The Complete Idiot's Guide to Werewolves

by Brown Robert

  What makes this case interesting is that Mr. A claimed that his delusions made him look like a wolf. Whenever these hair growth and face disfigurement delusions occurred, Mr. A would look in the mirror and believe that he looked somewhat like a wolf. However, what makes his case different is that Mr. A also verbally stated that he did not believe he was a wolf. He also did not exhibit the delusion that his mind was under the influence of some evil force, as is common in cases of clinical lycanthropy.

  Mr. A was eventually diagnosed with an unspecified psychotic disorder. He was treated with antipsychotic drugs and eventually released for outpatient treatment.

  A Clinical Lycanthropy Case in Tehran, Iran

  In April 2004, a clinical lycanthropy case study, entitled “Lycanthropy in Depression,” was published in the Archives of Iranian Medicine. This case was recorded and documented by Dr. Ali-Reza Moghaddas, M.D., and Dr. Mitra Nasseri, M.D. This particular case occurred in the Middle Eastern region of Tehran, Iran.

  The patient in this case was a 20-year-old male from a lower class family in the suburban Kazeroon region. The young man in question is left unidentified in the article (and not given a pseudonym). He had exhibited a serious stuttering problem since the age of 12 and for years had suffered with bouts of depression. He was admitted for psychiatric treatment when he verbalized complaints of having turned into a wolf. The young man claimed that, during these transformations, he gained superhuman strength. On several occasions, he had even gone so far as to attack and bite other people (sometimes even removing chunks of flesh and swallowing them).

  The Curse

  Many psychiatrists have pointed to the fact that symptoms of clinical lycanthropy seem to occur more commonly among patients from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. While this would indeed seem to be true, it is in no way exclusive to patients of these backgrounds. Take, for example, the case of Mrs. L, who was from a middle- to upper-class background.

  The triggers for his delusions were sometimes psychological or emotional. He reported that they would manifest at times when he was experiencing extreme anxiety, loneliness, or fear. Other times, they occurred at particular times, such as in the early morning hours and at night. These experiences would last as long as three hours, and he would recover from them as one would from unconsciousness. The patient reported that he felt disoriented, afraid, and light-headed after these episodes, and often suffered from headaches for hours.

  There is one rather interesting and unique delusional element to this case. The patient reported that at times he would experience delusions that the people around him, even friends and family, had transformed into wolves or other animals. In these situations, he would feel overcome by paranoid anxiety, believing that they were going to attack and even try to kill him. Afraid that he might harm someone, the patient would then run from people and confine himself in an isolated space until the experience passed.

  The patient also experienced hallucinatory symptoms in addition to clinical lycanthropy. For example, he would sometimes suffer from delusions that insects were crawling all over his skin, or even inside of his body. He would hear sounds that were not there, and complain of smells that no one else could detect. Often, he would wake and complain of ghostly visions during his sleep.

  CT scans and other tests were conducted, and it was concluded that the patient did not suffer from any neurological defects. An IQ test revealed that he had somewhat lower than average intelligence. In the end, the causal diagnosis for his lycanthropy symptoms was identified as extreme and delusional depression. He was treated with both antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs. Over a period of two years, the patient’s symptoms of lycanthropy and other hallucinations began to decrease. He eventually made a full recovery.

  A Unique Case of Clinical Lycanthropy

  This particular case also comes out of Iran. The case study was recorded and documented by Dr. Toofani and Dr. Ali-Reza Nejad of Beheshti Hospital, and was published in July 2004 issue of the Acta Psychiatrica Scandanavia. This case deals with an integration of clinical lycanthropy with the symptomatic condition called Cotard’s Syndrome. Cotard’s is a rare symptomatic condition in which the person suffers from nihilistic delusions of immortality. Cotard’s patients are often under delusions that they are physically dead but still animated—basically, that they are “undead.”

  Beastly Words

  Nihilism is usually defined as a self-centered belief that one is somehow exempt from all rules and social/religious/moral restrictions. In a more broad sense, it refers to a philosophical belief that life has no point and that human rules are valueless. Someone suffering from this rejects the validity of any truth aside from one’s own.

  The patient in this case was a 32-year-old male from the southern Iranian city of Kerman. He was married with three daughters. He was also poorly educated, having dropped out of school in the ninth grade. He was referred for psychiatric treatment by his family after refusing to go to work for nearly two weeks. His symptoms, however, had increased gradually over a period of roughly two years. In the last two weeks, they had reached an extreme level and began to interfere with his work and daily life.

  During his initial evaluation, he explained that no one paid any attention to him and that people avoided him. The reason for this, he claimed, was because he was dead, but alive. He went on to explain that he had once experienced a sensation like an electric shock, and ever since then had felt that his body had been transformed into something that was dead but still moving. He insisted that he was no longer human, and told doctors “I speak, breathe, and eat, but I am dead.”

