For my next Creature Feature instalment, I had intended to do something on souleaters and the succubus and incubus popped into my head. However, I didn’t realise that I was a little bit wide of the mark. Succubi (females) and incubi (males) aren’t so much interested in your soul as they are in…well, your bodily fluids really. Like so much in life, it’s all about sex.
Succubi and incubi have been around in one form or another for a very long time. Lilith, Adam’s first wife, became a succubus after she was cast out of the garden of Eden and mated with the archangel Samael. There’s a fairly rich tradition in the Jewish religion but they also make their appearance in other places around the world. For instance, they appear in India (known as the seductress Mohini) and in Mesopotamia, and of course Christians reference them as well.
The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli, 1781
Originally described as vile and demonic, succubi have taken on a more pleasing form and turned into hyper-seductive, hyper-sexual dream women. Literally. (If you have time, do an image search for succubus. You’ll get an idea of how they’ve become such a highly charged sexual symbol/fantasy. A similar search for incubus and you come up with photos for a band. Far less interesting.)
Succubi and incubi visit men and women respectively in their dreams. Unable to fend off these nighttime intruders, the demons carry out their nocturnal deeds and go on their way. In the case of the succubus, she visits men and steals their semen and then either gives it to, or turns into, an incubus. The incubus then visits a human female and impregnates her. The offspring is then dubbed demon spawn (despite not actually being of the demon). It’s kind of like a demon-assisted IVF.
It seems to me that the succubus is the most talked about, the seductress who visits the dreams of hapless male victims and has her way with them. If you haven’t thought of it already, the most obvious explanation for this is just the old fashioned wet dream, which to be fair has never been suitable for polite company.
So what better way to get out of a sticky situation – excuse the pun – than to say you were visited by a demoness in the middle of the night? Might as well say she was hot too and make all your friends jealous (and absolve you in the eyes of your religious elders). Convenient way of getting rid of those guilty feelings.
And what if you dreamed it was a man? Well, most men would be unlikely to admit to such a thing. And if they did, it wasn’t their fault. It was a perverted demon.
I find it funny that according to Franciscan friar Ludovico Maria Sinistrari they “do not obey exorcists, have no dread of exorcisms, show no reverence for holy things, at the approach of which they are not in the least overawed.” Seems even the power of God isn’t enough to put down a person’s urges, particularly in their dreams when their subconscious has free rein.
There has been another hypothesis floated on the whole succubus/incubus nocturnal invasion: sleep paralysis. Unable to move, they imagine something physically lying on them, holding them down. Frightening to say the least. And if it’s not bad enough hearing about it, just looking at Fuseli’s painting of the nightmare is enough to put ideas into your head.
Another explanation, which is far more disturbing and relates more to the incubus side of things, is that the women who were visited by “incubi” were raped. And not just by anyone, more than likely a friend or relative. Rather than cause shame or deal with a difficult situation, it seemed that it might have been just plain easier to blame it on a culprit who could never be caught than look into the all-too-human demons lurking in the corridors of one’s home.
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