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DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS
PART
2
Succubus
(2006), by Ricardo Pustanio
The
physical appearance of succubi
varies just about as much
as that of demons in general;
there is no single definitive
depiction. However, they are
almost universally depicted
as alluring women with unearthly
beauty, often with demonic
batlike wings; occasionally,
they will be given other demonic
features (horns, a tail with
a spaded tip, snakelike eyes,
hooves, etc). Occasionally
they appear simply as an attractive
woman in dreams that the victim
cannot seem to get off their
mind. They lure males and
in some cases, the male has
seemed to fall "in love"
with her. Even out of the
dream she will not leave his
mind. She will remain there
slowly draining energy from
him.
Story
by A. Pustanio Art Work by
Ricardo Pustanio
SUCCUBI AND MARA, THE
HANDMAIDENS OF HELL
“For through the wantonness of
the flesh they have much power over
men; and in men the source of wantonness
lies in the privy parts . . . But the
reason that devils turn themselves into
… succubi is not for the cause
of pleasure, since a spirit has not
flesh and blood; but chiefly it is with
this intention, that through the vice
of luxury they may work a twofold harm
against men, that is, in body and in
soul, that so men may be more given
to all vices. And there is no doubt
that they know under which stars the
semen is most vigorous, and that men
so conceived will be always perverted
by witchcraft.”
The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich
Kramer and James Sprenger, Part One,
Question 3.
The seeds of Lilith’s dark progeny
were planted all over the wide world,
growing up like weeds in an untended
garden, a plague upon the descendants
of their Dark Mother’s spurned
first husband, the Biblical Adam.
So deep was Lilith’s revulsion
for Adam, so rabid was her hatred for
his sons and daughters, that she labored
ceaselessly to fill the world with all
sorts of terrors and blights with which
to frighten or ensnare the descendants
of Adam and his complacent second wife,
Eve. Not content with bringing about
the loss of Paradise through the temptation
and ruination of her weaker rival, Lilith
plotted the damnation of all mankind
and the rise of her own race of demonic
descendants.
It
is said that Lillith was the twin
sister of Adam and dwelt with
him in the Garden at Paradise
before the creation of Eve. Adam
and Lilith never found peace together;
for when he wished to lie with
her, she took offence at the recumbent
posture he demanded. 'Why must
I lie beneath you?' she asked.
'I also was made from dust, and
am therefore your equal.' Because
Adam tried to compel her obedience
by force, Lilith, in a rage, uttered
the magic name of God, rose into
the air and left him.
Lilith
The "Black Moon", a
supposed invisible satellite of
the Earth, also an energy vortex
in the Sun-Moon-Earth system.
There is as well an asteroid called
Lilith. Lilith, the Dark Goddess,
is a Hebrew name for Caput Algol,
the Demon Star.
In the
Middle Ages, when study of the Lilith
tradition reached the first of many
peaks to come, scholars labored to arrive
at some reasonable computation of the
offspring of Lilith, taking into account
not only her union with the Dark Angel,
the true Satan, Sammael, but also her
other countless unions with her own
progeny which produced demons in ever-increasing
exponential combinations. The task was
confounding and ultimately was abandoned.
The most these learned scholars and
fathers of the Church could state was
that, by all evidence, in any given
age of the world, Lilith’s female
children (succubi and the lesser maras)
outnumbered her male offspring (the
incubi) by a margin of nine to one.
Not surprising from a female demon goddess
with a deep, abiding hatred of almost
anything male.
Medieval apotropaic amulet to
protect from Lilith during childbirth
and infancy. Technically, Lilith
does does not appear in this amulet.
Rather we have 'portraits' of
the three angels who are her bain:
Snoy, Snsnoy & Smnglof. Above
the angel portraits, in each of
the two panels, we have the name
'Adam', the Tetragrammaton, and
the phrase "Out Lilith!"
From The Book of Raziel (Amsterdam,1701).
