3/30/01

This time around we are taking a look at Song of Azrael , an .org spin-off of the site previously mentioned.

It's been a long time since we've put up any additions to our "Scythe" pages. And looky - a whole new page! ;-)

It seems that our "friend" has been busy. We've known, watched and waited. Now it is time to speak.

First, let's air some old dirty laundry. It seems that for quite some time someone or someone(s) have been going to Amazon.com and writing bogus reviews of Leilah's books. For instance -

"This book reminds us of what happens when the lines of Fact & Fiction become blurred. Ms. Wendall's (sic) work is far from an intimate account. On the contrary, all you discover is that she is an attention starved, megalomaniac with a sense of sensationalism that isn't even original. Her work, an amalgamation of various doctrines, Goth fiction, and children's games (e.g. her devine (sic) name, Haliel, is just Leilah spelled backwards) is disappointing at best.  I have never known an angel to condone body-snatching, necrophilia, or the poisoning of minds with mercury potions. And while she pretends these rites are sacred, I have noticed her own mother's body was deprived of this sacred blessing. This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in abnormal psychology."

This review was posted by "a reader" on Aug. 12, 2000. Okay, now it's only a certain person that we know of who constantly confused which books certain things come from. Namely, the "mercury potions", which time & again, in a certain person's ranting against us, I have pointed out that that particular information comes from my book, "Life in the House of Death". And that person still attributes it to Leilah's "Melancholy" book. Therefore, it could only be "someone" who has had these conversations with us via email who could have known any of this, which was not in the book that was "reviewed"...   It's obvious that this "reviewer" is bogus.  And the "Na'Haliel" thing. I remember that a certain MIT (hah!) graduate was so happy that they had figured that one out after about six months.... Also, the bit about "her mother's body was deprived of this sacred blessing" echoes sentiments that appeared on the page "Sheila's Scythe" (which used to be found at http://www.riverblast.com/songofazrael/sheilas-scythe.html . These were the niggling points of argument between us and that person that really stuck in their craw. We have kept copies of everything regarding this individual, for good reason.

But as you can see from the quote above, it is not a review but a personal attack. And there were others, all of which were personal attacks against Leilah and all having "10 of 11" or "16 of 16" people found this review helpful, yah..right.

This was an outright attempt at defamation of character,  to harm Leilah's reputation, discredit her standing as an author, affect the sales & ratings of her books at Amazon and also affect the sales of Amazon.com. (Actually, our sales at Amazon have increased ;-)

We found Amazon.com to be very helpful when we approached them about this. We merely mentioned that someone had a personal vendetta against Leilah, told them where we suspected these "reviews" were coming from and they checked their server logs and promptly wiped out all reviews of the "Melancholy" book. (Note, the bogus reviews of the "Ritual" book are still up there if anyone wants to see those, and for private reasons ;-)

Oh, if anyone out there knows where the names "Uma Theaker" and "Peter Zachary Newton" come from, I'd be much obliged if you could tell me the source. I've heard them before ;-)

Okay, we've been keeping that one under our hats for a while ;-)

On to the present.......

Since she's gotten a .org domain, she's trying to convince the world she is an actual "organization".  On the index page of the songofass.org site, there is this: "Major funding for this organization is made possible by a grant from Riverblast.com, a community-based network serving global solutions." Really! ;-) Sheila is Riverblast.com ;-) I don't know, can you legally give yourself a grant? And if so, is it tax deductible?

And on the entry page to this site now, she exhorts us to put away our "fairy tales" and get ready for "the truth", for Azrael is not an angel of death at all.... ;-) Note - 3/31 - Now the "fairy tale" reference is gone to be replaced by a much more innocuous sounding "standard cliff notes" reference. Do you think she felt the swinging of this Scythe?

And Azrael is no longer her own, personal light & fluffy guardian angel that he is at http://www.riverblast.com/songofazrael/index.html , oh no..... Now he is..... (wait for it ;) .........

