On several occasions, particularly on the periphery of the Habsburg Empire during the 17th and 18th centuries, dead people were suspected of being revenants or vampires, and consequently dug up and destroyed. Some contemporary authors named this phenomenon Magia Posthuma. This blog is dedicated to understanding what happened and why.
It is highly unlikely that Johann Christoph Harenberg imagined that, 280 years after he originally wrote it, the title page of one his books would be sold as a poster in Italy. That, however, is what happened at the Dracula e il mito dei vampiri exhibition in Milan, and the book was, of course, Harenberg's Vernünftige und Christliche Gedancken über die Vampirs oder Bluhtsaugende Todten, published in Wolffenbüttel in 1733.
Harenberg was born on April 28 1696 in the village Langenholzen close to Alfeld in present day Lower Saxony. His parents were farmers and traders of cloth. Having given birth to four daughters, his mother prayed to God that, if God would grant her a son, she would devote him to the service of God. Besides, the young Johann Christoph was a delicate child, so he was allowed to devote his energy on learning to read, write and calculate in German as well as in Latin. At eight years of age he was sent to school in Alfeld, and at thirteen he went to Hildesheim to continue his education in various subjects and languages.
As he was walking from Alfeld to Langenholzen one Saturday in the Spring of 1708, he saw a well-dressed, old man nearby whom he recognized as a man he knew. Harenberg approached him, but he suddenly noticed that the man was transparent, and the closer he got to the man, the more transparent he became. Terrified, Harenberg retreated to his village, where he next day learned that the old man had died from consumption at about the time that he had seen the vision. This was only Harenberg's first of three encounters with apparitions in connection with the death of locals.
In 1715, at the age of nineteen he went to the University in Helmstedt to study the sciences as well as further languages. In 1719 he visited the universities in Jena and Halle, and the following year he was asked by the abbess and duchess of Gandersheim, Elisabeth Ernestine Antonie von Sachsen-Meiningen, to become headmaster of school belonging to the diocese. Besides teaching, he researched not only the Holy Writ, but also the history of the diocese. Several of his theological articles were published in the so-called Bremische Sammlungen published by Theodor Hase.
1734 was marked by ups and downs for Harenberg. He finished his voluminous history of the Gandersheim diocese, but fell into disgrace with the abbess and, although he accepted to become a parson at Bornhausen, he was finally appointed chief caretaker of the schools in the duchy of Wolfenbüttel. While there, he was in 1738 appointed a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Incidentally, in 1732 this academy had been asked to write a memorandum on the Serbian vampires.
In 1745 Harenberg became Honorary Professor at the newly established Carolina collegium in Braunschweig and dean of the St. Lorenz convent in Schöningen. He died in Braunschweig on November 12 1774.
Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen November 26 1774, p. 1224
(He must have been 78 years of age, not 74).
Harenberg's multiple writings were mostly concerned with historical and theological topics, and particularly include a two volume book on the history of the Jesuit Order published in 1760. He was, however, also interested in other matters, like the fossil encrinus that was relatively common in Lower Saxony and also became the subject of one his shorter writings. In fact, at his death he left behind a large collection of these fossils, cf. Journal für die Liebhaber des Steinreichs und Konchyliologie Vol. II, pp. 524-7 (Weimar, 1775).
It was while he was Headmaster in Gandersheim that he wrote his book on vampires on the request of a high-ranking individual, no doubt the abbess herself. It must have been aimed at a wider audience, as it was not written in Latin like most of his other writings at the time, but in German. Postponing the publication in the hope that more examples would be published, he finished it on September 24 1732, and was consequently able to comment on a number of books on the subject that were published in the first half of that year. He also drew on his own experiences, including the above mentioned vision from his youth.
In Harenberg's view, the Serbs who claimed to be victims of vampires, probably suffered from angina (pectoris) that was caused by a) eating contaminated animal flesh, b) visiting other ill persons, and c) coming into contact with contaminated corpses. The illness then caused the blood to thicken, and as the blood began to stand still in the small vessels in the head, depression set in and the imagination malfunctioned. As the beliefs in harmful revenants were so impressed upon their imagination, the ill and their relations explained the illness, the chest pains and suffocation in terms of such vampires.
