Dr. Kreuter: Vampire Hunter

This WDR German documentary follows Peter Mario Kreuter on a visit to Romania in 2003 in search of first and second hand witnesses of vampire and werewolf beliefs. The journalist ultimately asks Kreuter himself if he - like some of the people he meets - actually believes in such things...






A more recent interview with Kreuter in which he e.g. discards with the fictional notions of bloodsucking, canines, and good vampires...

Body, Soul, Spirits & Supernatural Communication

I have seen this announcement a couple of times recently:

BODY: SOUL: SPIRITS & SUPERNATURAL COMMUNICATION

International Conference

Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Pécs, Hungary

18th-20th May 2012, Friday to Sunday

Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of Pécs University
The Folklore Department of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society, &
ISFNR Belief Narrative Research Network

CALL FOR PAPERS

June 1st 2011

This conference will be the ninth in a row of events launched by the Hungarian organisers in 1993 under the heading “concepts of religious ethnology in an interdisciplinary approach”. To date this has resulted in eight publications. The primary objective we declared at the outset of the project is still valid today: to approach various concepts of religious ethnology and to survey the latest findings from the angle of folklore studies, anthropology, religious studies, cultural history, psychiatry, literary studies etc.; as well as to create an interdisciplinary discourse to find the solution to our various scientific problems. Participants at the conference will include academics from all parts of Europe to give us an even closer view of current European research areas.

Each of the topics mentioned in the title deserves investigation in its own right; however, at this conference our main aim is to capture the set of connections which exist around these three topics. Thus we need to explore the ties between different notions of the soul, communicational techniques and functions and the spiritual world which is supposed to decode such communication. We would also welcome papers which investigate the role of notions of the soul and the spirit world in the everyday life, religion and mentality of various communities. On the other hand, we would like to explore the narrative traditions surrounding each of our themes: narrative metaphors for notions of the soul and for supernatural communication, their representations in folklore, literature, the arts and academic literature, as well as the ways in which beliefs and narratives are related.

As regards notions of the soul, folklore research has presented a rather simplistic account in the past, insofar as they reduced the topic, at least with regard to Christian Europe, to something like “the Christian duality of body and soul versus the remnants of the mythological legacy of the different peoples”. The latter mainly refers to representations of the free soul/shadow soul, alter ego or second body as well as their traces in literature and folklore. E.g. in a Hungarian respect this mainly meant exploring the “shamanistic” legacy of the nation’s archaic pre-Christian religion, while in Greek literature and philosophy they were discovering remains of Thracian or Iranian shamanism, etc. Besides this simple pattern, research sometimes came face to face with the more nuanced notions of the soul held by certain non-Christian and even non-European peoples, e.g. the rich ancient Greek literary, philosophical and linguistic heritage or Germanic mediaeval data (or, in the Hungarian context, the varied material of the Ob-Ugrian linguistic relatives), which were mainly examined by linguists, literary scholars, researchers of religion, theologians and philosophers (e.g. Erwin Rohde, Jan Bremmer, Hans-Peter Hasenfratz, Régis Boyer, Claude Lecouteux, etc.). It barely occurred to anthropologists studying similar subjects abroad to look around their own neighbourhood.

Research conducted by linguists and historians of religion about notions of the soul, the free soul or the alter ego which breaks away from the body, have attained considerable results in Europe, but rarely if ever have scholars looked into the role of these notions in the everyday religiosity of a community, and in the communication with the supernatural. As regards the exploration of Christian visions, both religious studies and anthropology have made serious advances in the last few decades, particularly as regards investigations into the religious and social role of visions in the Middle Ages and the modern period (pl. Ernst Benz, Peter Dinzelbacher, Jean-Claude Schmitt, Claude Lecouteux, most recently William Christian, Galia Valtchinova and many others). At the same time, many other forms of communication have remained unexplored, nor do we see clearly regarding the boundaries and interconnections of various systems of communication (e.g. shamanism, spirit possession, Christian visions, mediumism, etc.) with each other and with different notions of the soul.

