Succubus

“ The Incubus's in the shapes of proper men satisfy the desires of the Witches, and the Succubus's serve for whores to the Wizards. At last before Aurora brings back the day, each one mounts on his spirit, and so returns to his respective dwelling place.... Sometimes at their solemn assemblies, the Devil commands, that each tell what wickedness he hath committed.... ”

“ Upon this, by us has she been required to voluntarily declare herself to be, and to have always been, demon of the nature of the Succubus, which is a female devil whose business it is to corrupt Christians by the blandishments and flagitious delights of love. To this the speaker has replied that the affirmation would be an abominable falsehood, seeing that she had always felt herself to be a most natural woman. ”

“ The devil also engaged in sexual intercourse with the witch or wizard, being denominated incubus, if his favourite were a woman, and succubus, if a man. In short, every frightful and loathsome idea was carefully heaped up together, to render the unfortunate beings to whom the crime of witchcraft was imputed the horror and execration of their species. ”

“ Nevertheless, taking pity on me, my lord the Archbishop caused the relics of St. Gatien to be brought, and the moment the shrine had touched my bed the said Succubus was obliged to depart, leaving an odour of sulphur and of hell, which made the throats of my servants, friends, and others sore for a whole day. Then the celestial light of God having enlightened my soul, I knew I was, through my sins and my combat with the evil spirit, in great danger of dying. ”

“ So generally did the belief in witchcraft, incantations, and charms prevail in the time of Pope Innocent VIII. and of Pope Julius II., that the Church authorities sent to the inquisitors the following official notice and instructions:—"It has come to our ears that many lewd persons of both kinds, as well male as female, using the company of the devils Incubus and Succubus, with incantations, charms, conjurations, etc., to destroy the births of women with child, the young of all cattle, the corn of the field, [Pg 424] the grapes of the vines, the fruit of the trees ”

“ The Gods, so say the ancients, often sought the society of the daughters of Princes; these pretended Gods were nothing but demons. A Devil possessed52 Rhea, under the form of Mars, and this succubus passed for Venus the day Anchises thought he cohabited with the Godess of beauty.
“The demon incubi accosted by preference fallen women, under the form of a black man, or goat. From times immemorial, damned spirits have attacked certain females, under the form of lascivious brutes. Hairy satyrs or shags, fauns and sylvains were only disguised incubi. ”

“ Pic de Mirandolle, relates how another priest had commerce for over forty years with a beautiful succubus, whom he called Hermione. Bodin recounts the story of Edeline, the Prior of a religious community53 in Sorbonne. An adversary of Demonomaniacal doctrines, Edeline was accused by the theologians of defending demons. Before the Tribunal the Prior declared that he had been visited by Satan, in the form of a black ram, and had prostituted his body to an incubus, and only obeyed his master in preaching that sorcery was a chimerical invention. ”

“ Riding through the air on a broomstick, and commerce with incubi and succubi rest upon evidence of precisely the same character and of much greater weight than that upon which the Templars were convicted, for the witch was sure of burning if she confessed, and had a chance of escaping if she could endure the torture, while the Templar was threatened with death for obstinacy, and was promised immunity as a reward for confession. If we accept the evidence against the Templar we cannot reject it in the case of the witch. ”

“ Will, when speaking well can't win her, Saying nothing do't? Prithee, why so mute? Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move: This cannot take her. If of herself she will not love, Nothing can make her: The devil take her! John Suckling [1609-1642]
WISHES TO HIS SUPPOSED MISTRESS Whoe'er she be, That not impossible She That shall command my heart and me: Where'er she lie, Locked up from mortal eye In shady leaves of destiny: Till that ripe birth Of studied Fate stand forth, And teach her fair steps tread our earth: Till that divine Idea take a shrine Of crystal flesh, through which to shine ”

“ At Como and Brescia a number of children from eight to twelve years of age, who had frequented the Sabbat, and had been reconverted by the inquisitors, gave exhibitions in which their skill showed that they had not been taught by human art. The woman was held behind her partner and they danced backwards, and when they paid reverence to the presiding demon they bent themselves backwards, lifting a foot in the air forwards. The rites ended with indiscriminate intercourse, obliging demons serving as incubi or succubi as required. ”

“ When sorcery thus came under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition it came simply as heresy, and the whole theory of its treatment was altered. The Inquisition was concerned exclusively with belief; acts were of interest to it merely as evidence of the beliefs which they inferred, and all heresies were equal in guilt, whether they consisted in affirming the poverty of Christ or led to demon-worship, pacts with Satan, and attempts on human life. ”

“ This was fully accepted by the Inquisition and we are told that torture is not indicated for propositions merely offensive, rash, scandalous or blasphemous, or for the assertion that simple fornication is not a mortal sin, or for heretical blasphemy, or sorcery, or for propositions arising from ignorance, or for bigamy or solicitation in the confessional, or for lying under excommunication for a year, or for other matters which infer only light suspicion of heresy, even though for some of these offences the punishment was scourging and the galleys. ”

“ Guard them in their resurrection, for otherwise you will not awake in God, safely surrounded by what is yours forever.
You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the hands of God's Son, and taken the last thorn from his forehead. The Love of God surrounds His Son whom the god of crucifixion condemns. Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you. For the undoing of the crucifixion of God's Son is the work of the redemption, in which everyone has a part of equal value. God does not judge His guiltless Son. ”

“ Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated or in need of anything, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God's Son. You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate and damning him to hell. ”

“ Her, whose ashes will be cast to the winds! Her, who, deprived of the holy Eucharist at the moment of death, and loaded down with the decree of excommunication, is about to be cast into the bottom of hell for all eternity! ”

