Magia Posthuma

Support the Vampire Rights Amendment

2008-07-26T10:03:00.002+02:00

I find it hard not to be amused by this recent development in vampire fiction. It is an incredible fact that a few reports on the exhumation of dead people suspected of haunting the living in villages in 18th Century Serbia over the past 300 years have turned into the vampires of modern culture. For further examples go to Blood Copy.

The Devil deceives the people

2008-07-26T08:55:00.001+02:00

Having recently mentioned Luther's comments about the mastication of the dead, I will show you the cover of Thomas Schürmann's book Nachzehrerglauben in Mitteleuropa, which adresses the topic of masticating dead and other revenants. On the cover is a reprint of some of Luther's comments on recognizing the deceiving Devil. It's the first paragraph that is printed in Sturm and Völker's Von den Vampiren oder Menschensaugern.

Rebekka

2008-07-26T06:42:00.001+02:00

While browsing some old newspaper articles, I found one from spring 1994 concerning a 25-30 year old female who was buried in the Dresden suburb Cotta about 7.500 years ago. Called DD-04 Cotta-find 277 or simply Rebekka by the archaeologists, her corpse had been beheaded post mortem, and a stone had been placed in front of her genitals. The archaeologists led by Rengert Elburg believed that the stone may have been placed there to prevent her unborn child from returning as a revenant. Elburg, in fact, believed that Rebekka had haunted people, and consequently had been excavated and beheaded. Furthermore, she was buried face down! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find more information about Rebekka on the internet.

A quartering from the Wickiana

2008-07-26T04:25:00.000+02:00

This has nothing to do with magia posthuma, but is a sort of late post scriptum to an earlier post, in which I mentioned the method of quartering for torturing and executing a man. Some time ago, while browsing a collection of excerpts from the Wickiana, Die Wickiana (Raggi Verlag Küsnacht-Zürich, 1975), I noticed the illustration below, which vividly depicts a quartering, and I thought I would share it with those of you who are interested in - to paraphrase the title of Equiamicus's blog - the darker aspects of cultural history.

Sturm und Völker 40th Anniversary

2008-07-25T17:13:00.000+02:00

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first edition of Dieter Sturm and Klaus Völker's classic anthology, Von denen Vampiren oder Menschensaugern: Dichtungen und Dokumenten, originally published by Carl Hanser Verlag. It has been reprinted and published in new editions several times, including paperbacks that only contain certain parts of the original book, making it perhaps the most bestselling anthology of vampire fact and fiction!

Certainly, Sturm and Völker's book must have been a very important book for many who have become fascinated by this curious subject. This was the book that first introduced me to the text of Flückinger's Visum et Repertum, as well as to e.g. Luther talking about the mastication of the dead in his Tischreden. I can recall struggling with reading and understanding the old German texts back in my youth, and studying the extensive bibliography. This was indeed a ground breaking and inspirational work, and the continued reprinting is a testament to the quality and scope of the work. In the light of what has been printed later on, e.g. Hamberger's anthology, Von denen Vampiren is no longer up to date, but it is still a good starting point for anyone with an interest in vampires who can read German.

Both Klaus Völker and Dieter Sturm are around 70 now and have no doubt been active in various areas during the past 40 years, but for some of us 'Sturm und Völker' is simply another way of referring to their 1968 anthology Von denen Vampiren oder Menschensaugern!

Die Geisterwelt

2008-07-25T16:12:00.004+02:00

Nicolaus Equiamicus has kindly recommended both this blog and Rob Brautigam's Shroudeater web site. Another book edited by Equiamicus has just been published, Die Geisterwelt. Apparently, a book originally published around the middle of the 18th Century, it deals with witches, werewolves, vampires, fairies and much more. More information is available at the blog of Equiamicus.

Handling a suicide

2008-07-25T15:16:00.004+02:00

The above illustration is from the 16th Century Schilling-Kronik from Luzern in Schwitzerland and illustrates a practice used to prevent the corpses of suicides to return and haunt the living, either as a revenant or as the cause of bad weather and other calamities: The corpse - in this case that of a monk - is put in a cask and thrown into the river. The practice is known from medieval times as well as the early modern period. Unfortunately, I only have the illustration in black and white.

New Annotated Dracula

2008-07-24T07:58:00.003+02:00

As those of you who read this blog as a feed probably aren't aware of comments left by other readers, I would like to mention that the editor of a new annotated edition of Stoker's Dracula left a comment here.

