Fallen Angels . . . and Spirits of the Dark Read online

  Alastor was the executor of the decrees handed down by Satan’s court.

  Melchom was the princes’ treasurer.

  Uphir was Hell’s physician, responsible for the good health of all the demons living there.

  Verdelet was something of a cross between a maitre d’ and a transportation coordinator. He was master of ceremonies in Hell, and also shouldered the responsibility for making sure witches on Earth got to their sabbats safely and on time.

  Nysrock, a second-order demon, was the chef to the princes in the houses of Hell.

  Dagon was the princes’ official baker. Before taking up his culinary duties, he had been an important god to the Philistines — so important, in fact, that after they captured the Ark from the Israelites, they stashed it in Dagon’s temple.

  Paymon was in charge of public ceremonies in Hell, and used his own will to overrule the will of humans. He was a man with a woman’s face, and carried out his public duties on a camel.

  Nybras, an inferior demon, was in charge of pleasures in Hell (a thankless task if ever there was one).

  Xaphan, a second-order demon, kept the fires of Hell stoked and blazing. At the time of the angels’ rebellion, it was Xaphan’s suggestion to set Heaven on fire.

  NATURE’S OWN

  And then, of course, there were a host of other demons, high enough up to have names of their own and special duties, but not exactly top-drawer. Many of these demons controlled natural forces, and wielded them, of course, to man’s destruction. (What else?) Some of the most notable demons of this class were:

  Furfur, who could control the thunder, lightning, and strong winds. A count in Hell, he appeared as a winged stag, with human arms and a tail aflame. Unless he was contained in a magic triangle, everything he said was a lie.

  Vine, who could tear down great walls and stir up storms at sea.

  Procel, who could turn water freezing cold, or scalding hot.

  Seera, who could make time crawl, or speed up.

  Abduscius, who uprooted mighty trees and crushed men with them.

  Haborym, a duke in Hell, who presided over fire and holocaust. Three-headed — cat, man, and snake — he sat astride a viper, brandishing a torch.

  Halpas, a great earl, who appeared as a stork, cawing in a hoarse voice. He was known for two things — burning towns to the ground, or building them up and filling them with soldiers itching for a fight.

  PRIVATE DEMONS

  Other demons were even more direct in their attack on humanity. Rather than raising storms at sea, or brewing volcanoes on land, they took a more personal approach. They attacked the individual, sowing doubt and fear, jealousy and hatred, in his mind, or inflicting pain on his body. Of this unpleasant fraternity, some charter members were as follows:

  Andras and his henchman Flauros, who went straight for the kill. Andras, a grand marquis of Hell, had the body of a winged angel, but the head of an owl. He rode a black wolf, and wielded a sword.

  Shax rendered his victims blind and deaf.

  Valafar, a duke, gave the orders to robbers and brigands who attacked innocents. He was usually depicted as having the head of a thief (whatever that was) and the body of a lion.

  Sabnack caused mortals’ bodies to decay.

  Three confederates held sway over the dead. Murmur took charge of the soul, while Bifrons and Bune moved the bodies from one grave to another.

  Philotanus, a second-order demon and assistant to Belial, specialized in prodding mortals into acts of sodomy and pederasty.

  Dantalian could work magic on men’s thoughts, changing them from good to evil.

  Zepar entered the minds of women, and drove them to madness.

  Moloch, once a deity to whom children were sacrificed, became a prince of Hell, where he received with joy the tears of mothers. His face was generally smeared with blood.

  Belphegor sowed discord among men and seduced them to evil through the apportionment of wealth. He was pictured in two quite different fashions — as a naked woman and as a monstrous, bearded demon with an open mouth, horns, and sharply pointed nails.

  Olivier, a prince of the archangels, tempted men to be cruel and unfeeling, especially toward the poor.

  Mammon was the demon of riches and covetousness. He came into his own in the Middle Ages, based largely on Matthew 6:24: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

  Oiellet, a prince of dominions, had perhaps the easiest job of all — he tempted men to break the vow of poverty.

  THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

  In their unending attempts to codify the demonic order, and demonstrate how the most infamous demons related to the best-known sins, scholars and clerics often made up handy lists for quick reference. Each of the demons below, for instance, was thought to be especially adept at luring human beings into the particular “deadly sin” with which he was identified. (These seven “mortal” sins, if committed with full consent, endangered the life of the soul; many other sins, of lesser importance, were known as “venial.”)

  The demons of the Seven Deadly Sins.

  One such list, which proved to be an influential one, was drawn up by Peter Binsfeld, a German authority on witchcraft who authored the Tractatus de Confessionibus Maleficorum et Sagarum (Treatise on Confessions by Evildoers and Witches) in 1589. In his rundown, you will note, the Devil is bifurcated into Lucifer and Satan.

