Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

The slightly more creepy and definitely less written about sister of the incubus we discussed last week is, of course, the succubus. She is discussed in the largely Medieval literature as appearing to men in the guise of the most beautiful woman on earth. In fact, when the curtain is pulled back - or the exorcist has had his way - her true form materializes. She is either a grizzled hag in Satan's service or a corpse reanimated by the power of a demon.

According to Genevieve and Tom Morgan in their 1996 publication The Devil succubus means "to lie under" just as incubus means "to lie upon." One has to imagine that the reference is to the human attacked by the demon as succubi were said to straddle men in their sleep and ride them as if they were horses. The poor man would wake up, sweaty and exhausted, only to have to return to his bed and similar treatment the next night. Some authorities postulate that this is the origin of our modern "nightmare" but there is much to debate there.

In general, succubi are and were considered by demonologists to be the daughters of the first wife of Adam: Lilith. These bad girls, sometimes known as lilin, were difficult to exorcise but seemingly not quite as difficult as those nasty incubi for reasons we will discuss in a minute.

The succubi, hag or corpse, were intent on stealing the seed of human men and using it for nepharious, demonic intents. In fact, Francis Barrett, writing in his Celestial Intelligencer in 1801, posits the following origin of succubi:

... the nymphs of the wood were preferred before the others in beauty... and at length [they] began wedlocks with men, feigning that, by these copulations, they should obtain an immortal soul for them and their offspring.

In Barrett's supposition, the dryads of Greek mythology were nothing more than lovely demons who, in mating with mortal men hoped to gain everlasting life by almost literally sucking the soul from them.

Barrett's latter-day ideology aside, it probably comes as no surprise that monks and priests were favorite targets of these wood nymphs com demons. Hermits were particularly juicy prey and Saints Anthony, Hilary and Hippolytus all wrote of their encounters with the gorgeous flesh of tempting succubi. While Anthony and Hippolytus speak only of one succubus at a time, Hilary notes that he often found himself "encircled by naked women. Hippolytus' tormenter, when cloaked in the saint's chasuble, collapsed to the floor as old bones. In later writings, church fathers such as St. Augustine and St. Jerome wagged their fingers at hermits who welcomed the attentions of their demonic lovers. Augustine even mentions one monk who was so consumed with his succubus that he literally died of exhaustion due to his near perpetual fornication with her. Or it.

The overall tone of these writings, however, was that men were far more steadfast at rejecting the attention of succubi than women were with incubi. This was thought to be true to such a degree that St. Jerome claimed authoritatively that incubi outnumbered succubi 9 to 1. Quite a margin if you think about it.

Header: The Temptation of St. Anthony by Alexandre Louis Leloir via 1st Art Gallery

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

The cousin or, perhaps more correctly evil step-brother, of the dream lover that we talked about last Friday is the incubus. Known of old as a demon to be feared and especially battled against, the incubus was envisioned as a sometimes handsome but in true form grotesque creature who either raped women or enticed them into sexual liaisons in the very dead of night. This demon is generally thought of in our modern, scientific world as a result of psychiatric disease brought on by the overly repressed cultures of Medieval Europe and Puritanical New England, to name two. In fact, the incubus may be a much older presence than a passing glance would have us believe.

Certain scholars, including those who study such diverse histories as Hebrew beliefs and Arthurian legends, access that the original incubus may have been one of that famous trio of Sumerian demons that included the previously discusses Ardat-Lili. The lili, a male demon, was said to trouble women's sleep, bring them erotic dreams and, in some cases, sire children of a changeling nature upon them. This would make the lili/human hybrid at least somewhat akin to a fairy child.

Fast forward to those days of Medieval tension and the stories of incubi accosting women - particularly innocent maidens and sequestered Brides of Christ - abound. In this period, incubi were said to be clever shapeshifters who could take on the appearance of anyone their chosen female prey might be attracted to. Demons, having no particular corporeal restraints, could pass as smoke or mist under a door or through the cracks in a wooden or stone wall and materialize on the other side. No woman, it seemed, was safe; but the incubi had their favorites.

Nuns were a decidedly popular conquest and, in the reverse, incubi were usually blamed for any convent indiscretions. Until well into the Gothic period, the accusation that an incubus, and not a human man, had gotten a nun pregnant was taken almost for granted.