The silly season

2008-07-24T06:18:00.000+02:00

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about a poll concerning the superstitions of modern day Danes. Now, a few days ago I concluded that 'the silly season' has begun, because another newspaper published yet another poll on the same subject. The above newspaper front page says: Is there anyone out there?, and claims that 1 out of 4 Danes believe in ghosts, and that no less than 1 out of 6 have had an experience with a ghost!

Well, personally I find the text below more interesting. It's a scan of a 1732 letter mentioning the Medvedja vampire case!

Stoker's notes

2008-07-24T00:04:00.001+02:00

As I keep saying: this blog is not about Dracula, however, I think a lot of people will be pleased to know that McFarland will be publishing a facsimile edition of Bram Stoker's Notes for Dracula this fall or winter. Annotated and transcribed by Robert Eighteen-Bisang and Elizabeth Miller, this will be first time that the complete notes will be published, finally enabling every scholar or Dracula buff to study these notes for a better understanding of the genesis of the novel Dracula.

Dark cultural history

2008-07-23T13:46:00.004+02:00

The person who uses the pseudonyms Nicolaus Equiamicus and Abraham Silberschmidt as editor and translator of recent editions of Ranft, Calmet, and other 18th Century authors of books on vampires, has launched a web site and blog, both titled Dunkle Kulturgeschichte, Dark cultural history, focusing on what's true, false and strange about witches, vampires, demonology and more!

Speaking of blogs and the darker sides of cultural history, some of you may find the engravings concerning the Ars moriendi on this blog interesting.

The Complete Book of Vampires

2008-07-23T10:37:00.003+02:00

I recently acquired Leonard R. N. Ashley's The Complete Book of Vampires. Ashley is a Professor Emeritus and the author of several books, including a series of complete books on 'occult' themes. The vampire book is a mixed bag of all sorts of information gathered from a vast number of other books, all presented in a very entertaining manner. In the preface Ashley says that 'the book attempts, as do all the other books in my series, to bring scholarly research to all readers in a user-friendly sort of way and to entertain as it educates.' I honestly find that it is more entertainment than a scholarly book, as he doesn't really try to establish any genuine context for understanding e.g. the portion from Van Swieten's commentaries on vampires that he translates. So this is in short an ertaining introduction that will no doubt delight the casual reader, but is of very little use, if any, for the study of the historical aspects of magia posthuma.

International Vampire

2008-07-23T09:51:00.005+02:00

So what could this blogger be doing? Well, it would probably be too boring to mention all that has kept me busy lately, but currently I'm going through a lot of my books and papers to try and clear out what I might do without so I can get a little more room for, say, new and interesting books on the subject of posthumous magic :-) Anyway, this business has also led to a few discoveries of interesting stuff. I am particularly amazed at how many magazines (fanzines?) on vampires I have lying around, mostly from the Eighties and Nineties. And as I had come to believe that it was an error on my part to think that I had a couple of issues of International Vampire, it was very nice to find three issues. This was a magazine published by Rob Brautigam, the webmaster of the Shroudeater web site. The final issue, no 20, is shown on top of the other issues in the photo below, and was published in May 1996. I notice that my name is mentioned in that issue :-)

A few other magazines or fanzines were mentioned in a post that I wrote one year ago.

Czech magia posthuma

2008-07-13T15:45:00.005+02:00

Incredibly, almost a month has passed since my last post. I hope to be more active in the future.

Anyway, I happened to switch to the History Channel last weekend and found myself watching Michael Bell in a documentary about vampires. Unfortunately, I haven't identified the title of this documentary, but it's from 2007, and the major part concerns vampires and magia posthuma in the Czech republic, featuring anthtropologist Giuseppe Maiello and archaeologist Jaroslav Spacek. You can read about both and listen to an interview in English with Maiello here.

The documentary is a bit inaccurate on the sources for the interest in vampires in 18th Century Europe, but otherwise it contains some interesting insights into the Czech archaeological evidence of magia posthuma.