Azra, from the bible! Or, more exactly - "Azra of God". (O, it is to laugh)

See, "Azra" is the same as "Ezra" is the same as "Esdras" is the same as "Nehemiah"... (how did that last one get in there?) He was a Jewish priest, way back when.......

On a page called "The Life & Times of Azra", which was submitted by someone from a Qabala site, there was the following statement. Now, I don't know who this person is or have anything against him, but I would like to just point out a few things.

"Ezra in the bible is spelled the same way  I spelled Azrael, and as I write this....I realize the Hebrew root  word (shov) "to return" is the number 308."

While it is certainly true that "Ezra", and the root of Azrael "Azra", may be spelled using the same root letters of the Hebrew alphabet.... it does not mean that they are spelled the same at all. Yes, they may both use the letters "Ayin, Zain, Resh", but you're overlooking the vowel points used in Hebrew to determine exactly how a word is pronounced. However, in a Hebrew dictionary there is a spelling that is pronounced 'ezRA - except that is adds a "Heh" on the end for emphasis, so is not spelled the same.

And while "Ayin, Zain, Resh, Aleph, Lamed" equals 308 the Hebrew word "shov" would be "Shin, Vau" which equals 306. Not that this is important anyway ;-)

But on to "The Book of Azrael, Sheila's Telling..."

"The plain and unappealing truth of it is.... Azra of  God was not created, Angel of Death, by God. He  was adapted as the Angel of Death, by the people  who suffered his judgement, simply because their  names weren't allowed in his book of whose who."

So, you see, the Angel of Death is not a spiritual personification, no. He was entirely created by the enemies of the Hebrews. (Oh, and the "Nethinim"....do you mean perhaps, Nephilim?) And, of course, no one else existed back then, right? No other cultures on the entire planet gave any thought to Death as an entity personified? ;-) Oh, that's right.... Adam & Eve spawned all of mankind.... ;-)!!! And Death was only "created" about 2000 years ago..okay?

Okay, aside from the fact that a person of MIT stock (top notch!) can't properly spell the "Who's" in "Who's Who", and misspelled the title of her "Sewing the Seeds" (sic) page.. (how exactly does one "sew" seeds???? Do you make a sweater? a pair of socks? a cap? wot?) this is all pure biblical sounding tripe. There have been many authors who have adopted a biblical style for their writings - Lord Dunsany, for one - but at least they have had something to say with it     ;-)

Sheila, however, only appears to have one goal in mind. To discredit the title "The Book of Azrael", and utilize the title to draw search engine traffic from us to her. How obvious is that one?. See, she's titling these little ramblings of her imagination as "The Book of Azrael", which is a title copyrighted by Leilah, BTW. And if you want to play these games, & claim that you are getting this from a biblical "source" (she is trying to pass this off as "apocrypha" and even writing it in "Bible-speak") - state your source - manuscript title, number and museum of residence. ;-) A room full of Bible scholars would have fun with this one!

In fact, we had a Bible scholar take a peak at this stuff, and here is an excerpt of what he had to say about it all, "It uses what english speakers would come to expect as "biblical sounding  language", but there is no meaning behind the words....This book's title is completely unfamiliar to me.  I've read many of the   Gnostic texts and other apocrypha as well as being very familiar with Biblical literature.  This is not like any such text I have ever read.  In my [educated] opinion, it is of modern authorship." Dr. Theo, MsD, D.D.


She has even dissed her attempts to claim Azrael as her own personal savior in her attempt to discredit the name "Azrael". For I can hardly believe that she is serious in this. It's a case of  "if I have to burn up in flames at least I'll take you with me...." Hah! I can't wait for the next installment (which will probably never be written - it's titled "The Entrance of Christ") of   "The (Bogus) Book of Azrael".