  When asked what he thought had caused him to become this way, the patient claimed that he believed this was punishment for living a sinful life. Basically, he claimed that he was being punished by God. He claimed that God had cursed him with a dead immortality, and would not allow him to be killed. He then voiced a paranoid delusion that many of his friends and family members had already tried to poison him by putting cyanide in his tea, but because of his divine curse/ protection he did not die. He also claimed that his wife and three daughters were also dead and immortal as he was.

  When asked about his delusions of lycanthropy, he voiced a belief that both he and his wife were sometimes transformed into dogs. His daughters, he said, were transformed into sheep. He claimed to have discovered this when he realized that his daughters’ urine smelled like sheep urine (which leads one to wonder why in the world he was sniffing urine).

  The man also expressed a fear that he might be overcome by sexual urges. He suffered from insomnia because of this, and slept in a room that was separated from his wife and daughters because he feared that he might (involuntarily) sexually assault any of them if he did not.

  Tests ruled out any neurological defects, and he was found to be of average to slightly above average intelligence. The patient was treated with antipsychotic drugs and electroconvulsive therapy for two weeks. After this treatment, all delusional and hallucinatory symptoms had subsided.

  The Curse

  The patient in this case was thought to have misinterpreted his own delusion that he was a dog and his daughters were sheep. He mistook his condition as that of a werewolf, but upon inquiry claimed that he felt more like a dog than a wolf. Dogs, you see, are the protectors of sheep, whereas wolves are their predators. Therefore, this delusion may have been a metaphor for his subconscious fears about his ability to protect his daughters. The man expressed a certain amount of guilt about not properly providing for his family.

  The Condition of “Reverse Clinical Lycanthropy”

  Reverse clinical lycanthropy is a rare but related symptomatic condition in which the patient suffers from the delusion that he or she has the power to transform others into wolves (and sometimes into other animals). One recent case of this, also out of Iran, was reported in a case study by Dr. Ali-Reza Nejad. The patient was an 18-year-old male suffering from delusional episodes and bipolar disorder. He was unmarried and without childr
en. He was also poorly educated, having dropped out of school in the tenth grade, and from a poor, lower class background.

  After a physically traumatic experience in which he was badly burned across his legs and backside with boiling water, the patient began to feel that he had somehow been changed. He began to voice delusions that he had transformed his own mother into a wolf on several occasions. No amount of reasoning from his mother could convince the young man of anything to the contrary.

  When asked what he thought had caused him to become this way, the patient explained that he believed he was cursed by Shahe Parian, the “King of the Jinn” in Arabic mythology. When asked to elaborate about this, he claimed that he had somehow injured the King Jinn’s daughter when he’d accidentally burned himself with boiling water. Because he had done this, the patient claimed, the King Jinn was taking revenge on him by giving him a power that he could not control—basically, by giving him a power that caused him to accidentally transform his beloved mother into a wolf.

  Beastly Words

  Jinn is the plural form of Jinni (Jinniyah in feminine form), a group of magic spirits in Middle Eastern folklore. The term is often misspelled in English as “genie.” After the spread of Islam, Jinn came to be viewed as a malevolent class of demons or fallen angels.

  It is important to note that this is not a traditional case of clinical lycanthropy. This case is altogether unique because of the fact that the patient’s delusions regarding transformations are not directed at himself, but at those around him. Some have begun to refer to this sort of case as “reverse clinical lycanthropy,” but further research will need to be done before an official label can be decided.

  There are some in the psychiatric fields who reject the idea that this case is evidence of a new condition. These individuals point out that the case bears the elements of megalomania, a psychiatric disorder in which patients suffer from delusions of possessing great or superhuman powers. Megalomania can also manifest in delusions that one is in an important role which does not exist. One example of this form of megalomania would be a homeless man who suffers from delusions that he is in fact a secret agent.

  However, there is one element of this case that differs from the condition of megalomania. Megalomaniacs often voice that they are in control of their powers, roles, or abilities. Megalomania is very much a condition of delusional grandeur, an element which this case would not seem to exhibit.

  The Soul-Eater and His Runaway Devil

  One of the most horrific crimes in recent years is considered by some to have been a case of clinical lycanthropy gone violently wrong. Some argue, however, that it is simply a case of a disturbed young man’s obsession with murder. In either case, the story is worthy of mention in regards to this study of clinical lycanthropy.

  In April of 2006, in the quiet Canadian town of Medicine Hat, 23-year-old Jeremy Allan Steinke and his 12-year-old girlfriend murdered the young girl’s entire family.

  According to the testimonies of several of the accused man’s acquaintances, many of which were released by the press, Steinke often insisted that he was actually a 300-year-old werewolf. He was said to have been fond of referring to himself as a “lycan,” a popular shortened version of the word “lycanthrope.”

  Steinke was often described as the kind of guy who wore almost entirely black clothes. He is also said to have enjoyed putting safety pins through his flesh. He was known for always wearing a black bandana around his neck, and he would sometimes pull it up to cover his face. Steinke was commonly seen wearing dark eyeliner and spiked dog collars. He is also said to have worn a small vial around his neck, which he proudly boasted was filled with human blood. A one-time roommate of Steinke’s claimed that the disturbed young man once sliced his own hand open with a knife and began licking blood from the fresh wound.

