Defined as an evil spirit or demon that is said to descend on sleeping individuals, hence the alternative definition of “nightmare.” In the middle ages the law recognized that these entities existed and that they might seek carnal knowledge of women.

Helena P. BLAVATSKY considered them to be ELEMENTALS, the male called “incubus” and the female “succuba.” They are, she states, formless centers of Life, devoid of sense when left alone, but may be called into definite being and form by the creative and diseased imagination of certain individuals (TG, p. 154).

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