Lilith's bargain with the angels
has its ritual counterpart in
an apotropaic rite once performed
in many Jewish communities. To
protect the newborn child against
Lilith-and especially a male,
until he could be permanently
safeguarded by circumcision-a
ring was drawn with natron, or
charcoal, on the wall of the birthroom,
and inside it were written the
words: 'Adam and Eve. Out, Lilith!'
Also the names Senoy, Sansenoy
and Semangelof (meanings uncertain)
were inscribed on the door. If
Lilith nevertheless succeeded
in approaching the child and fondling
him, he would laugh in his sleep.
To avert danger, it was held wise
to strike the sleeping child's
lips with one finger-whereupon
Lilith would vanish.
-- Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves
and Raphael Patai (New York: Doubleday,
1964), pp 65-69.
Such an abundance of female offspring,
then, made attacks by female succubi
and maras much more frequent than those
committed by male incubi (at least on
unwilling victims, for at the height
of the witch-hunting frenzy of the Middle
Ages it was considered that witches
“willingly and constantly”
engaged in sexual acts with demonic
incubi and even sought out incubi for
these abominable pleasures).
But throughout ancient times and particularly
during the Middle Ages, succubus attacks
on innocent and otherwise righteous
people were apparently very frequent.
Attacks by the maras, the lesser female
succubi who haunted the dreams of men,
usually manifested in a less overtly
sexual manner but were also a frequent
complaint.
Those under attack by a succubus would
wake up feeling a heavy weight upon
their chest or abdomen and the movements
of an unseen entity. As the attack progressed
the entity would gradually begin to
take on shape and form: invariably that
of a phenomenally beautiful female with
luxurious dark hair and hypnotically
deep, dark eyes – a female of
otherworldly perfection. Aroused and
unable to resist the provocations of
the female demon, the helpless victim
had no choice but to submit to the consummation
of the sex act. Afterwards, the victim
would be left profoundly listless, drained
of all energy and with only spare, dreamlike
memories of the event. As the attacking
succubus returned, night after night,
the health of the victim would begin
to wane and was, in extreme cases or
in cases where intervention (such as
religious ritual or exorcism) was too
late, the victim could succumb to death.
Lilith's children are called
lilim. In the Targum Yerushalmi,
the priestly blessing of Numbers
vi. 26 becomes: 'The Lord bless
thee in all thy doings, and preserve
thee from the Lilim!' The fourth-century
A.D. commentator Hieronymus identified
Lilith with the Greek Lamia, a
Libyan queen deserted by Zeus,
whom his wife Hera robbed of her
children. She took revenge by
robbing other women of theirs.
-- Hebrew Myths by Robert Graves
and Raphael Patai (New York: Doubleday,
1964), pp 65-69.
Although
all succubi and maras, and their “brother”
incubi, were considered to be the offspring
of the ancient and feared Lilith, some
were said to be so powerful as to be
able to change their sex at will, rather
than being confined to one specific
gender in their species. Thus it was
possible that one of Lilith’s
demon children could attack and have
sex with a man in order to collect his
semen and then, transformed into a male
incubus, could have sex with a female
victim, impregnating her with the gathered
seed. Even if the semen used passed
from human male to human female, the
mere intervention of the demonic agent
caused the offspring of such unions
to be unnatural. It was widely believed
that deformed or crippled children,
sets of twins (especially conjoined
twins or the female of a pair of twins),
and children born with teeth or a full
head of hair were all products of abominable
demonic unions.
One final distinction was made between
attacks by succubi and visitations by
maras and this was in the nature of
the sex acts performed. Apparently,
in keeping with the traditions of their
forcefully independent and unabashedly
sexual foremother, succubi had no shame
whatsoever when it came to sex, demanding
ever more innovative and experimental
intercourse with their chosen victim.
