Enlightenment vs Endarkenment_4

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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 narraties, %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, moreoer, &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 )roencal botanist Joseph )itton de *ournefort, %ho had been dispatched to the +eant1 by

+ouis I-# *hen, in 1.04, on the basis of similar reports in Moraia, by then a "absburg

proince, an $ustrian inestigator named Charles /erdinand de chert2 proided a name for

this phenomenon of the reanimated dead acting aggressiely 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.# $s these episodes seemed to increase in fre&uency, and threatened to

e3pand beyond Central and Eastern Europe, curiosity about them soon eoled 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 seenteenth century corresponding to magia

posthuma, first discussed retrospectiely 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


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%itchcraft# ne recent %ebsite, for e3ample, has coneniently documented by proenance, 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 deoted to the documentation

of magia posthuma specifically#4 Mean%hile, seeral less serious (oth and ampire sites

contain translated e3cerpts from the arious reports deliered by the arious scientific, official

and religious inestigators of this ne% form of magic turning up in places such as Moraia'

ilesia or erbia# $lthough )er!o%s!i proided a sericeable ne% English translation of a

significant portion of one of the ma5or discussions of reenants from that period, 7om $ugustine

Calmet:s Dissertation sur les Revenants en Corps, les Excommuniés, Les Oupirs ou Vampires,

Brucolaques, etc.5 ; in 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 deelopment of the ampire myth, %hich %as characteried by

attempts to e3plicate the ine3plicable by means of reuctio 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 dierse media and narratie forms# /or it to be seen as such a point, ho%eer,

inoles ignoring not only the fact that the %ord @ampire: %as used in laic %riting at least

three centuries prior to the eighteenth century, but also that the %ord in its earliest attestation

may hae had no lin! %hatsoeer %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 hae been based upon a pressing need to e3plain these

eents &uic!ly and in both local and philosophically understandable terms, it is less clear %hy

there %as no inestigation 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


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repeat one of the basic e3planatory lines put forth in the mid'eighteenth century, such as that

adanced by the Catholic +o%lands physician (erard an %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 relatiism 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 oer a century before

the lin!s bet%een fol!lore, superstition and religion %ould be more clearly elaborated by the

comparatie mythological studies of $fanas:e or the (rimm brothers, among others# *he

popular notion encountered een no% that the primary function of fol!lore is to proide 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 preious 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

eents, reported second'hand at best from the margins of the ciilied %orld, should hae

benefited from the supposed ob5ectiity that characteried 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 hae been so intractable, so resistant to reisitation# 9lanicay !la%nitsoy has cogently

discussed the political imperatie in $ustria and "ungary to preent a recrudescence of the

acute religious tensions that lay beneath the organied and spontaneous attac!s on heretics

and %itches in the preious centuries#


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een by Calmet A there %as not much a%areness that the stories of ampires in these regions

depended heaily 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 inoling the persecution of %itches#

Jan )er!o%s!i has applied the reasonable term Ddemon contamination 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 hae 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 resoled# (inburg and, later, 9lanicay, both ta!ing a purely

historical tac!, attempt to identify a common, perhaps hamanic, 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 medieal period, seems to hae been

closely lin!ed %ith heresy# $s late as the nineteenth century, according to a study by the /innish

laist /eli3 inas, in northern Hussia and iberia the %ord up!r# Fthe East laic 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%eer, is that, li!e the European %itch, the ampire

deries its meaning %ithin a Christian %orldie%, and specifically articulates a confrontation

bet%een Christian and pre'Christian conceptions of nature, diinity, time, the body, the soul or

spirit, death and the afterlife#11 $t least from the perspectie of Catholicism, the supernatural

characteristics of both ampires and %itches %ere ta!en to hae some degree of reality and


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thus both re&uired subordination to a &uasi'rational process of Ddemonstrating the being and

attributes of God, from his works of creation#12 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,16 %e

might ma!e a similar claim about the ampire, insofar as the possibility of resurrection of the

body outside of a diine miracle %as a contradiction of the essential Christian message#

