Werewolves » lycanthropy

Haunted America Tours of New Orleans

Bryce — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:49:35 +0000

Alyne Pustanio, a Sr. Writer and Contributor to Haunted America Tours, drops by to discuss all things werewolf!

Do you yourself believe that werewolves truly exist somewhere in the world?

I definitely believe werewolves exist all over the world! Every culture has a tradition that addresses folk experiences with lycanthropy in one form or another. In Europe, especially in France and Central and Eastern Europe, the werewolf is most traditional in that it is perceived to be a human that actually transforms into a wolf-like creature. This transformation can be affected by certain variables such as lunar cycle, a family history of lycanthropy, and even an individual’s relationship with the Church; in Eastern Europe there are additional catalysts such as cursing or overlooking by the Evil Eye.

Whether or not individuals actually have transformed into animal-like creatures, the tradition of magical shape-shifting probably provides the most valid explanation for werewolf encounters today. Individuals who engage in shape-shifting as a form of ritual magical practice are able to expel their spirit from their body in a manner similar to astral projection. Once loosed, the spirit can take on any shape, with animal forms being the most common. Shape-shifting, in some aboriginal cultures called “skin-walking,” is well known and documented all over the world with incidences of warriors fighting on the battlefield in shape-shifted forms – the Berserkers of the Nordic regions for example – or of shamans travelling great distances and performing wondrous feats of magic in animal form.

Sightings of werewolves and werewolf-like creatures are consistent across the globe and demonstrate the enduring appeal of this monstrous creature in the common psyche of mankind.

On any of your tours, have you ever encountered a pupil that was a complete werewolf fanatic? Please explain.

Not many of the tours in the New Orleans area focus on werewolves specifically; they may mention the Loup Garou, the werewolf of the Louisiana swamps, in passing references, but by and large most tours focus on haunted locations, the voodoo tradition, and the still-thriving vampire culture developed in response to the Anne Rice novels.

There are, however, individuals in the darkside community who celebrate the culture of the lycanthrope. “Lord Chaz” is one of these individuals; he is actually an “out” lycanthrope who claims to be able to transform into the beast at will. If you Google his name and “New Orleans” I’m sure you’ll be able to track him down. He has a MySpace presence, too.

How has your business been affected by the downturn of the economy?

The economic challenges facing the rest of the nation are not unknown to New Orleans, a city that thrives on tourist and convention dollars. However, the effect is cyclical and although business was depressed in the fall of 2009, things are picking-up. Generally speaking, the New Orleans tourist season peaks between September and November, at Mardi Gras, and again in the Spring, from March through May. The oppressive heat and humidity of summer, more than the threat of hurricanes, is a major deterrent to travel here; from June to August, the major tourism is a by-product of convention trade.

The recent surge of interest in ghost-hunting and the paranormal is a constant feeder for the New Orleans guided tours market. Although New Orleans Haunted History Tours remains the top-grossing tour company in the city, in the last 12 to 18 months two other companies – French Quarter Phantom Tours and New Orleans Ghost and Spirit Tours – have established themselves as healthy competition to Haunted History Tours and its corner on the haunted tourism market in New Orleans.

For more information on Haunted America Tours, please click here!

- Bryce

Real Cases of Lycanthropy: Jean Grenier

annimi — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 02:58:38 +0000

Case studies of lycanthropy are not as steeped in folklore and mythology as they were in the 18th, 19th, and even in the early 20th centuries. Today, we have the science and technology, as well as the psychological skills to understand that lycanthropy is not only a highly entertaining theme in films, but also a recognized mental illness. But almost 200 years ago, in France, –which, unlike England, is saturated in werewolf legends, –there weren’t too many psychiatrists or therapists.

Jean Grenier, dubbed the ‘Werewolf of France’ by historians, was around 14 years old when he announced to his village that he had stalked, killed, and eaten children in the area. Children had been going missing in the area, so Grenier was immediately arrested. Back then, before the separation of church and state, if you committed a crime, you’d have the right to a trial, but you’d be tried and sentenced by primarily church officials. Jean Grenier was declared mentally unfit. The judges concluded that Jean Grenier had been possessed by a demon, resulting in lycanthropy. His sentence was to be sent to a monastery to live for the rest of his life.