It is also recorded that sex with a
demon succubus delivered a pleasure
“more profound than any carnal
act” between humans on this earth;
it was not uncommon for victims of succubi
to suffer from addiction to the sexual
encounters and sometimes obvious symptoms
of withdrawal would manifest in those
whom a succubus had cast aside …
“…the power of the Devil
lies in the privy parts of men. For
of all struggles those are the hardest
where the fight is continuous and victory
rare…”
The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich
Kramer and James Sprenger, Part One,
Question 3.
The mara, from which our word “nightmare”
stems, is another form of succubus said
to plague the dreams of men. Less overtly
sexual in nature than her more powerful
sisters, the mara was, nonetheless equally
intractable in her nocturnal visitations.
The mara was
thought of as an immaterial being
– capable of moving through
a keyhole or the opening under
a door – who seated herself
at the chest of a sleeping person
and "rode" him or her,
thus causing nightmares. In Norwegian/Danish,
the word for nightmare is mareritt/mareridt,
meaning "mareride".
The Icelandic word martröð
has the same meaning, whereas
the Swedish mardröm translates
as "maredream". The
weight of the mara could also
result in breathing difficulties
or feeling of suffocation (an
experience now known as sleep
paralysis).
The mara was
also believed to "ride"
horses, which left them exhausted
and covered in sweat by the morning.
She could also entangle the hair
of the sleeping man or beast,
resulting in "marelocks",
a belief probably originating
as an explanation for polish plait
– a hair disease. Even trees
could be ridden by the mara, resulting
in branches being entangled. The
undersized, twisted pine-trees
growing on coastal rocks and on
wet grounds are known in Sweden
as martallar (marepines).
According to
a common belief, the free-roaming
spirit of sleeping women could
become maras, either out of wickedness
or as a form of curse. In the
latter case, finding out who the
cursed person was and repeating
"you are a mara" three
times was often enough to release
her from this condition.
The concept
of the mara has very old roots
in the folklore of the Germanic
peoples, possibly the belief was
shaped as early as in proto-Indo-European
religion. According to the American
Heritage Dictionary, the word
can be traced back to an Indo-European
root *mer, meaning to rub away
or to harm. The Slavic nightmare
spirit mora is likely to have
been derived from this root as
well, and possibly also the Irish
deiry Mórrígan and
the Buddhist demon Mara. The proto-Germanic
name is *maron, and its Old English
derivative is mære. The
Anglo-Saxon belief in this creature
still echoes in the word nightmare.
In later English folklore, hags
and witches took on many of the
roles of the mara, producing terms
such as hagridden and haglock.
In Germany the activities of the
mara (mahr) were shifted to the
elves (nightmare in German is
Albtraum or "elf-dream").
According to Dictionnaire de l'Académie
française, the French word
cauchemar ("sleep-mare")
entered the French language from
a Middle Dutch mare.
The Nocnitsa,
or "Night Hag", in Polish
mythology, is a nightmare spirit
that also goes by the name Krisky
or Plaksy. The Nocnitsa is also
present in Russian, Serbian and
Slovakian folklore. She is known
to torment children at night,
and mothers in some regions will
place a knife in their children's
cradles or draw a circle around
the cradles with a knife for protection.
This is possibly based on the
belief that supernatural beings
cannot touch iron).
She is known
in Bulgaria as Gorska Makua.
Traditionally, the mara was described
as a ghost-like demon, immaterial and
able to gain access to her victim through
the smallest opening – a keyhole
or a crack in the door, a gap at the
window, or down the chimney flue. Once
within reach of her intended prey, the
mara would make her presence known as
a weight on the chest of the unsuspecting
sleeper causing him to become immobile.
As the sleeper struggled and breathing
became more difficult, the mara would
tap into the frantic energy while the
victim struggled in a nightmare state.
In the morning, the unknowing prey of
the mara would have little memory of
the night before, though often the feeling
of pressure on his chest and abdomen
would remain with him throughout his
waking hours.