"o%eer, the history of ampire beliefs in the Bal!ans %as irtually un!no%n to Europeans prior

to the oyages into the rient by de *ournefort and his il!, %hile subse&uent early inestigators

of this phenomenon, such as the $ustrian regimental field surgeon Johannes /lc!inger, %ho

had sent bac! from erbia 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 outh las# *hus the

reports of reenants A or rather, of the disinterment of reenants, as %e shall see A %ere

essentially deoid 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 Moraia, ilesia and )oland, occurred in regions that %ere politically closer to the

center of the "absburg Empire, but %here in each case, there seems to hae been at least a

substratum of the laic ethnos# $lthough the ?est laic peoples such as the )oles and the

Cechs had been more or less assimilated into the European political and religious systems,

common laic fol! beliefs dating from the time before the Magyar inasion in the early tenth

century, %hen all the laic tribes %ere some%hat more unified and the (reat Moraian Empire

%as still intact, %ere still eident, especially in agrarian regions and far a%ay from the "ungarian

urban centers#

*he purpose here, ho%eer, is not to attempt to reconstruct the history of ampire beliefs

in "ungary, the Bal!ans or other Central European lands once populated by las# In the first

place, there is scant %ritten testimony documenting the content of %hat %as, een up to the


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mid't%entieth century, primarily oral fol!lore# Compared %ith the e3tensie documentary

eidence from %itchcraft trials oer seeral centuries, the amount of data on ampires is almost

triial# 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 econdly, considering the

degree of intercultural and language contact and the resulting leels 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 ciiliation, 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 remoe and

dissect only the ampire, %hile ignoring or at least not see!ing to discoer and understand any

other members of his e3tended laic 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 beliee 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 laic societies, at

the fol! leel certain diseases or medical conditions, such as plague or een toothache, %ere

often personified# It is not eident from the arious reports that the Catholic inestigators 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 een by the local priests# But een 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 proided a rationale for competing ideologies to test the boundary

bet%een the po%er of science and the po%er of religion#


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?hereas to%ard the end of the %itchcraft trials, it %as the %itch herself %ho eentually

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 eil'doers as to%ard silencing those illagers

%ho might spread such stories, either because they represented a theological problem that %as

more difficult to resole than that for %itches, or because such beliefs %ere considered a

retarding factor in the adancement of the Enlightenment pro5ect# In any case, the ampires

themseles %ere denied any po%er %hatsoeer#

n the one hand, it is easy to see ho% the notion of a reenant 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 liing %itch, %ho perhaps had engaged in consort %ith the deil but

%as other%ise human and distinct in her abilities from a necromantic sorcerer# n the other

hand, some of the attributes that had once been commonly ascribed to %itches A such as

shape'shifting, contagiousness and een 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, *ransylania 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 laic population# *hat these

attributes, %hich are no% much more often lin!ed to ampires, probably derie from contact %ith

%itch beliefs is further eidenced by the fact that prior to the eighteenth century, in purely

rthodo3 regions, the fol!loric ampire %as a much simpler creature indeed, the ampire %as

definable as a reenant that caused arying degrees of harm to the liing, 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 figure the laic term vampire, along %ith its basic phonological transformations, is

encountered only sporadically until the organiation of ethnographic field e3peditions in the

Bal!ans in the nineteenth century, and only seems to hae ta!en on a purely fol!loric meaning


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in the fifteenth century, after the groups to %hich the term originally applied, namely pre'

Christian las and later, dualist heretics of arious stripes, ceased to hae 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 behaior and reactions of the local populace than the ampire

himself# Knli!e the nineteenth'century literary ampire, %ho is a narratie character, the fol!loric

ampire usually has no personality after death 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, neer calle

ritualsG that are performed by a group or a designated indiidual in order to cauterie 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 chert:s

(agia )osthuma in %hich a deceased shepherd from the Bohemian illage of Blo% %as

disinterred follo%ing the collectie realiation that he had posthumously appeared to other

illagers, %ho %ould inariably die %ithin eight days of this manifestation# *he shepherd:s

disinterred body %as pierced %ith a sta!e, but this standard ritual measure proed ineffectie

indeed, the shepherd apparently too! the sta!e out and than!ed his aggressors for proiding

him %ith a stic!# *his sort of fol! irony is found een 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 eent 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# imilarly, )er!o%s!i, noting

the introduction of humor into ampire films, suggests that a satirical component can only be

effectie %hen people are familiar enough %ith the basic pattern or narratie structure that it


