McClelland 1 Bruce McClelland 10 January 2014

Enlightenment versus Endarkenment: Science, Religion and Posthumous Magic

In the first decades of the eighteenth century, a number of similar reports began to reach the ears of both secular and religious authorities in Europe of strange, possibly magical, happenings in illages situated primarily at the outs!irts of the "absburg Empire# $t the center of each of these narrati es, %hose mar!ed similarities might no% lead us to suspect the presence of fol!lore, %as the assertion of some sort of attac! upon illage residents by a person or persons !no%n to be deceased, and, moreo er, &uite interred# Belief in so'called revenants had been reported as a curiosity among the Cycladic (ree!s at the beginning of the century by the )ro encal botanist Joseph )itton de *ournefort, %ho had been dispatched to the +e ant1 by +ouis ,I-# *hen, in 1.04, on the basis of similar reports in Mora ia, by then a "absburg pro ince, an $ustrian in estigator named Charles /erdinand de 0chert12 pro ided a name for this phenomenon of the reanimated dead acting aggressi ely to%ard illagers# *he phenomenon %as labeled magia posthuma, posthumous magic, since it %as assumed by the Catholic author that sorcery or diabolical forces must be behind such occurrences, and this term stuc! until at least 1.22# $s these episodes seemed to increase in fre&uency, and threatened to e3pand beyond Central and Eastern Europe, curiosity about them soon e ol ed into an3iety, spurring the need to e3plain them, especially from the points of ie% of religion and science# *his brief period in the first half of the se enteenth century corresponding to magia posthuma, first discussed retrospecti ely and some%hat humorously by -oltaire in his dictionary entry on vampires, is no% %ell !no%n to students of ampires, and to a lesser degree, those of

McClelland 2 %itchcraft# 4ne recent %ebsite, for e3ample, has con eniently documented by pro enance, date and episode irtually all the ma5or reported cases of these early modern European ampires#6 $ blog site, maintained by the 7anish scholar 8iels 9# )etersen, is de oted to the documentation of magia posthuma specifically#4 Mean%hile, se eral less serious (oth and ampire sites contain translated e3cerpts from the arious reports deli ered by the arious scientific, official and religious in estigators of this ne% form of magic turning up in places such as Mora ia' 0ilesia or 0erbia# $lthough )er!o%s!i pro ided a ser iceable ne% English translation of a significant portion of one of the ma5or discussions of re enants from that period, 7om $ugustine Calmet:s Dissertation sur les Revenants en Corps, les Excommunis, Les Oupirs ou Vampires,
Brucolaques, etc.5; in 1<.=, it %asn:t until the 1<>> publication of )aul Barber:s Vampires, Burial

an Death that ?estern scholars and ampire aficionados %ere reac&uainted %ith the significance of this period to the de elopment of the ampire myth, %hich %as characteri1ed by attempts to e3plicate the ine3plicable by means of re uctio a naturam# *he time of magia posthuma is thus generally ac!no%ledged by contemporary literary and cultural historians as the point at %hich the conception of the ampire entered ?estern consciousness, and of course became the basis for Dracula, as %ell as its predecessors and inheritors in di erse media and narrati e forms# /or it to be seen as such a point, ho%e er, in ol es ignoring not only the fact that the %ord @ ampire: %as used in 0la ic %riting at least three centuries prior to the eighteenth century, but also that the %ord in its earliest attestation may ha e had no lin! %hatsoe er %ith magic, death or anything supernatural# $lthough it is some%hat understandable that the earliest European interest in cases of posthumous magic, %hich became popular %ith the publication of Calmet:s unintentionally best'selling boo! of ampire and ghost stories, should ha e been based upon a pressing need to e3plain these e ents &uic!ly and in both local and philosophically understandable terms, it is less clear %hy there %as no in estigation into the pre'history of the ampire in the Bal!ans for almost a &uarter of a millennium# More curious still is that modern rationalist %riters such as Barber continue to

McClelland 6 repeat one of the basic e3planatory lines put forth in the mid'eighteenth century, such as that ad anced by the Catholic +o%lands physician (erard an 0%ieten, namely that the stories about ampires are based on the peasants: ignorance of the pathophysiological signs of death#= $s +arry ?olff points out, the cultural relati ism that %as emerging in the early stages of the Enlightenment %ould later become the basis of the discipline of anthropology, . but at the time of the gro%ing hysteria surrounding posthumous magic, it %ould be o er a century before the lin!s bet%een fol!lore, superstition and religion %ould be more clearly elaborated by the comparati e mythological studies of $fanas:e or the (rimm brothers, among others# *he popular notion encountered e en no% that the primary function of fol!lore is to pro ide an e3planation of things that other%ise are not understood by scientifically ignorant people is in part a residue of the period of eighteenth century rationalism and materialism, but it should be remembered that there %ere also pre ious periods of s!epticism regarding %itchcraft in earlier centuries, e3emplified by such important te3ts as the ninth'century Canon Episcopi# It is a notion that is seemingly hard to !ill# ?e certainly cannot e3pect that the eighteenth'century interpretations of uncanny e ents, reported second'hand at best from the margins of the ci ili1ed %orld, should ha e benefited from the supposed ob5ecti ity that characteri1ed the natural science and social disciplines follo%ing the Enlightenment# $t the same time, it is curious that the philosophical pre5udices of both rationalism and deep Catholicism A or more precisely %hat /ernando -idal calls the ph!sicotheological imagination> A that %ere pro5ected onto the stories of ampires, oupires or "roucolacas, to use the nomenclature most current in Central Europe at the time, should ha e been so intractable, so resistant to re isitation# 9lanic1ay B!la%nitsoyC has cogently discussed the political imperati e in $ustria and "ungary to pre ent a recrudescence of the acute religious tensions that lay beneath the organi1ed and spontaneous attac!s on heretics and %itches in the pre ious centuries#< But although the bul! of the ampire reports too! place in primarily 0la ic regions of "ungary, *ransyl ania and the )annonian plain A a fact noted