Maras were also known to emanate from
the dreams of sleeping men where they
would introduce themselves as the dream
lover of the sleeper’s deepest
desire, all the while sapping the mental
energy of her prey. Ultimately, the
mara would become powerful enough to
manifest even in the daylight hours
and even if this was not the case, the
mere memory of the alluring and irresistible
dream woman would create a state of
vexation in the victim, causing him
to lose all interest in his former life
until, ultimately death would claim
him.
“…There is no head above
the head of a serpent; and there is
no wrath above the wrath of a woman.
I had rather dwell with a lion and a
dragon than to keep house with a wicked
woman…All wickedness is but little
to the wickedness of a woman…What
else is woman but a foe to friendship,
an unescapable punishment, a necessary
evil, a natural temptation, a desirable
calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable
detriment, an evil of nature, painted
with fair colors! … A woman either
loves or hates; there is no third grade
… When a woman thinks alone, she
thinks evil.”
The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich
Kramer and James Sprenger, Part One,
Question 6.
The fear of women is ancient and stems,
no doubt, from the cautionary tale surrounding
the willfulness of that single icon
of the dark feminine divine, Lilith.
Throughout the ages there have been
innumerable attempts to justify the
vilification and suppression of the
female half of the species by that “other”
half and comparatively rare examples
of so-called “righteous”
women actually come down to us from
the elder days. Still, try as they might,
the ecclesiastics and forefathers of
the new patriarchal religion could not
completely eradicate the belief in the
powerful denizens of the dark and wilder
days at the beginning of time. Like
links in a sensuous and invisible chain,
the powers of Lilith to tempt, seduce,
please and punish ran like a river through
generations of women brave enough to
call upon her and bold enough to follow
her.
Human women, naturally, were the eternal
beneficiaries of this dark inheritance
from the Elder Mother; others were marked
by their sex alone as endemic dangers,
wild creatures to be captured, broken
and reared in the path of patriarchal
righteousness. Thankfully, in every
generation, thousands of knowing females
willingly thumbed their noses at submission;
many paid the ultimate price for manifesting
in themselves even a hint of the feminine
divine.
Lilith, Hecate, Nocticula, Ceres, Persephone,
Tiamat, Herodias, Diana, Aradia –
by many names the evil nature of women
became manifest, drawn from them, or
so the church fathers taught, by the
illusory promises not of female goddesses,
but of the Devil and that great temptress
Lilith and their legions of forsaken,
evil offspring. Women, it was said,
were most susceptible to these dark
arts for by nature they were inclined
to think and do evil more so than was
man. In many places women gathered together
were forbidden from speaking, so fearful
were men that even the simplest conversation
held within it the seed of a powerful
spell. Among the Gaels there was a saying,
“brichta ban,” which meant
“beware the words of women,”
and in many cultures strict rules governed
interaction with women in all levels
of society.
Little wonder, then, that the old paths
held such fascination for so many women,
suppressed and disenfranchised in their
society as they were. It is no wonder
at all that women found their expression
in a multitude of otherwise forbidden
arts – the keeping of herbs and
the study of plants, midwifery, and,
among themselves, the preservation of
oral traditions long feared by fathers
and husbands.
Among the arts preserved by wise women
was the ability not only to procure
lovers at the request of others but
also, through the art of “sending,”
to obtain for themselves anyone whom
they desired. These powerful females,
practiced in the art of sending their
spirits forth at night, would appear
to desirable men as dream maras and
secretly tryst with their lovers while
still lying asleep in their own husband’s
bed. Other women, with a mind for evil
or vengeance, could appear as maras
to persecute those who had wronged them
or otherwise excited their anger. This
practice was not confined to young women
or goodwives alone, but was also practiced
by elderly women (this is still widely
known as being “hagged”)
or even young female children.
