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In this respect, Villas-Boas's remark that lying with the woman gave him the impression he was lying with an animal, because of her "growls," is striking. On this fine point of theology Sinistrari concludes that St. Thomas never meant intercourse with demons to fall within his definition of bestiality. By different species, Sinistrari says, the saint can only mean species of living beings, and this hardly applies to the devil. Similarly, if a man copulates with a corpse, this is not bestiality, especially according to the Thomist doctrine that denies a corpse the nature of the human body. The same would be true for a man who copulates with the corpse of an animal. It is quite fascinating to follow Sinistrari's thoughts in an area that is directly relevant to UFO reports: Villas-Boas would certainly have had a hard time before the Inquisitors if he had lived in an earlier age. Indeed, a man named Benoit de Berne, who confessed at age seventy-five that he had had intercourse for forty years with a succuba named Mermeline, was condemned and burned aUtee alive. The act of love, writes Sinistrari, has for its object human generation. Unnatural semination, that is, intercourse that cannot be followed by generation, constitutes a sin against nature. But it is the subject of that semination that distinguishes the various sins under that type. If demoniality and bestiality were in the same category, a man who had copulated with a demon could simply tell his confessor: "I have committed the sin of bestiality." And yet he obviously has not committed that sin. Considerable problems arose when one had to identify the physical process of intercourse with demons. This is clearly a most difficult point (as difficult as that of identifying the physical nature of flying saucers!), and Sinistrari gives a remarkable discussion of it. Pointing out that the main object of the discussion is to determine the degree of punishment these sins deserve, he tries to list all the different ways in which the sin of demoniality can be committed. First he remarks: There are quite a few people, over-inflated with their little knowledge, who dare deny what the wisest authors have written, and what everyday experience demonstrates: namely, that the demon, either incubus or succubus, has carnal union not only with men and women but also with animals. Sinistrari does not deny that some young women often have visions and imagine that they have attended a sabbat. Similarly, ordinary erotic dreams have been classified by the church quite separately from the question we are studying. Sinistrari does not mean such psychological phenomena when he speaks of demoniality; he refers to actual physical intercourse, such as the basic texts on witchcraft discuss. Thus in the Compendium Maleficarum, Gnaccius gives eighteen case histories of witches who have had carnal contact with demons. All cases are vouched for by scholars whose testimony is above question. Besides, St. Augustine himself says in no uncertain terms: It is a widespread opinion, confirmed by direct or indirect testimony of trustworthy persons, that the Sylvans and Fauns, commonly called Incubi, have often tormented women, solicited and obtained intercourse with them. There are even Demons, which are called Duses [i.e., lutins| by the Gauls, who are quite frequently using such impure practices: this is vouched for by so numerous and so high authorities that it would be impudent to deny it. witches, the other with men and women perfectly foreign to witchcraft. What Sinistrari is saying here is that two kinds of people may come in contact with the beings he calls demons: those who have made a formal pact with them — and he gives the details of the process for making this pact — and those who simply happen to be contacted by them. The implications of this fundamental statement of occultism for the interpretation of the fairy-faith and of modern UFO stories should be obvious. intercourse with the demon in the class of bestiality, and so does Sylvester when he defines Luxuria, and Bonacina in De Matrimonio. Now the devil makes use of two ways in these carnal contacts. One he uses with sorcerers and eee ae “a 1 Po Pete