  Lucifer — Pride

  Mammon — Avarice

  Asmodeus — Lechery

  Satan — Anger

  Beelzebub — Gluttony

  Leviathan — Envy

  Belphegor — Sloth

  This is not to say that the demons were unable to branch out and follow the path of least resistance. If one sin wasn’t working—if a mortal was proving especially virtuous—the demons were perfectly capable of encouraging some other sort of depravity or evil.

  THE GREAT BEAST

  According to the Bible’s book of Revelation, something far more powerful than even these demons was yet to come.

  “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.”

  (Revelation 13:1)

  This unholy monster, this great beast with the body of a leopard, the claws of a bear, and the fangs of a lion, was the bringer of the Apocalypse. Armed with all the powers of Satan himself, the beast, it was written, would hold sway over the Earth for three and a half years. He would wage war against the saints — and win — and lay waste to everything around him. With the exception of the few whose names had been entered into the Book of Life by Christ Himself, all the world would come to worship the beast and proclaim, “Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?”

  And before long the beast, which arose from the sea, would be joined by a comrade in arms, who came from the land. This evil ally would be a false prophet — the Antichrist — and he would perform miracles and great deeds that would deceive people into accepting and worshipping him as the Messiah. He would teach people to make idols of the beast from the sea, and he would slaughter anyone who refused to offer such idols the proper veneration. Just to keep track of the faithful, he would mark them all, on their hand or forehead, with the number of the beast —666.

  But all of the Antichrist’s miracles would be tricks. Instead of bringing peace and love to the Earth, he would bring famine and plague, war and destruction. The Jews even had a description of what he would look like: bald, with one eye that was markedly larger than the other, a left arm that was longer than his right, and he would be deaf in his right ear (the traditional side of the good). Supported by the evil kings of the Earth, and his old friend the great beast, the Antichrist would marshal his troops against the angels of Heaven at a place called Armageddon.

  And there he would finally meet his ma
tch. The angelic host, led by the Word of God mounted on a white horse, would rain down plagues of fire and blood and hail. With swords flashing, the angels would decimate the armies of iniquity. The false prophet and the great beast would both be captured, bound, and “cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.” As for their secret backer, “that old serpent, which is the Devil,” he would be chained by a special emissary from Heaven, then tossed into the Bottomless Pit. There, safely sealed, the inmate Satan would languish for a term of one thousand years.

  A convocation of demons in Hell.

  Like one that on a lonesome road

  Doth walk in fear and dread,

  And having once turned round walks on,

  And turns no more his head;

  Because he knows a frightful fiend

  Doth close behind him tread.”

  Coleridge,

  The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

  (1798)

  GIVING THE DEVIL HIS DUE

  Although demons were often characterized as vile and animalistic creatures, it never paid to underestimate them — or their master. On this nearly all the theologians and demonologists concurred. If the devilish hordes were truly stupid and incompetent, they would never have made such successful inroads into human nature, nor would there be so much evil and corruption in the world. Johan Weyer, the German doctor, offered this warning, which almost amounts to a grudging admiration of Satan himself:

  “Satan possesses great courage, incredible cunning, superhuman wisdom, the most acute penetration, consummate prudence, an incomparable skill in veiling the most pernicious artifices under a specious disguise, and a malicious and infinite hatred toward the human race, implacable and incurable.” (1563)

  In 1580 Jean Bodin, the French witch expert, reminded his own audience that even the rank-and-file members of Satan’s legions possessed great powers with which to beguile and seduce humanity:

  “It is certain that the devils have a profound knowledge of all things. No theologian can interpret the Holy Scriptures better than they can; no lawyer has a more detailed knowledge of testaments, contracts and actions; no physician or philosopher can better understand the composition of the human body, and the virtues of the heavens, the stars, birds and fishes, trees and herbs, metals and stones.”

  The devils could argue, the devils could reason, the devils could negotiate with the best of them. According to Catholic teaching, the demons were “pure” impure spirits, highly intelligent and self-motivated. Their will was bent on evil, on corrupting and damning mankind, but the methods they used were singular and in many instances remarkably creative.

  CLASS WILL TELL

  A scholarly pursuit, and useful pastime, for many centuries has been the classification of the lower demons (also known as devils) into different groups; the criteria have ranged from where they lived (in what element, for instance, fire or air or water) to what kind of mayhem they liked to cause (war, pestilence, madness). But one of the most authoritative systems was devised by the demonologist Alphonsus de Spina, who lumped the infernal legions into ten main categories:

  “(1) Fates. Some say they have seen Fates, but if so they are not women but demons.

  (2) Poltergeists . . . who do little tricks at night, like breaking things, pulling off bedclothes, making footsteps overheard.

  (3) Incubi and Succubi. Nuns are especially subject to these devils.

  (4) Marching hosts, which appear like hordes of men making much tumult.

  (5) Familiar demons, who eat and drink with men.

  (6) Nightmare demons, who terrify men in their dreams.

  (7) Demons formed from semen and its odor when men and women copulate.

  (8) Deceptive demons, who sometimes appear as men and sometimes as women.