  Steinke’s behavior had grown increasingly bizarre following a breakup with his girlfriend. However, at an all-ages punk show, he met and began a romantic relationship with an underage girl. In court records, the girl is referred to only by the name “J. R.” Because of her status as a minor, the girl’s identity has never been released. On one social website, the girl used the handle of “Runaway Devil.” On the same website, Steinke used the name “Soul-Eater.” Their conversations on the vampire-themed site led many media outlets to wrongly report that the two had met on the site, which was later learned not to be the case.

  In December of 2008, a jury in Calgary, Canada, deliberated for only 11 hours before returning with a guilty verdict. Steinke, now 25 years old, was unanimously convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. Mr. Steinke showed no reaction when the verdicts were read. He was later sentenced to life in prison, with a possibility for parole in 25 years.

  Steinke’s underage girlfriend was later convicted of the same charges. However, she was also deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. She was placed in the care of a state mental health facility. All later court hear ings regarding her mental state have been the same, and she remains confined to a high-security mental health facility in Canada.

  Freud’s Wolf Man

  Technically, Sigmund Freud’s Wolf Man case study cannot be classified as true clinical lycanthropy as it is now defined. Freud, however, could be credited with identifying the sexual aspects that later came to be associated with the condition. Freud first published this case study in his 1918 collective work (originally in German) entitled Aus der Geschichte Einer Infantilen Neurose, or “From the History of an Infantile Neurosis.” Freud referred to his patient as the “Wolf Man” for the sake of anonymity. However, the man later identified himself as Russian aristocrat Sergei Pankejeff and even wrote a book about his experiences with Freud.

  From Freud’s writing, it cannot be said for sure whether Pankejeff’s condition was delusional or simply a dream manifestation. The case was so-named because of a particular dream analysis. Pankejeff was suffering from extreme anxiety, manifesting in bouts of severe depression as well as physical symptoms that were harming the man’s health and well-being. For example, it was written that Pankejeff could not have bowel movements without the aid of a rectal enema.

  Freud’s treatment of Pankejeff was concentrated heavily on a particular recurring dream the man had experienced during his childhood, most frequently during the winter season. In this dream, Pankejeff would be lying in bed with his feet pointed toward his bedroom window. Outside the window was a row of walnut trees. The window would open quite suddenly, as if on its own. Then Pankejeff would see seven white wolves sitting in the branches of the trees. Terrified that the wolves were going to eat him, Pankejeff (then a young boy) would wake up screaming. The young boy’s nanny would then spend hours coaxing him back to sleep. Pankejeff’s testimony about this dream was very clear on the point that it always felt just as real to him after he awoke.

  Freud is known for his belief that all psychological disorders were caused by some sort of sexual issue, a point which caused many of his colleagues and students to break with him later. True to form, Freud concluded that Pankejeff’s dream was caused by him having witnessed his parents having sex when he was extremely young. Basically, Freud argued that the young boy’s mind would have perceived the act as “primal” in nature because his parents were probably having sex in the from-behind position (once again, the “doggy style” position). He claimed that this caused Pankejeff to associate sex with animals, a concept that his mind had displaced, in his dream at least, from his parents onto the white wolves.

  Werewolf as Jungian Archetype

  Carl Jung began as a student of Freud but would later break with his mentor due to disagreements between them regarding the nature of human motivational drives. Freud believed that drives originated with sex. Jung disagreed, stating that sex was only one of many drives. Jung believed that these drives were often expressed in myths and dreams in the form of symbolic figures, which he called archetypes.

  Beastly Words

  In the works of Jung, archetypes are inheri
ted symbols, concepts, or thought modes that stem from the collective experiences of the human race. He believed these were passed on in the unconscious of all human beings.

  Jung viewed the werewolf as one symbolic manifestation of a broader “death/rebirth” archetype. The werewolf represented, according to Freud, primarily the sexual transformation humans undergo in young adulthood, as well as a young female’s initial fears regarding sexual intercourse or a male’s fear that his own lustful urges may lead him to a terrible death or eternal damnation. In myth, the werewolf often has to be overcome by some magical or ritualistic device in order for a character to experience an “ideal” or “pure” form of love.

  Jung first explained this concept of the werewolf archetypes in his work Four Archetypes by offering a myth about a beautiful princess whose lover has been transformed into a werewolf by some enchanter’s spell. The princess has to consult a wise old sage, who instructs her to build a fire and place above it a cauldron of tar. He then tells her that she must place within the tar her most beloved possession, a white lily flower (which symbolizes virginity). He then tells her that, when her lover passes by in his wolf form, she must pour the contents of the cauldron over his head. The princess does as the sage tells her. Once she has completed her task of pouring the “lily-blessed” tar over her lover’s head, he is freed from the spell and returns to human form. The two are then able to pursue their life together, the man having been “transformed” and the princess being “reborn” into her new life as part of a married couple (symbolized by the sacrifice of her treasured “virginity lily”).