Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/428

Wood (which the Ancients did call the wicked soul) and by reason of their affinity with earth, and water, are also taken with Terrene pleasures, and lust; of which sort are hobgoblins, and Incubi, and Succubi, of which number it is no absurd conjecture to think that Melusina was: yet there is none of the Demons (as Mareus supposeth) is to be supposed male or female, seeing this difference of sex belongs to compounds, but the bodies of Demons are simple, neither can any of the Demons turn themselves into all shapes at their pleasure; but to the fiery, and aiery it is easie so to do, viz: to change themselves into what shapes their imagination conceives: now subterraneall and dark Demons, because their nature being concluded in the streights of a thick and unactive body, cannot make the diversity of shapes, as others can. But the waterie, and such as dwell upon the moist superfices of the earth, are by reason of the moistness of the element, for the most part like to women; of such kinde are the fairies of the Rivers, and Nymphs of the Woods: but those which inhabite dry places, being of dryer bodies, shew themselves in form of men, as Satyrs, or Onosceli, with Asses legs, or Fauni, and Incubi, of which he saith, he learned by experience there were many, and that some of them oftentimes did desire, and made compacts with women to lie with them: and that there were some Demons, which the French call Dusii, that did continually attempt this way of lust.