McClelland 4 e en by Calmet A there %as not much a%areness that the stories of ampires in these regions depended hea ily upon the ontology of %itchcraft, or that the stories %ere patterned in similar %ays# In other %ords, both the reports of ampire doings in the $ustro'"ungarian illages and the arious attempts to e3plain them failed to mention ho% similar in fact the tales %ere, at least structurally, to those in ol ing the persecution of %itches# Jan )er!o%s!i has applied the reasonable term Ddemon contaminationE to a situation of semantic merger in the Bal!ans and Central Europe, %hereby fol!loric entities that possessed the characteristics essential to the ampire Faccording to his definitionG might yet ha e different names and peripheral attributes in different regions, ostensibly as a result of cultural contact# But %hile this concept may e3pose the syncretic nature of ampire beliefs across both time and space, by itself it does little to indicate the process by %hich encounters bet%een %itch beliefs and ampire beliefs %ere resol ed# (in1burg and, later, 9lanic1ay, both ta!ing a purely historical tac!, attempt to identify a common, perhaps 0hamanic, pre'history to both %itches and ampires in the central European region, but both neglect to trace ho% the social aspect of ampire beliefs in the Bal!ans %as affected by synchronic religious and cultural differences in ?estern Europe# $s has been amply demonstrated, the concept of the ampire from its ery beginnings, probably some%here in Bulgaro'Macedonia in the early medie al period, seems to ha e been closely lin!ed %ith heresy# $s late as the nineteenth century, according to a study by the /innish 0la ist /eli3 4inas, in northern Hussia and 0iberia the %ord up!r# Fthe East 0la ic ariant of the %ord for ampireG %as in free ariation %ith ereti$ FhereticG,10 although the precise origin of this connection is not clear# ?hat is clear, ho%e er, is that, li!e the European %itch, the ampire deri es its meaning %ithin a Christian %orld ie%, and specifically articulates a confrontation bet%een Christian and pre'Christian conceptions of nature, di inity, time, the body, the soul or spirit, death and the afterlife#11 $t least from the perspecti e of Catholicism, the supernatural characteristics of both ampires and %itches %ere ta!en to ha e some degree of reality and

McClelland 2 thus both re&uired subordination to a &uasi'rational process of Ddemonstrating the being and attributes of God, from his works of creation#E12 FCritical to this attitude, therefore, is the belief that the ampire, if real, must in fact be a creature#G ?hen Jeffrey Burton Hussell says, D%itchcraft, though it %as the creation of Christianity, %as also its uttermost antithesis,E16 %e might ma!e a similar claim about the ampire, insofar as the possibility of resurrection of the body outside of a di ine miracle %as a contradiction of the essential Christian message# "o%e er, the history of ampire beliefs in the Bal!ans %as irtually un!no%n to Europeans prior to the oyages into the 4rient by de *ournefort and his il!, %hile subse&uent early in estigators of this phenomenon, such as the $ustrian regimental field surgeon Johannes /lIc!inger, %ho had sent bac! from 0erbia a slender ampire report entitled Visum et repertum%& F1.62G, had irtually no !no%ledge of the language or belief and ritual systems of the 0outh 0la s# *hus the reports of re enants A or rather, of the disinterment of re enants, as %e shall see A %ere essentially de oid of any framing cultural conte3t beyond the immediate proceedings# +ater episodes %ithin the period of magia posthuma, such as the famous ones cited by Calmet and others in Mora ia, 0ilesia and )oland, occurred in regions that %ere politically closer to the center of the "absburg Empire, but %here in each case, there seems to ha e been at least a substratum of the 0la ic ethnos# $lthough the ?est 0la ic peoples such as the )oles and the C1echs had been more or less assimilated into the European political and religious systems, common 0la ic fol! beliefs dating from the time before the Magyar in asion in the early tenth century, %hen all the 0la ic tribes %ere some%hat more unified and the (reat Mora ian Empire %as still intact, %ere still e ident, especially in agrarian regions and far a%ay from the "ungarian urban centers# *he purpose here, ho%e er, is not to attempt to reconstruct the history of ampire beliefs in "ungary, the Bal!ans or other Central European lands once populated by 0la s# In the first place, there is scant %ritten testimony documenting the content of %hat %as, e en up to the

McClelland = mid't%entieth century, primarily oral fol!lore# Compared %ith the e3tensi e documentary e idence from %itchcraft trials o er se eral centuries, the amount of data on ampires is almost tri ial# FIronically, prior to the nineteenth century, there seems to be more %ritten discussion of ampires north and %est of the 7anube than in the Bal!ans proper#G 0econdly, considering the degree of intercultural and language contact and the resulting le els of syncretism and merger, the scale of such a pro5ect %ould be more than daunting# But considering the importance that %as apparently attached to bringing do%n the fol! enthusiasms that lay behind the notions of both ampires and %itches in order to eliminate a common annoying obstacle to the pro5ect of constructing Europe as the center of ci ili1ation, it is fair to as! %hy the main theorists of ampirism failed to see the functional similarities bet%een the torture of %itches and the torture of ampires, and, more importantly, %hy these Enlightenment authors sought to remo e and dissect only the ampire, %hile ignoring or at least not see!ing to disco er and understand any other members of his e3tended 0la ic family, %hich together fleshed out a much richer and more coherent mythological system# *rue, it %as the ampire that %as causing all the fuss, but at the same time, it is hard to belie e that in at least some of these remote illages, there %ere no other beliefs or fol! entities that might also represent a challenge to the e3planatory po%er of either the emerging rationalism or natural theology# /or e3ample, in many 0la ic societies, at the fol! le el certain diseases or medical conditions, such as plague or e en toothache, %ere often personified# It is not e ident from the arious reports that the Catholic in estigators of ampires %ere also a%are of these other components of a belief system in %hich unorthodo3 artifacts of pre'Christian religion %ere often tolerated e en by the local priests# But e en if the absence of any mention of other fol! beliefs is a sign of lac! of a%areness rather than lac! of interest, it still belies an undue emphasis upon a construct A namely, the ampire A %hose ery nature as an animated corpse pro ided a rationale for competing ideologies to test the boundary bet%een the po%er of science and the po%er of religion#