  (9) Clean demons . . . who assail only holy men.

  (10) Demons who trick old women into thinking they are flying to a sabbat.”

  Strange as that taxonomy was, another, which proved quite popular, divided the devils into their habitats:

  SIX KINDS OF DEVILS,

  AS FIRST DETERMINED BY MICHAELIS PSELLUS

  AND LATER RECOUNTED BY FRANCESCO-MARIA GUAZZO

  IN HIS COMPENDIUM MALEFICARUM (1608)

  “The first is the fiery, because these dwell in the upper air and will never descend to the lower regions until the Day of Judgment, and they have no dealings on earth with men.

  “The second is the aerial, because these dwell in the air around us. They can descend to hell, and by forming bodies out of the air, can at times be visible to men. Very frequently, with God’s permission, they agitate the air and raise storms and tempests, and all this they conspire to do for the destruction of mankind.

  “The third is terrestrial, and these were certainly cast from Heaven to earth for their sins. Some of them live in woods and forests, and lay snares for hunters; some dwell in the fields and lead night travelers astray; some dwell in hidden places and caverns; while others delight to live in secret among men.

  “The fourth is the aqueous, for these dwell under the water in rivers and lakes, and are full of anger, turbulent, unquiet, and deceitful. They raise storms at sea, sink ships in the ocean, and destroy life in the water. When such devils appear, they are more often women than men, for they live in moist places and lead an easier life. But those which live in drier and harder places are usually seen as males.

  “The fifth is the subterranean, for these live in caves and caverns in the mountains. They are of a very mean disposition, and chiefly molest those who work in pits or mines for treasure, and they are always ready to do harm. They cause earthquakes and winds and fires, and shake the foundations of houses.

  “The sixth is the heliophobic, because they especially hate and detest the light, and never appear during daytime, nor can they assume a bodily form until night. These devils are completely inscrutable and of a character beyond human comprehension, because they are all dark within, shaken with icy passions, malicious, restless, and perturbed; and when they meet men at night they oppress them violently and, with God’s permission, often kill them by some breath or touch . . . This kind of devil has no dealing with witches; neither can they be kept at bay by charms, for they shun the light and the voices of men and every sort of noise.”

  THE INCUBUS

  According to the church fathers, the incubus was an angel who fell from grace because of his insatiable lust for women. As a demon, the incubus continued with his carnal desires, preying upon vulnerable women, raping them in their sleep or provoking in them sexual desires that only the incubus (sometimes known as the demon lover) could satisfy.

  Since demons, according to the traditional wisdom, were only spirits and had no corporeal form, the incubus was presumed to come upon his physical form in one of two ways: he either reanimated a human corpse, or he used human flesh to create a body of his own, which he then endowed with artificial life. Especially mischievous and clever incubi were often able to make themselves appear in the persons of real people — a husband, neighbor, the handsome young stablehand. In one case, a medieval nun claimed to have been sexually assaulted by a local prelate, Bishop Sylvanus, but the bishop defended himself on the grounds that an incubus had assumed his form. The convent took his word for it.

  Incubi preying on a sleeping girl.

  So how could a woman tell for sure if her lover was a demon or not? There were a few clues. If she freely admitted the incubus to her bed, it would have the power to put everyone else in the house into a deep sleep — even her husband, who might be lying right beside her. Other clues were even more obvious — the incubus often proved to be a nasty lover, with a sexual organ that was painfully large, freezing cold, made of iron, or even double-pronged.

  Occasionally, these unholy unions were thought to create offspring. Any children who were born with a deformity were automatically suspect. Twins were looked at askance, too. The magician Merlin was believed to be the fruit of demonic intercourse. And medieval records a
re filled with graphic accounts of half-human, half-animal creatures that were reputedly sired by incubi.

  But even with all the attention that was paid to them, there never seemed to be a foolproof way of warding off these demon lovers. Sometimes prayer worked, sometimes exorcism and benediction, but in many cases, even these proved futile. According to Ludovico Sinistrari, the seventeenth-century Franciscan friar who authored Demoniality, incubi “do not obey the exorcists, have no dread of exorcisms, show no reverence for holy things, at the approach of which they are not in the least overawed . . . Sometimes they even laugh at exorcisms, strike at the exorcists themselves, and rend the sacred vestments.” If they were sufficiently irritated by these attacks, incubi could respond with random violence and mayhem. When Sinistrari himself tried to free a virtuous matron from one persistent incubus, the demon gathered hundreds of roofing stones and with them erected a wall around the woman’s bed. When it was finished, the wall was so high, Sinistrari reports, “the couple were unable to leave their bed without using a ladder.”

  THE SUCCUBUS

  The incubus wasn’t the only demon wielding sex as a weapon. He had a female counterpart — the succubus. In the view of most medieval theologians, incubi outnumbered succubi by nine to one, but the ladies made up in menace for what they lacked in numbers. Alluring and persuasive, they used their considerable charms to seduce men and lead them to eternal damnation.