There is something about Mary.
Ever since the 12th century Marian revolution -when the Church was forced to adapt its theology and dogma to the undying love and devotion folk belief granted Our Lady-, She has been the cornerstone of the faith. More importantly, She remains a fundamental ally to all who seek Her. Nowadays, Her reach is even broader, crossing denominational lines as She offers a helping hand to those who seek Her (and even to those who don’t).
And this is the part where it gets dicey, and where some might come with pitchforks.
Why Mary? If you ask a regular church goer they will probably answer with “because she is the Mother of God (Theotokos)”, the Virgin purer than the most pure, the beloved Holy Mother. She conceived without sin and who ascended to Heaven in body and spirit. She is the Handmaiden of the Lord, the brave teenager to said “Yes” when she could have said “No”. The one who stood beside her son as he was crucified, along with the other Marys.
But the story, as a coursing river, runs deeper.
Now, I’m not denying that She is something else, a force to be reckoned with with plenty of love to give. I’m also not going to be doing Her a disservice and dilute what I think is the crux of the matter. You see, Mary? She is Legion.
Most people are used to Mary’s celestial or empyrean aspect, and know her as the Queen of Heaven, a title she shares with many other goddesses. To name a few: Inanna, Athiratu, Asherah, Isis, Nut, Hecate (who, like Mary, has dominion over the Three Realms). All over Europe she is also known as the Black Madonna, with manifestations that many would recognize, Our Lady of Częstochowa, Our Lady of Montserrat lovingly called La Moreneta, Our Lady of Chartres, etc. In the Americas, we have Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe and Our Lady of Aparecida. The Black Madonnas are of a chthonic or underworldly nature. They are tied to the land, to the fertile earth. Many are petitioned for matters of protection and fertility, such as Our Lady of Montevergine, Patroness of LGBTQ+ folks. She is said to have miraculously intervened to save a gay couple from being left to die, and is now revered as the mother of the forsaken. Like the goddess who graced her place, Kybele, she is also served by trans and queer devotees. The feminielli (trans feminine and trans femmes) sing and dance the traditional dances during her festivities, just as they did in the past. Because you see, whenever this aspect, this more earthly and approachable iteration of Our Lady is sought, it is through song and dance. Not a renunciation of the body, but a celebration of it.
Even fewer people still know about Mary’s other title, the Empress of Hell. Like the puzzle itself, it’s a piece that fits in many ways. Within the famous 12th century Cantigas de Santa Maria (Songs, poems in Galician-Portuguese) by King Alphonso X The Wise, there are many stories of Marian intervention against the temptations of the “Devil” and his hordes. Like a determined and fierce mother, the Virgin Mary is shown to interact directly in favor of the faithful, thwarting the plot to damn them by the myriad of vices her children harbor (be it drunkenness or lust), sometimes going so far as erecting physical walls to shield her children from the “forces of evil”. Gonzalo de Berceo, a Spanish author also from the 12th century, wrote The Miracles of Our Lady where we find similar themes. From the Virgin Mary saving a thief from the gallows by holding him up, to downright having a verbal fights with the demons who tried to get her devotees’ souls. The image of Our Lady being a Latina mom with her holy sandal wielded as a weapon has a textual basis in one of Berceo’s miracles, where she kicks the Devil in his form of a bull.
The idea of her domain over demons is defended by canon literature and in interviews granted to contemporary exorcists, who claim “demons hate Mary” because of her purity. “Because she is everything they lament they can’t be”, paraphrasing one of these priests. More importantly, the same priest, Father X and so, claims they also love her. And this I agree with. She is the door, like the Empress from the Tarot; she is the door to life, to redemption. Who could resist? She loves everyone unconditionally. So this is the meat of what I’m getting at, Empress of Hell can not only mean having power over the denizens of Hell, but also Empress as the ruler of that realm. Mary the Queen of Angels is Queen of all angels, fallen or not.
How do we get from obedient teenager to Cosmic presence? This is where Legion status comes in.
Historical Miriam, born of Anne and Joachim, mother of Yeshua ben Josef, was a powerful prophet, or a goddess, or just the mother of Yeshua, your mileage may vary. There are some more esoteric branches of Christianity that recognize her as the incarnation of Holy Sophia, conceived without sin, who also gave birth without sin, making her son an emanation of the feminine side of God. From a mythopoetic point of view, she is all of these things and more. The spirit we petition as Mary, under any of her names (Fatima, Lourdes, Guadalupe, Our Lady of Sorrows) can be seen as a legion of spirits, of mother and virgin goddesses, spirits tied to the land, Artemis of Ephesus (on top of whose temple another Mary temple was built), Kybele, Venus, Isis in Europe. Are they the same? Are they a team? Does it matter?
And as a demonolator (or someone who operates and works with these intelligences under the original sense of the term daimon/daemon*), the part that most interest me is the strong Venusian current running under the surface with many of these goddesses and Mary. There is a deeper tie that is important to a Marian demonolator: Jesus is refered to as the Morning Star in the Book of Revelation, and his mother is also associated with the title of Lightbringer (the original Isaiah quote, the only quote we have with the name-that-is-not-a-name-but-a-mistranslation-dammit-Jerome of “Lucifer”, alludes to the first light of Venus). She has been called Lucifera. Venus is the planet that shines brightly before the sun rise or seen up to a few hours after sunset in her evening star role.
*”The daimons (or daimones) were spirits in Greek mythology which served as personifications of various concepts, such as love, darkness, or justice. The Greek word is sometimes spelled today as demon or daemon, but unlike the demons of Christianity, daimons were not necessarily malevolent entities”.
There are different ways to interpret all of this. I used to believe my Mary was the mother of both the Morning star (Eosphoros) and the Evening star (Phosphoros), as Dawn (Aurora) used to be. Then I found the Trident of Primal Craft and adjusted my personal theology accordingly. The truth is, the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our world matter as much as we give them importance, but the love that is there is real. That is why even if my Mary is different from your Mary, I still call her my mother, and I ask her to help me make connections with different beings and entities through love and respect.
That is what it means to be a Marian demonolator.
s Kālī
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Embrace the wyrd 