The Grocer’s Curse

At the University of Washington at Seattle, a mild mannered professor continues to stir up ancient magic.  No, this is not a Lovecraft story but a real life linguist who makes his living reading archaeological relics.  His specialty, though, is the way ancients used and believed in magic.

Professor James Hollmann has interpreted numerous Greek epistles, inscriptions, and symbols specializing in their magical intent. A few years back he read a corroded lead “curse tablet” (late fifth or early sixth century AD) found in a drain near the original Antioch hippodrome. It read, “Bind, lay waste, and overturn the horses of the Blue [faction].” One wonders if the owners of Kentucky Derby racehorses do the same thing?

In the last few days, Hollmann has made international internet news again with the interpretation of another ancient piece of magic. In this case, the divine Hebrew name is used. (Represented as either Jehovah, Yahweh, or simply YHWH in English, but IAO in Greek letters). This lead tablet was inscribed, “O thunder-and-lightning-hurling Iao, strike, bind, bind together Babylas the greengrocer,” reads the beginning of one side of the curse tablet. “As you struck the chariot of Pharaoh, so strike his [Babylus'] offensiveness.” It continued, “O thunder—and-lightning-hurling Iao {Yahweh}, as you cut down the firstborn of Egypt, cut down his [livestock?] as much as …”. (The remainder of the text was destroyed.)

The author may or may not have written this curse (sometimes an amunuensis was hired), but his name was Babylus, his mother was Dionysia-Hesykhia. His profession was selling vegetables. Apparently another vendor was cutting into his business.

Not exactly the Necronomicon, but very real indeed. Ancient businessmen believed in calling down the divine and using whatever intimidation tactics or advantage they could when they found themselves in a predicament, or feeling jealous of a rival.

At Miskatonic Books we love to read horror, but we also wish to understand the esoteric realities behind those horror stories. Religious skeptics from Richard Dawkins to Mr. Ray Garton (whom we respect and enjoy) would have us shun our religious side. However, to some are given a religio-skeptical nature, and to others are given a deep spiritual need with desires to have it filled. If you have that portion of your brain activated, it can no more be shunted away than one can choose to be shy or gregarius, compulsive-obsessive, mathematically gifted, a piano virtuoso, or a mechanical klutz. We are who we are, and based upon those traits we have, choices must be made. May they all be correct choices.

We regret that Babylos chose the dark side of magic to harm another person, and regret when anyone does. However, the dark side is the basis of fear, and without it we would have pretty dull horror stories.

Spontaneous Myth: A New Appearance of The Orang Minyak

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. H. P. Lovecraft

Folklorists have thoroughly studied the origins of mythology. An event can spontaneously generate a story from a combination of a culture’s anthropological or sociological preconceptions. In turn, a collection of these “mythemes” (Or mythological themes) can be collected in a variety of ways to tell whole stories that can be basis of the underpinnings of the entire community. If one reverses this, one understands the key to individual culture.

It can be mundane such as why wear white at weddings, or why one culture adores tattoos and another abhors them.

A recent story by Rashvinjeet S.Bedi of the Star/Asia News Network (Sunday, Jan 01, 2012) shows how a myth is created from random elements. In most cases, humans have a condition whereby we see patterns where there are none. We tend to fear randomness. There must be a reason why Joe got eaten by a shark, but Charlie became a wealthy CEO. Indeed, Joe may have gotten drunk and fallen into the shark tank at the aquarium, while Joe graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, but barring this, randomness just happens. This we can’t stand.

Perhaps the best teller of these mythological tales – stories where normal people just have very horrific things happen – has been Brian Keene. But pick Ray Garton, or Ed Lee, or Michael Laimo, or so many others. It is the basis of our modern horror story since Shirley Jackson taught us that horror is right next door.

Enter the Orang Minyak.

A 1958 poster with an earlier era's Orang MInyak

Allegedly one 2 AM morning in Kampung Laksamana in Gombak around 40 residents divided into groups armed with lights and sticks were searching their village for a so-called Orang Minyak (oily man).