When one Archbishop Sylvanus, who was the particular confessor of a large convent of Dominican nuns in what is now Bavaria, was accused of sexual assault by one of the good sisters - a particularly young and pretty good sister it is said - he simply turned up his silk-gloved hands. It could not be me, he protested; I would never break my vow of chastity. Surely Sister so-and-so (needless to say her name does not appear in the record) was visited by an incubus who had taken my form. What other explanation could their be? The 15th century inquisitors before whom Sylvanus appeared nodded thoughtful and then agreed with him. Case closed.

Telling an honest (or dishonest, in the case of the aforementioned Bishop) man from an incubus was surprisingly simple. When the list is ticked off, in fact, it is a little surprising that these demons troubled themselves with a disguise. The incubus had an unholy odor, either of sulfur, the barnyard or the rotting corpse that he had picked up as a skin. He had the power to paralyze anyone near his chosen victim, putting them into a trance-like sleep so that, even if the person in question lay right next to the woman, they would not be disturbed from their slumber. Worst of all, the incubus - regardless of what form he took - was said to be endowed with a huge, ice-cold member that was sometimes reported to be two or even three-pronged.

Anomolies of birth were often whispered to have been the result of rutting with an incubus. Woe to the woman who gave birth to an unfortunately harelipped, club-footed or otherwise "different" child; twins or children with red hair were also said to be the sons or daughters of incubi. The wizard Merlin is told to have been such a one and even in the Romantic era certain unkind types talked of George Gordon Byron, who had a club-foot, being the son of an incubus.

With all this, there were some ladies who willingly welcomed the incubus as a steady lover. Franciscan Ludovico Sinistrari, operating in the late 17th century and author of Demoniality, became somewhat of an expert on incubi and ways to exorcise them from the lives of such deluded women. He noted that these demons were particularly difficult to clear out as they "have no dread of exorcisms, show no reverence for holy things [and]... sometimes even laugh at exorcists." He goes on to give the example of a wife and mother so infatuated with her demon lover that she hardly blinked when, in retaliation to Sinistrari's exorcism attempts, the incubus built a wall of roofing tiles around her bed so tall that she needed a ladder to climb in and out.

A troublesome situation indeed... Next Friday, the yang to the the incubus' ying: the succubus.

Header: Incubus by Charles Walker c 1870 via Wikipedia

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In May of 2011 I put up this post regarding the so called demons Lamastu (or Lamashtu) and Pazuzu. Just as an aside, and in case you - like me - are a fan of the SyFy series "Face Off" the latter's name is pronounced PA-zoo-zoo; not pa-ZA-zoo which I imagine would make him some kind of jazz hands sporting, tap dancing demon.

Anyway, in that post I mentioned the Sumerian she-demon Ardat-Lili. This inscrutable character from folklore, who later morphed into not only the baby killer Lamastu but also informed the now famous Jewish monster Lilith, is one hard nut to crack. At least speaking in terms of research.

Unlike Lamastu, who as noted was the daughter of a god and therefore, at the very least, more akin to a demi-goddess than a demon, Ardat-Lili seems to have originated as a troubled spirit. According to the one sentence notation afforded her in Patricia Monaghan's book Goddesses and Heroines, Ardat-Lili was a storm demon not in Sumerian but in related Semitic tradition. Monaghan goes on to say:

... this ... demon caused nocturnal emissions, mounting sleeping men and capturing their ejaculations to form her demon children.

This form of Ardat-Lili is in contrast to the picture of her as "frustrated bride." In such role she is neither wife nor mother and, denied these most feminine of attributes, she seeks revenge for her bareness either on  women who are more fortunate that she or on men who represent those who have spurned her.