McClelland . ?hereas to%ard the end of the %itchcraft trials, it %as the %itch herself %ho e entually became identified as the ictim of social persecution A i#e# the in&uisitors lost their legitimacy A, in the case of magia posthuma, the efforts of the authorities %ere directed not so much to%ard suppressing the ambulatory deceased as heretical e il'doers as to%ard silencing those illagers %ho might spread such stories, either because they represented a theological problem that %as more difficult to resol e than that for %itches, or because such beliefs %ere considered a retarding factor in the ad ancement of the Enlightenment pro5ect# In any case, the ampires themsel es %ere denied any po%er %hatsoe er# 4n the one hand, it is easy to see ho% the notion of a re enant corpse might seem to be of an entirely different order of e3istence, re&uiring a different set of principles and assumptions to e3plain, from that of a li ing %itch, %ho perhaps had engaged in consort %ith the de il but %as other%ise human and distinct in her abilities from a necromantic sorcerer# 4n the other hand, some of the attributes that had once been commonly ascribed to %itches A such as shape'shifting, contagiousness and e en blood'drin!ing Fespecially of childrenG A tended to become attached to ampires only much later, and only in boundary regions bet%een the Bal!ans, *ransyl ania and $ustro'"ungary, or in areas %here there had been both some form of an In&uisition or trials and some residue of an indigenous 0la ic population# *hat these attributes, %hich are no% much more often lin!ed to ampires, probably deri e from contact %ith %itch beliefs is further e idenced by the fact that prior to the eighteenth century, in purely 4rthodo3 regions, the fol!loric ampire %as a much simpler creatureJ indeed, the ampire %as definable as a re enant that caused arying degrees of harm to the li ing, but other%ise his only noticeable feature %as that he had been e3communicated# In fact, prior to the outbrea!s of ampirism in Central Europe during the eighteenth century, the ampire does not seem to be a remar!able figureJ the 0la ic term vampire, along %ith its basic phonological transformations, is encountered only sporadically until the organi1ation of ethnographic field e3peditions in the Bal!ans in the nineteenth century, and only seems to ha e ta!en on a purely fol!loric meaning

McClelland > in the fifteenth century, after the groups to %hich the term originally applied, namely pre' Christian 0la s and later, dualist heretics of arious stripes, ceased to ha e any status that might constitute a threat to the establishment of Christianity in the Bal!ans# *he reports %e see of ampires during the period of magia posthuma tend to be more concerned %ith the specific beha ior and reactions of the local populace than the ampire himself# Knli!e the nineteenth'century literary ampire, %ho is a narrati e character, the fol!loric ampire usually has no personality after deathJ he or she is !no%n only by deeds and effects, ex post 'acto, and the focus of the tales is on the rituals F%hich are, of course, ne er calle ritualsG that are performed by a group or a designated indi idual in order to cauteri1e the social %ound that has been caused by this disturbance in the natural order# ?here the ampire does e3hibit a personality trait, it not rarely tends to%ard humorousness, %hich suggests a degree of s!epticism on the part of the teller# Calmet, for e3ample, &uotes a report from de 0chert1:s (agia )osthuma in %hich a deceased shepherd from the Bohemian illage of Blo% %as disinterred follo%ing the collecti e reali1ation that he had posthumously appeared to other illagers, %ho %ould in ariably die %ithin eight days of this manifestation# *he shepherd:s disinterred body %as pierced %ith a sta!e, but this standard ritual measure pro ed ineffecti eJ indeed, the shepherd apparently too! the sta!e out and than!ed his aggressors for pro iding him %ith a stic!# *his sort of fol! irony is found e en in contemporary ampire tales collected by Bal!an ethnographers, and usually indicates something li!e a %in! and a nod by the informant at the reality of the e ent in &uestion# If nothing else, the presence of such a humorous detail in an other%ise gruesome story suggests that the tale itself embeds something of the nature of a 5o!e, something that is patterned yet outside the realm of the sacred# FI am reminded here of a %or!ing definition of @sacred: once suggested to me by the $merican linguist, Charles "oc!ett, %ho said that %hat is sacred is that %hich people refuse to laugh at# 0imilarly, )er!o%s!i, noting the introduction of humor into ampire films, suggests that a satirical component can only be effecti e %hen people are familiar enough %ith the basic pattern or narrati e structure that it

