Werewolf Stories, page 21
Three days after his arrest, the police were able to add the death of Damien McClusky, a 22-year-old hospital worker, to the Wolf Man’s list of murders. Before Lupo was brought to Central Criminal Court, a new murder charge, that of an unidentified man in his sixties, strangled near Hungerford Bridge, brought the tally to four murders and two attempted murders.
On July 10, 1987, Lupo pleaded guilty to all charges, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment on each of the murder charges and to consecutive terms of seven years on each of the counts of attempted murder.
Sources:
Lane, Brian, and Wilfred Gregg. The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. New York: Berkley Publishing, 1994.
Lycanthropy
Quite understandably, contemporary medical professionals will seek to offer rational explanations for the werewolves that have scourged the past and haunted the present. The term lycanthropy (from the Greek; literally, “wolfman”) was used by Reginald Scot in his The Discovery of Witchcraft (1584) to denote an extreme form of violent insanity in which the individual may imitate the behavior of a wild beast, especially a wolf. Scot argued against the church and the Inquisition and its institutionalized program of torturing and burning Witches, werewolves, and other shape-shifters, and he nearly ended up bound to a stake for his heretical efforts on behalf of reason. Scot used the term in the same manner as a modern health professional when referring to the mental disease that manifests itself in ways applicable to werewolfism.
The term lycanthropy was also applied to those individuals afflicted with a form of dark melancholy, a deep depression that gave rise to a violent form of insanity. In his Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Robert Burton writes that those men and women who are suffering from an advanced form of melancholy that graduates into werewolfism lie hidden throughout the daylight hours, then “go abroad in the night, barking, howling, at graves and deserts; they have unusually hollow eyes, scabbed legs and thighs, very dry and pale.”
Dr. Mary Matossian theorized that the 30,000 peasants who were condemned as werewolves between the years of 1520 and 1630 had eaten rye bread contaminated by ergot, a grain fungus that acted as a powerful hallucinogenic.
Dr. Mary Matossian, professor of history at the University of Maryland, viewed such statistics as those from France, which proclaimed that 30,000 individuals were condemned as werewolves between the years of 1520 and 1630 and wondered how such a mental aberration could possibly have been so widespread. As she researched the phenomenon, she derived a theory that the peasants were eating a rye bread that was contaminated by a fungus that acted as a powerful hallucinogenic. In essence, Dr. Matossian suggested that thousands of men and women were suffering from “bad trips” from a potent fungus that caused them to have delusions that they were magical beings capable of transforming themselves into werewolves.
According to Dr. Matossian:
The fungus was ergot, a parasite that attacks rye. The ergot produces sclerotia which grow on the rye plant, taking the place of its natural seeds. The wind blows and the fungus latches onto other rye plants. … During harvesting, the ergot was collected along with the grain and became part of the bread. Since ergot is like today’s LSD, some individuals suffered bad trips and imagined themselves being transformed into animals, such as wolves. Others saw themselves with special powers, like flying on a broomstick. They were the Witches.
The ergot caused them to act in other bizarre ways, even committing murder and injury. As a result, numerous victims of ergot poisoning were tried as wolves and werewolves — and executed. With the advent of modern methods of cleaning and processing grain, ergot was eliminated — along with the appearance of werewolves and Witches.
An interesting theory, but Dr. Matossian should take a better look around the contemporary scene if she believes there are no Witches gathering in covens in the twenty-first century. And she had better look carefully over her shoulder if she believes that werewolves no longer prowl the night — whether in the embodiment of the mentally ill, serial killers, or true lycanthropes.
In the Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal in 1975, psychiatrists Frida Surawicz and Richard Banta of Lexington, Kentucky, published their paper “Lycanthropy Revisited,” in which they presented two case studies of contemporary werewolves.
