“And they are called Incubi from their practice of overlaying, that is debauching. For they often lust lecherously after women, and copulate with them…the foulest venereal acts are performed by such devils, not for the sake of delectation, but for the pollution of the souls and bodies of those to whom they act as . . . Incubi [and] through such action complete conception and generation by women can take place.”

The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Part One, Question Three.

A thirty-seven year old female in the Midwest began experiencing strange sensations of something walking or crawling over the bed she and her husband shared. Sometimes the movements would occur while both were completely awake; occasionally, indentations would appear on the blankets corresponding to the “steps” of the invisible intruder. On at least two separate nights, the woman awakened to fondling and touches arousing her sexually: fully awake, she realized her husband was sleeping soundly next to her.

Though she tried to shake it off as a vivid dream – her husband had, after all, been sick for several years and his condition had made sexual relations impossible. Perhaps the disturbing, very real dreams were the simple result of frustration resulting from dealing with such a prolonged illness. But a few months later, after her husband’s death, the woman found herself alone in her bed and about to discover the truth about her nocturnal visitations . . .

Within no time the invisible entities were back in her bed and, perhaps in grief and exhaustion, the woman finally gave in to their advances. The experience defied description and once she had succumbed to the foreplay of her unseen seducers she found herself needing sex constantly, twenty-four hours a day. She became immediately addicted to the attentions of the entities now, evidently, with her constantly; they never tired, either, and were ready to oblige her growing sexual addiction.

de: Nachtmahr1802
Füssli, Johann Heinrich

The woman tried to rationalize that the spirit visitations were from kind, well-meaning spirits, higher intelligences from another more advanced plane of existence. But deep in her mind she knew differently as the frequency of the encounters increased and her need for constant sex began to interfere with her day-to-day existence.

She began to make some attempt at resistance, feeble at first, but with each encounter she felt herself more determined to put an end to the visits. As her will grew stronger, to her dismay, the encounters became more aggressive; soon gentle seduction became something more like attack. Steeling her will, she made the best attempt possible to resist the spirits who were now constantly with her and constantly engaging in sexual activity with her. But it was to no avail.

Something had been triggered the moment she first relented to the lustful entities and from that instant they had the upper hand. When she finally resorted to prayers and pleas to God to end the foul attacks she was introduced to a new experience at the hand of what she described as a “more powerful” spirit than the others and able to subdue the others. The presence of this entity was heralded by extreme cold and tingling from head to toe just before the sexual foreplay would begin. During visits from this particular entity, whether she resisted or not, the sex act was brutal and she was paralyzed – unable to participate or to stop it from happening. She had become the sexual slave of something not of this world and she, in a weak moment, had shackled herself to her fate.


Though lesser in numbers, the male progeny of the demon goddess Lilith were nonetheless a force to be reckoned with – offspring following in the footsteps of their father, the very, very, very bad angel Sammael.

The Devil Tarot Card Icon, by Ricardo Pustanio © 2005 gold leaf mixed medium on wood 8.5 x 11 inches

These satanic sons of the fall inherited their parents’ flagrant disregard for the Creator and the natural order of things; they also bore deep within them the hatred of their parents for the children of Adam and Eve, whom they looked upon as prey and prizes in a game of eternal ruination.

While their sisters and sometimes lovers the succubi and maras relied upon the seduction and glamour to tempt men into the sin of copulation with demons, the male incubi were imbued with a natural allure that gave them power to overcome even the most chaste females. It was said of the incubi that they, like their angelic father, possessed much of the nobility inherent in their nature at the beginning of time. It made sense, after all, that they should become the heirs of this higher quality from their forebear, who was created along with the angels who remained loyal before the throne of God. But in the lower regions of the human world, where the veil between the natural and unnatural is often tenuous, the beauty and nobility of their nature would serve them well and, though they were devils, they would often meet little resistance among the daughters of man.


“…for the nature that was given them has not been changed…their nature remained intact and very splendid, although they cannot use it for any good purpose.”