Therefore we believe that the time has come to gain a somewhat more nuanced picture of the notions of the soul held by the peoples of Europe, in the above indicated context of connections. It would be desirable to form clear ideas about the extent to which the notions of the soul used by various religions and denominations were known, the local interpretations that existed, the special “popular” notions and representations of the soul which might differ from or only partially converge with the former; as well as alternative traditions that have been preserved alongside Christianity and survived in folklore collections, literary and linguistic relics or have merged with Christianity. (Naturally, Christian notions are also far from being homogeneous and have been changing along the constantly shifting ideas and boundaries of monism/dualism/trialism and also in relation to the various eschatological and resurrection dogmas which are in themselves also in constant change. At the same time they have helped sustain popular and non-Christian traditions.) We are not necessarily implying here the existence of a unified and clearly outlined notion of the soul or several, clearly delineated souls with different functions – it is more to do with the (frequently merging) representations of different ideas and notions as they appear in mentality, way of thinking, folklore or literature.

It is this rich and varied array of phenomena that needs to be mapped out for each nation and culture, including their terminology, cultural and social context, linguistic metaphors, visual representations and meaning, with regard to a people or a geographic unit or local society, preferably in the context of the above described connections, meaning the role they play in sacred communication.

A few possible points to anchor this vast and varied material may be the following.

1. Concepts of the soul

Life soul, selbst, psyché. life force (vitalstoff) as a body-soul immanently present in the body, the ‘inside’ (thymos) which is clearly connected to some part of the body (head, brain, heart, liver, kidneys etc.), it resides there and is associated with bodily functions (breathing, breath, blood circulation, sperm). The soul related to some natural element or phenomenon such as the wind blowing (duše), fog, water. Functions related to various notions/terms for the soul (life force, mental concepts, breathing, movement) etc.

The free soul, external soul, mirror or shadow soul, double ( alter ego, double, harm, fylgja etc.) as the seat of life force, as the depository of communication with the supernatural. It is outside the body either constantly or temporarily, it breaks away from the soul in dreams, in a trance etc. Living and dead, bodily and spiritual variants. Their connection with the soul which lives on after death and with mortal spirits. Its formations (human, animal, mirror image, light, foggy figure). It is only observable in certain situations, at certain times, before death; appears only in dreams or visions. An invisible protector, companion (guardian angel), a fate soul which determines destiny or prophecies the future. It is an emotional and intellectual tie with the alter ego of oneself or others (mara/Mahr/mora phenomena). Accompanying, guarding, helping and initiating spirits interpreted as formal variants of the free soul.

Narrative traditions related to notions of the soul, motifs in stories and legends for the free soul, shadow soul, external soul, as well as departure from the body, the soul departing in sleep, narrative metaphors for transformation, metamorphosis, for turning into a soul (flight, invisibility, becoming small, entering through the keyhole, travelling in a small object, walking on the water, turning into an animal etc.).

Special creatures who have a free soul or an alter ego since birth – two-souled creatures, double beings, shapeshifters: werewolves and mara/mora/Mahr/Alp/lidérc beings, vampires, witches and magicians.

2. Body and soul – death, life after death, spirits of the dead

Death of an individual: death of the body and/or soul, the bodily and spiritual existence of the dead. Dead body (drying out, turning to dust, whether the soil will or will not admit it). Bodies living on, living dead bodies. Half-living or revived bodies, possessed dead bodies. What (sort of soul) dies along with the body, what survives the body. Souls living on in dead bodies and in bones.

Deathbed – with ancestors and relatives appearing, coming to take the soul. Companions of the soul (angels, saints, demons). The soul at the moment of death, which soul dies. Whether and how it leaves the body, where it goes, what shape it takes (breath, blood, fog, tiny man, tiny angel, naked baby, bee, bird etc.). Linguistic metaphors for the departure of the body. The place where the departing soul resides, its different stages, periods, dates of departure. Gradual death, bodily functions which persist temporarily after death, gradual departure. Transitory places, transitory existence: dead persons with no status who have not found a final place of rest, souls roaming in a liminal existence.

Souls and spirits in the other world, up, down, in heaven, in the underworld, in the woods, on the mountain, on an island, under water. The spirit of the dead in the other world – bodily and spiritual attributes and manifestations. Personal judgement and resurrection, resurrected body and/or soul – the fate of the body and/or soul in the meantime; souls in purgatory. Transition between different other worlds. Last judgement, the final destiny of the soul after resurrection.

Souls remaining in the soil, in the body, in the cemetery (in or around the grave), in the house, with the family; the dead of the family in the house, around the hearth, the soul of the ancestor in the wall, around the hearth, under the doorstep – in an animal form (house snake, talašom etc., ‘building sacrifices’). The spirit of the dead person in the likeness, statue, magical object (talisman, stoicheion). Dead people turned into guardian spirits of the family or the individual, ‘evil dead’ assaulting the family or the community.