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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

chert 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 reeal subersie attitudes to%ard the %hole genre, are on the one hand

faithfully repeated by Calmet, an %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 Dde chert e3amines the affair in a la%yer'li!e %ay,

and reasons much on the fact and the la%# *his sort of reliance upon proceural

argumentation, %hether legal, medical or bureaucratic, seems to be sine qua non for the earliest

discussants of magia posthuma# "o%eer, I %ould suggest that it is precisely that fidelity to

rational argument that obscures the fol! intentions of the eents under analysis#

It can be argued that the emphasis upon systematic presentation of eidence and, more

importantly, any eye'%itness countereidence, in regard to interpreting ampire reports deried

from a Cartesian principle that %hateer 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 recognied# *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 sered the Church:s purpose of

eliminating heresy or %itchcraft# n the contrary, than!s to the highly effectie 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# ne of


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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 liing %itches to dealing %ith cases of immolation

of dead ampires, it %as critical from a political and economic point of ie% to preent 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

defensie 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 Enlightenment intellectuals %as to e3plain

the epidemics in scientific terms or to discredit the reports as raings of primitie peoples,1

another %ay of loo!ing at the phenomenon is as an alternatie, and in fact more effectie, attac!

on heresy# $fter all, many of those %ho %ere &uic!est to inestigate ampires %ere Catholics

de chert himself, Calmet, of course, and een an %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 inestigation and analysis can

be cherry'pic!ed in the defense of belief'based constructs such as Dintelligent design, yet this

principle of Dargument from design, %hich /ernando -idal rightly points out is at the base of

early ampire rationaliation, 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


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supernatural as fact, but to see! to e3plain such eents as both natural and demonstratie of

(od:s design# pea!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 eent, 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 moe 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 figuratie

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 %orldie% %ould not be

disturbed again, no% that an understanding had been reached %ith regard to the problem of

%itchcraft

*he theological sta!es of ampirism %ere high# Contrary to most earlier apparitions,

ampires %ere embodied 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 7eil, posthumous natural magic, natural processes, or imposture#

*hus, the discoery of ampires proo!ed a ne% uncertainty in the contours of the real,

%hich needed to be dealt %ith s%iftly, lest these creatures threaten the 5ust'achieed relatie

e&uilibrium that came %ith the end of the %itch trials# 8otice the possible etiologies of ampires


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(od, the 7eil, natural magic, natural processes, or imposture# +eft out of this ery serious list,

of course, is fol!lore, or in modern terms, fiction or een entertainment# *he possibility that the

eents 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 neer considered#

*his is not to say that all of the ampire stories %ere treated as actual# $t the ery outset

of his treatise on reenants and ampires, 7om Calmet sets up four categories for these tales

that closely intersect %ith those ascribed to physicotheology F1G the eents in the report must

be denied as chimerical, the result of the ignorance of those passing on the tale F2G the reputed

ampire %as not really dead, but had been interred alie Fa common enough occurrence at the

time, %hich motiated reports in the mid'eighteenth century by Bruhier and ?inslo% concerning

the differential diagnosis of deathG F6G the reenant body had returned by the command or

permission of (od Fthese cases %ere characteried by bodies that %ere entire at e3humation,

and %hose blood %as red and fluidG F4G the corpse is animated by the 7eil Fthese are

reenants 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 eents 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 motiated by diine forces# *he motiation 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 proincial testimony regarding the

ampire must be considered legitimate and therefore must be ie%ed from the tolerant

frame%or! of cultural relatiism, the age of magia posthuma is still one in %hich rationalism may