More on From Demons to Dracula

2008-06-16T06:30:00.000+02:00

I asked the author of From Demons to Dracula, Matthew Beresford, a bit more about his book, and he responds:

I suppose the way I hope my book is different in some ways as others of its kind is because i wrote it from an archaeologist's point of view rather than perhaps a historian's. So, whilst obviously looking at histroical records and sources I also used archaeological findings, for example with Iron Age bog bodies where they had been ritually killed or staked and pinned to the ground. With the early demons and Prehistory, I examined how fascination and fear with death and the afterlife affected the 'vampire' idea and allowed for evil spirits or creatures to return from the dead.

I argue for an 'evolution' for the vampire as whilst many works / books on the subject tend to discuss the beings from folklore and literature they tend to briefly acknowledge the earlier Medieval revenants but not link them too strongly. My belief is that the early demons and spirits (such as Lamia, Lilith and other demon forms) are linked to later forms by the concept of death and burial rites, and that the Iron Age bog bodies, Anglo-Saxon myths and Icelandic Sagas and early revenants (such as those discussed by William of Newburgh in Historia Rerum Anglicarum) bear direct relevance on much later vampire forms.

So, I would argue that there has been a continuous 'evolution' with the vampire, or vampiric beings, from early civilisations up to the modern vampire myth (ie. the caped and fanged aristocratic male, Christopher Lee / Bela Lugosi, etc).

Undoubtedly, I have discussed material that is already available in other books on the subject, but I felt it necessary to comment on this at various points of my own work, but I also hope that I am providing a 'fresh take' on the subject by arguing for the 'evolution'.

Kind words

2008-06-15T13:25:00.004+02:00

I can't help mentioning that I stumbled upon a very nice blog post about this blog. As I feel that I struggle with writing in English, I am very flattered to read that "The Danish Mr. Petersen writes in a very elegant English."

From Demons To Dracula

2008-06-15T13:04:00.004+02:00

I recently mentioned the forthcoming book From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth by Matthew Beresford. I have been contacted by the author who informs me that he is an archaeologist, tutor in Adult Education and freelance writer based in Bolsover, Derbyshire in the UK.

The book will be published by Reaktion Books in the UK on October 8th, and in USA on November 15th. Beresford tells me that, "it’s purpose is to argue for an evolution for the vampire and how this created the modern myth, from the early demon forms of the Ancient World, early ideas on death, burial & the afterlife, early Medieval beliefs and legends, the witch trials and plagues of the Middle Ages, the folklore of Eastern Europe, the Victorian Literature of 19th century England and the many film adaptations and on-screen vampires, as well as modern cases of the phenomenon."

Blogs

2008-06-07T17:44:00.003+02:00

I am not aware of other blogs that are dedicated to the subject of vampires in a way that is reminiscent of this blog. There is the one that used to follow Bram Stoker's Dracula from day to day, Dracula blogged - unfortunately it is not set for working this year - and then there is a French blog dedicated to all sorts of aspects of the subject, mainly the fictional vampire and Vlad Tepes: vampirisme.com le blog.

Other blogs are devoted to other aspects of history, the fantastic and horror, e.g. this delightful blog of Frankensteiniana.

Cover art

2008-06-05T12:48:00.003+02:00

I have been asked about the painting on the cover of the Romanian book shown in this post. It's a painting by a Polish artist whose name is spelled either as Bolesław Biegass of Boleslas Biegas (1877-1954). It is usually called Kiss of the Vampire in English, but I'm not sure about the original title. Biegas painted a few other paintings with a similar motif.

Hamberger on ebay

2008-06-05T12:37:00.004+02:00

The two volumes compiled and written by Klaus Hamberger, Mortuus non mordet: Kommentierte Dokumentation zum Vampirismus 1689 - 1791 and Über Vampirismus: Krankengeschichten und Deutungsmuster 1801 - 1899 are currently for sale on ebay. Unfortunately, although this is a rare opportunity to bid on these two books, the seller has listed them for sale only to German bidders.

The seller writes: 'habe die bücher beide von einer freundin, die über dieses thema diplom geschrieben hat', i.e. I have received both books from a friend who has written about this theme for her exam/degree.

Forthcoming books

2008-06-01T21:35:00.003+02:00

A new edition of the German translation of Claude Lecouteux's book on vampires, Die Geschichte der Vampire: Metamorphose eines Mythos will be published by Patmos Verlag this June.

This fall the University of Chicago Press distributes a title for Reaktion Books that sounds interesting: From Demons to Dracula: The Creation of the Modern Vampire Myth by Matthew Beresford. The subject should be European history which is why it sounds quite interesting. However, I haven't yet found any information about Beresford or the book apart from the title, price and that kind of information.

