The harbingers of those waves — if not the waves themselves — go by the name “Bahari”; each Ba’ham considers herself the fruit of the Mother’s third and final garden. As such, these offspring cultivate orchards of pain and groves of enlightenment, nurturing crises around them, then tending the survivors and teaching them to learn from their pain.
Each gardener’s tools are as individual as sin. Some employ the rude plow of physical torture, and thrive in the worm-ridden furrows of large cities, war zones and the underworld; others prefer the even hand of a seeder, planting intrigues and gossips, then fertilizing them with innuendoes; some prune the branches of broken trees, working as confidants and healers among the walking wounded, clipping them with small cuts then reshaping the stalks with gentle words. Regardless of his methodology, the true Ba’ham tends his “projects” through kindness and encouragement; pain is worthless unless the sufferer learns something in its aftermath. Destruction is neither a Ba’ham’s point nor his prerogative. The Dark Mother will deal with such things in her own time. Until then, each Ba’ham plants the seeds of enlightenment, then helps them grow.
One would assume, given the sex of the Dark Mother, that all Bahari are female. One would be deeply mistaken to do so. Just as men often tend the shrines of Mary or the blood-drenched altars of Kali (who may themselves represent facets of the Dark Mother), so the male prunes trees in Lilith’s garden, too.
Presented with Lilith’s links to Caine and the mysterious Lamia (see below), an outsider might also assume that Bahari are vampires. Not so. While it’s true that the Dark Mother’s fosterlings feed on blood and consider themselves reborn through it, they are not Kindred in the strictest sense. Many are simple mortals with no powers to speak of; some are elevated mortals - magi with the Mother’s own occult talents; a handful are true vampires, but these “Kindred” have forsaken their ties to Caine’s brood. Drinking Lilith’s blood, they symbolically sever their connections to her betrayer and raise themselves above the descendants of Eve.
Given the name of the “sect,” one might gather that all Bahari work together as a unified whole. Again,wrong. Although Lilith’s fruit and flowers rise from similar seeds, they grow as they will. Most congregate in small patches — cults of between three and seven members — or operate “roots” that run correspondence through the mails, media and Internet but keep their “branches” far apart. A good many grow like trees in their own little corners, feeding themselves with small but potent miseries. Others imitate the weeds, scattering small enlightenments and greater agonies in quick, widespread bursts. Some sects are deeply formal, possessing ornate hierarchies and protocols; others are choirs of one voice. The Mother’s garden has room for them all, so long as they keep that garden spreading.
Presented with the biblical paradigm I have chosen, an observer might bind the ways of Lilith to the western religious tradition. Yet again, not so. While we Kindred remain mired in our worship of biblical myth, the ways of Lilith are universal. True, I often describe them in terms of the familiar Jehovah/Adam/Lucifer patriarchy; although many of the Dark Mother’s own followers cling to those myths, that may simply be the result of the widespread influence of the West. I prefer to see Lilith’s saga as a sliver of a greater tradition — that of the Great Dark Mother who nurtures with love, then chastises with death. That tradition is universal: I see the face of Lilith in the bright sword of Ishtar, in the pits of Kali, in the webs of Spider Woman, and even in the soft but remote embrace of Mary. And just as I see these faces, the Bahari revere them in ritual. I have danced around African gardens, drunk blood mixed with ghee, and wailed pleasure-cries to the Tibetan night. The Mother is everywhere…as are her children.
Although their allegiance to Lilith might make Bahari seem like natural feminists, the truth is far more complex. Female does not necessarily equal exalted. On the contrary — most women, in the Bahari view, are descendants of Eve, the third and most inferior woman. Created from a lonely Adam, lacking Lilith’s original gifts and her divine gestation, these women really are the cheap cattle that misogynists scorn. Until and unless a woman consumes the Mother’s blood and takes her Oath, that woman is an animal — worthwhile in her own way, certainly, but far below the Bahari.
“Becoming” a Ba’ham is often a simple but excruciating process. Like Lilith herself, a prospective Ba’ham begins as a favored person — wealthy, perhaps, or beautiful or popular or blessed in some other way. Suddenly, a cataclysmic event devastates it all and leaves her stumbling through a desert of pain. There she attains some insight into the vast and finite nature of the world: Some see a literal vision of the Dark Mother, or dream of wandering in an empty, waterless waste. Others see the endless eyes of the Ancient One (spoken of in the Genesis Fragment) gazing into a cyclopean void; still others fall into comas or literally wander in a half-dead state (often pregnant, as Lilith was) until a second catastrophe rocks them out of the stupor. Until this ordeal and vision occur, a would-be Ba’ham remains outside the garden; only by tearing herself on the thorns at the gate may she attain the sweet nectar within. Until that time, she may speak the Mother’s name, perform her rites, even tend her garden, but still remain outside it, as Lilith was exiled from Eden.
Pain is the initiation, agony and insight the stepping-stones.