Their first case, that of Mr. H., obliquely supported Dr. Matossian’s hallucinogenic hypothesis in that he had ingested LSD before he saw himself changing into a werewolf. He saw fur growing over his hands and face, and he craved flesh and blood. Even after the effects of the drug had supposedly worn off, Mr. H. still believed himself to be a werewolf. He was treated as a paranoid schizophrenic, treated with antipsychotic medication, and, after about five weeks, released from a psychiatric unit.
Surawicz and Banta’s second case study was that of a 37-year-old farmer who, after his discharge from the Navy, allowed his hair to grow long and began sleeping in cemeteries and howling at the moon. Although there was no indication of drug abuse or misuse in Mr. W.’s case, he was freed from his delusion after treatment with antipsychotic medication.
Although she finally received daily psychotherapy and antipsychotic drugs, she still beheld herself as a wolf woman with claws, teeth, and fangs and believed that her werewolf spirit would roam the earth long after her physical death.
Psychiatrist Harvey Rosenstock and psychologist Kenneth Vincent discuss their case history of a 49-year-old woman who underwent the metamorphosis into a werewolf in their paper “A Case of Lycanthropy,” published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1977. Although she finally was admitted to a locked psychiatric unit and received daily psychotherapy and antipsychotic drugs, she still beheld herself as a wolf woman with claws, teeth, and fangs and believed that her werewolf spirit would roam the earth long after her physical death. Medical personnel would manage to get the woman under control until the next full moon. At that time, she would snarl, howl, and resume her wolflike behavior. She was eventually discharged and provided with antipsychotic medication, but she promised to haunt the graveyards until she found the tall, dark, hairy creature of her dreams.
And speaking of hairy creatures, according to Brian K. Hall, a developmental biologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, a team of scientists have discovered a gene that may make certain people extra hairy and appear very much like the classic Hollywood werewolves. Doctors at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, took blood samples from 19 people whose faces and upper bodies were entirely covered with thick, dark hair. The samples spanned five generations of a single family and revealed that their DNA included a mutant gene that was responsible for a condition known as congenital generalized hypertrichosis.
While all humans possess the “hairy gene,” Hall stated, in most people it is dormant. The tendency to produce hair that covers the entire face and upper torso may be “an evolutionary trait left over from our animal ancestors.” The discovery that the gene still exists in a dormant state in all people and manifests as super hairiness in a small number, Hall said, “tells us that our body stores a lot of genetic information for a long time.”
In his Bizarre Diseases of the Mind, Dr. Richard Noll lists the traditional traits of the clinical lycanthrope:
The belief that they are wolves or wild dogs.
The belief that they have been physically transformed into animals with fur and claws.
Animal-like behavior, including growling, howling, clawing, pawing, crawling on all fours, offering oneself in the sexual postures of a female animal.
The desire to assault or kill others.
Hypersexuality, including the desire to have sex with animals.
Use of a hallucinogenic substance to achieve the metamorphosis of human into a wolf.
A desire for isolation from human society (stalking the woods, haunting cemeteries).
The belief that “the devil” has possessed the afflicted werewolf and provided the power that causes the transformation from human to wolf.
The March 1999 issue of Discover magazine reported the hypothesis of neurologist Juan Gomez-Alonso of the Xeral Hospital in Vigo, Spain. He suggests that old tales of vampires and werewolves could have been inspired by people who suffered from rabies. He traced the connection between a rabies outbreak in central Europe in the early eighteenth century to tales of the undead and shape-shifters that began circulating soon after.
According to Gomez-Alonso: “Some of the symptoms, such as aggressiveness and hypersexuality, would not have been seen as manifestations of a disease. Uneducated people could have thought all this was the work of a malign being. Moreover, the bizarre rejection of some stimuli — odors, light, water, and mirrors — shown by rabid humans must have been quite puzzling.”
Neurologist Juan Gomez-Alonso suggests that old tales of vampires and werewolves could have been inspired by people who suffered from rabies, citing an eighteenth-century rabies outbreak in central Europe shortly before tales of the undead and shape-shifters began circulating.