“ Although the souls are enveloped in the same flames, their sufferings are not the same; they differ according to the number and nature of their former sins.
In this lower Purgatory the saint beheld laics and persons consecrated to God. The laics were those who, after a life of sin, had had the happiness of being sincerely converted; the persons consecrated to God were those who had not lived according to the sanctity of their state. At that same moment she saw descend the soul of a priest whom she knew, but whose name she does not reveal. ”

“ But all her devotions, fasts, and vows notwithstanding, despite the exorcisms, the blessings, the injunctions showered by exorcists on the Incubus that he should desist from molesting her, in spite of the crowd of relics and other holy objects collected in the maiden’s room, of the lighted candles kept burning there all night, the Incubus none the less persisted in appearing to her as usual in the shape of a very handsome young man. ”

“ God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin nor its results. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they live. They are not following His Will; they are opposing it.
And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body which they dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, offered to sin to feed upon and keep itself alive; a thing condemned, damned by its maker and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself. ”

“ The law could not give life, and "sin" (here personified as the old self) is in itself deathful. But death in another form, ie., crucifixion with Christ, has intervened to free the servant from his double bondage to sin (Romans 6:6,7) , and to the law Romans 7:4,6 (2) This effect of death is further illustrated by widowhood. Death dissolves the marriage relation Romans 7:1-3. As natural death frees a wife from the law of her husband, so crucifixion with Christ sets the believer free from the law. (See Scofield "Galatians 3:24")
Verse 16 sin Sin. ”

“ But no convent walls are so strong as to shut great nature out; and even within these sacred precincts the ascetics found that they were not free from the temptations of their arch-enemy. In consequence of this, a belief sprang up, and spread from its original source into the outer world, in a class of devils called incubi and succubi, who roamed the earth with no other object than to tempt people to abandon their purity of life. ”

“ Incubi and Succubae, evil spirits who were supposed to force themselves as lovers upon both men and women, played an important part in witchcraft days. Deformed children were supposed to have sprung of such a union. ”

“ And it is clear that the obstinate upholder of a very pestilent heresy must needs be more particularly and more ceremoniously tried than an old wife, who had sold herself to some insignificant demon, and whose spells could harm nothing more important than cabbages. For the common wizard, for the multitude of those females, or mulierculæ, as they were described by one inquisitor who boasted of having burnt many, the judges were content with three or four ecclesiastical advocates and as many canons. ”

“ What greater love could woman show? If God would forgive her for that—concede her the mercy to creep into heaven, lost in her dear saint’s shadow! For he was her saint again—twice beatified through his fault. He had been guilty of his one worldly lapse for her—had done outrage to his nature that hers might suffer none. Was not such sin the prerogative of consecration? ”

“ Since you by the flesh have sinned, so by the flesh, its pains and travail, must your soul win forgiveness and life hereafter. Oh, vain soul, though your flesh hath uttered damnable sin and heresy, yet Holy Church in its infinite mercy shall save your soul in despite sinful flesh, to which end we must lay on your evil flesh such castigation as shall, by its very pain, purge your soul and win it to life hereafter—"
But now, and even as the black-robed familiars closed upon me, I heard steps behind me, a clash of arms and thereafter a voice whose calm tones I recognised. ”

“ You have nailed yourself to a cross, and placed a crown of thorns upon your own head. Yet you cannot crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die. His Son has been redeemed from his own crucifixion, and you cannot assign to death whom God has given eternal life. ”

“ In the elaborate statutes issued by the Synod of Bamberg, in 1491, the section devoted to heresy dwells at much length on the details of witchcraft and magic, and mentions only one other doctrinal error—the vitiation of sacraments in polluted hands—and it directs that all who neglect to denounce heretics are to be themselves treated as accomplices, but it makes no allusion to the Inquisition. Still there is an occasional manifestation showing that inquisitors existed and sometimes exercised their powers. ”

“ Ah! " replied the unfortunate soul, "notwithstanding the prayers of our holy community, I cannot obtain the grace of my deliverance until all my brethren, whom my avarice defrauded of the suffrages due to them, have been released. That which has been given to the poor for me has been of no profit but to them, and this by order of Divine Justice. I entreat you, therefore, O venerated and merciful Father, redouble your alms. I hope that by these powerful means Divine clemency will vouchsafe to deliver us all, my brethren first, and afterwards myself, who am the least deserving of mercy." ”

“ He shall be holy, and shall let the hair of his head grow.
6 All the time of his consecration he shall not go in to any dead,
7 Neither shall he make himself unclean, even for his father, or for his mother, or for his brother, or for his sister, when they die, because the consecration of his God is upon his head.
8 All the days of his separation he shall be holy to the Lord.
9 But if any man die suddenly before him: the head of his consecration shall be defiled: and he shall shave it forthwith on the same day of his purification, and again on the seventh day. ”

“ With their bones scarcely skinned over, your wretched people present themselves before you, beaten down and helpless, with the aspect rather of death itself than of living men, imploring your succor in the name of Him who has appointed you to reign over them,—who made you a man, that you might be merciful to other men,—and who made you the father of your subjects, that you might be compassionate to these your helpless children. ”

“ I choose to testify to my acceptance of the Atonement, not to its rejection. I would accept my guiltlessness by making it manifest and sharing it. Let me bring peace to God's Son from his Father." Each day, each hour and minute, even each second, you are deciding between the crucifixion and the resurrection; between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego is the choice for guilt; the Holy Spirit the choice for guiltlessness. The power of decision is all that is yours. What you can decide between is fixed, because there are no alternatives except truth and illusion. ”