The pages she "cites" say little, but take up an inordinate amount of space using the "genealogy" trick. You know, the reciting of the entire lineage of people mentioned in the bible. It's a cheap way to impress the gullible. "Wow! This sounds like that boring crap they read in church sometimes.... so it must be true." ;-)

Flash Update! 4/9/01

Some new quotes for y'all to consider..... ;-)

"Azrael is a Hebrew name. Azra (help) el (of God). Jewish tradition will show the use of suffixes and amendments of names as befitting to title or province. Abram will become Abraham. Azra became Ezra during one translation, and that was later changed again, to Nehemiah, and Esdras. This created alot of the confusion in tracing his life."

"I would like to point out for starters, the obvious, and that is the fact that Azrael is a Jewish name, of Judaic principle. Azra (which means help) el (a very common suffix which means of God). I would also like to point out that nowhere in Jewish doctrine is the name Azra, or Azrael listed as the Angel Of Death. The challenge stands on this site to produce evidence to the contrary."

"Otherwise the statement stands that the Book Of Azra is, in fact, the first recording of which all others came from. It is a tragic story.... worthy of note:"

"Introduction: Azrael Book Four
(aka: Ezra 4, Esdras 4)"

Okay, the quotes above show a great deal of ignorance not only of the Hebrew language and biblical literature in general, but also specifically in the titling conventions of biblical books and many other things.

For starters, the first quote above - I'll say it creates some confusion! Will someone please show me in Biblical texts the last time a human character became gifted with the "El" suffix later in life, which was solely reserved to denote an angelic reference and not "befitting a title or province". (Say, like by owning land or a herd of sheep, "Jacob" didn't suddenly become "Jacob-el". Also, "Ezekiel" was not originally named "Ezeki"....) You cannot equate angels and mortals by adding or removing a suffix. What's next? Quoting the DC comic "Azrael" at us and claiming it's "scripture"????

Now on to the second quote, which merely reiterates the first.... "a Jewish name, of Judaic principle." ???WTF??? Does that little phrase actually mean anything? Besides, the name "Azra" has never been equated with the Angel of Death - true. Because "Azra" is an invention of your own. Ever since the second "Scythe" page where I helpfully provided you with not only the Hebrew spelling of Azrael but the proper numeration and "translation", you have been beating this dead horse with your silly stick. "Azrael", however, is attributed as the Angel of Death. Look outside of the bible. And not the "apocrypha" either, there is a whole host of Hebrew and Islamic teachings and folklore out there. The challenge to you is to actually name a valid source for any of this biblical sounding tripe you've made up.

Which brings us to the third quote - "The Book of Azra" does not, actually exist. I say, until proven otherwise ;-), that is wholly an invention of your own from a brief perusing of some biblical literature. Prove me wrong ;-)

Now on to the fourth quote - "Azrael Book Four (aka: Ezra 4, Esdras 4)" Okay, seeing as how you're trying to make all these characters one and the same person, why not attempt to claim that their writings are all the same book? To begin with, biblical books are not named "Ezra 4", etc... That title is really "The First Book of Ezra, chapter 4" or "1 Ezdra 4". But see, not knowing this is what shows your ignorance ;-) And to compare the two books you "equate" with your spurious "Book of Azra", here are some links - 1 Esdras 4   and 4 Ezra   and   Ezra 4  .

And, if, indeed, "Azrael" is just a corruption of Eza/Esdras/Nehemiah, hows does this explain the name Azrael as being the Angel of DEATH in the writings of the Koran and  scores of other ancient liturgical texts. Are they all wrong too? And the Qabala link that she quoted earlier has now become a link to..... ready... something stolen from the Catholic Encyclopedia which,  instead of serving to corroborate her fantasy, rather points out the very fact that these biblical characters have nothing whatsoever to do with Azrael, the Angel.