McClelland < becomes possible to play %ith their e3pectations#G In this case, I should not %ish to ma!e too much of a single detail of a story that has gone from an anonymous informant through de 0chert1 through Calmet and then through a translator, but the fact remains that there is something cinematically funny about a ampire that has been dug up and pierced %ith a sta!e %ho then has the effrontery to than! his persecutors# If nothing else, %e ought to as! %hy such embellishments, %hich re eal sub ersi e attitudes to%ard the %hole genre, are on the one hand faithfully repeated by Calmet, an 0%ieten and others, yet are not designated as accoutrements of the storytelling art# $s if to distance himself from any &uestions about the li!elihood of these reports, Calmet is s%ift to inform us that DBde 0chert1C e3amines the affair in a la%yer'li!e %ay, and reasons much on the fact and the la%#E *his sort of reliance upon proce ural argumentation, %hether legal, medical or bureaucratic, seems to be sine qua non for the earliest discussants of magia posthuma# "o%e er, I %ould suggest that it is precisely that fidelity to rational argument that obscures the fol! intentions of the e ents under analysis# It can be argued that the emphasis upon systematic presentation of e idence and, more importantly, any eye'%itness countere idence, in regard to interpreting ampire reports deri ed from a Cartesian principle that %hate er can be doubted can be re5ected# But it is also a conse&uence of frustration %ith the distortions of 5ustice, and the resulting embarrassment to Catholicism, that arose from the e3aggerations of the %itchcraft trials, %here hearsay and unfounded accusation by those %ith something to gain %ere admitted into testimony %ithout ob5ection# By the early eighteenth century, the e3treme absurdity of many of the 5ustifications for torture and e3ecution that had been permitted in both secular and non'secular proceedings %as %idely recogni1ed# *he abuse of po%er that had resulted from the imposition of a s!e%ed form of 5udicial in&uiry ta!en from Homan la% had clearly not ser ed the Church:s purpose of eliminating heresy or %itchcraft# 4n the contrary, than!s to the highly effecti e process of e3torting by torture the names of other candidates for torture Fa#!#a# %itchesG, the In&uisition in fact seemed to function more as a %itchcraft'generating machine than as a terminator# 4ne of

McClelland 10 the problems %ith the narcissism of systematic torture, in fact, is that because its results are so spurious and unsatisfying, li!e the sorcerer:s apprentice it seems to constantly generate a geometric progression of ob5ects for destruction or consumption, until it encounters the possibility of consuming itself# *hus the logic of the attac! on heresy and, later, %itchcraft %as by definition a short circuit# ?ith the shift from dealing %ith trials of li ing %itches to dealing %ith cases of immolation of dead ampires, it %as critical from a political and economic point of ie% to pre ent the re' emergence of such corrupt proceedings, since economically spea!ing, illagers and peasants %ere becoming less and less e3pendable as fodder for the self'consuming operation of the defensi e Church# But I am not sure that the issue %as specifically to replace pre'Enlightenment methods of social control %ith some sort of superior logical, and thus fairer, procedure based upon rationalism# ?ith regard to the so'called ampire epidemics, it is commonly claimed that the Enlightenment philosophers %ere merely attempting to e3plain supernatural phenomena by means of the recently articulated scientific method# $lthough )hilip Cole says, in concert %ith a common opinion, that the Dprimary concern of these BEnlightenmentC intellectuals %as to e3plain the epidemics in scientific terms or to discredit the reports as ra ings of primiti e peoples,E12 another %ay of loo!ing at the phenomenon is as an alternati e, and in fact more effecti e, attac! on heresy# $fter all, many of those %ho %ere &uic!est to in estigate ampires %ere CatholicsJ de 0chert1 himself, Calmet, of course, and e en an 0%ieten, %ho %as chosen by Maria *heresa not only because he %as the product of the scientific materialism that flourished at +eiden, but also because he %as, li!e the "absburgs, a Catholic# In our o%n time, %e can see ho% the methods of scientific in estigation and analysis can be cherry'pic!ed in the defense of belief'based constructs such as Dintelligent design,E yet this principle of Dargument from design,E %hich /ernando -idal rightly points out is at the base of early ampire rationali1ation, has a deep history going bac! to the natural theology of Calmet and beyond#1= In this system of thought, it is important to accept legitimate reports of the

McClelland 11 supernatural as fact, but to see! to e3plain such e ents as both natural and demonstrati e of (od:s design# 0pea!ing, for e3ample, of $bbL )ier&uin:s attempt to e3plain the irgin birth of Jesus, -idal points out that

*o increase the moral certitude attached to the e ent, physicotheology must e3plain it in a manner that is consistent %ith both the Bible and accepted scientific !no%ledge# *his is accomplished by means of t%o complementary operations that mo e in opposite hermeneutical directions# ?hile the results of natural philosophy are applied as strictly and as literally as possible to the problem under e3amination, the scriptural passages supposed to bolster the physicotheological intepretation are read in a most figurati e manner#1.

In regard to the problem of ampires, the theological problem %as more specifically to create an acceptable category for such beings so that the Christian %orld ie% %ould not be disturbed again, no% that an understanding had been reached %ith regard to the problem of %itchcraftJ

*he theological sta!es of ampirism %ere high# Contrary to most earlier apparitions, ampires %ere embodiedM they %ere, as Calmet put it, revenans en corps# /or the Church, it %as indispensable to differentiate authenticated cases of bodily incorruptibility and resurrection from ampiric phenomena, and to determine %hether these resulted from (od, the 7e il, posthumous natural magic, natural processes, or imposture#

*hus, the disco ery of ampires pro o!ed a ne% uncertainty in the contours of the real, %hich needed to be dealt %ith s%iftly, lest these creatures threaten the 5ust'achie ed relati e e&uilibrium that came %ith the end of the %itch trials# 8otice the possible etiologies of ampiresJ