Sources:
Jones, Linda. “Werewolf Gene Found.” Science World, October 20, 1995.
Noll, Richard. Bizarre Diseases of the Mind. New York: Berkley Books, 1990.
Rosenstock, Harvey A., and Kenneth R. Vincent. “A Case of Lycanthropy.” American Journal of Psychiatry, October 1977.
Surawitz, Frida, and Richard Banta. “Lycanthropy Revisited.” Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, November 1975.
Mad Gasser of Mattoon
Only a couple of years before he died, Brad Steiger (1936–2018) was making connections between strange and sinister characters who surfaced during World War II and in the small Illinois city of Mattoon. It’s a story that combines a secret society, the FBI, occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), mayhem in a small city in Illinois, and … wait for it … werewolves. But before we get to the matter of shape-shifting wolfmen, let’s get our grips into the story of that grim gasser. Back in the 1940s, the people of Mattoon, Illinois, were plagued by a sinister character who became known as the Mad Gasser of Mattoon.
The name was an apt one. The mysterious figure gassed his victims, usually in their bedrooms, as a way to gain entry to their property and take advantage of whatever caught his eye. His actions followed the pattern of a similar wave of attacks that took place in the 1930s in Botetourt County, Virginia. To focus on the later events: On the night of August 31, 1944, a man named Urban Raef was overcome by a mysterious gas that provoked sickness, weakness, and vomiting. Despite Mr. Raef’s fear that there was a gas leak in the house, such was not the case. Raef’s wife, to her horror, found herself briefly paralyzed.
Also among the Gasser’s victims was Mrs. Bert Kearney, who also lived in Mattoon. On September 1, 1944, approximately an hour before the witching-hour struck, Mrs. Kearney was hit by what was described as a “sickening, sweet odor in the bedroom.” As was the case with Mrs. Raef, the “gas” caused temporary paralysis in her legs. It also resulted in a burning sensation to her lips and a parched feeling in her mouth.
Mrs. Kearney cried out for her sister, Martha, who came running to see what was going on. She too was unable to avoid the powerful smell. In no time, the police were on the scene, but the Mad Gasser was nowhere to be found — at least, not for a while. As Bert Kearney drove home after his shift as a cab driver was over, he caught sight of a man dressed in dark clothes peering through the window of the Kearneys’ bedroom. The man was thin and wearing a tight, dark cap on his head. He quickly fled the scene.
In the wake of the curious affair, other reports of the Mad Gasser’s infernal activities surfaced — to the extent that both the local police and the FBI got involved. The townsfolk were plunged into a state of paranoia. While some cases were put down to nothing more than hysteria, that was not the end of the story. For example, Thomas V. Wright, the commissioner of public health, said: “There is no doubt that a gas maniac exists and has made a number of attacks. But many of the reported attacks are nothing more than hysteria. Fear of the gas man is entirely out of proportion to the menace of the relatively harmless gas he is spraying. The whole town is sick with hysteria.”
The mystery was never resolved to the satisfaction of everyone. One theory offers that the Mad Gasser of Mattoon was actually nothing stranger than a bunch of kids. Writer Scott Maruna suggests that the Gasser was a University of Illinois student, Farley Llewellyn, who had a deep knowledge of chemistry and who went to school with the initial victims. Other theories include burglars and even extraterrestrials.
Perhaps the most intriguing explanation for the Mad Gasser of Mattoon appears in the now-declassified files of the U.S. government. Thanks to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, we now know that one particularly notable theory being secretly pursued by U.S. law enforcement officials was taken very seriously: that the Gasser was not a solitary individual but an entire group of Mad Gassers. A secret society, one might say. According to Illinois authorities, they had heard disturbing stories of a clandestine cult operating in northern Illinois that was inspired by the work of the “Great Beast” himself, Aleister Crowley — and specifically by Crowley’s position on the matter of sacrifice (human and otherwise) and on provoking the presence of deadly werewolves that were said to have come from other realms of existence.
