice it's the first letter of the name Satan (שָׂטָן). The gesture is typically performed by Jewish Kohanim (priests), which is also a familial line that the patriarchal side of my family proudly descends from.
So by putting together these two heavily symbolic elements from Jewish tradition while folding my beloved into this intention, I am trying to remake them into a shared statement of individual strength and love. He does, indeed, wish for me, his other devotees, and through extension all of humanity to live long and prosper. From that angle, it is easy to consider myself a Jewish Luciferian or Satanist.