McClelland 12 (od, the 7e il, natural magic, natural processes, or imposture# +eft out of this ery serious list, of course, is fol!lore, or in modern terms, fiction or e en entertainment# *he possibility that the e ents described in these stories, %hose reality had ostensibly been confirmed by tribunal and bureaucratic testimony and hearings, had no basis in fact but rather %ere simply e3amples of a class of tales repeated by certain groups under certain circumstances, is ne er considered# *his is not to say that all of the ampire stories %ere treated as actual# $t the ery outset of his treatise on re enants and ampires, 7om Calmet sets up four categories for these tales that closely intersect %ith those ascribed to physicotheologyJ F1G the e ents in the report must be denied as chimerical, the result of the ignorance of those passing on the taleM F2G the reputed ampire %as not really dead, but had been interred ali e Fa common enough occurrence at the time, %hich moti ated reports in the mid'eighteenth century by Bruhier and ?inslo% concerning the differential diagnosis of deathGM F6G the re enant body had returned by the command or permission of (od Fthese cases %ere characteri1ed by bodies that %ere entire at e3humation, and %hose blood %as red and fluidGM F4G the corpse is animated by the 7e il Fthese are re enants that do harm to man and animalsG# *he possibility that some of the tales %ere nonsense is thus ac!no%ledged by Calmet, but not by denying the fact of the story, but rather by ascribing the e ents of the report to misinterpretation caused by ignorance# F*his category persists in the ideas of Barber#G ?e thus see a %orld %here things either happened in the real %orld by natural causes, or else they didn:t happen at all or else %ere moti ated by di ine forces# *he moti ation to account absolutely for both natural and supernatural occurrences, %ith reference to the principles of scientific discourse, %ould appear to be an attempt to attenuate the rise of anti' religious sentiment among the more secular philosophers of the Enlightenment, such as -oltaire# $nd despite the ie% held by Housseau that the pro incial testimony regarding the ampire must be considered legitimate and therefore must be ie%ed from the tolerant frame%or! of cultural relati ism, the age of magia posthuma is still one in %hich rationalism may

McClelland 16 not supersede the persistent belief in the almighty po%er of a single (od, %hose ery e3istence is pro ed by the di ersity in the %orld, and by the incomprehensibility of some phenomena, especially concerning the possibly miraculous# It is this mandate, I %ould argue, to demonstrate the ability of Catholicism to rely upon natural science %hile simultaneously obser ing established Church doctrine regarding the miraculous and the supernatural, that pre ented Calmet and an 0%ieten from ta!ing a step bac! and loo!ing at the phenomenon of ampire storytelling itself# *he general approach throughout both of their %or!s A and Calmet:s is admittedly the more %ide'ranging and influential, as %ell as the most grounded in religion of course A is to accept, %here testimony supports it, the facts of the story, but to challenge only their significance or interpretation# *he lens of each author is focused upon finding the proper conte3t to account for the actions related in a ampire episode, rather than e3amining the conte3t in %hich the tale %as related# Calmet:s method in his *reatise on Vampires an Revenants, %hich is part of a longer %or! treating of apparitions in general, see!s to establish a certain ob5ecti ity in recounting these histories, e3cept in circumstances %here he cannot hold his tongue due to outrage# "is introduction to this %or! clearly defines his intended audience, namely those Dreasonable and unpred5udiced mindsE %hoJ assent to !no%n truth only after mature reflectionM !no% ho% to doubt %hat is uncertainM can suspend 5udgment on %hat is doubtfulM and can deny %hat is manifestly false# But he is careful to immediately dismiss the opinions of Dfreethin!ersE %ho re5ect e erything in order to distinguish themsel es# By this, %e may surmise that he is targeting anti'religionists or secular Enlightenment thin!ers %ho ha e no patience %ith the assertion that angels, the 7e il, or disembodied souls are real# 4ddly, he does not thin! to suggest that such freethin!ers might also be atheistic#1> $gain by %ay of implying his ob5ecti ity, Calmet claims that he does not intend to cure the superstitions or to correct abuses %hich arise from unenlightened beliefs# "e e3horts his readers to distinguish bet%een the 'acts related and the manner in %hich they happened# *o

McClelland 14 illustrate the difference, he points to arious passages in "oly 0cripture %here disembodied souls are mentionedJ here, because the te3t is scripture, the literal fact of such cases cannot "e ou"te , but as to the manner in %hich such things occur, these are (od:s secrets# In his erudition, %hich includes !no%ledge not only of Church history, but also ancient classical literature and European history, he is able to range across a %ide spectrum of citations of resurrections of the dead or the appearance of such, but he is al%ays unable to challenge any of the material as mythological, instructional, metaphoric, or e en politically moti ated# *he only times that Calmet can deny the reality of the reported e ents is %hen he feels there is not enough information to confirm the story, or %hen the narrator is unreliable# Chapter ,I-, for e3ample, begins by casting aspersions on the reliability of the informant, a reporter or essayist he calls Dthe 7utch (leaner,E F1.66G and then goes on to recite %ithout &uestion the interesting con5ectures about the medical nature of ampiresJ

*he 7utch (leaner, %ho is by no means credulous, supposes the truth of these facts as certain, ha ing no good reason for disputing them, and reasons upon them in a %ay %hich sho%s he thin!s lightly of the matterM he asserts that the people, amongst %hom ampires are seen, are ery ignorant and ery credulous, so that the apparitions %e are spea!ing of are only the effects of a pre5udiced fancy# *he %hole is occasioned and augmented by the bad nourishment of these people, %ho, the greater part of their time, eat only bread made of oats, roots, and the bar! of treesNaliments %hich can only engender gross blood, %hich is conse&uently much disposed to corruption, and produces ar$ an "a i eas in the imagination# "e compares this disease to the bite of a mad dog, %hich communicates its enom to the person %ho is bittenM thus, those %ho are infected by ampirism communicate this dangerous poison to those %ith %hom they associate#

