Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

122 Incubi and Succubi
demonic equivalent of guardian angels, who
tempt one to evil acts rather than incline one to
good acts. For the consciously evil person, they are
errand boys who carry out the bidding of their
master. Imps were also traditionally thought to be
the familiars of witches. Imps were low-maintenance
demons and could be kept just about
anywhere. Usually tiny in size, some were said to
look like small people, others like moles or even
toads. They required some feeding, and particularly
needed blood.
See also Familiars; Satan
For Further Reading:
Briggs, Katharine. An Encyclopedia of Fairies. New
York: Pantheon, 1976.
Masello, Robert. Fallen Angels and Spirits of the
Dark. New York: Perigee, 1994.
Incubi and Succubi
Men may at times be begotten by means of Incubi
and Succubi, [and] it is contrary to the words of the
saints and even to the tradition of Holy Scripture to
maintain the opposite opinion.
—Malleus Maleficarun
The idea of spirit beings or demons who take
the form of people in order to have sex with human
beings is actually very ancient. In Western demonological
lore, speculation on such ideas grew out of
two short verses in Chapter 6 of Genesis:
The sons of God saw that the daughters of
men were fair; and they took to wife such of
them as they chose. (6:2)
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days,
and also afterward, when the sons of God came
in to the daughters of men, and they bore
children to them. These were the mighty men
that were of old, the men of renown. (6:4)
In these rather strange verses, the expression
“sons of God” was taken to indicate angels. And
while scripture does not condemn these actions,
the traditional interpretation of these passages is
that these sons of God are fallen angels. This
history of interpretation provided biblical legitimation
for the notion of incubi and succubi. The
idea seems to have been mediated to the Middle
Ages by St. Augustine, who wrote, “It is a widespread
opinion, confirmed by direct or indirect
testimony of trustworthy persons, that the Sylvans
and Fauns, commonly called Incubi, have often
tormented women, solicited and obtained intercourse
with them” (Augustine 1942, 15:23). Such
demons most often attack/seduce human beings
at night, thus conveniently explaining why monks,
nuns, and priests have erotic dreams.
Although sterile themselves, incubi (demons in
male forms) could supposedly impregnate women
with seed taken by succubi (demons in female
form) from men—a belief that was sometimes
used to explain pregnancies resulting from secret
affairs. This type of explanation not only absolved
women from charges of licentiousness, but,
because the sperm was taken from men, it also
saved the child from being executed as an
offspring of a demon.
The authors of the influential Malleus
Maleficarum (The Witch Hammer, 1486) were
seemingly obsessed with explaining this process,
and devote several sections to explaining its mechanism;
for example, “Devils do indeed collect
human semen, by means of which they are able to
produce bodily effects; but his cannot be done
without some local movement, therefore demons
can transfer the semen which they have collected
and inject it into the bodies of others.” (Kramer
and Sprenger [1486] 1970, 28) Some demons can
collect the semen from living men by assuming the
form of succubi, transform themselves into incubi,
and then inject semen into women. In other cases,
semen is transferred from succubi to incubi.
Hienrich Kramer and James Sprenger, the
authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, speculate that
this division of labor may arise from the prior
assignment of demons to specific people—apparently
the diabolical equivalent of guardian angels:
“Perhaps one devil allotted to a woman, should
receive semen from another devil, allotted to a
man, that in this way each of them should be
commissioned by the prince of devils to work
some witchcraft; since to each one is allotted his
own angel, even from among the evil ones.”
Alternately, the two inquisitors speculate that this
pairing of efforts may arise from the “filthiness of