In their book Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, Jeremy Black and Anthony Green discuss this more ancient form of Ardat-Lili. In their entry, she is a member of a triumvirate of demons who prey on both women and men. Paraphrasing the doctors would be a bit silly, so here is the entry under "lilitu" in it's entirety (pg 118):

The male lili and the two females lilitu and ardat-lili are a sort of family group of demons. They are not gods. The lili haunts desert and open country and is especially dangerous to pregnant women and infants. The lilitu seems to be a female equivalent, while the ardat-lili (whose name means 'maiden lili') seems to have the character of a frustrated bride, incapable of normal sexual activity. As such, she compensates by aggressive behavior especially towards young men. The ardat-lili, who is often mentioned in magical texts, seems to have some affinities with the Jewish Lilith (e.g. Isaiah 34:14). 'She is not a wife, a mother; she has not known happiness, has not undressed in front of her husband, has no milk in her breasts.' She was believed to cause impotence in men and sterility in women.

A plaque thought possibly to depict her shows a scorpion-tailed  she-wolf about to devour a young girl.

Thus the evolution of one unsettled spirit into a frightening demon embodying frustration, malevolence and disappointment. How full of interesting characters the underworld, if it exists anywhere beyond our own minds, must be.

Header: Assyrian plaque of protection against Lamastu via Wikipedia (note that Lamastu, at the center bottom of the plaque, appears as a lion or wolf-headed woman; the creature holding the plaque, whose head appears at the top, is Pazuzu)

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

In Hebrew folklore, Lilith is the demon most likely to attack women and children.  We've talked about Lilith and her history before, so I won't go into her alleged evil deeds so old as to predate most of mankind.  For this post, we will focus on the many names of the night-demon who takes the lives of fetuses and infants and the mothers who would give them birth.

Lilith is a jealous demon.  Her vengeful nature stems from her envy of human women who can give birth to beautiful, human children.  Lilith, on the other hand, has only spawned hideous, deformed demons and she seeks at every turn to make the descendants of her first husband, Adam, pay for her misfortune.  The best defense against Lilith's killing hand, again according to Hebrew folklore, is the very name of the demon herself.  But this can be tricky too; she has many names and one cannot be sure which she will wear at any given time.

According to T. Schrire's Hebrew Magic Amulets, seven names of Lilith printed or embossed on an amulet will keep the demoness at bay.  The trick is to know the names and, perhaps, know the subtle differences between each one.

The name Lilith, of course, tops the list.  This is followed by a name which identifies one of the only other distinct personalities in the group: Obizuth.  Over time, Obizuth has become her own form of demon.  She is an ugly, slithering torso devoid of legs and arms who can be heard dragging herself across the floor of a home.  Her particular interest is women in childbirth and, if she cannot kill the newborn outright, she will maim it in some way.  Her victims can be born blind or deaf; they may have deformed limbs, or none at all much like the demon herself, and many die not long after being born.  Though her vicious chores seem the same, in her physical ugliness Obizuth is something of an anti-Lilith, who is often said to be dazzlingly beautiful.

The other names, though equally exotic, do not seem to carry the distinct personality that Obizuth does.  They are simply alternative names for the all encompassing she-demon Lilith.  In alphabetical order, Schrire lists them as Amitzrapava, Kawteeah, Khailaw, Khavaw Reshvunaw, Mitruteeah and Paritesheha.

If knowledge is power, than the idea inherent in these ancient amulets is obvious.  Knowing the name of the enemy will help to empower the human against the demon's evil.

Header: La Lune by Jacques Prevert via Old Paint

Jeudi: Great Spirits

When modern Westerners think of demons we tend to think in terms of Hollywood.  Specifically: that thing in “The Exorcist”

that made the girl’s head spin around.  It doesn’t help our understanding of World religions that historians of various disciplines all too frequently tag ancient spirits with the word demon.  It is usually done for classification purposes – a demon is distinguishable, for instance, from a deity or an ancestor – but it tends to confuse people.  Particularly fundamentalists.

Two classic examples of the ancient spirit to modern demon formula are the rivals Lamastu and Pazuzu.  These two, the former female and the latter male, came to Assyrian mythology through Babylonian folklore.  They were probably born in the Sumerian culture as possible variations – Ardat Lili and Huwawa specifically – are often mentioned in early writing. 