Books

2008-06-01T15:50:00.005+02:00

Recently, the author of one of the books that I have written about sent me an e-mail. I think, he basically wanted to say that: OK, if you're after more information on the historical aspects of vampirism, then my book probably will be of little use, but I am sure that my book is (to quote his e-mail) 'pretty good for what it set out to do'.

Returning from a few days away, I found a copy of another book on vampires that I had decided to order: Legends of Blood: The Vampire in History and Myth by Wayne Bartlett and Flavia Idriceanu. Unfortunately, just perusing it for a short while led me to conclude that this too is one of those books that I will gain very little useful from.

Barlett is a management consultant who has worked for some time in Romania and written a number of books on historical topics. Idriceanu is a philologist in Bucharest. Their book is not simply the usual rehash of information on vampires, because they include some chapters on witches and 'the magus', but honestly, I don't get the impression that I will gain much from reading the book. The chapter on 'The Vampire Epidemics' is based on Barber, Frayling, Ronay and a few other well-known authors. In fact, the bibliography is pretty revealing, because it is relatively short and not impressing. It even includes four Harry Potter novels and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings!

No doubt the book is probably a pleasant read for the reader who isn't particularly familiar with the history of vampires, but I feel that my own time is too limited for me to spend a few hours reading this particular book. And I hope that my short posts on books may spare other people from spending time and money on books that may not be worth obtaining if you have an interest in vampires and magia posthuma that is more or less similar to my own.

I did actually find one interesting fact in the bibliography: The book on vampires by Claude Lecouteux has been published in Romania: Vampiri si vampirism. Autopsia unui mit (Bucuresti: Saeculum, 2002).

A year passed by

2008-05-18T14:55:00.003+02:00

Without taking note of it, early this month it was the one year 'birthday' of this blog. As I have said in one or two previous posts, I find that I have benefited from starting this blog, particularly because it has brought me into contact with a few other people with similar interests. Unfortunately, I often find it difficult to find time for writing posts, but I hope that what I do post is useful and interesting enough to stimulate future visits.

Fear and its Servant

2008-05-12T18:46:00.008+02:00

The investigation of the vampire case at Kisiljevo in 1725, see e.g. this post, is the subject of a Serbian novel and a play called Страх и његов слуга (Fear and its Servant) by Мирјана Новаковић (Mirjana Novaković). I haven't read the book, although it is actually available in a French translation, La Peur et son Valet (Gaia, 2005), but as far as I understand it is not a historical novel about the vampire case, but rather an allegorical tale inspired by the vampire case and other historical episodes. According to this web site on the play,

"The Fear and its Servant is a play based on the novel by Mirjana Novakovic written as a parody of a quasi historical content. As for the genre, the play could be considered as a thriller with elements of political allegory. The background of the novel is a historical event in the first half of XVIII century; the Austro-Hungarian commission arrives in Belgrade to the court of regent, Alexander of Wurtenberg and princess Maria Augusta with an aim to check the rumors about the existence of vampires in Serbia. However, though the story is about the true events and real people, Fear and its Servant is not a historic novel, since the aim of the author (as well as of the theater production group gathered round the project) was not to reconstruct the air of the given historic moment, but to transcript the past by reflecting the allegory to the current time."

If any visitor of this blog happens to have read the novel or seen the play, it would be very interesting to know more about it. The play was staged at the Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade. Unfortunately, I haven't been to Belgrade since the early Seventies, so I have no memory of this place.

Christian Reiter on vampirism

2008-05-07T06:00:00.001+02:00

Professor Christian Reiter of the Medical University of Vienna, who appears in both Die Vampir Prinzessin and the Galileo Mystery episode about vampires, can be heard here talking (in German) about the early 18th Century vampire cases from the point of view of forensic medicine.

The talk entitled Der Vampirismus und die Wiener Ärzte was given at the Pathologisch-anatomisches Bundesmuseum in Vienna on July 13th 2007.

For some reason he claims that all male vampires have an erection! It's likely that Peter Plagojewitz was not the only corpse suspected of being a vampire that exhibited this phenomenon, however I can't remember it being mentioned in other descriptions.

Reiter concludes that the disease associated with vampirism is anthrax.