bridal night. He is always referred to as an instance of the incubus. But let us not forget that so-called incubi are angels, and are never evil; since in order to hold communication with the beloved earthly person they as well as the psychic are obliged to live correctly and think clearly. And what is evil on the Borderland is all subjective and never objective. And the number seven too in regards to the husbands of a virgin who already has a spouse has a suspiciously mythical, folklorish look.
That the Roman Catholic Church should take account of such a spirit in the benedictions of bridal chambers shows that it has had good reason to suspect the visits of incubi to the virgins of its laity, as well as to the virgins of its nunneries. Indeed, Tylor in his Primitive Culture tells us that the frequency of incubi and succubae "is set forth in the Bull of Pope Innocent VIII. in 1484, as an accepted accusation against "many persons of both sexes, forgetful of their own salvation, and falling away from the Catholic faith."
The following, which I take from Sub Mundanes, refers to one of the most noted instances in convent life of an incubus who was objectively as well as subjectively the spouse of a nun. "A little Gnome got into the affections of the Famous Magdalen of the Cross, Abbess of a Monastery at Cordova in Spain; she made him Happy, when she was but twelve years old; and they continued their Amours Libres for the space of thirty years; until an ignorant Director persuaded Magdalen that her lover was a Fiend; and forced her to demand absolution of Pope Paul the Third. Yet it is impossible that this could be a Demon; for all Europe knew, and Cassidorus Reniris has made known to all Posterity, the great miracles which daily were wrought in Favor of this Holy Woman; which certainly had never come to pass, if her Amours Libres with the Gnome had fallen so Diabolick, as the Venerable Director imagined."
Another account, however, informs us that the abbess was accused by her nuns of magic "a very convenient accusation in those days when a superior was at all trouble