If she’s lucky, this unfortunate might discover — or be discovered by — the followers of Lilith. The rituals they use to teach and initiate her depend on the whims and culture of the Bahari. So-called “witches” employ the trappings of Wicca, Santería and other modern pastimes; aboriginal cults chitter and grunt about nightmare deities and dance around with bone-toys and innards; secular devotees prefer to speak in symbols of matriarchs and bad-ass mommas, while renunciates of the Christian, Muslim and especially Jewish traditions use the most familiar names of all. In the faraway monasteries of renegade Buddhists and left-hand Tantrikas, candles illuminate copulating disciples and their mutilated servants. Which ones are the true Bahari? All of them, of course! The pain, the vision, the Oath and the gardening are the only real commonalties.
The blood of Lilith consecrates an initiation. Like the Christian Eucharist, this blood forms a symbolic bridge between goddess and gardener; unlike that Host, this blood is real, often gathered from the initiate, the initiator, a plant and a live sacrifice, then blended together in a not-too-pleasant concoction. After drinking it, the new Ba’ham recites some variation on the Oath of Lilith, then receives whatever vows, studies or torments the initiator feels are appropriate. Many Bahari learn the runes called Ba’hara, the symbolic language of the sect; many others do not. It’s worth noting that thousands, perhaps millions, of devotees worship at Lilith’s altar without ever knowing what they’re doing. While not formal Bahari, these “acolytes” revere pain, revel in the occult and make a point of advocating both.
Although never formally initiated into the Bahari fellowship, I was privileged to meet several members of the sect in an occult bookstore in Soho, New York City. Two of their number were Kindred (or, as I should stress, Lhaka, since Blood Bahari do not consider themselves Kindred); three others were mortal. These fascinating and charismatic personages took me on a whirlwind tour of pain and absolution; in their company I encountered other Bahari, met countless followers of the Mother who knew not why they did, traveled to secluded sites and perused the Ba’hara pictograms which give substance to the following scriptures.
I knew, as I swelled with the Mother’s wisdom, that my revels would lead other Kindred to my tutors. As an act of compassion, I killed nearly all of them; better that death might come from my loving hands than from the brutal ministrations of archons or the mind-rape of the Warlocks. Out of respect for my teachers, I will not profane their names with so much as a pseudonym. Let those who have passed us in the night draw their own conclusions. I remain silent.
My exquisite guides introduced me to equally exquisite lessons. One, a magus, took me so far into myself that I thought my mind had snapped. His hands held the promise of eternal love, but he proved more fickle in his affections than any Kindred lothario. I eviscerated him while he copulated with a conquest — a boy, whom I left alive to learn from his experience.
A former Toreador sang me the songs of a Bahari nun cloistered in 12th-century Milan. The nun’s devotions were considered odes to Mary until a scholar unearthed her true allegiance. As one might expect, the nun was burned in a pile of her own hymns. Sadly, all transcriptions were purged, as well; my muse played them from memory. When she herself crumbled in the morning sun, the last recollections of the nun’s compositions blew away with her.
A Clanless wanderer made my skin itch. Rude as a jackal, she seemed to take pride in the abuse we heaped on her. Her mouth — unusually large, both literally and metaphorically — never shut. When I fed her into a tree-shredder, it was the only murder I’d enjoyed in years.
I flayed the old man alive. He had asked me to, and I complied, weeping tears of blood as I did so. What a waste. His Latin was as flawless as a Roman scholar’s, and his collection of books — from pulp romances to high Classical manuscripts — was remarkable, if only for its variety. The old man had no skill with manners, I confess, and this made him the butt of many of our pranks. He took it all in humor, but seemed to nurse a grudge he never satisfied. Dried, his skin formed the parchment for the original edition of this book. He would have wanted it that way.
One girl I let survive. To this day, I cannot explain the impulse that led me to this act of cruelty. Also mortal, the girl seemed vaguely familiar. I ran across her likeness later in a chronicle of magickal lore. It may have been coincidence, but she deeply resembled both a pupil of Cagliostro and a consort of Aleister Crowley. A submissive by inclination, she held the most incredible pain tolerance of any mortal I have ever met.
The leader of the group, a Balinese woman of indeterminate age, was mortal. Her charisma, however, was like a living thing. Although she possessed no mystic powers as far as I could see, she held the others spellbound with every word she spoke. I let her live, too. There are too few of her kind out there as it is. Although she has sworn revenge on me for killing her companions, she thanked me for doing so. The Dark Mother moves in strange ways, indeed!
Many Bahari call this moment sa, the “Short Dawn.” The mystics among them liken it to the moment of clarity that magi call “Awakening”; indeed, many of their number claim to be Awakened beings whose sa led them to study the magickal Arts. Lilith experienced sa while she wandered the unmade lands, and she led Caine to it when he descended into Hell. Properly experienced, sa leads to heightened consciousness, supernal insight and mystical powers. Humans search for it in sadomasochistic rituals, but it rarely comes in such structured confines. To find a true sa, one must be flung headlong into a physical and emotional abyss — and come out the other side. The Bahari cultivate sa, both in themselves and in others. To them, it’s the sweet fruit of Knowledge and the bitter pulp of Life in one.
