An incubus (plural incubi) is a demon in male form supposed to lie upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have sexual intercourse with them, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions. Its female counterpart is the succubus. An incubus may pursue sexual relations with a woman in order to father a child, as in the legend of Merlin. Some sources indicate that it may be identified by its unnaturally large or cold sexual organ. Religious tradition holds that repeated intercourse with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death.
Medieval legend claims that demons, both male and female, sexually prey on human beings. They generally prey upon the victim while they are sleeping, though it has been reported that females have been attacked while fully lucid.
The incubus is sometimes confused with the legendary "Old Hag" syndrome. The Old Hag episode, however, is usually restricted to an unpleasant feeling of great pressure on the chest and not a ghostly sexual encounter.
A number of secular explanations have been offered for the origin of the incubus legends. They involve the medieval preoccupation with sin, especially sexual sins of women. Victims may have been experiencing waking dreams or [sleep paralysis]. Alternately, the influence of incubi could also have been invoked to explain otherwise "unexplainable" pregnancies out of wedlock.
Purported victims of incubi could have been the victims of sexual assault by a real person. Rapists may have attributed the rapes of sleeping women to demons in order to escape punishment. A friend or relative may have assaulted the victim in her sleep. The victims and, in some cases the clergy, may have found it easier to explain the attack as supernatural rather than confront the idea that the attack came from someone in a position of trust.
Incubi are sometimes said to be able to conceive children. The half-human offspring of such a union is sometimes referred to as a cambion. The most famous legend of such a case includes that of Merlin, the famous wizard from Arthurian legend.
According to the Malleus Maleficarum, exorcism is one of the five ways to overcome the attacks of incubi, the others being Sacramental Confession, the Sign of the Cross (or recital of the Angelic Salutation), moving the afflicted to another location, and by excommunication of the attacking entity, "which is perhaps the same as exorcism." On the other hand, the Franciscan friar Ludovico Maria Sinistrari stated that incubi "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."
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