Mythical beings fused or merged with the dead: fairies; ill-intentioned dead turned into demons; ‘two-souled creatures’ – people who have alter egos or living and dead variants (witches, magicians, vampires), demons. Spiritual beings which are half human or a transition between human and spirit – ‘light shadowed ones’, ‘wind-men’ (storm magicians, stuha, zduhać, płanetnyk, chmurnik); fairies.

Spirits of the dead or possessing dead who return to the human community, to earth, who appear to humans (in a dream, trance, in an earthly setting as ghosts, in ’a bodily form’, individually or in a group), helping or assaulting humans, snatching them to death, hoping that they would influence their otherworldly destiny or demanding offerings. Occasions, time and purpose for returning/appearance; times and places of the dead on earth.

3. Supernatural communication – in the context of the body-soul and spirits

General, spontaneous, lay forms and professionals who use certain bodily/spiritual capacities, birth traits (they have a special soul, alter ego or peculiar guardian spirits etc, and communicate with a unique spirit world or other worlds).

Communication with the dead, with spirits of the dead, with demons of storm clouds, ‘walking with the fairies’ etc. Forms and functions of such communication (assaults by the dead, snatching the living for ‘initiation’, possession by the dead, poltergeist phenomena). Communication with dead people or spirits who appear in dreams. Communication through alter egos/doubles of the living. Lay and professional communication with the dead, with spirits through a double who had broken away from the person: horizontal, earthly travels of the double. Double beings, creatures with two souls and shapeshifters communicating between the worlds of nature and culture (werewolf), and between the human world and the night world of the dead and demons through their demonic alter egos: mora, Mahr, witch, strigoi, vampire etc. Helping spirits as the unique manifestations of the alter ego.

Techniques of the communication. Communication in a trance – inducing a trance, relevant techniques (spontaneous transe, self-suggestion, meditation, objects inducing a trance such as a mirror, water etc). The state of the body and the soul in a transe. Seers and fortune tellers reporting in a transe about their journey int he other world.

Ritual communication, symbolic and trance-inducing rites (fasting, St. Lucy’s stool, magic circle, magic wand, walking around the grave of the dead and the ‘places of the fairies’, beating them with the wand). Ritual invocation of the dead and of fairies, rites for acquiring spirit helpers or invoking the dead.

Spontaneous and professional, ritually induced activity of mediums. The clairvoyant as a medium possessed by the dead. The role of music, dance and turning round in inducing trance; ritual possession by the dead or by fairies (healing societies: rusalia, rusalje, căluşari, etc.).

‘Journeys’ of the free soul – with companions, helping souls or spirits or without; the free soul rises out of the body, elevates itself, looks back and sees the body or the earth; falling in a tunnel, crossing the water in a vehicle, rising with the vapours into a storm cloud; flying in dream to a ’fairy heaven’; turning into an animal and thus joining the demonic werewolf troupe; travelling to a witches’ Sabbath on the back of animals, or of objects or metamorphosed into an animal; flying to the fairy other world with a troupe of fairies, making music and dancing etc.

Battles of the soul in dream or trance, against hostile harming spirits, storm souls in storm clouds, against assaulting werewolf demons, between good and bad – healing and harmful – spirits (in a possession trance); night battles (in a dream or trance) against the assaults of the dead or demons.

Narrative tradition, linguistic metaphors and textual representations of trance experiences and soul journeys, of communication through alter egos, of being snatched by the dead and of journeys to the other world, accounts of such experience, motifs in tales, legends and literature; folklore and literary motifs of journeys to the other world; narrative traditions of fairy other worlds and witches’ Sabbaths.

*

Papers are welcome without restrictions on methodology or on the time and place of their subject matter as long as they use a theoretical approach in folklore studies, anthropology, cultural history, sociology etc. We also welcome comparative historical or textual philological analyses or presentations of research findings based on archive work or field work either in our outside of Europe, as well as analyses of religious phenomena from the perspective of religious anthropology, history of religion, theology etc. Mere descriptions of material are acceptable only if they considerably enhance our knowledge about a particular field.

The conference will be bilingual (Hungarian and English), and might take place in parallel sections, preferably in alternate time periods. (In such a case foreign participants will be offered optional cultural events or excursions for the duration of Hungarian papers.)