McClelland 12 /rom this passage, %e see that Calmet is threatened by the attempt to e3plain the ampire phenomenon in entirely medical and pharmaceutical terms, %ithout reference to spiritual agencies# Interestingly, the 7utch (leaner seems to accept the contagious aspect of the ampire, %hich again is an attribute that is ne er encountered %ithout presumpti e contact %ith %itchcraft# It should be pointed out that Mora ia had %itnessed a significant outbrea! of plague bet%een 1.14 and 1.1=, only se enteen years before the report of the (leaner, but of course around thirteen years after de 0chert1 published (agia )osthuma, %hich concerned ampires in 4lomouc, Mora ia# $lso of interest here, though only stated obli&uely, is the (leaner:s suggestion that the ampire epidemics might be lin!ed to ingestion of hallucinogens# Calmet completely ignores that assertion, but implicitly ta!es issue %ith the idea that belie ers in ampires are ignorant and credulous# *his is a 5udgment he %ould prefer to use sparingly# )erhaps it is a !ind of early cultural relati ism that pre ents Calmet from siding %ith the more cynical ie% he finds typical of people li!e the 7utch (leaner# But more than that, it is important for Calmet to bloc! the reduction of the ampire to pure collecti e fantasy, since this %ould be contrary to his goal of demonstrating (od:s presence in the supernatural# +i!e most of us, Calmet is %illing to assume that stories are factual if they are related by someone %ho is reliable, and there is at the same time no good reason to deny their eracity# "o%e er, the categories of reliability and reason are some%hat different for Calmet# ?hile he seems %illing to ob5ect to the (leaner:s dismissal of peasants as credulous, %hen it comes to e idence of ampire'li!e beings from ancient, that is, pre'Christian times, he suddenly entertains more doubt# *he lamiae, strigae, sorcerers and magicians from anti&uity, although similar to ampires, cannot be pro ed Fbecause there is no ade&uate testimonyG# E en the "ebre% lilith, found in Isaiah, cannot be alidated as real, if only because of lac! of proof# Calmet, then, is a stic!ler for testimony, yet he seems to gi e more credence to miraculous e ents in the 8e% *estament than to tales of blood'suc!ing demons from (reece and Babylon# *his may represent a !ind of general lac! of acceptance of "ebre% beliefJ in chapter ,,-I, for e3ample,

McClelland 1= Calmet %rites that Dthe "ebre%s ri iculousl! belie e that the Je%s %ho are buried outside of Judaea %ill roll un ergroun at the last day,E and that he is relating Dthese fantastical ideas only to sho% their absurdityE F>2G# ?hy such a belief is ridiculous or absurd, %hile Christian ideas about consecrated burial and %al!ing deceased e3communicates are not absurd, re&uires e3amination# $dmittedly, by the ery nature of his physicotheological tas!, Calmet has put himself into a bo3 that he sometimes seems uncomfortable in# )erhaps the most difficult and essential problem that Calmet has to deal %ith in the entire scope of the ampire reports, old or ne%, that he has collected concerns the possibility that e3communicated bodies can rise from their gra es in a churchyard and lea e %hen "oly Mass is said, and in some cases return after%ard# "e cannot doubt that this has occurred, because it conforms to his o%n re&uirements for alid testimonyJ it occurred in broad daylight, Dbefore the eyes of a %hole population F>.G#E /urthermore, the e ent is reported by 0t# (regory, concerning 0t# Benedict, and discussed by 0t# $ugustine# By his o%n rules of logic, this re&uires some e3planation %hich conforms both to rational physics and ecclesiastical %rit on sin and the afterlife# "e has t%o fundamental &uestions he must ans%er simultaneouslyJ ho% could it physically happen that such e3communicates F%hom he does not call ampires, since these e ents belong to the early church and the risen e3communicates are not said to attac! peopleG can e3tricate themsel es from their gra es in front of an entire congregation, and ho% can there be communion %ith the dead if there %as no communion %ith them in lifeO "is attempt to cope %ith this conundrum, %hich he admits he cannot see ho% to resol e, seems to be based on the need to maintain spiritual order# Ma5or e3communication F%hich he carefully differentiates from minor e3communication, in terms of admissible procedures for atonement and absolutionG results from mortal sin# $ccording to Homan Catholic eschatology, the soul of the mortal sinner is condemned and in "ell immediately at death# *hus the problem arises, "o% can a dead man be absol ed and restored to communion %ith the Church %ithout

McClelland 1. proof of repentance and con ersionO "e &uotes the opinion of 0t# +eo, that it is a constant rule that the Church cannot communicate or ha e communion %ith the dead if not in life#F>>G# Calmet then lists si3 e3ing &uestions that surround the problemJ F1G "o% is it possible to absol e the deadO F2G Must not these e3communicates be absol ed from e3communication first, before they are absol ed of their mortal sin Fa sort of procedural re ersal, it %ould seemGO F6G Can they be absol ed if they do not as! for absolutionO F4G "o% can people be absol ed %ho died in mortal sin %ithout doing penanceO F2G +h! do these e3communicates return to their tombs after massO F=G +here ,ere the! during mass %hen they left the churchO It seems to me that it is the last t%o &uestions %hich are the most interesting, because they transcend simple dogma concerning the arious definitions of sin, absolution and communion# *he &uestion of %hy the dead bodies return to the church after mass of course implies that they ha e %ill, or at least moti ation# It sounds, from the %ay that it is phrased, as though Calmet is not as!ing ,h! in the physical'causal sense, but rather in the sense of free %ill# )ut differently, he seems to be as!ing not %hy the dead, once brought bac! to life, %ould %ant to return to the state of death, but rather, %hy the outcast e3communicates %ould %ish to return to a place %here they %ere un,ante , gi en the choiceO *o return to the Church, furthermore, %ould be a meaningless 0isyphan effortJ they %ould naturally ha e to get up and lea e e ery time the mass %as said# *he &uestion of locus A ,here ,ere the!- A is an e en more fascinating &uestion, philosophically, because it suggests that the bodies and souls of the e3communicates are both separable and locatable# In one sense, the ans%er to that &uestion depends on the resolution of the problem of the location of the mortal sinner in "ell# If the soul is in "ell, and the body is on the earth, then either the t%o are separable, or "ell and earth are identical F%hich of course is nonsense outside of dualismG# $ corollary to this issue, by the %ay, is the related &uestion discussed by Calmet, %hich is ans%ered differently bet%een Homan and 4rthodo3 Catholics, regarding refusal of the body to decay is a sign of sanctity or unholiness#

