Houston physician and pastor Stella Immanuel — described as “spectacular” by Donald Trump for her promotion of unsubstantiated claims about anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for COVID-19 — has some other, very unconventional views.

As well as believing that scientists are working on a vaccine to make people less religious and that the U.S. government is run by reptilian creatures, Immanuel, the leader of a Christian ministry called Fire Power Ministries, also believes sex with demons causes miscarriages, impotence, cysts and endometriosis, among other maladies.

It has opened her up to much ridicule. But, as a scholar of early Christianity, I am aware that the belief that demons — or fallen angels — regularly have sex with humans runs deep in the Jewish and Christian traditions.