Demoniality; Or, Incubi and Succubi

Written by a Franciscan friar in 17th-century Italy, this is one of the most peculiar documents to emerge from the Catholic theological tradition. Sinistrari approached the popular folklore of incubi and succubi not as superstition to be dismissed, but as a genuine theological problem requiring serious argument. His radical claim: these beings are rational creatures, distinct from both angels and demons, capable of salvation or damnation. They possess original ideas. They can form genuine relationships with humans. They can, he argues using medieval scholastic reasoning, even procreate with humanity through grotesque means. The friar seriously proposes that a demon might possess a corpse to father a child. Yet stranger still, he suggests these entities might actually surpass humans in certain capacities. The text oscillates between meticulous citation of Aquinas and Augustine and jaw-dropping accounts of demon lovers, spectral pregnancies, and contracts signed in blood. It is theology applied to the darkest corners of Renaissance imagination, and it refuses to let the reader look away.