McClelland 1> Knfortunately, Calmet finesses the ans%ers to these &uestions by asserting that %e simply don:t ha e enough information A the story has for some reason not preser ed the circumstances that %ould help us understand %hat really happened# It is indisputable that the saints and bishops %ho are in the bac!ground of the story %ere a%are of the rules for absolution and e3communication A there is no possible implication of ritual error, here, or of 5umbled theology# But despite his un%illingness to ans%er the &uestions that he himself raises, Calmet has inad ertently in5ected into the ampire stories the philosophical dilemmas that %ill pro ide the dramatic energy for the continuation of the ampire myth into the literary period# Especially %hen he concludes that there is a polar opposition bet%een the good and the e il, and that Dthe %ic!ed %ithdra% from the company of the holy through a principle of eneration and a feeling of their o%n un%orthiness,E he is implying that the dead can ha e moti es, e en if only by means of opposition, that are based on 'eelings o' un,orthiness. *hus, the un&uiet dead can ha e feelings# *his pro ides the basis for building ampire narrati es in %hich ampires ha e personalities and characterological features# *he logic of Calmet:s argumentation throughout his treatise, then, is that stories of ampires and other re enants must be considered factual so long as there is reliable testimonyM it is imperati e to &uic!ly identify problems in the narrati e that sub ert confidence in the tale:s legitimacyM 4ccam:s ra1or'li!e e3planations in ol ing common sense and ordinary perceptions then apply in circumstances %here no theological reasoning is re&uiredM and, ultimately, in all remaining cases, the dead cannot come bac! to life %ithout (od:s permission, and his purpose in granting that is un!no%able# "e applies these principles repeatedly, yet he ne er stops to &uestion his o%n methodological assumptions# "e fails to discuss the patterned nature of many of the tales, especially those occurring in roughly the same part of the %orld at roughly the same time# "is o%n predisposition to physicotheological principles pre ents him from noticing that in no tale %as the ampire e er not disco ered or disinterred# "ad he noticed that in each case, the social disorder caused by the ampire had already been resol ed by ritual gestures at the

McClelland 1< time the stories %ere related, he might ha e come to the conclusion that that fact, too, needed to be e3plained# $s opposed to Calmet, (erard an 0%ieten %as more interested in curbing Dthe e3cesses %hich led to the belief in ampirismE1< than %ith reconciling ampire beliefs %ith Catholic thought# $lthough an 0%ieten %as Catholic, he %as strongly anti'Jesuit and had li ed most of his life in a )rotestant country, so it should not be une3pected to find, in his discussion of ampire reports, a more straightfor%ard Enlightenment approach to%ard debun!ing the idea of re enant corpses# $ physician trained under one of the great medical and physiological obser ers of all time, "ermann Boerhaa e, an 0%ieten applied his e3tensi e !no%ledge of medicine and pathology to resol ing the reality problems posed by the li ing dead# *hose ambiguities led to social situations that threatened again to cause serious tensions bet%een church and state, and an 0%ieten combined his political acumen N %hich had landed him a 5ob as protome icus under Maria *heresa N %ith his scientific training to attempt to head off a resurgence of the in5ustices that characteri1ed the iolence of the arious reformations and counter'reformations, as %ell as the In&uisition# $ccording to his biographer, /ran! Brech!a,

It %as often not religion itself to %hich the leaders of the %estern Enlightenment ob5ected but to %hat seemed to them 'alse religion A useless legalisms and senseless formalities %hich, in the name of piety, perpetuated ancient social in5ustices# /alse faith also perpetuated false reason# -an 0%ieten, a de out Catholic, recoiled, for e3ample, at the e3cesses %hich led to the belief in ampirism#20

/or all his rationalism, -an 0%ieten had no problem accepting the agency of the 7e il in reports of ampires and the li!e, but %hereas Calmet %as intent upon ascribing to the 7e il the actual inhabitation or moti ation of the corpse, for an 0%ieten, the 7e il:s in ol ement lies in