Ranft on Harenberg
Harenberg not only commented on a variety of theories that had been proposed since the publication of the Visum et Repertum, but also on subjects like werewolves. His etymology of the word 'vampire' was ridiculed by Michael Ranft in the third edition of his dissertation on the mastication of the dead. Ranft in fact ridiculed Harenberg and his efforts in general, leading to some controversy, when a review of both Harenberg's and Ranft's books were published in the supplements to the Leipzig Nova acta eruditorum, an anonymous review that was actually written by Harenberg himself. Obviously, Ranft felt obliged to vindicate himself, as years later, in 1742, he published a comment on the whole episode.
An in-depth study of Harenberg's book can be found in Anja Lauper's paper published in Begemann, Herrmann and Neumeyer's Dracula unbound: Kulturwissenschaftliche Lektüren des Vampirs (2008) and her subsequent book Die "phantastische Seuche": Episoden des Vampirismus im 18. Jahrhundert (2011).
Although it is, of course, his book and its subject that could be considered a 'vampire icon', one might still imagine a film inspired by Harenberg: His visions of the recently deceased and his considerations on the vampires could be intertwined and combined with machinations at the various courts and universities, perhaps even including some creative use of the controversy with Ranft, so that Hollywood could come up with stories of his own feverish experiences with bloodsuckers...
Geschichte Jetztlebender Gelehrten Vol. V (Zelle, 1732), pp. 94-144
To many, Francis Ford Coppola’s film Bram Stoker’s Dracula has become quite the epitome of the story of the vampiric Count Dracula. The soundtrack music by Polish composer Wojciech Kilar is ubiquitous, and the film’s blend of history and fiction, of romance and horror, as well as its creative play with cinema itself, seem to suit a vision that many people have of Dracula and vampires, or at least one that appeals to them – that is, of course, prior to the boom of adolescent vampire fiction like Twilight. Perhaps, as it is more than twenty years since Coppola’s film received its premiere, many people have simply grown up with this film and consequently now identify Dracula with Coppola’s Count.
So it is little wonder that the first thing behind the dark curtain leading into the Dracula e il mito dei vampiriexhibition at the Triennale design museum in Milan was a screen showing excerpts from Coppola’s film. In fact, the fusion of historical fact and vampire fiction, of artistic creativity and design, and of Bram Stoker’s novel with its interpretation by artists and cinematographers, permeated the exhibition as a whole.
Not so much an extension or reworking of the Dracula Woiwode und Vampir exhibitions at Innsbruck and Bucharest, Dracula e il mito dei vampiri rather integrated items from that exhibition into something new, not only bringing the fictional vampire into focus, but also, as one would expect af a design museum, stressing Italian art and design.
Having watched Coppola’s vision of the Wallachian warlord turned vampire, the visitor was greeted by the famous portrait of Vlad Tepes from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Fortunately, one was not met by Vlad’s gaze, as he rather looks at something or someone to your left, so one can study his features without fear of having aroused his, er, attention. Similarly, the full-length portrait of Dracula Waida Princeps from Forchtenstein Castle appears to look to one side, but strangely, his eyes have an uncanny look as if a film is layered on top of them, or maybe someone attempted to blur them?
Only a very small selection of items from the earlier Dracula exhibitions were displayed here to provide some context for the life and cruelty of Vlad Tepes: A 17th century map of Transylvania from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the coloured print of the city of Papa from 1617 showing impalements, a copy of Sebastian Münster’s 1598 Cosmographey with its depiction of impalements, and various clothes and weapons used by the Ottomans.
The vampire cases and the ensuing debate of the 18th century were illustrated via a handful of books, including Johann Christoph Harenberg’s 1733 Vernünftige und Christliche Gedancken über die Vampirs oder bluhtsaugende Todten, Nicolas Lenglet du Fresnoy’s 1751 Traité historique et dogmatique sur les apparitions, les visions & les revelations particulières, and the German translation of van Swieten’s commentaries published in 1768. However, there were no documents, no Calmet, Ranft or Tallar, no bust of van Swieten or portrait of Maria Theresa as in the exhibitions at Innsbruck and Bucharest.