Seeing as Sheila wants so badly to remove the Angel of Death from ever having being by referring to questionable "ancient"  texts that do not mention an Angel of Death, may I suggest that you start with these two links from actual ancient texts that that aren't afraid to acknowledge His reality.  http://www.folklore.org.il/departme.html   & http://philologos.org/__eb-lotj/vol4/p07.htm#ELIJAH . Of course, these are just the tip of the Judaic iceberg. She should try picking up a copy of the Koran or reading from the Talmud.....Oh..wait...it mentions Azrael as an Angel of Death! Mustn't read those books.

One more update! Owing to how she enjoys trying to usurp our search engine traffic. If you go to her new "News" page you'll see this cute little trick "In Search of Azrael project". Sound familiar anyone? This girl does not know the meaning of the word Copyright. If Azrael is "not an Angel of Death", then why do you still have "Angel of Death" in your meta-tags? Well, they say that mimicry is the highest form of compliment.

End of Flash Update
Leilah and Daniel

If anyone wants a good laugh, by all means check out her site. And check out her other Song of Ass site at Riverblast.com. Then compare the content of the two. Maybe she's right in the fact that there are "many" Azrael's, for she certainly seems to be sending mixed signals with these two sites. One Azrael is her "personal, guardian angel", and the other is a long dead Jewish priest. Oddly enough, with her consorting with a dead Jewish priest, is she not on the verge of the dreaded "necrophilia"? Will she fly to Israel to dig up his bones? Hell, we're doing her a favour by sending her traffic. But in the end it all comes down to a grudge...

"I'm really relieved to hear that you hadn't seen her web-site. Her index page alone would make you sick...  She's lucky I didn't blow my cool - I was only a nug away from downing her computer system, her ISP provider's server, and raising the dead!" - quote from an e-group message.....

One last, personal note - to the webmaster of Song of Ass.... why is it that I write these pages and yet you never, ever attack me? Why do you focus so much of your energy on Leilah? I started the "Azrael's Scythe" pages. If anyone deserves your feeble venom, it's me ;-)

Daniel

and more........

Leilah Takes a Vacation From Being "Nice".

As you know, there are people out there who think they understand everything about what we do here. In their judgmental little worlds, they live not my life, nor understand the emotions that Azrael has graced me with. They sit in their false towers of unreason casting stone and finger down at something they have not themselves experienced. And you know what? I stopped caring a long, long time ago what people like this think of me and what I believe. None of that matters. But I do take concern when people mislead others and disrespect the the Spirit of Death by creating veils of smoke and mirrors. When I'm in Azrael's arms, all of their fears, shudderings and balking fade like yesterday's sunset. Azrael has come to me in so many diverse venues, that I do not select one above another, I love them all, from the swarming gaggles of crows at His command, to the ash that His harvest leaves behind. All, the greater part of Him. A seed, an essence, an energy within which His resonant love is contained. From the splendor of His Divine countenance, to the electric dust that assumes His form, none less imbued with His love, and power, and sweet sorrow, and truth.

My friends, Azrael is not numbers and letters jumbled together to create a hyperbole of insignificant complexity that enumerates to non-sense in the end. (Get it?)

Azrael is not a pink, fuzzy bunny running around with a happy stick who rattles off pretty passages of new age pabulum to the otherwise ignorant.

Azrael is not petty people utilizing His divine name as a crutch for their own shortcomings.

Azrael is not concerned with mental masturbation, juvenile semantics or elaborate puzzles.

Azrael is not the glorification of another human being for the sake of denigrating others who are genuinely resonant to Him.

Azrael is not, nor shall ever be concerned with human ego, human jealousies, human vindictiveness, nor human reactions to same..

Azrael is.. merely one of the many names given to the personification of Death by MAN throughout history, which can trace the appearances of same in cultures far more ancient than any biblical, or theological texts.

Azrael is...one of many names given truth and fire by those who speak it with love and faith.

Azrael is the beautiful and melancholy Angel of Death (say the word DEATH) whose many visages are not divided nor disparaged by secular thought and blindness to unconditional beauty.

Azrael is, the sweet surrender to His kiss, as simple and as divine as the pure human soul can ever hope to envision.

