Incubus

In European medieval legend, an incubus is a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially on women in order to have sexual intercourse with them.

Closely related to the incubi/sucubi are the Slavic Mora, the German Mahr, and the Scandinavian Mara, from which the word nightmare is derived.

Definition

In medieval Europe, union with an incubus was supposed by some to result in the birth of witches, demons, and deformed human offspring. The legendary magician Merlin was said to have been fathered by an incubus.

Origin

The pagan incubus was a special priest embodying a prophetic spirit who would come in dreams or visions to those who "incubated" overnight in an earth-womb Pit of a temple (see Abaddon). The Greeks were known to practice incubation especially in the healing temples of Asklepios and Hygieia. The favourite incubus appeared in the temples of Imhotep. There is suspicion that falsification occurred when the sleeper was a person of political importance; the correct prophecies and advice were conveyed so to benefit the temple. This custom of incubation was carried into Christianity. It became known as watching or keeping the vigil. It was recommended in times of troublesome decision making that one should watch and pray in a church overnight in order to court a vision of guidance. Eventually the incubus was diabolized; and no longer regarded as a guiding angel. The cause for his fall from grace was tales of ancient tradition midnight sexual relationships between incubating women and priests, or incubating men and priestesses. This caused the incubi to be known as spirits of lust. The concept that sexual activity could possess a spiritual nature was completely negated.

Soon it was thought incubi produced children through the demonic version of the Virgin Birth. This originated in a round of name-calling. One early priest Father Ludovico Sinistrari thought the incubus when having intercourse with a woman begot the fetus from his own seed. He added the Holy Mother Church could correct him since this was his personal opinion. Sinistrari called that damnable heresiarch Martin Luther a well-known example of a devil-begotten man. Luther seemed no more charitable since he said that all odd-looking children should be destroyed at birth, for they were clearly the offspring of demons.

This argument seemed to rage for centuries. Thomas Aquinas insisted that demons were sterile; therefore the only way the incubus could impregnate a woman was by receiving the semen from a succubus who had received from a man. Also, aiding in this theory was the idea that demons were able to change their sex at will. Aquinas further asserted that a demon could use semen lost during a wet dream so a man could be at one and the same time a virgin and a father. Here Aquinas contradicted Augustine's biblical interpretation of Genesis 6:4 in which he attempted to prove that fallen angels begot children of mortal womenThe sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them.

Others, however, asserting that coitus is possible, maintain that children may result On that theory, a woman was burned at Carcassonne in 1275 for bearing a child to the devil. The duration of this argument that lasted decades is too exhaustive to describe here.

Perhaps only possibly reason for this castigation is the Church's attitude toward sex itself. The Christian view that all sexual activity outside of marriage is sinful is directly opposed to the view held by their pagan ancestors.

Etymology

The word incubus is derived from the Latin incubus (nightmare) and incubare (to lie upon, weigh upon, brood). In modern psychological usage, the term has been applied to the type of nightmare that gives one the feeling of a heavy weight or oppression on the chest and stomach.

Powers

They may enter homes uninvited and can take on the appearance of other persons as shapeshifter

They will often visit the same victim repeatedly. A victim of an incubus will experience the visits as dreams.

Main Belief

The Incubus drains energy from the woman it performs sexual intercourse upon in order to sustain itself, and in most cases either kills the victim or leaves the victim alive but in very weak or fragile condition. A female version was called a succubus. There are several possible explanations for the incubus legends:

women who were pregnant but not married would often accuse an incubus, or when explanation were needed to obscure evidence of extra-marital affairs;
waking dreams or nightmares. They form part of the well-attested Medieval preoccupation with sin, especially sexual sins of women;
real rapes of sleeping women were attributed to demons by rapists in order to escape punishment.
the feeling of smothering while sleeping is known since antiquity as nightmare. The modern term for this state is sleep paralysis.

Because of the weight given to sexual sin in the Middle Ages, nocturnal arousal, orgasm or nocturnal emission were explained away by the legends of creatures causing an otherwise guilt-producing and self-conscious behavior. Thus people could say they were not to blame for it; it was obviously outside of their control: they were a victim. Young women/men being sexually assaulted in their sleep by a known attacker such as a friend or family member, although not common, has been reported and may explain some nocturnal attacks. The victims may find it easier to explain the attack as supernatural rather than confront the idea that the attack came from someone that is trusted in the family.

During the witchhunts, alleged intercourse with demons or with Satan was one of the purported sins for which women were killed. Sometimes incubi were said to conceive children with the women whom they raped; the most famous legend of such a case includes that of Merlin, the famous wizard from Arthurian legend.

In some legends, incubi and succubi were said not to be different genders of the same demonic speciesm but the same demon able to change their sex; the idea being that a succubus would be able to sleep with a man and collect his semen, and then transform into an incubus and use that seed on women. Nevertheless their offspring were thought to be supernatural in many cases, even if the actual genetic material originally came from humans. This particular idea was explored in the Stephen King series The Dark Tower.

Incubus and Succubus worldwide

The incubus, also called follet in French, alp in German, duende in Spanish, and folletto in Italian, was an angel who fell because of lust for women according to many of the Church Fathers. This being appears to women often in the form of a sexual dream/nightmare, and in fact the Latin word for nightmare is incubo, meaning to lie upon. Its counterpart is the succubus, who appears to males. When a witch or sorcerer is associated with it, it is called a magistellus or familiar.

Guazzo described the incubus in his "compendium Maleficarum (1608) as the incubus can assume either a male of a female shape; sometimes he appears as a full-grown man, sometimes as a satyr; and if it is a woman who has been received as a witch, he generally assumes the form of a rank goat.

Fiction

In the modern era, succubi have featured in roleplaying games as tantalizing imagery for marketing. The theme of the incubi has continued into modern times as well, with stories of unseen paranormal beings which rape female victims such as Invisible Masters and the creature in the movie The Entity.

They were also one of the creatures of the White Witch present at the killing of Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

In the 2006 book Trail of an Incubus by Iliya Englin the incubus is portrayed as a different humanoid species, outwardly human but with far greater longevity and physical strength. Their intelligence is about the same or greater than human, albeit it with certain blind spots. They hate humanity for displacing them from the top of the food chain, and their character traits give rise to traditional demonic myths - an enemy moving amongst us, intelligent, resourceful and hostile – and in constant search for human virgins.

Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton introduce his male vampire lover, Jean Claude, and later the Executioner herself, having to deal with the spirit of incubus and succubus.

There is a 1965 movie called Incubus starring William Shatner, where he is tempted by a lusting succubus in order to corrupt hi pure soul. Throughout the movie, the demon is female and referred to as "incubus", never a "succubus".

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