We request applicants to submit applications with an abstract of 10-15 sentences before August 20th 2011 on the form attached. The full text of the papers should be submitted no later than April 30th 2012 in order to leave sufficient time for circulating and printing.

Although publication of the proceedings of our last conference (Magical and Sacred Medical World) in English are still not forthcoming, we are not giving up hope and will do everything for the material of this conference to appear in both languages. While the Hungarian publication seems almost guaranteed, we are making efforts to secure an English version, too.

Costs for participants are presently being calculated, and organisers will do their best to keep costs manageable. (Should we fail to secure sponsorship, costs for three days and three or four nights, including food and accommodation but excluding travel costs, are expected to be around EUR 200.)

The maximum number of papers to be accepted for presentation is 50. Should there be more applicants than this, we will be forced to select among presenters. However, we shall not limit the number of non-presenting participants. We also reserve the right to reject papers for thematic discrepancy or other reasons.

Please, submit applications to the address below (by e-mail or post).

Professor Emeritus Éva Pócs
PTE Néprajz-Kulturális Antropológia Tanszék
7624 Pécs, Rókus u. 2.
e-mail: pocse@chello.hu

Application form for the conference Body, Soul and Supernatural Communication (Pécs, 18th-20th May 2012)
Name:
Occupation, position, title, employer:
Postal address:
Telephone:
E-mail:
Title of paper:
Language of paper:
Abstract (10-15 sentences):

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Éva Pócs is known for her work - in some cases in cooperation with Gabor Klaniczay - on Hungarian witchcraft cases and folklore.

Discours de la lycanthropie

The French publisher, Editions Jérôme Millon, who have published Calmet, Ranft as well as Cathelinot's Réflexions sur le Traité des Apparitions de dom Calmet, has published the 1599 book on lycanthropy: Discours de la lycanthropie by Beauvoys de Chauvincourt. The web site has this to say about the book (in French):

Les 42 dents aiguisées et les hurlements du Canis lupus, même hors des soirs de pleine lune, ont alimenté les fantasmes de dizaines de générations.Le diable prend chez Jean Beauvoys de Chauvincourt deux visages: l’acrobate (auquel il consacre le premier ouvrage européen en langue vulgaire: Trois dialogues sur l’art de sauter et voltiger en l’air, 1599) et le loup-garou, sujet de son Discours de la lycanthropie sur la métamorphose des hommes en loups, publié la même année. Ces deux êtres d’exception sont doués de pouvoirs « démoniaques ». L’auteur adhère avec facilité aux méfaits de la lycanthropie. Avec une naïveté déstabilisante et un engouement rare, il révèle étendue et profondeur d’une croyance ancestrale partagée par ses contemporains dont l’objet, en forme d’obsession collective, est le loup, et selon laquelle le diable métamorphose les hommes en carnassiers à quatre pattes. Le loup-garou, c’est celui qui marginalise et abaisse jusqu’à la bestialité. C’est le rejeton du néant, surgi de l’enfer et du tombeau.

Witchcraft, werewolves and masculinity

'Men and masculinities are still incorporated inadequately into the history of early modern witch-trials, despite the fact that 20-25% of all the people accused of witchcraft across early modern Europe were male. This book redresses this imbalance by making men the main focus of analysis. What sort of men risked being accused of witchcraft in early modern Europe, and why did some regions persecute more men as witches than others? Did the numbers of male victims increase during large-scale witch-panics? What ideas about masculinity underpinned the zeal of the men who acted as witch-hunters? To what extent were beliefs about the practice of magic gendered, and how did gender shape the ways in which werewolves were imagined and demonic possession was experienced? In this groundbreaking collection of essays, leading historians of early modern European witchcraft offer answers to these questions through original case-studies from England, Germany, Scotland, Italy and France.'

This is the description of a new anthology, Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe edited by Alison Rowland and published on November 20.

Dracula question 1

I am always happy to try to answer questions from people. Today I received two questions concerning Dracula, and thought that the answers might be of both information and entertainment to other readers.

Here is the first question and answer.

In a comment to my post The creation of a modern myth, Orc Bruto writes:

... I am a historian and archeologist in Brazil, and I am finishing my Master Degree with a thesis about the influences of Sabine Baring-Gould's Book of Werewolves in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I read in McNally & Florescu's In Search of Dracula and Other Vampires that there is a note in Rosenbach Foundation Stoker's Notes that says that Bram Stoker read the Book of Werewolves before writing his book... But I cannot find any source in internet with this passage...