Jean Grenier was even examined by the infamous Pierre de Lancre; the man who single-handedly initiated the Basque Witch Trials, –a witch-hunt that killed over 600 men and women in France, almost a century before the Salem witch trials took place in colonial Massachusetts. He also wrote several popular volumes of religious anti-witch guides, and witch-hunting books. After several years at the monastery, de Lancre examined Grenier, and found the boy “diminutive in stature, very shy, and unwilling to look anyone in the face. His eyes were deep set and restless; his teeth long and protruding; his nails black, and in places worn away; his mind was completely barren; he seemed unable to comprehend the smallest things..”

One of the older case studies of Grenier comes from the fictionalized accounts by Sabine Baring-Gould, who almost novelized Grenier’s ordeal. Baring-Gould embellished various different real case studies of demon possession, lycanthropy, cannibalism, and other ‘supernatural afflictions.’ Baring-Gould’s ‘The Book of Were-wolves’ goes from scientific observation, to a collection of stories about real lycanthropy cases.

Clinical Lycanthropy on FOX’s ‘Mental’

annimi — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:50:21 +0000

Mental, a show on FOX, outlines the various cases presented to the Director of Mental Health at Wharton Memorial Hospital; Dr. Jack Gallagher, a British man living in America, is both brilliant and conflicted. He delivers therapy to his patients with unorthodox methods, which pits him against the other doctors in the hospital. One of the cases he encounters, during the last episode of the season, is a man reporting hysterically that he was bitten by a werewolf, and will soon transform.

The man, Ellis Kahane, shows up, spazzing out, all sweaty, and grody; he claims that his breath has been terrible, he’s constantly scratching, and that he was bitten by a werewolf about a month ago, right before the full moon. Dr. Carl Belle, who probably hates Gallagher the most, quickly dismisses the patient because of his past anxiety issues, and because Clinical Lycanthropy is such a rare mental condition. Ellis Kahane, in a fit of anger, bursts into a meeting for the team of psychiatrists, and holds them at gunpoint.

Gallagher and the other doctors manage to get the story out of Kahane; he attacked a man the night after he left the hospital the night before, and claims to have blacked out, then went to his hotel. The show portrays how, in his mind, he appears as a werewolf. After a struggle for the weapon, one of the doctors, Arturo, is shot; the team tries caring for him while Gallagher tries to work with Kahane.

After muddling through some of the subplot, the interesting nugget of clinical lycanthropy facts are in there; one of them is that the condition is so rare, there’s really no ‘right’ way. In the end, in an attempt to remove the gun, Gallagher offers his arm to Kahane, who bites him. Now that Gallagher is also a werewolf in Kahane’s perspective, he hands over the weapon. It’s later revealed that the man Kahane attacked and killed was actually a violent mugger. After the police arrive, Kahane is left with Gallagher, both restrained, until the moon rises; neither of them turn into werewolves, obviously. The season ends on a depressing note for fans, but the rare and interesting look at werewolf psychosis is invaluable to the werewolf fan!

Bigby Wolf

holiday — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:45:42 +0000

Allow me to introduce Bigby Wolf; comic book hero, werewolf, and the somewhat human incarnation of the Big Bad Wolf. Bigby was also described briefly in our post about werewolf comics.

Bigby is one of the main characters of Bill Willingham’s comic book series, Fables, which was first printed in 2002.
Bigby Wolf was a hybrid creature, born from a wolf mother named Winter, and sired by the North Wind himself, who transformed into a wolf for a short period of time. He was the runt of the litter and was teased by his brothers, who gave him the ironic title of “Big Bad Wolf.” Bigby, as he’s known to the other fabled creatures in Willingham’s comics, grows up trying to prove himself to truly be big and bad.