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not supersede the persistent belief in the almighty po%er of a single (od, %hose ery e3istence

is proed by the diersity 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 obsering established Church doctrine regarding the

miraculous and the supernatural, that preented Calmet and an %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 ob5ectiity 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 minds %ho assent to !no%n truth only after mature reflection !no% ho% to

doubt %hat is uncertain can suspend 5udgment on %hat is doubtful and can deny %hat is

manifestly false# But he is careful to immediately dismiss the opinions of Dfreethin!ers %ho

re5ect eerything in order to distinguish themseles# By this, %e may surmise that he is targeting

anti'religionists or secular Enlightenment thin!ers %ho hae no patience %ith the assertion that

angels, the 7eil, or disembodied souls are real# ddly, he does not thin! to suggest that such

freethin!ers might also be atheistic#1>

$gain by %ay of implying his ob5ectiity, 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


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illustrate the difference, he points to arious passages in "oly cripture %here disembodied

souls are mentioned 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 een politically motiated# *he only

times that Calmet can deny the reality of the reported eents 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, F1.66G and then goes on to recite %ithout &uestion the interesting

con5ectures about the medical nature of ampires

*he 7utch (leaner, %ho is by no means credulous, supposes the truth of these facts as

certain, haing no good reason for disputing them, and reasons upon them in a %ay

%hich sho%s he thin!s lightly of the matter 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 ieas in the imagination#

"e compares this disease to the bite of a mad dog, %hich communicates its enom to

the person %ho is bitten thus, those %ho are infected by ampirism communicate this

dangerous poison to those %ith %hom they associate#


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McClelland 1

/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 neer encountered %ithout presumptie contact

%ith %itchcraft# It should be pointed out that Moraia had %itnessed a significant outbrea! of

plague bet%een 1.14 and 1.1=, only seenteen years before the report of the (leaner, but of

course around thirteen years after de chert published (agia )osthuma, %hich concerned

ampires in lomouc, Moraia# $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 belieers in

ampires are ignorant and credulous# *his is a 5udgment he %ould prefer to use sparingly#

)erhaps it is a !ind of early cultural relatiism that preents 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 collectie 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%eer, 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 eidence 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 proed Fbecause there is no ade&uate testimonyG# Een 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 gie more credence to miraculous eents 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% belief in chapter -I, for e3ample,


16/24

McClelland 1=

Calmet %rites that Dthe "ebre%s riiculousl! beliee that the Je%s %ho are buried outside of

Judaea %ill roll unergroun at the last day, and that he is relating Dthese fantastical ideas only

to sho% their absurdity F>G# ?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 graes

in a churchyard and leae %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

testimony it occurred in broad daylight, Dbefore the eyes of a %hole population F>.G#

/urthermore, the eent is reported by t# (regory, concerning t# Benedict, and discussed by

t# $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 simultaneously ho% could it physically happen that such

e3communicates F%hom he does not call ampires, since these eents belong to the early

church and the risen e3communicates are not said to attac! peopleG can e3tricate themseles

from their graes 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 resole,

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 absoled and restored to communion %ith the Church %ithout


17/24

McClelland 1.

proof of repentance and conersionO "e &uotes the opinion of t# +eo, that it is a constant rule

that the Church cannot communicate or hae communion %ith the dead if not in life#F>>G#

Calmet then lists si3 e3ing &uestions that surround the problem F1G "o% is it possible to

absole the deadO F2G Must not these e3communicates be absoled from e3communication first,

before they are absoled of their mortal sin Fa sort of procedural reersal, it %ould seemGO F6G

Can they be absoled if they do not as! for absolutionO F4G "o% can people be absoled %ho

died in mortal sin %ithout doing penanceO FG +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 hae %ill, or at least motiation# 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 unante , gien the choiceO *o return to the Church,

furthermore, %ould be a meaningless isyphan effort they %ould naturally hae to get up and

leae eery time the mass %as said#

*he &uestion of locus A here ere the!- A is an een 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 rthodo3 Catholics,

regarding refusal of the body to decay is a sign of sanctity or unholiness#


18/24

McClelland 1>

Knfortunately, Calmet finesses the ans%ers to these &uestions by asserting that %e

simply don:t hae enough information A the story has for some reason not presered 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 inadertently in5ected into the ampire stories the philosophical dilemmas that %ill proide