I saw that you got Elizabeth Miller's Stoker's Notes Book. Is there any mention to Baring-Gould Book of Werewolves? Either Miller and the Romanian Dracula researcher Radu Carciumaru said me that McNally is not a very trustful source...

This prompted Leslie S. Klinger, author of The New Annotated Dracula to write:

'Please advise your correspondent that indeed Stoker did consult Baring-Gould's "Book of Werewolves"--it is on the list of reference books included in his notes, held at the Rosenbach Museum. I believe that the complete list is included somewhere in my book, and it is also reproduced in Clive Leatherdale's "Dracula Unearthed."'

In fact, the facsimile edition of Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula reproduces the list of books that includes not only Baring-Gould's book on werewolves, but also his Curious Myths of the Middle Ages and Germany: Past & Present (p. 172-3).

On pages 128-131 you find the proof that Stoker did read Baring-Gould's book: Stoker's own notes from his reading of The Book of Were-Wolves, where he e.g. notes 'werewolf has broad hands, short fingers & has some hairs in hollow of hand p. 107', and that 'Serbs connect vampire & ww. together & call them same name vlkoslak'.

The editors of the Notes further write:

'The opening of "Dracula's Guest" echoes Sabine Baring-Gould's introduction to The Book of Were-Wolves, which was one of Bram Stoker's earliest and most important sources.' (p. 279-80)

'The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Were-Wolves contains numerous descriptions which Stoker appropriated for his vampire: canine teeth, pointed nails, hairy palms and the ability to change form.' (p. 284)

The Notes are highly recommended, as are the books mentioned by Klinger. If you require more information, feel free to contact me by e-mail (see my profile).

Slavic Folklore: Vampires and Werewolves

The internet allows you to get a sneak preview of many things. You can e.g. see the material that is put online from a current course on Slavic Folklore: Vampires and Werewolves by Professor George Gutsche of the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at The University of Arizona. The goals specified are:

'Desired outcomes of the course include: (1) knowledge about Eastern European cultures, in particular vampire and werewolf lore; (2) development of reading and film-viewing skills (which in turn will enhance appreciation for literary and cinematic works); (3) basic familiarity with the terminology and concepts of folklore, literary study and film study; (4) an increased awareness of the ways in which social problems are reflected in popular culture and art; and (5) a better understanding of how beliefs are acquired.'

A musical werewolf

I recently purchased a triple CD set of English folk music called The Beginner's Guide to English Folk, as I would like to know a bit more about this genre that I'm not particularly familiar with. So it was quite interesting to find that one of the songs is actually a song called The Werewolf that appears to be some kind of 'cult' classic. Written by Michael Hurley and recorded by Barry Dransfield on a self-titled album in 1972, it was only digitally released a few years ago. You can listen to an excerpt on iTunes, where you can also find Michael Hurley's original.

Über Vampirismus

The writings on vampires and werewolves by two 19th century folklorists, Wilhelm Mannhardt and Jan Ignáz Hanus were published in a leaflet by Superbia Verlag in Leipzig in 2004. The 52 page book reprints four papers originally published in Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde in 1859: Über Vampirismus by Mannhardt, and three papers by Hanus: Die Vampire, Die Vampire oder Vlkodlaci, and Der Werwolf (Vlkodlak). Ein slowakisches Märchen fast wörtlich aus einer Handschrift übersetzt. A lot of the material in Mannhardt's paper on vampires will be familiar, but the booklet offers a nice and cheap (€ 4.50) reprint of the original papers (in German, of course). The publisher has added an afterword, a few illustrations, and the texts have been changed in accordance with the orthography and grammatics of modern German.

A reality no one doubted

The ever industrious Sorbonne professor Claude Lecouteux has compiled an anthology on lycanthropy in collaboration with a few other people that was published earlier this year, Elle courait le garou : Lycanthropes, hommes-ours, hommes-tigres (José Corti Editions). The book is a companion volume to a similar anthology on revenants published in 2006, Elle mangeait son linceul : Fantômes, revenants, vampires et esprits frappeurs Une anthologie.

'En appendice, des actes de procès des XVIe et XVIIe siècles apportent la preuve que le loup-garou fut autrefois une réalité que nul ne mettait en doute.' I.e. in the appendix the acts of the processes of the 16th and 17th Centuries prove that the werewolf was once a reality that no one doubted.