In fact they believed that two paranormal creatures had scurried about for 10 days.

1. Some claim to have seen and heard the orang minyak
2. Others say the thing is clad only underwear drenched in black shiny oil.
3. Still others say (like Spring Heel Jack f ancient London) jumps from one roof to another and vanishes into thin air within seconds.
4. One man claims “It is tall, stocky and bald”, while another is “thin and curly haired”. “It was breathing really loudly, like a cow.’

The myth begins to expand by adding cultural ritual, “the orang minyak conducts its ritual of reciting jampi (mantra) and having an oil bath.”

Then a location is given. “the villagers stumbled across the spot after chasing the orang minyak into some bushes…”

Justification? “There was a large oil patch there”.

More detail is added from other random events “… the next night, they found a packet of fried rice and noodles at the very same spot… later the food was gone … eaten by the orang minyak.”

Then a deep myth connects to these various elements. Or more likely, spliced onto a legend. “According to popular legend, the orang minyak is a person who has undertaken the study of black magic and as a rite of passage, and has to rape a certain number of anak dara (virgins) to pass that course.” A sort of gang initiation, one supposes.

Then comes the fear. “The villagers are worried because almost every house in the neighbourhood houses a young girl.”

To reinforce the story, “a 17-year-old girl did not only see the orang minyak a few times, but also felt ‘someone” caressing her and calling her to go out of the house’.” This may have been a simple psychopompic nightmare, an incubus dream, but it has now been spliced into the deeper legend adds to the new mythological beast.

Then another arbitrary story is added. “It reportedly also locked the family members outside the house on Christmas eve”.

Then this addition, “We saw a black heap underneath the kitchen table. When other residents poked it with a bamboo stick, we could see blood stains … It then fled to a neighbour’s house.”

The fear was real. One villager left. Or did he? Maybe it was an FOAF (friend of a friend story, which can never be verified.) “Unfortunately, all attempts by Sunday Star to contact him were unsuccessful.”

Often a myth or ghost tale is negatively reinforced by a skeptical authority figure. “… some of these stories sound incredible and illogical … it is hard to find any Kampung Laksamana resident who doesn’t believe in it …”

It isn’t true, but since everyone believes it is a higher level of truth. “During the Christmas weekend, some 200 people patrolled the street …”

There we have within a matter of less than a month, not only a new myth created, but carried on a national wire service. Myths are some of the most primal and powerful stories humans have, and they spread like wildfire. However, when they land elsewhrere, they easily morph to fit the new culture.

a classic Malaysian television version

For at least 2500 years, the “ghostly hitchhiker” myth has persisted. In Roman days (and there may be a few cases in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament) the hitchhiker, usually a girl, was found on a cart. In the mid-19th century, trains often had mysterious people appear and disappear. Then in the automobile age, the modern classic appeared. A teen-aged girl standing by the roadside suddenly was in the back seat of the speeding car. Later this became very elaborate, whereby a girl appeared to a boy, who took her home. She would leave a sweater, or other very identifiable garment. Then, having fallen in love, tried to relocate the address and either a cemetery was now there with the girl’s name on a tombstone, or inside the home a mother would say, “Yes, that is my daughter’s sweater, but she has been dead many years.”

It is a small step from a mythic story to a horror story, so perhaps one day the Orang Minyak will star in a new horror novel?

Professor Jan Harold Brunvand of the Univ. of Utah has written many books. He often documents the "vanishing hitchhiker".

 

Psychological Horror: Sybil – or Her Therapist?

A new book, Sybil Exposed, is an analysis by Debbie Nathan on how the professional psychiatric community can be bamboozled by popular urban legends and fads.