Lamastu was thought of as a demigoddess in Assyria.  She was the daughter of the sky god An and therefore at the very least a cousin to more familiar goddesses such as Inanna/Ishtar and Erishkigal.  She was not one of the simple galu who chased down sinners for the underworld queen but in fact seems to have been a force unto herself, doing evil because she liked to.  The primary targets of her cruelty were women and children, particularly unborn and newborn babies.  Lamastu was blamed for miscarriages and crib deaths almost universally in Assyrian culture.  It was imagined that if she could manage to enter a house and touch the stomach of a pregnant woman seven times the child would be stillborn.  If she could touch the woman at all, the child would not see a second year of life.  In Babylonian folklore Lamastu is thought of as a “frustrated bride” in the mold of the Sumerian Ardat Lili.  Her lack of a husband and bareness make her hate wives and mothers whom she then attacks without remorse.  Similar malice would later be attributed to Lilith, the first wife of Adam in Jewish folklore.

The best way to keep Lamastu away from mothers and babies was to fight fire with fire.  Enter another demigod, Pazuzu.  Known now as a wind or desert demon Pazuzu was more caretaker than bringer of misery.  Though his statues were frightening to look at, he was considered a guardian.  He kept away the hot winds from the west, which ancient Mesopotamians believed brought disease with them.  People routinely kept small votive statues of the winged Pazuzu in their dwellings as charms against misfortune.  Most importantly, amulets in the shape of the demigod’s head were worn by pregnant women to keep the jealous gaze of Lamastu from targeting them and their unborn child.  This tradition’s origin may be seen in the Sumerian habit of placing the frightening visage of the forest giant Huwawa, who was killed by the hero Gilgamesh in the famous poems, on buildings to keep them safe.

Curiously, both Lamastu and Pazuzu live on in modern religious thought, if one can call it that.  Lamastu has morphed into the “lust demon” Alkala, feared by fundamentalist Christians for her ability to possess you and addict you to drugs, alcohol and Internet porn.  Pazuzu, taking a more glamorous road to fame, became that thing that made the girl’s head spin around in “The Exorcist”. 

Header: Assyrian statuette of Pazuzu 7^th century BCE

Jeudi: Great Spirits

As the Nativity of the Christian God creeps ever closer, allow me to detour just a bit and discuss one of the very ancient players in the story of Jesus: the Archangel Gabriel.

Of course Gabriel is familiar as the winged trumpeter, announcer of not only the end of time but also the pregnancy of the Virgin Mary, in which case he is pictured holding a lily. But wait a minute. Did you say he?

In fact, if all the history and language are considered, little doubt can be left that Gabriel is the one and only female Archangel. She is the ruler of the Cherubim and the Governor of Eden, the angel most concerned with conception, birth and death. In the very early Christian texts as well as the Jewish texts which inspired them, she is herself the Angel of Death. It is she who snatches the protesting soul from Paradise, transports it to a woman’s womb and calms its anxiety until it is born nine months later, only to take it back home at the end of life.

Gabriel is best known as the Angel who appeared to Mary, announcing the birth of the Messiah. In this role as messenger she is often depicted carrying a lily which has been said to refer to the virgin conception. In fact, the lily was originally not Mary’s flower but Gabriel’s. It is through this connection that her original identity can be surmised.

The Semite word Gbri probably descended from the Sumerian word Ningbri which is now translated as Ninharsag, the goddess of birth, death and rebirth. The goddess’ vagina, which she gave to her husband each year that he might be reborn, became a goddess onto itself: Lilu. Lilu or Lilitu in turn became the servant of first Inanna and then the Babylonian Ishtar. She was the divine prostitute who brought men into the temple to share in the Love goddess’ favors. Lilu, the lily, became Lilith, the Canaanite first wife of Adam. As the story goes, Lilith rejected her husband and his God preferring equality in the desert to subjugation by men. First Gabriel and then Mary take up the lily and make it a symbol of the virginal aspect of the goddess. Mary is not frightened when she learns, through her offering of the lily, that Gabriel is a woman. As St. Jerome writes, Mary “… had never been greeted by a man before” and her fear of doing wrong is quelled by Gabriel’s chaste revelation.

Of course, no amount of scholarly discussion of ancient religions and their relationship to the modern Big Three will change the closed mind of a fundamentalist. But here, at my house, Gabriel holds a fleur-de-lis, symbol of the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. Bénédictions lumineuses ~

Pictures: Archangel Gabriel from the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck c 1432
Babylonian sculpture of Lilitu/Lilu