Bigby vowed to devour a larger creature every day to prove himself. He started with a grasshopper, but eventually tried to eat a human grandmother and her granddaughter, Little Red Riding Hood. He fails in this endeavor, but he survives the encounter with the woodsman. He does eventually devour humans, whole villages, without sparing women or children. He becomes the largest wolf among all the fabled creatures.

His brothers, meanwhile, tracked down their father, the North Wind, and from him learned to shape shift. Bigby never learned this skill, but gained the ability to shape shift after entering the “Mundane world” which, in Fables, is our world. The Fables (creatures and characters from fable stories) have to flee their homeland when it is attacked by a fearsome Adversary, and they flee to New York.

There, Bigby must pass as human. Snow White, another Fable who escaped from “the homelands,” happened to have a blade enchanted with lycanthropy. She stabs Bigby with it, giving him the ability to shift back and forth from wolf and human form.

Bigby must remain in human form, to prevent discovery from the “mundy people” or ordinary humans of earth. As a werewolf, though, he proves himself to be able to do good in the world. He redeems himself from his past deeds of murder and mayhem, and doesn’t hurt another innocent person again. He eventually even becomes the sheriff of Fabletown, the hidden town in New York where all the Fables live.

It’s a touching story, really. Anyone can change and become a person who does good for the world, even the big, bad wolf.

The Duchess of Malfi

moonlight — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:00:55 +0000

Stories of werewolves have been around for ages – from stories spread by word of mouth to modern day films and books. But these new and bloody werewolves may not have come to be if it weren’t for the macabre renaissance play, The Duchess of Malfi.

Written in 1612 by John Webster, this sinister and violent play switched things up and added lycanthropy to the mix, something quite unheard of at the time. The Duchess of Malfi is a play full of dark themes such as murder, revenge, insanity and all sorts of other disturbing and wicked things.

Set in Italy in the 1500s, the plot follows two deceitful brothers, the Cardinal and Ferdinand, who are determined to not only usurp their widowed sister from her throne but to also keep her from remarrying below her station. But the independent Duchess runs off and secretly marries her steward Antonio. Her and Antonio continue to keep their marriage secret until her brother’s spy, Bosola finds out about them and their children, and that’s when the story really starts.

What follows is a plethora of tortures all meant to destroy the Duchess. Her brothers furious at her “whorish ways” do everything they can to not only punish her, but to also take her wealth for themselves. The brothers and their agents first kill her husband and children, then they have Bosola kill the Duchess by strangling her.

As for the werewolf bits of the play, it was the incestuous and corrupt brother Ferdinand that was the beast. In the story he grows furry, and even more insane, on the night of the full moon. And in regards to the deaths of his sister and her children he says, “She and I were twins. The death of young wolves is never to be pitied.”

If you enjoy old-school plays filled of death and chaos then The Duchess of Malfi is for sure something you should check out.

- Moonlight

Werewolves Around the World

Werewolves vs. Vampires

moonlight — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:00:03 +0000

If you’re here then I think it’s safe to assume you love werewolves. Am I right? But do you love vampires as well, or are you pretty anti-vampire like most werewolf fans are? Vampires and werewolves hating one another isn’t anything new. It’s an age old feud known by all. You have movies like Underworld, books like Twilight and Anita Blake and so forth all showing either a strained relationship between the two species or full out hatred. But believe it or not guys, vampires and werewolves share a few similarities.

First off, like vampires, werewolves also caused mass alarm in Europe during the 1500s and onwards. Back then people were terrified of becoming a vampire, they did all sorts of insane things to corpses and went all out to prevent vampires from coming into being, there were even “experts” that wrote multiple pamphlets on the subject to inform the people about these supposed vampire infestations. The same deal went down with werewolves as well, people feared werewolves in the same way as they feared vampires. Fun fact: there were nearly thirty thousand cases of lycanthropy reported between 1520 and 1630.