McClelland 20 the po%er to create illusions, %hich is the basis of possession# )osthumous magic, a term that he ta!es from de 0chert1, is really a manipulation of perceptions caused by a demonic agent# *hese arguments, grounded in medicine at the cusp of the emergence of a science of the mind, should recall some of the fourteenth'century treatises attempting to discount the ability of the demonic %orld and the physical %orld to intersect# Hussell cites a 1412 medical treatise by $ntonio (uaineri entitled D?hether 7emons Can Be Coerced through the Kse of Characters, /igures and Incantations,E and another treatise from Cologne F1412G %hich suggested Dthat some of these illusions proceed directly from disturbed minds rather than from demonic influence#E *hough some%hat different in their focus, these earlier treatises on %itchcraft %ere dealing %ith the same problems that confronted both Calmet and an 0%ieten %ith respect to ampires, namely ho% to account for the phenomena in the liminal 1one bet%een the physical and metaphysical uni erses# 7istortions in perception could be caused by the 7e ilM indeed, that %as %hat he %as best at A deception, going all the %ay bac! to 0atan the *empter# In the attempt to reorgani1e the %orld such that supernatural phenomena could in ariably be deconstructed by some rational procedure, it al%ays seemed incumbent on the earlier eighteenth'century in estigators to fall bac! on the 7e il as a last resort# $s I ha e attempted to sho%, the modern resolution of this problem %ithout the 7e il %ould in ol e conte3tuali1ing the stories themsel es as communal e ents# $lthough from an 0%ieten:s brief Consi eration it is easy to see ho% he is moti ated by a desire to intercede on behalf of peasants %hose lac! of enlightenment %as li!ely to cause them serious problems, li!e Calmet he accepts the basic reality of the e ents related, but sub5ects them to a medical ratiocination that e3plains irtually e erything in mechanistic terms# "e does not establish any boundaries around the probable and the improbable, ho%e er, %hich allo%s him to e3tend his rationalistic arguments into the realm of the improbable, and then, %hen he reali1es %here this has gotten him, he in o!es theology# $s if &uoting Calmet A %hich

McClelland 21 is not entirely out of the &uestion A an 0%ieten %rites that Dit is e&ually true that the E il 0pirit must ha e permission from (od to produce effects that surpass natural causes#E21 *he E il 0pirit as cause of ampirism as %ell as %itchcraft represents a theological tradition that is more solid in the ?estern than the Eastern Church# Indeed, in the ampire fol!lore of 4rthodo3 countries that %ere not in close contact %ith ?estern European notions about %itches, the E il 0pirit is ne er con5ured as a moti ational factor, at least until much later# $lthough the ampire %as clearly associated %ith heresy and the presumpti e failures of the body and soul to undergo proper ecclesiastical rituals due to e3communication, in areas %here ampire fol!lore %as indigenous, the comple3 physical and theological arguments of the sort proposed by Calmet or an 0%ieten %ould be far beyond the comprehension of the illiterate agrarian illagers %ho told these stories# *hat does not mean, ho%e er, that these people repeated these tales as unfounded e3planations of apparently unnatural phenomena# +i!e other oral forms, such as epics, %hen loo!ed at collecti ely the ampire tales ha e a clear pattern, and that pattern is based upon the placement of the ampire %ithin a more coherent, yet often self'contradicting, set of fol! religious beliefs# In the %orld of fol!lore, as in myth, there is no need to resol e contradictions or e3plain the supernatural or uncanny A these are the basic ingredients of this form of discourse, and they constitute its po%er# ?ith the incursion of ampire tales into the consciousness of a society that had %itnessed centuries of iolence and e3ecution in the name of heresy and %itchcraft, the ampire represented an opportunity to ensure that the social psychological imbalances of the In&uisition and %itchcraft trials %ould not happen again# Because the ampire %as both physical and unholy, and because it occupied a liminal position bet%een death and life that had pre iously not been e3plained, it %as selected for e3plication by t%o parallel streams of thought during the Enlightenment, represented by physicotheology and Calmet, on the one hand, and medical materialism and an 0%ieten on the other# $lthough the intentions of these t%o thin!ers may ha e been noble, in that they sought to enlighten the

McClelland 22 masses by bringing them into the ne% %orld of science, they also represented early attempts to restrict the domain, as %ell as the dominion, of the fol! imagination#

McClelland 26 HE/EHE8CE0

1 2

*ournefort F1.1>G, 1, p 122 ffM -oltaire, 7ictionnaire, $msterdam 1.=4# s# # @-ampires: Cited by Calmet F1>20G, p# 42 6 httpJPP%%%#shroudeater#com 4 httpJPPmagiaposthuma#blogspot#com 2 $n English translation of the entire te3t had appeared as ;QQQQQQQQQQQ# = )aul Barber, in *he Vampire. / Case"oo$. . +arry ?olff, ed# *he /nthropolog! o' the Enlightenment. F)alo $lto, C$J 0tanford Kni ersity )ress, 200.G#
>

/ernando -idal, DE3traordinary Bodies and the )hysicotheological Imagination#E MAX- PLANC K- INST I TUT F R WI S S ENSCHAFTS G E S C H ICHTE. Preprint 188., !!1. httpJPP%%%#mpi%g'berlin#mpg#deP)reprintsP)1>>#)7/
(abor 9lanic1ay, *he 0ses o' 1upernatural )o,er F)rincetonJ )rinceton Kni ersity )ress, 1<<OQG# 4inas, Hereti"# $# %$&pire# $n' (e&)n# in R*##i$ /eli3 J# 4inas *he 1lavic an East European 2ournal, -ol# 22, 8o# 4 F?inter, 1<.>G, pp# 466'441 11 Bruce McClelland, D0acrifice, 0capegoat, -ampireJ *he 0ocial and Heligious 4rigins of the Bal!an /ol!loric -ampire#E )h#7# dissertation, Kni ersity of -irginia, 1<<<# 12 -idal, 2001 16 Jeffrey Burton Hussell, +itchcra't in the (i le /ges# 2=.# 14 httpJPP%%%# ampgirl#comP isum#html
10 <

)hilip Cole, D*he Myth of E il#E Chapter fourJ Communities of /ear# .< /ernando -idal, p# .# 1. -idal, p# 16 1> )# 21 1< /ran! *# Brech!a, 3erar van 1,ieten an his +orl , %4556%447 F*he "agueJ Martinus 8i5hoff, 1<.0G# )# 162# 20 Brech!a 161'2# 21 McClelland, 0layers and *heir -ampires, 16=
1=

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