The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Part One, Question Three.

In the annals of occult literature, especially in the writings that come to us from the Middle Ages, there are hundreds of accounts of demons who lurk in the shadow realms of the unseen world, waiting for a moment to strike – but this hunter has only one prey, human females. Knowingly, stealthily, slowly and often with infinite patience the invader will make his presence known, visiting its victim while she slumbers, taking advantage of the dream state to introduce itself to her as if emanating from her deepest yearnings. Within time and with patience the predator sexual spirit, the incubi, will obtain all that it desires and more, preying on the lustful weaknesses that plague the physical state.

Because of their descent in line from one of the brightest of God’s angels – Sammael was a powerful angel of the throne of God before the fall – these incubi had the added attraction of their inherently sublime natures. Often they would appear as figures of shining light, clad in nearly all the splendor their father wore at the creation of the world. Only later, after the shine had worn off, did the woman thus deceived actually see her lover in his actual, sometimes awful, incubus state – a woman might awake to find a goat-like creature or, most awful, a corpse in the bed next to her, once the mantle of glamour had been breached.


“It is a very general belief, the truth of which is vouched for by many from their own experience, or at least from hearsay as having been experienced by men of undoubted trustworthiness, that [they]…(which are commonly called Incubi) have appeared to wanton women and have sought and obtained coition with them. And that certain devils…assiduously attempt and achieve this filthiness is vouched for by so many credible witnesses that it would seem impudent to deny it…And that which seems true to many cannot be altogether false.”

The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, Part One, Question Three.

A widely held belief is that some incubi are able to engage in sexual relations and even to father children on unknowing victims by taking possession of the body of a human man. These possessed individuals would often go about as perfectly normal looking men, although there was always something not “quite right” about them – something aloof and hard to define. Always they demonstrated a sadistic nature and a love of evil behavior, though usually they are able to hide this from their female prey.

Time after time, as recorded throughout the folklore and traditions of many cultures, the incubus-man would behave in a predictable manner: seeking out a weak, shy or neglected female the demon would enter her life like a knight in shining armor, the long-hoped-for lover arriving at last. Soon, however, the victim finds that all her resistance is worn down and before she realizes it she has given herself in more ways than just a promise or a vow. Deflowered, often defamed, ruined in the eyes of her family and community, the woman, once abandoned by the incubus, will often give in to her despair and take her own life.

Occasionally, the incubus-man would simply abandon his victim without explanation or promise of return. The lucky ones were able to live out honorable lives as spinsters, rationalizing that the events never even happened. Some, more lucky, would find other willing suitors, but the memory of the devil who had plagued her, and the fear of its return, was never far from mind.

Some incubi are spirits of place who prey not on a single victim, but on many over a period of several years. Ghost-like in their location-specific nature, these spirits do, nonetheless, fit the definition of incubi in that they are responsible for regular sexual attacks on unsuspecting females who come within their reach.

One such experience occurred to a young woman traveling from Northern California to Oregon to visit family one holiday season. Having set out late in the day, when night came on she found herself tired of driving and in need of a place to rest. She pulled into a well-kept, well-lit hotel off the main highway, one of a popular chain. Within a short time she was locking herself into a clean and secure hotel room.

After a quick shower, the woman prepared for bed. She had a long drive ahead of her in the morning and wanted to get an early start. Finally settled in, she turned out the lights and fell quickly to sleep.

Some time later she awoke to an icy chill in the room. Her eyes flew wide as she perceived that everything was not right. Lifting her head to look around, she was horrified to see what looked like hand prints in deep indentations near the foot of the bed on either side of her legs. She instinctively reached for the light, but before she could turn it on she felt the strong grip of an unseen force pulling the bed covers off. She tried to move but was instantly and painfully forced down onto the mattress. Her clothes were ripped away. The crushing weight of the unseen spirit made it impossible for her to move or call out. Unbearable waves of pain shook her body as something, unseen and unyielding was forcing itself into her again and again. Soon she felt the invisible being seem to stiffen and then its grip lessened slightly. She chose this moment to try to bolt.

