VI - Necrophobia: The Fear of the Dead

“Among primitive peoples, the surrounding air is thought to be inhabited by the souls of the departed. Especially in the cases of those who have died of disease or of violence is placation necessary to safeguard the living and protect them against the vengeance of the tomb. The advance in knowledge did little to modify this primitive fear of death and new bogies developed to replace outworn superstitions and discarded beliefs. The Middle Ages were obsessed with worms and grinning skulls, with were-wolves and ghouls, vampires (the living dead who can be slain only by a nail driven through the heart), ghosts, witches, and all the other paraphernalia of medieval magic. We have not yet outgrown all these beliefs. Many superstitions linger on, although we may have forgotten the significance of the homage we unconsciously pay them. Thus we place tombstones over the graves of our dead – to prevent their return to haunt us; and should they escape, the funeral wreath is there to trip their steps.

“There is a fascination and horror connected with death that few, if any of us ever escape. Corpses exert a powerful attraction over hundreds who have no direct connection with the dead. They come to ‘view the remains’. The morgue is constantly visited by people who have no legitimate business there. In a few, this universal morbidity is exaggerated to the point where perversity supervenes. An unholy love is mixed with the necrophobiac’s fear of the dead – a wild desire, but one step removed from madness, to possess the unspeakable corruption that inspires his abject terror, and so to lose himself in the horror and stillness of death.”

John Vassos

New York City

May 25^th 1931