Then there was this old belief that someone that was a werewolf in life would then return as a vampire once they died. All due to being ungodly and having a cursed soul and all that not-so-good stuff. Because of this, in Slavic territories (as well as a few others), many names originally used for werewolves eventually came to be used for vampires (vrykolakas, vukodlak, vurkodlak and volkodlak). In France, demonologists wrote of an unique kind of werewolf called the loublin. This werewolf was found in cemeteries, digging up corpses and then eating them. Werewolf myths like this were found all around the world, along with vampire myths as well. In Montenegro, there was a belief that all vampires must spend time in wolf form. In Greece, anyone that ate a sheep that had been originally killed by a wolf would become a vampire.

Vampires and werewolves may hate each other in entertainment but in history and mythology they have many ties to each other. The compatibility of the two was even examined by Ronald Chetwynd Hayes in his story “The Werewolf and the Vampire” (1975).

- Moonlight

A Case of Lycanthropy

moonlight — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:00:57 +0000

Now we have already covered clinical lycanthropy on this site in the excellent post here. But today I am going back to it, recounting an actual real case of clinical lycanthropy. This will give you a deeper look into this illness. The case I am talking about is one that was published in The American Journal of Psychiatry in 1977.

There was this 49-year old woman who was incredibly insecure, she felt inferior and had extremely low self-esteem and was in need of a lot of love and attention. She was totally obsessed with wolves; they even came up in her dreams. Loving wolves isn’t a problem in itself of course, but her level of obsession was dreadfully unhealthy.

She lived for years and years with this obsession, keeping herself under control until one day during a family get-together, where she lost it. Feeling overcome with the spirit of her “inner wolf,” she took off all her clothes and started acting just like one; an adult woman did this in front of her family and she hadn’t even drank any alcohol or done any drugs. The next night she lost it again, this time in her own bedroom. For two hours she growled, clawed and chewed at the bed.

Obviously out of control this woman was then brought to the hospital. She said that she was hearing voices and that the devil had entered her body. The doctors diagnosed her with lycanthropy. The woman said she was a wolf-woman by day and a wolf at night and that she was an animal with fur, claws and fangs. She also said that she would continue to roam the earth after her death, searching for perfection and her own salvation.

When the woman looked into a mirror, instead of seeing her own face she would see the head of a wolf. Staring at the wolf she would be caught snarling and growling into the mirror. Other times she would see her own reflection but one eye would look scared while the other looked like the eye of a sinister wolf.

She was diagnosed with chronic schizophrenic psychosis and not only received therapy but was also put on meds. The medicine took care of the chemical imbalance in her brain that caused the schizophrenia. Her horrifying episodes stopped happening within the month and when she looked in the mirror the wolf was gone. After nine calm weeks the woman was released from the hospital.

That is one case out of a few clinical lycanthropy cases. Not your fun magical werewolf, but still a very real and serious illness worth mentioning.

- Moonlight

Clinical Lycanthropy

admin — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:01:42 +0000

Clinical Lycanthropy is a mental illness (specifically, a psychiatric syndrome) that involves a strong delusional belief in the afflicted person that they have transformed into an animal, often a wolf. The syndrome is diagnosed by either a lucid patient indicating that he or she has at one time transformed into an animal, or by observing certain animal behaviors in the patient that would indicate a belief that he or she is currently transformed into some animal. The belief is caused by a form of psychosis or dementia, and causes the person to whole-heartedly believe that they have become a certain animal.

The only observable change will be in their behavior – they will indeed act like whatever animal they believe to have been turned into. Clinical Lycanthropy differs from the mythology of werewolves in that the afflicted person does not actually appear to have transformed into anything physically. They may only act differently, expressing animal behaviors such as how an animal moves or makes noise. The syndrome is so rare that very few modern examples are available for study (under 40 cases in record), and so the causes of the condition are not very well understood at this point in time.

The term lycanthropy is derived from Greek mythology and the story of King Lycaon, who supposedly fed human flesh to the god Zeus and was then punished by being turned into a wolf. Werewolf myths have persisted through our history, probably in most part due to cases of lycanthropy. On the other hand, there may also be a cultural basis for the wolf being the most frequent form of animal delusion. It appears that lycanthropy feeds the werewolf myth while the werewolf myth has a hand in determining exactly what animal form a person’s delusion will end up taking.