Instead, the exhibition of vampire fiction was enhanced by some remarkable items courtesy of the Bram Stoker Estate and John Moore Collection: Bram Stoker’s so-called lost journal that was published for the first time last year, and Stoker’s autograph copy of the first edition of Dracula‘to my dear mother’, both definitely some of the chief attractions of the exhibition.
A couple of Goya’s Caprichos, a first edition copy of Polidori’s The Vampyre as well as posters for performances of Marschner’s opera Der Vampyr and a programme for a 1927 performance of Deane and Balderston’s stage adaptation all led the way into a room where quotes from Stoker’s novel were displayed in Italian on a wall. Here you could also enter the house of a vampire as envisioned by Milanese architect and designer Italo Rota. A rather creepy tableau of a ‘living room’ with earth strayed across the table and a selection of ritual tools, remedies, books and art, all of which, according to Rota, should reflect the mentality and everyday ‘life’ of a vampire. Suffice it to say, that I would not spend my time in that place…
Entering the world of vampire cinema, one could peep through holes like a voyeur to observe a variety of ‘vampire kisses’ from a number of vampire films, while more analytically, over the door to the next room, a brief genealogy and philosophy of cinematic vampirism was outlined. Nosferatu from 1922 accordingly reflected the psychoanalysis of Freud and Jung, whereas Dracula from 1931 showed the vampire in the modern major city, and might be interpreted in terms of Georg Simmel or Walter Benjamin.
Then, for some reason the vampires of Hammer and many other filmmakers from the 1950’s to 1980’s were not included in the genealogy, so we jumped right to the era of post-structuralism (Jacques Lacan) and postmodernism (Guy Debord and Gilles Deleuze) with Bram Stoker’s Dracula from 1992 and Interview with the Vampire from 1994, respectively. Finally, in a 'liquid' society where 'solid' concepts like work and marriage are, in the words of Zygmunt Bauman, 'like zombies, such concepts are today simultaneously dead and alive', Edward Cullen and the other vampires of Twilight could be perceived as 'post-vampires', indistinguishable from mortal humans.
Clips from a variety of vampire films, including Mario Bava’s Italian La maschera del demonio from 1960, were shown on three transparent screens in a separate room, their soundtrack having been replaced by popular pieces like Orff’s O Fortuna and Delibes’s Flower Duet, all played at high volume.
Among the clips were, of course, Coppola’s Dracula film, and not only its screenplay and parts of its storyboards were exhibited, Dracula e il mito dei vampiri also paid homage to the film's costume designer, Ishioka Eiko, by displaying the blood red armour she created for Dracula, and showing a documentary about her work on the film. The tribute to Eiko was followed up by a a tableau of impressive female stage costumes from various operas and ballets like Aida, Die Zauberflöte, and Turandot. Very fitting for an exhibition in the hometown of Italian fashion and the famous opera house, La Scala. A wall of photos from catwalks rounded this section off with fashion for men designed by Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada and others, all illustrating the crossover of the vampire from fiction to fashion, no doubt with a good deal of help from Goth subculture.
Finally, a room not intended for children, exhibited pages from Guido Crepax’ comic book adaptation of Dracula as well as a hitherto unknown sequence in which his heroine Valentina meets Count Dracula.
Personally, I must say that the exhibition whet my appetite for more, as it is fairly easy to imagine how an exhibition like Dracula e il mito dei vampiri could be expanded in order to go into more detail with Vlad Tepes, with the struggle between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe, with vampires and revenant beliefs, and with the rise of the fictional vampire, Count Dracula and the vampire of modern popular culture. I am, however, well aware of the painstaking work that is no doubt required to assemble the number of paintings, books, documents and artefacts that would fit in with the themes, and at the same time I am not sure how much the average visitor is in fact able to digest. With regards to Vlad Tepes and vampires, the exhibitions in Innsbruck and Bucharest are so far the most comprehensive exhibitions I am aware of, and it will probably be hard to surpass hem. But hopefully there is more to come in the future.
