Today Dear Readers, I bring you news from my very own home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan! You see, there’s this reverend holding a class on werewolves and the evil within us. Sounds interesting, however, the fact that a reverend is holding a werewolf discussion, well, I just don’t see his lectures being unbiased and based in fact. But who knows, I could be wrong. Personally, I’d rather not have my history and facts mixed in with religious ideals.
According to Mlive.com, Reverend Tom Tavella has asked the question, “Are we as human beings simply animals that have evolved, or are we something special and different? The werewolf examines that.”
He plans on discussing this further in a three-week class titled “Wolfman: The Beast Within,” held at the Catholic Information Center on January 10, 17, and 24. He has led previous classes on “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” as well.
The first week of his lecture will take a look at the classic concept of lycanthropy, with information on physical abnormalities such as hypertrichosis and illnesses such as schizophrenia, as well as a look at classic werewolf literature. The class will then watch the classic film (not the new version) “The Wolf Man” during week two, with a discussion to follow. Finally, week three is a deeper discussion about what it means to be human.
“Is there really a beast within? Are we capable of doing that ourselves?” Tavella asks. “If so, how can we deal with that evil within?”
Now, that sounds fascinating! I’m honestly tempted to go to the lecture myself.
The Mlive article then took a darker turn. Everything written above is all well and good, but then the author of the article spoke with one Charlotte F. Otten, a retired Calvin College English professor and a self-proclaimed “werewolf expert.” From the sounds of the interview she sounds more like a werewolf fangirl, than a werewolf expert. She has made the ridiculous claim that, “Vampires never actually existed except in fiction, but werewolves have a long history of existence. There are court records from France describing werewolves.”
That has to be one of the most idiotic things I have ever read. As many of you know, I have been writing for both Werewolves.com and Vampires.com for a long time now, I have been studying each creature for years and I have written about countless historical stories, folktales and more. Every single culture, every country has their own vampire cases and legends, and they are no less “real” than werewolves. Vampire hysteria in the Middle Ages and on reached a level that the werewolves never came close to. There are more court cases on vampires than on werewolves. So before Otten makes such embarrassingly stupid claims, she should first take a look into the history of vampires. Both vampires and werewolves have a fascinating and dark history, and both should be thoroughly explored before anyone argues anything.
Now, before I go into full on rant mode, I’ll end this here.
- Moonlight
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I’m thinking the “real” werewolves she may have been talking about would be people with mental illnesses. Regarding the lecture series, I am not sure. The evil that people do is not a separate entity to be concnored but part of human nature itself. The church has long equated certain animals and animal behaviours as evil when the darkest motives do not come from any “animal-like” behaviour but are all but unique to humanity. That’s what makes werewolves so dangerous, taking animal strength and abilities and putting a human mind in control.
I think it will end up being some born again defeat the evil beast inside us thing I really would not go to it if it is being hosted by a reverened or church thing. It will never be a good thing.
The phrase “the Beast-within” did that stand for an “animal”-side of the human soul or was the “beast” a symbol for all the negative sides of the human soul in that lecture?
Totally agree with Paul, had I been born during those times I’ll probably be labeled as a ‘Werewolf’ and killed just for having a different brain from everybody else.
Many of the people killed for being a ‘Werewolf’ were people with mental disabilities.
In a way, Vampires in a sense were real too. They were a product of people’s overly active imaginations over a certain type of real deadly disease at the time.
No, the disease didn’t make you into what we think of vampires today. But if someone saw you hacking up blood and guts while looking deathly pale, they would make up stories trying to explain what it was to make sense of things.
And even today, people with no medical profession and hacks/quacks have bizarre ideas that are quickly proved wrong. Vaccines cause Autism, anybody?
The way the Reverend talks about it, I wouldn’t want to go to an event like that. There’s nothing inertly evil about animals/beasts in thought or action. It’s nature to them, it’s normal to them. We also do plenty of things without thought because it’s instinctive or a habit. It’s like saying getting up in the morning to get a cup of Joe is evil…
Plus it seems like another, “HUMANS ARE SPIECL SPELACL AWSUME SNOWFLAKES!”, drivel.
I’m just tired of human denialism in any shape or form, religious or not about how dare you say humans are animals. We are animals. Deal with it. I wish people would stop acting like it’s the end of the world if you even mention it.
And yes, I would like a werewolf movie where the werewolf is aware of what it’s doing and being clever about it.
Rather than these same-old, “OH NO! Another Rampaging Beast! He must be mad! Can’t you see the veiled context that people with mental disabilities cannot be functioning members of society? No? Well, we will keep hammering that point so hard you’ll see stars!”.
And the werewolf forming a pack. What’s with all these lone werewolves? And can we have other were-animals? Not all places in the world have wolves. Okay, my rant’s over.
“half human half vampire”…werewolves
I wont to play