Immediately it was on her again, grabbing her legs as she clawed at the carpet between the bed and the hotel room door. Once again it attacked her, pushing her face into the carpet; again she could not utter a sound or even move.

For the rest of the dark hours of the night these attacks were repeated, again and again. As the first grey light of day seeped into the room, the entity was gone as quickly as it had arrived.

Thus begins a famous English folk song of the early 17th century based, more than likely, on an even older folk tradition that for centuries served as a cautionary tale against mourning overmuch for the loss of a love. When the woman asked where it is her returned lover will take her to, the answer, ultimately, is the frozen wastes of hell.

As with so many similar tales, the man who had gone away so many years ago was no man at all but a demon incubus in the form and shape of a man. And usually he has returned to make good on some dark promise pledged between the lovers long years before.

The old and wise would often counsel against mourning too much for the dead. This, they said, made the dead unable to rest and, they warned, often called them back when they ought to be allowed to move on in peace. But in every age there are crises large and small which result in the separation of lovers and the loss of dear ones. It is difficult to comfort a young heart thus severed by untimely death; it is even more difficult to prevent the longing that incubi rely upon to lure their prey into the very depths of hell, cheating heaven of two souls in the bargain. Here is one way this may be:

During the years of the Civil War many thousands of American families were displaced or were disrupted by the battles sweeping across the United States. Many thousands of sons, lovers and husbands were swept off – willingly or not – to fight in the great conflict then redefining our nation. It was not uncommon for whole villages and communities to be emptied of every able bodied man, leaving only children and grandfathers behind; brothers of one family were often allowed to remain with the state militia they had joined and this meant that they would face the conflict all together instead of being separated – very obviously a two-edged sword.

Such was the case in one small farming community in the hills of Tennessee. Fathers, husbands, and sons – all the fine manhood of the area rushed up to fight for the cause and all marched away together, gone to be soldiers for Dixie.

Among these fine men was the betrothed of a merchant’s daughter who watched from the upper windows of her father’s dry goods store as the militia filed out of town, rank upon grey rank fading into the dusty horizon. The young woman watched until the sharp flicker of sunlight on the tip of a bayonet was the last sight she had of the soldiers and of her dearly beloved.

This was in the spring. As spring gave way to summer and word of distant battles came to the village, she was comforted by some few letters from her dearest and even a steely photograph arrived showing her loved one very proper and stern in his army duds. She put it in a special place on the mantelpiece of her bedroom. But after this, there was nothing, no word at all from her beloved. To keep away the sullen thoughts she would sit beside the window in the dying summer sunlight and work painstakingly at her needlepoint or read again from the books that she and her dear one had treasured together.

Summer gave way to autumn and still there was no word from him, nor, it must be said, from any of the bright young men who had marched away so gallantly in the springtime. Soon the crowns of gold and orange that ringed the mountaintops gave way to somber brown. Winter had come and with no news of her heart’s desire. But with the first hints of snow letters came through the post confirming the worst fears of many of the village residents. She was not spared: her beloved was missing, presumed dead.

Now she gave herself entirely over to grief, believing the worst to be true. If her were alive, she told herself, he would communicate with her somehow, some way. Listless and red-eyed, she wandered through each cold day in a daze; when night came, it brought no peace, and the tears returned to plague her. Alone, in the solemn darkness of her room night after night she would call out the name of her lover in a hoarse whisper, thinking only the darkness could hear.

But one moonless night near the end of that horrible year there came the sound of a horse galloping through the empty byways. Nearer and nearer it came, as if all the devils of hell were chasing it. Drawn to the window by the strange cacophony which seemed to suddenly halt very near, she looked out and there, standing on a blanket of new snow, was the panting horse and beside it stood the unmistakable form of her dear lover! He was looking up at her, she could tell, and she threw the window open, blinded by tears.

