Last updated on August 26, 2020
Question:
My girlfriend tells me that I’m very smart because of what I know and how I teach her to become a better person, but I want to increase my knowledge, and I am hoping that you can help me. Have you ever heard about incubus and succubus? They are ghosts that force people into having sex with them and stuff. And I just what to know, can a girl lose her physical virginity to one of these ghosts? Because this use to happen to my girlfriend. But I talk to her each day of my life hoping and praying she stays with me and be faithful and honest to me and not lie. She even goes to the temple and stuff now. I’m very proud of her. It hasn’t happened to her for about six months now. Please give me information, if you can, about that ghost attack. Please, sir. I know you are filled with knowledge and I’m just wondering if you can please help me so I can help her. I told her to put salt around her bed and pray to God and trust in Him.
Answer:
“But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness” (I Timothy 4:7).
The world is filled with information, but all information is not equally good or true. As a Christian, it is very important that you distinguish between truth and falsehoods. The sad thing is that some are so firmly convinced that what they believe must be true that even the truth won’t persuade them otherwise. “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (II Thessalonians 2:9-10).
The Bible tells us that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Not that He chooses not to lie, but that He actually cannot lie because lies are sinful and sin is not a part of God’s nature. Thus, the Bible, which comes from God is truth. “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).
So let’s start with truth number 1:
“But man dies and is laid away; indeed he breathes his last and where is he? As water disappears from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dries up, so man lies down and does not rise. Till the heavens are no more, they will not awake nor be roused from their sleep” (Job 14:10-12).
I know tales of ghosts are widespread and popular, but the simple truth is that once a person dies he is gone until the resurrection at Judgment Day. Those who die do not stay in this world as ghosts. “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Once gone, a person who died no longer interacts with the living. “For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6). The idea that the spirit of a dead person can come back to have sex with a living person is false.
Now the tales of incubus and succubus are ancient myths usually revolving around demons. An incubus is supposed to be a male demon who visits young women in the night. A succubus is supposed to be a female demon who visits young men in the night. The tales have been traced all the way back to Sumerians in Mesopotamia, two thousand years before Christ. So it is an old tale, popular and constantly being changed as it is retold.
So let’s move to truth number 2:
People usually call the fallen angels who follow after Satan “demons.” Angels are spiritual beings (Psalms 104:4). That means they don’t have a physical body. As spirits, they are also eternal beings (that is, they don’t die). Jesus explained that when men are resurrected, they to will have spiritual bodies. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). There is no marriage in heaven because we will be like angels. If think about it for a moment, it makes sense. Male and female are attributes of physical bodies. There is no mention of gender with angels. We have males and females who reproduce because people die and need to be replaced. Angels don’t die, so the need for reproduction is not like men. Thus, for both reasons, there is no marriage.
Besides, how could a spiritual being, without a physical body, interbred with a physical being? We understand that two different physical species cannot interbred, so why would we expect it to happen between beings who are even more dissimilar?
It is guessing on my part, but I suspect that the stories about incubus and succubus were perpetuated to hide truths. There wasn’t DNA testing in the ancient days, so when a young woman wanted to hide why she was mysteriously pregnant, she wouldn’t talk about the boy across town who crawled through her window one night; she would tell everyone that she was raped by a demon. Then she isn’t a sinner but a victim. I won’t be surprised that sometimes it was the story given when the truth was a woman was raped. Guys would use the same storyline to explain why they ejaculated in bed from a wet dream. And fictional stories get repeated, expanded, and made more mysterious.
Some people suffer from sleep paralysis. This is where a person is between waking and sleeping, but they can’t move their bodies. It can be a scary feeling and many blame demons.
The Bible is our only authoritative look into the spiritual realm. Even then, we aren’t told a lot of details. What is of interest is that there is nothing in the Bible regarding salt keeping away spirits. This is yet another fable pass down through the centuries. Salt can be used as a preservative. We use it that way to preserve pork, which we call “ham,” and some fish, such as anchovies. Somewhere along the line, people got the idea that salt can “preserve” them from evil influences. God never said it; it is just something people decided on their own.
If your girlfriend is not a virgin, it is because of other reasons. What should be bothersome is why she would be telling you stories.
Question:
But what about the millions of people that it happened to? And my girlfriend is not cheating, sir. She tells me everything. When I’m on the phone with her she sounds like she is gasping for air and stuff, and when I ask what happen, she says she gets held down. When I ask her to explain it, she says she feels like something is holding her wrists and ankles down to the bed and she can’t scream or anything. My girlfriend would never cheat. She promised me. She’s a very calm girl. She’s not a wild uncaring girl. My girlfriend comes from a poor family and I want to bring riches to her when we’re older. She’s a sweet girl. I was reading other people’s stories on the Internet, similar to what was happening to my girlfriend, so I decided to ask. What is this “holding down” feeling then? Can you explain that, sir?
Answer:
I suspected that you would not like what I proved to you because it didn’t match what you accepted about the world. I gave you solid points, backed up by God’s word, that what is claimed about incubus and succubus cannot exist. Please notice that you’ve ignored those points because you are certain that incubus and succubus must exist.
I am not saying your girlfriend is cheating on you or lying to you. I’m saying that the explanation that a demon is lying on top of her trying to impregnate her cannot be true. Since I don’t know your girlfriend, I can’t make judgments about what is happening. However, the description of having difficulty breathing and feeling like there is a weight on you is consistent with someone having an asthmatic attack. It can also happen to a person who has sleep apnea. There is also a medical cause called sleep paralysis:
“Sleep paralysis is basically where you are kind of half-awake and your brain hasn’t connected to your body’s functions completely so you can’t move. It’s a common occurrence among African Americans but not so much among whites and Africans. It’s often referred to as a demonic visitation but it is really just sleep paralysis.
[What does sleep paralysis mean?]
Some people will refer to it as a form of lucid dreaming. To stop such dreams I’d recommend not sleeping straight on your back. I used to get sleep paralysis all the time because of that. Started sleeping on my side and ‘poof’, gone.”
There is a detailed description of sleep paralysis and the myths surrounding it on Wikipedia. “Sleep Paralysis” contains a good description and links to resources.
It is common for people, when faced with something they can’t explain, to jump to the most fanciful explanation they can think of. But usually, the true answer is found in the common and mundane. As one doctor used to say, “Why go looking for zebras when horses will do?”
Question:
My girlfriend doesn’t have asthma, but I should advise her to go to a doctor? Or don’t advise her to do that because it hasn’t happened to her for about six months? And she sleeps on her side too now. Thanks for proving to me that they are not true, sir. My girlfriend is a great girl.
Answer:
Since sleeping on her side solves the problem, then it isn’t anything to worry about. Let her know the cause and the solution. She might want to mention it when she has her next general check-up so it can be in her records. It might be an important fact later in her life.