Azrael is invoked by pure thought, open heart and willing soul who needs not others to speak His words, but through the pure soul come great revelations, not from the mouths of desperation whose voices are hollow, but from the mouths of those who have truly tasted His sweet, dark kiss.

Azrael is the simplicity of knowing that one has been "touched" by His song, His truth, His dislike for the comfortable lie of enigma- That which He is not lies in the hearts of those who strive to become what they can never attain, yet profess in their confusion- unconditional.....In a world filled with conditions, games and puzzles, Azrael is the destruction of all of those human lies that keep His simple Truth at a distance that some prefer. Why? Because deep down, they are still afraid, afraid of the Truth He signifies, afraid that if they saw Him for what He truly is, they would faint away like His brethren when He first spread His beautiful, terrible wings. They choose not to see His beauty, but instead try to poorly justify His namesake, and His is not a name to be bantered around nor used as a sad crutch for one's own deluded glorification, nor used to harbor petty grudges.

Azrael is...that which stirs the pure, simple heart to evolve and accept change beyond the human condition, above the pettiness of egocentricity and beyond the mediums that have given His name the scar of life. If we are ever to exalt our beloved Angel of Death, we must tear down our masks, bury our egos and discern the truth for ourselves. The truth is not written, it is personally experienced on the deepest emotional and spiritual level.

Azrael is not honoured by the complexities of the human mind, but by the purity of the human heart imbued by the solemnity of the spirit.

Azrael is the Angel of Death, plain and simple. He needs not the words of others, nor my own to perforce His truth. He simply IS.

What is the point of all this? Well, folks, this is directed at certain "pages" supposedly dedicated to Azrael that have nothing to say about Azrael so they are forced to utilize the words and images of others, or fabrications of their own deluded minds to support their own shortcomings...and you know who you are!

Well, I guess I'm done ranting for now. This page is purely me being human, so don't go blaming Azrael for any of this. See, Daniel's rubbing off on me after all!!

UPDATE 9/24/2003

Hi boys & girls. It's been a long time since this page has been updated hasn't it? Quite frankly, we've simply been too busy to care. But, the summer is slow and hot and a few of our friends have been urging us to comment on some of Sheila's latest ploys at our attention, so here they are, in no particular order;

Everyone KNOWS she hasn't an original bone in her pathetic little body. Seems she also has a hard on for the NAME Azrael. She just simply can't get beyond the concept that MANKIND gives a variety of names to their gods/angels/what have you. Seems she wants to own the name Azrael all for herself. I pity all the other Sheila's of the world. Next she'll be claiming that none of them are the ONE TRUE SHEILA. 

I don't even go to her site anymore...unless I need a good belly laugh, or someone points out something utterly laughable! Last I looked she even has the nerve to call her "library" the "Complete Books of Azrael Library". Talk about pathetic, huh?  And did you see what's IN her "library"? Oh, DO go and scope it out! And have you checked out some of her metatags? Sound vaguely familiar? On "Who is Azrael-The Man to the Myth", whoa! Look at all those metatags! She's choking the crawlers with all those tags. Everyone knows by now that's a no-no. Poor deluded Sheila. 

Anywho, four years down the road...yes, boys and girls, over four years of Sheila... how much DOES she want to be me? And why, one would wonder? Isn't it enough just being Sheila? Well, if you look at the source code for several of her pages, you see things like "Song of Azrael-Project News". How lame is that? Anything to glom onto our hard-earned coat-tails. Not to mention The Azrael Project is a registered trademark....duh! She never did get the hang of GET A LIFE. If she SERIOUSLY wants to be me, she's got to do better than that.

She has incorporated just about every Westgate buzz-word into her site and tags that it's utterly laughable. She even has the gall to use my name as well as Westgate Press in the metatags on her "Library" page. Does this tell you anything about how desperate for attention she is? Does she really think that folks out there searching will find her site remotely of interest to their quest? Yeah....right.....You should see my mail! LOL!