In connection with the exhibition, Skira has published a 131 page catalogue, which includes a number of articles and a selection of the items exhibited. Margot Rauch has contributed the historical part of the catalogue, Dracula: voivoda e vampire, which is in fact a translation of what she wrote for the Innsbruck and Bucharest exhibition catalogues, as well as an inventory of some of the books and artefacts exhibited. The article on the costumes of female vampires (and vamps) include a number of photos of stars like Dietrich, Garbo, Bernhardt, Swanson and Bara that were not on display, while Italo Rota’s vampiric living room is only documented on a youtube video that can be accessed with a QR code.
Whether Dracula e il mito dei vampiri will be exhibited elsewhere in the future – in the same or some other form – I do not know, but the photo to right was posted on facebook by the company that organized the exhibition,with the accompanying message:
‘Dracula ha fatoo le valigie ed è pronto a ripartire alle conquista di nuove città!’: Dracula has packed and is ready to conquer new cities!
I suppose that we all have some kind of commonsensical idea of what ‘superstition’ means, when we use it on an everyday basis, but when you need to apply it to a specific historical context, you easily get into trouble. So when I took up the subject of vampires and posthumous magic some years ago, I quickly felt a pressing need to get some grasp of the term and its history. This, unfortunately, was not so easy, because the meaning of the term not only has changed over time and very much depends on a given context, but frequently there is ‘a certain elasticity about it’, as Keith Thomas pointed out in his Religion & The Decline of Magic (1971, p. 48-9). Similarly, in a more recent work, Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason, & Religion, 1250-1750 (2010), Euan Cameron calls superstition ‘an elusive and slippery term’ (p. 4) that is ‘a flexible designation, and can be aimed at a range of targets at different times and by different people.’ (p. 5)
'In the era of confessional orthodoxy from the late sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, the rhetoric that had traditionally condemned superstition and magic in the eyes of the devout became a crucial part of the intellectual armour used to prosecute sorcerers, magicians, and witches. Then, in the early Enlightenment, ‘superstition’ took centre stage in religious discussions to an even greater extent than before. ‘Superstition’ and ‘reason’ became the poles around which the religious and ethical theorists of the early Enlightenment debated the proper claims of religion on the human mind.' (p. 6)
Superstition and reason are also frequently seen as the poles in the vampire debate of the 1730’s. Stefan Hock did so in 1901, dividing the authors of vampire books into two groups: those explaining vampires in terms of demonic influences, and those seeking a rational and natural explanation. However, if you actually read the books and articles from the period, you find that the texts do not easily fit into such a simple scheme. Likewise, on a more general scale, Cameron stresses the complexity of the debates concerning superstition:
'The eighteenth century did not discard the heritage of previous centuries wholesale, whatever the statements of propagandists for the ‘Enlightenment’ might at times imply. Some ‘superstition-treatises’ emerged from the movement known as ‘baroque Catholicism’ that embodied a firm belief in the continuity of traditional metaphysics and traditional pastoral theology. In Protestant Europe, the seventeenth-century debate over the reality of spirits continued into the era of the Enlightenment with no clearly discernible winners or losers.’ (p. 286-7)
Durst points out that the dichotomy between mystical obscurantism and rational Enlightenment that many historians superimpose on the eighteenth century is rather a result of the Enlightenment process than a condition of the period itself. This dichotomy is a construct of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, not of the eighteenth, so Durst sets out to critically scrutinize the vampire debate in terms of the knowledge and views of its own time. Limiting himself to what he calls the first phase of the vampire debate: the debate during the 1730’s between authors whose native tongue is German, Durst divides the debate into three groups according to the arguments employed: 1) theological, 2) sympathetic (Aristotelian or Paracelsian), and 3) medical.