Sybil (1973), the book initiated by Flora Rheta Schreiber, became a phenomenal best seller. It purported to explain the traumatic life of the treatment of Sybil Dorsett, a pseudonym for Shirley Ardell Mason who experienced dissociative identity disorder – then known as multiple personality disorder. It went on to detail the therapy by psychoanalyst, Cornelia B. Wilbur. It is estimated that over 6 million copies have been sold, and it spawned two movies (1976 and 2007 made-for-TV). Ardell was said to have as many as 16 personalities, all vying for control. Clearly this was a real-life horror story worthy of Shirley Jackson’s pen, and all the more horrible as it was real.

Or was it?

Nathan, a reporter, seems to have a sixth sense about pop-fads. In the 1980′s Nathan challenegd the nationwide panic over ritual sex abuse. In this new book, Nathan has done the classic reporting leg work to uncover some troubling issues forming the underpinnings of the Sybil book. Schrieber left papers at the New York City law school, and these – shades of Ray Garton – uncovered some Seventh Day Adventist shadowy horrors.

Garton has long discussed the significant psychological mind games that some Adventists use to exhibit control over parishioners or family members. Nathan discovered that some of these techniques must have been in play in the 1930′s childhood of Mason. Some real medical ailments were later attributed to psychological manifestations by experts.

Shreiber and Wilbur, both women, lost a great deal of prestige at the end of WWII, and as a result were looking for a means back into a more elite status with colleagues. Mason, apparently, was their ticket to stardom. Mason became a dependent of Wilbur’s, getting jobs, income, and housing from her.

The Three Faces of Eve was a previously classic case of multiple personalities, but literature searches showed that of billions of people, and millions of therapy cases, less than 100 exhibited the Eve-syndrome. Not relying only on Mason’s increasing dysfunction, drugs were administered to produce desired effects. Mason became alarmed, and tried to escape and deny her supposed condition, but Wilbur would have none of it. This confession that much of her personalities were made up out of whole cloth was considered a deeper cry for help.

Wilbur sent trial balloons out to publishers, but even with the piled-on syndromes, interest was mild. The plot and chronology was enhanced and from that came the bestseller. The screenwriter, Stewart Stern, was skeptical of the claims, but Wilbur was persuasive and brought Stern under control. Even so, Stern added even more fiction to smooth out blatant holes in the plot.

Distracted by notoriety, Wilbur allowed Mason to escape to a life of reasonable normality until her identity was revealed. Mason immediately fled back to Wilbur. Unlike a Hayes Commission movie, Wilbur did not get her comeuppance. Instead, she went on to accolades and success, while Mason faded into obscurity. The fad escalated, and suddenly thousands of patients were discovered to have personality syndromes each bringing relative success to their therapists.

“Real” Werewolves

Genesis 25:25; Genesis 27:11 {He} … came out red all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. … And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man …

Pity the poor werewolf. Despite great performances by Lon Chaney, Jr., and great writing by old H. Warner Munn and Ray Garton (see Beastial, above), the werewolf gets no respect. Always overshadowed by vampires and zombies, werewolves are low on the monster food chain.

Fedor Jeftichew (1868-1904)

However, what if you were a “real” werewolf, like the people portrayed in this post? Each has or had Hypertrichosis or Ambras Syndrome – caused by a faulty chromosome.

Pruthviraj Patil: 11 years old in 2008

Perhaps the most famous, and most exploited individual was JoJo the Dog-Faced Boy (aka Fedor Jeftichew, a Russian recruited by showman P.T. Barnum), who toured widely during the latter half of the 19th century. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1868, Fedor Jeftichew suffered from the medical condition and toured with his father, Adrian, who suffered from the same ailment in French circuses. Fedor eventually signed a contract with P.T. Barnum, who brought him to the United States in 1884, when he was sixteen.

Even earlier was Petrus Gonzales born in the Canary Islands around 1556 and taken to be presented to French King Henri II due to his unusual appearance. As a member of the court, he was educated. He married and produced five hairy children, three daughters and two sons. A grandchild was also reported with hypertrichosis.

Supatra Sasuphan: 11 years old 2011

Many great prophets have told us to respect, honor, and love one another regardless of race, creed, or color. Let us also take a moment and respect these individuals who face great challenges on a daily basis.