Perhaps the mystic overtones of sa lend Lilith her sorcerous air; although she clearly transcends mortal magicks, sorcerers have been linked to Lilith since the beginning of time. That’s no less true today; sects of magicians harbor large numbers of Bahari, whose mystic Arts advance the Dark Mother’s dream of Final Tides. Although I’m no scholar of magical lore, I’ve met several of these so-called “magi” in their ritual grounds. The most prevalent, it seems, come from a mystical clan which takes the name of the healing plant vervain, or verbena; considering their roles as fruits and tenders of Lilith’s garden, the botanical name is appropriate. Others belong to a reincarnatist society whose image of a great wheel corresponds to the Ancient One’s eternal eyes, opening and closing in an endless cycle of creation and destruction. Still others ride on the ecstasy of pain and the flashes of enlightenment that come with it, or lead cults of dubious origin. While many of these mystics advance their queen’s agenda on a fairly local basis, I admit that some of them retain herds that would be the envy of any Kindred prince. By nurturing those herds with creeds of renewal through sacrifice, Bahari magicians raise a hunger for such enlightenment — and for more and greater agonies.
Like Caine, Kindred are drawn to and inspired by torment; this tendency explains such suicidal pastimes as fire-walking, Gehenna politics and the Tzimisce in general. When you consider that fact, the Kindred renunciates — called Lhaka or Blood Bahari — among Lilith’s hosts seem only natural. Like myself, many of these vampires begin as blind sheep; hit by sa, some few of them understand the true order of things and soon join the Bahari. The blood rite breaks the chain of vitae that binds us to our beginnings; like Lilith eating the fruit of Eden, this moment erases our former blindness. From that point on, we are individuals tending the garden of pain.
(It makes me smile to think of our O-so-sagacious elders playing into Lilith’s hands so readily. Their ceaseless conflict for supremacy breeds anarchs and would-be Bahari like fouled water breeds dysentery. Lilith’s curse holds true today. The childer of Caine “feast upon each other’s hearts,” figuratively and otherwise, like palpitating delicacies.)
The Lamia, an extinct offshoot of the Giovanni, present a puzzle to the scholar. Giovanni apocrypha (gained at great price, I assure you!) state the bloodline began when one of their number raped a priestess of Lilith. Supposedly, this priestess was the only daughter of Adam and Lilith, and was born from an endless cycle of rape and conception stretching back to Adam’s own brutality. Bahari legend, on the other hand, clearly states that Lilith had three daughters and three sons, that none of them were Adam’s, and that all of them were slain. Although this would hardly be the first time that legends disagreed with one another, the point is worth addressing.
Supposedly, these Lamia went on to become rare but enlightened Kindred, keeping the “true rites of the Dark Mother” but serving the clan which the Giovanni destroyed. I maintain this is nonsense; while it is entirely possible that one such “Cappadocian” Embraced a Bahari priestess, it would be a poor Ba’ham who would spend all her time fucking corpses in service to Caine’s offspring. Although proving my theory would be difficult — all Lamia were supposedly exterminated by the 1800s — I speculate that the Giovanni progenitors were being had. Perhaps our mythical priestess really believed she was descended from Adam and the Mother; perhaps she was — Lilith is said to have been pregnant during her trek across the desert, and it is possible that she carried a human child as well as the unearthly offspring of Jehovah. Knowing what I do of the Short Dawn and its formidable aftershocks, I’m skeptical that a tribe of half-breed corpse-fuckers could have enslaved the followers of Lilith. More likely, a handful of Bahari went along with the joke, then led their “masters” into a series of fatal traps.
Either way, the Lamia are said to have commanded fearsome plagues and necromancies; an account of one captured by Inquisitors can be found in Book III. Perhaps the Lamia still thrive under some other name;1 having engineered the destruction of the Cappadocians, they broke their blood-ties and joined the ever-growing ranks of the Lhaka — a fellowship to which I belong myself.
And I am far from alone.
Enough trivia. Let the fruits be harvested and the Final Tides rise! Feast on these Revelations as I have feasted on the blood and hearts of my former lovers and cousins. I have done my part, and await the short but brilliant dawn.
A secret society requires secret communications. Ba’hara, a mnemonic collection of symbols, provides a written basis for an oral tradition. While not a language in the formal sense, it offers an initiated Ba’ham a sense of belonging. From my sources, I infer that Ba’hara derives from the medieval pictograms of the bygone Lamia bloodline, which come themselves from a still older source. Those “root forms” of the language are, to my knowledge, long gone, although examples probably still exist in some secluded groves, unrecognizable as what they once were.
The modern form of Ba’hara uses plants and animals as abstract bases for its letters. Like the sect itself, the language is said to have grown from the seeds of the third garden, and its plantlike forms echo that idea.