There are many stories of saints, monks
and other holy men who were plagued
by female demons and the spirit sendings
of women throughout their lives. One
incident was recorded by St. Hippolytus
as long ago as the second century when
he was visited by a beautiful, nude
woman who performed “all manners
of seductive acts” in an attempt
to cause him to submit. When the saint
threw his holy robes over the succubus
she was revealed in her true form, an
animated, decomposing corpse that immediately
fell to the ground in a putrid heap.
During the Salem Witch Trials accounts
of attacks by the mara, or spirit sending
of one accused witch was enough to send
her to the gallows. Bridget Bishop,
notably the first of the Salem witches
to hang, was accused of venial sins
of vanity and avarice in that she often
wore a red bodice and kept a “great
store” of ornate lace. But the
crimes that ultimately led her up the
path to the gallows hill were the accusations
of “upright, decent” married
men who claimed that Bishop’s
“shape” had visited them
in their sleep causing them to perform
lewd sexual acts with her. The fact
that Bishop was considered a “handsome”
woman, “youthful in appearance”
despite her age probably had nothing
at all to do with these nocturnal fantasies…
The Night-Hag
Visiting Lapland Witches, 1796
Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli)
(Swiss, 1741–1825)
Oil on canvas; 40 x 49 3/4 in. (101.6
x 126.4 cm)
Purchase, Bequest of Lillian S. Timken,
by exchange, and Victor Wilbour Memorial,
The Alfred N. Punnett Endowment, Marquand
and Charles B. Curtis Funds, 1980 (1980.411)
This canvas,
first exhibited in 1799, was sold by
the artist in 1808 to his biographer,
John Knowles. It illustrates a passage
from Paradise Lost (II:622–66)
in which the hellhounds surrounding
Sin are compared to those who "follow
the night-hag when, called, / In secret,
riding through the air she comes, Lured
with the smell of infant blood, to dance
/ With Lapland witches, while the laboring
moon Eclipses at their charms."
"Night-hag" is an epithet
of the Greek goddess Hecate, who presided
over witchcraft and magical rites.
WELCOMING THE DARK GODDESS
“O blessed Queen of Heaven …
By whatsoever name or fashion or shape
it is lawful
To call upon Thee,
I pray Thee to end my great travail
and misery …”
Far from resisted, in some ages the
power of the dark female divine was
something to be implored, her manifestations
a thing of worship and celebration.
Such was the case when human men, by
virtue of tapping some primal memory,
a feeling older than old, came to long
for the touch of their dark lovers,
welcoming the succubus or the mara into
their bed. Perhaps these rare individuals
recognized the demonized women for what
they truly are – aspects of the
primordial power embodied in the First
Female, she who could control angels
by breathing the very name of God, who
for her pure, unfettered sexuality and
powerful threat to the male order of
the world has been vilified through
the ages (not that she would care one
bit!): All of them Lilith, and Lilith
in them all.
“Behold…I am come: thy weeping
and prayer
hath moved me to succor thee.
I am she that is the natural mother
of all things,
Mistress and governess of all the elements…
Queen of all that are in Hell,
Principal of them that dwell in Heaven…
At my will the planets of the sky,
The wholesome winds of the Sea,
And the lamentable silences of Hell
be disposed:
My name, my Divinity is adored throughout
the World…
Behold, I am come to take pity of thy
fortune and turbulation;
Behold, I am present to favor and aid
thee!”
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Me and the devil,
Walking side by side.
Me and the devil,
Going to take you on a long and evil ride.
The woman is a devil,
That's what I've been told.
Woman is a devil,
That's what I've been told.
She'll take all your money,
Then she'll spend all your gold.
All right.
The devil is a woman.
She's a woman.
Well I play my acts, honey
She take the whole damn role.
Keep on going, now, come on.
All right play it, yeah.
One more time.
Well she feel like dying.
Only twenty-one.
Well she feel like dying,
But she's only twenty-one.
She's not the only,
She's not the only one.
All right, all right, all right.
All right, all right.
Gonna save the whole world.
All right.
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