“Come down,” he called to her in a voice that seemed hollow in the cold night. “We haven’t much time.” She was not deterred and nodding to him, she swiftly turned and sped from her bedroom, down the stairs and out the front door of the house.

He had already mounted the smoking, sweaty beast and as she approached her reached out with a strong arm and pulled her up into the saddle behind him. She was overjoyed; she laid her head against his back, enthralled by the feel of him, the rough-hewn fabric of his butternut grey uniform against her cheek. But suddenly it struck her – how awfully, awfully cold he was. It wasn’t just the night air that beat against her as they rode, swift as the wind, into the pitch-blackness. His body was frigid against her arms and about him was a smell, oddly familiar and distressful. She shivered and he responded by saying, “It is not far now!”

She sat up just enough to see over his shoulder. The dark fingers of the trees wheeled away above them as the horse galloped on. Soon, in the distance, there came into view the forms of crosses and headstones, gleaming unearthly white in the dark night.

“But -- !” was all she managed before the horse leapt and in that final leap cleared the low fence of the burying ground. When its raging hooves once again struck the earth she was jolted slightly in the saddle and he had to reach for her to keep her from falling. What she saw horrified her and froze her face in a contorted look of terror and ghastly realization: it was the form of her lover that held her, but the face was a mangled mass of skeletal bone and fragments of flesh, empty eye sockets and the death grin of a cadaver.

“You called to me,” said a hollow, faraway voice, “and I came back for you!”

The young woman screamed pitiably as the horse leaped yet again. This time down and into a rectangle of earthen loam that fell about them as they disappeared into the yawning maw of the devouring earth.

In the morning, all that remained was a pile of freshly dug earth where the snow had not yet fallen.

The power of love and the accompanying blessing of sexual union is something profoundly desired in every human since the beginning of time. That it is possible for devils in the form of incubi and demon lovers to pervert and distort these most human of desires is disturbing to contemplate. That we might possibly invite them in, knowingly or unknowingly, is not very much more comfort.

In the accumulated wisdom of folk tradition is a cautionary tale for all eras, especially those influenced by great conflagrations in which the young and the tenderhearted easily tether themselves in unfit and unsubstantial unions. As it was in times past, when in the dark night, desires took the form of uninvited sexual trysts with ethereal denizens of the realms of hell, so in more modern times the possibility remains: One is never quite certain, when one gives away so dear a gift as a heart or physical intimacy, that the receiver completely deserves such a gift.

Perhaps the greatest and most well known adaptation of the old tales of incubi and demon lovers is the short story by author Elizabeth Bowen aptly titled “The Demon Lover.” No other modern author seems to have grasped more successfully the ability of the incubi to cast its seductive spell and the results of one woman’s response to the lure, even many years later.

Here, then, is Bowen’s masterpiece of devilish fiction, in its entirety.


THE DEMON LOVER

by Elizabeth Bowen (1945)

Towards the end of her day in London Mrs. Drover went round to her shut-up house to look for several things she wanted to take away. Some belonged to herself, some to her family, who were by now used to their country life. It was late August; it had been a steamy, showery day: at the moment the trees down the pavement glittered in an escape of humid yellow afternoon sun. Against the next batch of clouds, already piling up ink-dark, broken chimneys and parapets stood out. In her once familiar street, as in any unused channel, an unfamiliar queerness had silted up; a cat wove itself in and out of railings, but no human eye watched Mrs. Drover’s return. Shifting some parcels under her arm, she slowly forced the latchkey in an unwilling lock, then gave the door, which had warped, a push with her knee. Dead air came out to meet her as she went in.

The staircase window having been boarded up, no light came down into the hall. But one door, she could just see, stood ajar, so she went quickly through into the room and unshuttered the big window in there. Now the prosaic woman, looking about her, was more perplexed than she knew by everything that she saw, by traces of her long former habit of life – the yellow smoke-stain up the white marble mantelpiece, the ring left by a vase on the top of the escritoire, the bruise in the wallpaper where, on the door being thrown open widely, the china handle had always hit the wall. The piano, having gone away to be stored, had left what looked like claw-marks on its part of the parquet. Though not much dust had seeped in, each object wore a film of another kind; and, the only ventilation being the chimney, the whole drawing room smelled of the cold hearth. Mrs. Drover put down her parcels on the escritoire and left the room to proceed upstairs; the things she wanted were in the bedroom closet.