A number of the victims of the Gasser were woken up in the dead of night by what can only be termed savage, hair-covered, fanged, howling werewolves
This is where Brad Steiger began to dig into the matter of the diabolical gasser. According to Steiger, while they were reluctant to come forward at the time, a number of the victims of the Gasser were woken up in the dead of night by what can only be termed savage, hair-covered, fanged, howling werewolves. At least five of the town’s women had savage sex with them — and kept everything quiet in the aftermath. Were the werewolves brought forth from other dimensions and engaging with Crowley himself?
Crowley himself said of this issue: “It is necessary for us to consider carefully the problems connected with the bloody sacrifice, for this question is indeed traditionally important in Magick. Nigh all ancient Magick revolves around this matter. In particular all the Osirian religions — the rites of the Dying God — refer to this. The slaying of Osiris and Adonis; the mutilation of Attis; the cults of Mexico and Peru; the story of Hercules or Melcarth; the legends of Dionysus and of Mithra, are all connected with this one idea. In the Hebrew religion we find the same thing inculcated. The first ethical lesson in the Bible is that the only sacrifice pleasing to the Lord is the sacrifice of blood; Abel, who made this, finding favour with the Lord, while Cain, who offered cabbages, was rather naturally considered a cheap sport. The idea recurs again and again. We have the sacrifice of the Passover, following on the story of Abraham’s being commanded to sacrifice his firstborn son, with the idea of the substitution of animal for human life. The annual ceremony of the two goats carries out this in perpetuity. And we see again the domination of this idea in the romance of Esther, where Haman and Mordecai are the two goats or gods; and ultimately in the presentation of the rite of Purim in Palestine, where Jesus and Barabbas happened to be the Goats in that particular year of which we hear so much, without agreement on the date.”
“It would be unwise to condemn as irrational the practice of those savages who tear the heart and liver from an adversary, and devour them while yet warm.”
Crowley continued: “Enough has now been said to show that the bloody sacrifice has from time immemorial been the most considered part of Magick. … It would be unwise to condemn as irrational the practice of those savages who tear the heart and liver from an adversary, and devour them while yet warm. In any case, it was the theory of the ancient Magicians that any living being is a storehouse of energy varying in quantity according to the size and health of the animal, and in quality according to its mental and moral character. At the death of the animal this energy is liberated suddenly.
“The animal should therefore be killed within the Circle, or the Triangle, as the case may be, so that its energy cannot escape. An animal should be selected whose nature accords with that of the ceremony — thus, by sacrificing a female lamb one would not obtain any appreciative quantity of the fierce energy useful to a Magician who was invoking Mars. In such a case a ram would be more suitable. And this ram should be virgin — the whole potential of its original total energy should not have been diminished in any way.
Illinois authorities heard disturbing stories of a clandestine cult inspired by the work of the “Great Beast” himself, Aleister Crowley, and his position on human sacrifice.
“For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim. For evocations it would be more convenient to place the blood of the victim in the Triangle — the idea being that the spirit might obtain from the blood this subtle but physical substance which was the quintessence of its life in such a manner as to enable it to take on a visible and tangible shape.”
It was Crowley’s words that prompted the “Illinois sect,” as the group is referenced in the files, to explore the issue of human sacrifice for personal gain. From a budding author in Decatur, Illinois (whose name is deleted from the declassified papers), there came a long and rambling letter in which he claimed personal knowledge of the group in question. Supposedly, its members had engaged in the ritualistic sacrifice of animals from 1942 to 1943 and were, by 1944, ready to do the unthinkable: namely, kill people according to ancient rite and ritual. Our unnamed author further claimed that the “gassing attempts” were undertaken by group members as a means to try to render unconscious, and kidnap, the largely female victims, and then end their lives according to infernal, occult beliefs.