Their different points of view notwithstanding, all authors tend to agree that the Serbian vampire belief is superstitious. Frequently, they consider the superstitious Irrglaube and Altweibermärchen to be the surviving remains of pre-Christian, pagan beliefs. Harenberg in his Vernünftige und Christliche Gedancken über die Vampirs oder Bluhtsaugende Todten stresses the antiquity of the belief in harmful revenants, saying that it existed at the time of Moses and can be found in the works of Vergil and Homer. Michael Ranft writes of the poison of superstition from old times and thinks that it may still work in the hearts of Christians.
As the Serbians typically were Orthodox Christians, the authors participating in the debate, most of whom were Protestants, find that this Church plays a role in the vampire belief. Protestants were of the opinion that both the Catholic and Orthodox Church had introduced superstitiones superstructae, false and superstitious constructions on top of the pure Christian belief, in order to maintain and gain power and money. Polemical books about the Orthodox Church, such as Thomas Smith’s Epistola de Graecae Ecclesiae hodierno statu (1698) and Johann Michael HeinecciiEigentliche und wahrhafftige Abbildung der alten und neuen Griechischen Kirche (1711), were not only sources of contemporary views of this Church, but also contained information on the Greek popular beliefs in revenants like the Brucolaccas.
from Salomon Schweigger: Ein newe Reiss Beschreibung auss Teutschland nach Constantinopel (1639)
The participants in the debate were quick to equate the Serbian vampire belief with the Greek revenants, and generally link the Orthodox belief in the effects of excommunication with the Serbian vampire belief. They criticize the clergy for not eradicating the superstitious belief, but instead accepting or promoting it for their own purposes. Consequently Durst notes that the criticism of vampire superstitions turns into a critique of the Orthodox Church.
There were, of course, exceptions. Johann Conrad Dippel accepts the Orthodox belief in the preservation of holy people and of the excommunicated as the work of God, but refutes a connection between excommunication and vampire beliefs. The Catholic W.S.G.E. finds that the vampire belief is the product of the uneducated and superstitious Serbians’ reception of true Christian tenets. From a theological point of view, the more superstition and the less education there is in a place, the easier it is for the devil to carry out his schemes in that area.
The Serbians themselves are also the subject of various explanations. They are stereotypically considered barbarous and under the influence of opium which is thought to have influenced both the deaths of suspected vampires as well as the belief itself. Their moral deficits and lack of education make them susceptible to superstition or even demonic influence. Egidius Günther Hellmund in his book on divine judgment, Iudicia Dei Incognita, oder unerkannte Gerichte Gottes über Böße und Gute in der Welt (1737), goes so far as to consider the revenants as God’s punishment of a sinful and ungodly Serbian populace in need of repentance.
The authors, and not just those those writing from a medical perspective, find that there is a close connection between the superstitious belief and the disease that the supposed victims of vampires suffer from. In some cases an analogy between these is stated, blurring the division between disease and superstition.
The superstition leads to fear and fancy, perhaps even creating visions of nightly revenant visitations, making the villagers more prone to diseases. So itself a product of pagan doctrine, false religious beliefs and the inability of uneducated people to comprehend natural phenomena, the vampire belief is inseparable from the suffering – and ultimately the death - of the Serbian villagers.
Durst carefully describes the individual arguments behind these general views of the role of superstition in the Serbian vampire belief. He does, however, emphasize that more work on the subject will yield more facts and dimensions to our understanding of what superstition was according to the learned authors involved in the debate.
I plan to write about some other recent papers on the seventeenth and eighteenth century writings about vampires and related topics. For now, I will recommend a reading of Durst’s work which not only provides an interesting reading of the vampire debate, but also points to a handful of works that I don't recall seeing mentioned elsewhere.
Illustration in Leithäuser: Das neue Buch vom Aberglauben (1964)
A year ago, or perhaps earlier than that, I put this image onto the right hand column of this blog to show my support of Wikipedia. Although one must be cautious in trusting everything on this online dictionary, it has in its various incarnations and languages (Danish, English, German, Czech etc.) over the years been an invaluable source for information for me, and I have frequently referred to it in my blog posts.