She had been anxious to see how the house was – the part-time caretaker she shared with some neighbors was away this week on his holiday, known to be not yet back. At the best of times he did not look in often and she was never sure that she trusted him. There were some cracks in the structure, left by the last bombing, on which she was anxious to keep an eye. Not that one could do anything –

A shaft of refracted daylight now lay across the hall. She stopped dead and stared at the hall table – on this lay a letter addressed to her.

She thought first – then the caretaker must be back. All the same, who, seeing the house shuttered, would have dropped a letter in at the box? It was not a circular, it was not a bill. And the post office redirected, to the address in the country, everything for her that came through the post. The caretaker (even if her were back) did not know she was due in London today – her call here had been planned to be a surprise – so his negligence in the matter of this letter, leaving it to wait in the dusk and dust, annoyed her. Annoyed, she picked up the letter, which bore no stamp. But it cannot be important, or they would know…. She took the letter rapidly upstairs with her, without a stop to look at the writing till she reached what had been her bedroom, where she let in light. The room looked over the garden and other gardens: the sun had gone in; as the clouds sharpened and lowered, the trees and rank lawns seemed already to smoke with dark. Her reluctance to look again at the letter came from the fact that she felt intruded upon – and by someone contemptuous of her ways. However, in the tenseness preceding the fall of rain she read it: it was a few lines.

“Dear Kathleen,

You will not have forgotten that today is our anniversary, and the day we said. The years have gone by at once slowly and fast. In view of the fact that nothing has changed, I shall rely upon you to keep your promise. I was sorry to see you leave London, but was satisfied that you would be back in time. You may expect me, therefore, at the hour arranged.

Until then…K.”

Mrs. Drover looked for the date: it was today’s. She dropped the letter onto the bedsprings, then picked it up to see the writing again – her lips, beneath the remains of lipstick, beginning to go white. She felt so much the change in her own face that she went to the mirror, polished a clear patch in it and looked at once urgently and stealthily in. She was confronted by a woman of forty-four, with eyes staring out under a hat brim that had been rather carelessly pulled down. She had not put on any more powder since she left the shop where she ate her solitary tea. The pearls her husband had given her on their marriage hung loose round her now rather thinner throat, slipping into the V of the pink wool jumper her sister knitted last autumn as they sat around the fire. Mrs. Drover’s most normal expression was one of controlled worry, but of assent. Since the birth of the third of her little boys, attended by a quite serious illness, she had had an intermittent muscular flicker to the left of her mouth, but in spite of this she could always sustain a manner that was at once energetic and calm.

Turning from her own face as precipitately as she had gone to meet it, she went to the chest where the things were, unlocked it, threw up the lid and knelt to search. But as the rain began to come crashing down she could not keep from looking over her shoulder at the stripped bed on which the letter lay. Behind the blanket of rain the clock of the church that still stood struck six – with rapidly heightening apprehension she counted each of the slow strokes. “The hour arranged . . . My God,” she said, “WHAT hour? How should I . . . ? After twenty-five years . . . “

The young girl talking to the soldier in the garden had not ever completely seen his face. It was dark; they were saying goodbye under a tree. Now and then – for it felt, from not seeing him at this intense moment, as though she had never seen him at all – she verified his presence for these few moments longer by putting out a hand, which he each time pressed, without very much kindness, and painfully, on to one of the breast buttons of his uniform. That cut of the button on the palm of her hand was, principally, what she was to carry away. This was so near the end of a leave from France that she could only wish him already gone. It was August 1916. Being not kissed, being drawn away from and looked at intimidated Kathleen till she imagined spectral glitters in the place of his eyes. Turning away and l