Oh Geez! She-bitch has discovered the  old Great White Brotherhood of the Ascended Masters. Oooooo. Did you know that extraterrestrials guide our very existence? Again, she seems hung up on the NAME Azrael and will do anything to glom onto that appendage. How sad... Here's a cursory link for anyone unfamiliar with this school of thought Great White Brotherhood .
One of my early readers sent me those "Books of Azrael" in the early 90's. Theosophy with an ET slant heavily stepped in Christianity. If I would have known they were selling for $69.00 each I never would have tossed them in the trash. Damn!

Have fun dear...You expose your weaknesses at every turn. Do you even know what these books are about? And, how they contradict all of your "Ezra-Azra" gobblegook? You might try reading them before posting them on your page..

FLASH ALERT

Finally, Sheila admits it! After four plus whole years of her jealously and hatred, the reason for the "Song of Azrael" becomes glaringly evident on her "Library" page, which we have all known, was simply created in a feeble attempt to discredit my work.

Thanks Sheila, for finally showing your true colours rather than hiding behind pseudonyms and innuendo. Now the world can see for themselves what we have been saying all along. Your pettiness comes through brilliantly! I hope that you are happy in your pursuit of owning the NAME "Azrael', for you shall never know the entity until your days here have been breached. 

Case closed. Time to get a life and move on, dear. It's all self-evident now, the game is over. I knew that your own jealousies would pour out if given enough time to stew. 

Well, here it is 2005 and it appears our dear Sheila still cannot understand why Westgate continues despite her over 5 years of blantent lies, inuendo, negativity and downright hatred. Did I say FIVE YEARS! Sheesh!

I'm not going to address all of the old rehashed bullshit on her "new" pages, we've already been there, done that on the previous pages here. After all, she still hasn't gotten over dead man's heart and mercury thing that made her barf 5 years ago. But she still enjoys riding our coat-tails though! All you've got to do is look at her site, her page titles and tags. It's all old news and obvious, Sheila.

In fact she is still so damn jealous of our success that she resurrected her own feeble attempt, the "Sheila's Scythe" pages that she vowed she was so "far above". Hey, we've kept ours up. We're not "far above" exposing people for what they are. But then again, she's the best at exposing herself.

The fabrications on her pages are amazing! She goes on about how "unoriginal" everything I've done is. This coming from the person who not only incorporates every Westgate buzzword, page title and concept into her own site (go and see for yourself), but she obviously loathes the popularity of our forums as well. She insinuates that there are "lots of different names attached to the same IP". Odd statement seeing as how only the forum Administrators (us) can see member IP's. Another lie, what else is new. Maybe this is because she only has three members on her own board and two of them are HER. I guess all 522 members + of our board must be me, huh? Boy, am I a busy little beaver. LOL!

I think this next quote speaks volumes, " because she (me) has no power to effect me".
If this is the case, Sheila, then why, oh, why after five years are you still so obsessed with me and with what Westgate stands for? I'll tell you why. Because she still has nothing of her own to put out there, so she has to resort to belittling those of us that do. How pathetic is that? Not to mention that she loathes the fact that we continue despite her feeble attacks.

Oh, and seeing as how she insists that I've "stolen" my entire life from everyone else. It's sure comforting to see that she has done the same to me. Did I mention her long distance love affair with terrorists? Want the link? Here it is http://ninth-scribe.livejournal.com/ . Here you get a VERY CLEAR idea of the mindset we are dealing with. Read it ALL, from beginning to end. It's a hoot!

This is the sign of a truly sick mind. Obsession is a disease, Sheila. You should seriously seek some professional help for this. Either that, or maybe it's high time you get your paper route back. Oh, I forgot, you're now "the prettiest gas station clerk on the cape." HER words, not mine. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the craziest one of all. Oh yeah, and Daniel is still pissed that you never give him any credit for his contribution to your affliction.

Well, I gotta go! It's hard work pissing off someone like this.