Like most of us, I have myself grown used to using various online services for free, although frequently that also involves dealing with annoying ads. In reality, we pay a lot of money to some companies, whereas others we more or less take for granted. However, someone has to pay for the servers and salaries required to keep a service like Wikipedia online, and if it should stay free of commercial content, it is up to some of us users to consider contributing a small amount.
The quality of entries differ (that, unfortunately, is also the case of some professional dictionaries), but at least you get a starting point, whereas not many years ago, and especially in my own youthful interest in the subject, the above mentioned names were but names. Back then I thought that it would be interesting to contact the university in Leipzig to find out more about some of these people. Now, Wikipedia (and other resources) provides you with a headstart from your pc, tablet or phone!
This book was recently published in Zürich by diaphanes: Die ›phantastische Seuche‹: Episoden des Vampirismus im 18. Jahrhundert by Anja Lauper (208 pages, € 26,90 / CHF 40,00). It is apparently concerned with the 18th century vampire and how it was understood and put to death by its contemporaries, only to rise as the modern, fictional vampire:
'Der Vampir des 18. Jahrhunderts ist einer der singulären Mythen der Moderne. Im Jahr 1732 tritt der Vampir – bis dahin unbekannt – mit einem Schlag in den Diskurs der westlichen Welt ein. Wenig später haben die Buchhändler ihr Sortiment fliegend der plötzlichen vampiristischen Nachfrage angepasst, bevölkert der Vampir die Berichte der Militärärzte von der Ostgrenze der österreichischen Monarchie und streiten sich Mediziner und Theologen um die Deutungshoheit angesichts einer unbekannten Seuche.
In diesem Buch wird der historische Vampirismus von seinem Ende her verstanden. Kein Exorzismus kann ihn ausmerzen, einzig die grundlegende Verwaltungsreform der Habsburgermonarchie, die ab Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts an die Hand genommen wird, ist in der Lage, den Vampir abzuschaffen, indem sie ihn in eine neue polizeyliche Gesundheits- und Bevölkerungspolitik überträgt und ihn darin zum Verschwinden bringt. Diese gouvernementale Politik schaufelt dem Vampir des 18. Jahrhunderts sein wohlverdientes Grab – und schafft damit die Voraussetzungen für die Proliferation des Vampirs in der Literatur der Moderne.'
Anja Lauper wrote a paper on the subject and Johann Christoph Harenberg's views on vampires, Die 'phantastische Seuche': Johann Christoph Harenbergs Theoretisierung der vampiristischen Einbildungskraft, which was published in Dracula Unbound: Kulturwissenschaftliche Lektüren des Vampirs.
At the end of Sheridan Le Fanu's famous story Carmilla a few works from the library of the vampire hunter Baron Vordenburg are mentioned, among them Magia Posthuma:
Let me add a word or two about that quaint Baron Vordenburg, to whose curious lore we were indebted for the discovery of the Countess Mircalla’s grave. He had taken up his abode in Gratz, where, living upon a mere pittance, which was all that remained to him of the once princely estates of his family, in Upper Styria, he devoted himself to the minute and laborious investigation of the marvellously authenticated tradition of Vampirism. He had at his fingers’ ends all the great and little works upon the subject. “Magia Posthuma,” “Phlegon de Mirabilibus,” “Augustinus de cura pro Mortuis,” “Philosophicae et Christianae Cogitationes de Vampiris,” by John Christofer Herenberg; and a thousand others, among which I remember only a few of those which he lent to my father. He had a voluminous digest of all the judicial cases, from which he had extracted a system of principles that appear to govern—some always, and others occasionally only— the condition of the vampire. I may mention, in passing, that the deadly pallor attributed to that sort of revenants, is a mere melodramatic fiction. They present, in the grave, and when they show themselves in human society, the appearance of healthy life. When disclosed to light in their coffins, they exhibit all the symptoms that are enumeranted as those which proved the vampire-life of the long-dead Countess Karnstein.