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 eil, 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, he is implying that the dead can hae moties, een if only by means

of opposition, that are based on 'eelings o' unorthiness. *hus, the un&uiet dead can hae

feelings# *his proides the basis for building ampire narraties in %hich ampires hae

personalities and characterological features#

*he logic of Calmet:s argumentation throughout his treatise, then, is that stories of

ampires and other reenants must be considered factual so long as there is reliable testimony

it is imperatie to &uic!ly identify problems in the narratie that subert confidence in the tale:s

legitimacy ccam:s raor'li!e e3planations inoling common sense and ordinary perceptions

then apply in circumstances %here no theological reasoning is re&uired 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 neer 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 preents him from noticing that in

no tale %as the ampire eer not discoered or disinterred# "ad he noticed that in each case,

the social disorder caused by the ampire had already been resoled by ritual gestures at the


19/24

McClelland 1<

time the stories %ere related, he might hae come to the conclusion that that fact, too, needed

to be e3plained#

$s opposed to Calmet, (erard an %ieten %as more interested in curbing Dthe

e3cesses %hich led to the belief in ampirism1


20/24

McClelland 20

the po%er to create illusions, %hich is the basis of possession# )osthumous magic, a term that

he ta!es from de chert, 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, and another treatise from Cologne F141G %hich suggested Dthat

some of these illusions proceed directly from disturbed minds rather than from demonic

influence# *hough some%hat different in their focus, these earlier treatises on %itchcraft %ere

dealing %ith the same problems that confronted both Calmet and an %ieten %ith respect to

ampires, namely ho% to account for the phenomena in the liminal one bet%een the physical

and metaphysical unierses# 7istortions in perception could be caused by the 7eil indeed, that

%as %hat he %as best at A deception, going all the %ay bac! to atan the *empter# In the

attempt to reorganie the %orld such that supernatural phenomena could inariably be

deconstructed by some rational procedure, it al%ays seemed incumbent on the earlier

eighteenth'century inestigators to fall bac! on the 7eil as a last resort# $s I hae attempted to

sho%, the modern resolution of this problem %ithout the 7eil %ould inole conte3tualiing the

stories themseles as communal eents#

$lthough from an %ieten:s brief Consieration it is easy to see ho% he is motiated 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 eents related, but

sub5ects them to a medical ratiocination that e3plains irtually eerything in mechanistic terms#

"e does not establish any boundaries around the probable and the improbable, ho%eer, %hich

allo%s him to e3tend his rationalistic arguments into the realm of the improbable, and then,

%hen he realies %here this has gotten him, he ino!es theology# $s if &uoting Calmet A %hich


21/24

McClelland 21

is not entirely out of the &uestion A an %ieten %rites that Dit is e&ually true that the Eil pirit

must hae permission from (od to produce effects that surpass natural causes# 21

*he Eil pirit 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 rthodo3 countries that %ere not in close contact %ith ?estern European notions

about %itches, the Eil pirit is neer con5ured as a motiational factor, at least until much later#

$lthough the ampire %as clearly associated %ith heresy and the presumptie 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 %ieten %ould be far beyond the comprehension of the illiterate

agrarian illagers %ho told these stories# *hat does not mean, ho%eer, 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 collectiely the ampire tales hae 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 resole 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 preiously 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 %ieten on the other# $lthough the

intentions of these t%o thin!ers may hae been noble, in that they sought to enlighten the


22/24

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#


23/24

McClelland 26

HE/EHE8CE


24/24

1 *ournefort F1.1>G, 1, p 1 ff -oltaire, 7ictionnaire, $msterdam 1.=4# s## @-ampires:2 Cited by Calmet F1>0G, p# 46 httpPP%%%#shroudeater#com4 httpPPmagiaposthuma#blogspot#com $n English translation of the entire te3t had appeared as ;QQQQQQQQQQQ#= )aul Barber, in *he Vampire / Case"oo$.. +arry ?olff, ed# *he /nthropolog! o' the Enlightenment F)alo $lto, C$ tanford Kniersity )ress,

200.G#> /ernando -idal, DE3traordinary Bodies and the )hysicotheological Imagination# MAX- PLANC K- INST ITUT FÜ R WI S S ENSCHAFTS G E S C H ICHTE. Preprint 188., !!1. httpPP%%%#mpi%g'berlin#mpg#deP)reprintsP)1>>#)7/

)# 211

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