Agrat bat Mahlat
Agrat bat Mahlat (אגרת בת מחלת) is a demon in Jewish mythology.
Etymology
Mahlat and Agrat are proper names and bat means "daughter of" (Hebrew). Therefore, Agrat bat Mahlat means "Agrat, daughter of Mahlat."
In ancient texts
In Zoharistic Kabbalah, she is a queen of the demons and one of four angels of sacred prostitution, who mates with archangel Samael. Her fellow succubi are Lilith, Naamah, and Eisheth. In the Rabbinic literature of Yalḳuṭ Ḥadash, on the eves of Wednesday and Saturday, she is "the dancing roof-demon" who haunts the air with her chariot and her train of eighteen messengers/Angels of spiritual destruction. She dances while her mother, or possibly grand mother[,[Lilith]] howls.[1] She is also "the mistress of the sorceresses" who communicated magic secrets to Amemar, a Jewish sage.[2]
According to legend the spirits that Solomon communicated with and its leader Agrat where all placed inside of a Genie lamp like vessel and placed inside of a cave on the cliffs of the Dead Sea. Later after the spirits were cast into the lamp, Agrat bat Mahlat and her lamp was discovered by Soloman's son King David and after this he became very close to its leader spirit Agrat and so she mated with King David and bore him a cambion son Asmodeus, king of demons.[3]]. Some scholars claim that Asmodeus was only the King of David's personal demons like greed, lust etc. but the other camp of scholars in the argument is that Asmodeus was king to even yet more unnamed demons.
About one-thousand years after the era of Solomon and David, another widely known intervention occurred known as "The spiritual intervention of Hanina ben Dosa and Rabbi Abaye" which ended up curbing her malevolent powers over humans.[4]
Some authors, such as Donald Tyson, refer to them as manifestations of Lilith. In additions to being manifestations of the first Lilitu known as Lilith, Agrat and her sisters are indeed Lilith's children she had while she was in Lilitu form and Agrat is humanoid/demonoid entity that came from Lilith when she was in her Lilitu form known as a Lilin.
References
- ↑ Jewish Encyclopedia shedim
- ↑ Jewish Encyclopedia demonology
- ↑ Kabbala: Lilith, Queen of the Demons
- ↑ Geoffrey W. Dennis, The encyclopedia of Jewish myth, magic and mysticism. p. 126
- Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (edited and annotated by Daniel Tyson), Llewellyn Sourcebook Series.