How they escape from their graves and return to them for certain hours every day, without displacing the clay or leaving any trace of disturbance in the state of the coffin or the cerements, has always been admitted to be utterly inexplicable. The amphibious existence of the vampire is sustained by daily renewed slumber in the grave. Its horrible lust for living blood supplies the vigour of its waking existence. The vampire is prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by particular persons. In pursuit of these it will exercise inexhaustible patience and stratagem, for access to a particular object may be obstructed in a hundred ways. It will never desist until it has satiated its passion, and drained the very life of its coveted victim. But it will, in these cases, husband and protract its murderous enjoyment with the refinement of an epicure, and heighten it by the gradual approaches of an artful courtship. In these cases it seems to yearn for something like sympathy and consent. In ordinary ones it goes direct to its object, overpowers with violence, and strangles and exhausts often at a single feast.
Harenberg's 1733 book was published in German (see the accompanying illustration), but somehow got a Latin title in Calmet's book, and this must be the reason why Le Fanu uses a Latin title and spells Harenberg's name 'Herenberg' like Calmet did. Phlegon's De Mirabilius will be well-known to readers of books on vampires, and Augustin's De cura pro mortuis gerenda is a key Catholic text on the care for the dead.
Regular visitors of this blog probably would like to have at their fingers' ends all these and other books on the subject.
During a visit in Hamburg I tried to look for books of value for my interest in the Magia Posthuma. In fact, I only found two books, and I wasn't quite sure about one of them, Das grosse Handbuch der Dämonen compiled by Helmut Werner (tosa/Verlag Ueberreuter, Vienna). A few vampires encyclopedias have been published, but I must confess that I rarely use them, because they mainly focus on the fictional vampire. So I feared the worst when I unwrapped this hardcover book, but was delighted to find entries on early authors on vampires and vampire related topics like Phillip Rohr, Michael Ranft and Johann Christoph Harenberg.
In his foreword the author describes the book's themes:
"In über 1.200 Stichworten bietet dieses Nachslagewerk für den Laien und den Fachmann eine übersicthliche und umfassende Übersicht nach dem neuesten Forschungsbestand zu folgenden Themen: Monster (Luft, Land, Wasser), monströse Dämonen und Geister, Mischwesen, Fabeltiere, rätselhafte Tiere, Missgeburten (Mensch und Tier), rätselhafte Menschen und menschliche Ungeheuer wie die Blutgräfin Bathory, Kürten etc., Vampire, vampirartige Dämonen, Werwölfe, Biografien bedeutender Gelehrter, die sich mit dieser Thematik beschäftigten, und die zentralen Begriffe dieser Themen."
As for these creatures being demons or not, the first page of the Handbuch actually contains this entry:
"ADÄMONISTEN Bez. für Anhänger einer Vampirtheorie, welche davon ausgeht, dass der Teufel, böse Dämonen, unkörperliche Substanzen wie Astralkörper (→Unverweslichkeit) und →Incubus nicht zur Erklärung des →Vampirismus herangezogen werden dürfen. Im Gegensatz zu ihren Gegnern, den Dämoniaken, glauben sie zwar an die Existenz des Teufels, sie lehnen aber seine Leiblichkeit ab. Der Teufel untersteht Gott und seine Fähigkeit, mit Erlaubnis Gottes in die Schöpfung einzugreifen, ist nur begrenzt."
So, obviously, it is debatable whether this is really an encyclopedia of demons or not, and it is probably a matter of taste whether you like the mix of themes. Personally, I would have preferred it done differently, e.g. making it easier to find the sources behind each entry, but I still find the encyclopedia both useful and enjoyable. Certainly, this book made the trip from Germany to Denmark by train feel shorter.
Unfortunately, errors can be found, and I can't help wondering why there is no entry about Peter Plogojowitz, when there is one about Arnont Paole?! I certainly don't understand how Werner has come to rename Karl Ferdinand von Schertz"Karl-Friedrich Schertz"?!
So some caution is required when using Hemut Werner's Handbuch, but I am sure that this book will be enjoyed by others interested in Magia Posthuma, and it will probably also attract some new attention to the old vampire cases and the 18th century vampire debate. The bibliography is also worth studying, so at the price of €9.95, there is no need to hesitate in ordering this 316 page Handbuch.
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