A Ouija board can be an interesting experience. Some believe it is a doorway to another world and warn against its use, but most people see it as a harmless diversion, especially if it's not taken too seriously.

Calling a spirit with the help of a plainchit or ouija board is woodooism. It is black magic. And this is my personally advise to all of peoples that never use this trick. The process and the result may even scare you. It may leave a psychological vaccum in you. There are ways to call a spirit but the ways to send them back is more clumsy or you can say it imposible. Because they go back with their own wish only. Only that Spirits come mostly which are around us and most of them are bad spirits. They can harm you and result may be scary. So never ever try to do this. You should respect the spirits and it is never advisable to disturb them.

I am telling here the procedure of calling a spirit by planchit or ouija board. Here are some guidelines. The process may take 15 minutes to 1 hour.

Here's How:

1. It takes two to Ouija. Usually one person is not able to work the Ouija. Get a friend to use it with you. A male and female is usually recommended.

2. Timing. Most practitioners suggest using the board at night when, they say, less interference is in the atmosphere.

3. Create some atmosphere. The Ouija is more fun if you darken the room and light some candles. Turn off the TV and any music to minimize distractions.

4. Have a seat. The two users should sit facing each other, with knees touching if possible, with the board on their laps. Don't use a table.

5. Decide on a questioner or medium. Even though both people can ask questions -- or anyone else in the room can -- only one of the users should be the medium (the one to formally ask questions of the board).

6. Place your fingers on the planchette. You and your partner should place the fingers of both hands very lightly on the planchette, or pointer.

7. Move it. Purposely move the planchette around in a circle on the board for a moment or two to get it 'warmed up.'

8. Attitude. Don't let the board control the session. The medium should begin by announcing that the session will only allow an experience that is positive or toward a higher good and that negative energies are not welcome.

9. Begin simply. Start with a simple question, one that requires a yes or no answer.

10. Be patient. You might not begin to get answers right away. Give the board a chance to 'warm up.'

11. Be polite. When the board starts working, thank the board or entities for showing up and communicating with you.

12. Don't ask stupid questions. Avoid questions such as, 'When am I going to die?' If the board answers, 'in 6 months,' you might just worry about it needlessly.

13. Don't ask for physical signs. Many experienced users warn against asking for physical signs that the 'spirit' is real or present.

14. Don't believe everything the board tells you. Just as with any other source of information, don't accept whatever the board says to be the truth or accurate.

15. Close the board. This is an important step. When you're done with your session, slide the planchette to 'GOODBYE' and remove your hands.

Tips:

1. Have someone write down the answers. Sometimes the letters spell out very quickly and it's difficult to keep track of what's being said. A third person with paper and pen can write down the message as it comes.

2. Play sober. You'll get better results if you haven't been drinking or smoking.

3. Maintain control. If the board starts giving rude, vulgar, obscene or otherwise disagreeable responses, break off the session immediately by closing the board.

A Ouija board (possibly from the French and German/Dutch words for "yes", oui and ja), also known as a Spirit board or Talking board or Planchette, is a flat board marked with letters, numbers, and other symbols, supposedly used to communicate with any spirits or souls. It uses a planchette (small heart-shaped piece of wood) or movable indicator to indicate the spirit's message by spelling it out on the board during a seance. The fingers of the seance participants are placed on the planchette, which then moves about the board to spell out words or become physically manifest.


The Ouija board was regarded as a harmless parlor game unrelated to the occult until American Spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I. Mainstream Christian religions and some occultists have associated use of the Ouija board with the threat of demonic possession and some have cautioned their followers not to use Ouija boards.

While Ouija believers feel the paranormal or supernatural is responsible for Ouija's action, it may be more parsimoniously explained by unconscious movements of those controlling the pointer, a psychophysiological phenomenon known as the ideomotor effect. Despite being debunked by the efforts of the scientific community, Ouija remains popular among many young people.

Notable users

G. K. Chesterton used a Ouija board. Around 1893 he had gone through a crisis of skepticism and depression, and during this period Chesterton experimented with the Ouija board and grew fascinated with the occult.

Poet James Merrill used a Ouija board for years, and even encouraged entrance of spirits into his body. He wrote the poem "The Changing Light at Sandover" with the help of a Ouija board. Before he died, he recommended that people not use Ouija boards.

Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi claimed under oath that, in a seance held in 1978 with other professors at the University of Bologna, the "ghost" of Giorgio La Pira spelled the name of the street where Aldo Moro was being held by the Red Brigades in a Ouija. According to Peter Popham of The Independent: "Everybody here has long believed that Prodi's ouija board tale was no more than an ill-advised and bizarre way to conceal the identity of his true source, probably a person from Bologna's seething far-left underground whom he was pledged to protect."

In 1994, In London, convicted murderer Stephen Young's lawyers lodged an appeal against his conviction after his learning that four of the jurors had conducted a Ouija board seance and had "contacted" the murdered man, who had named Young as his killer.

Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous used the Ouija board to contact spirits. His wife said that he would get messages directly without even using the board. For a while, his participation in AA was deeply affected by his involvement with the Ouija board. Wilson claimed that he received the twelve step method directly from a spirit without the board and wrote it down.

On the July 25, 2007 edition of the paranormal radio show Coast to Coast AM, host George Noory attempted to carry out a live Ouija board experiment on national radio despite the strong objections of one of his guests, Jordan Maxwell, and with the encouragement of his other guests, Dr. Bruce Goldberg, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, and Jerry Edward Cornelius. In the days and hours leading up to the show, unfortunate events kept occurring to Noory's friends and family as well as some of his guests, but these events would likely be considered coincidences. After recounting a near-death experience in 2000 and noting bizarre events taking place, Noory canceled the experiment.

Dick Brooks of the Houdini Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, uses a Ouija board as part of a paranormal and seance presentation.

The Mars Volta wrote their album Bedlam in Goliath based on their alleged experiences with a Ouija board. According to their story (written for them by a fiction author, Jeremy Robert Johnson), Omar Rodriguez Lopez purchased a Ouija board while traveling in Jerusalem. At first the board provided a story which became the theme for the album. Strange events allegedly related to this activity occurred during the recording of the album: the studio flooded, one of the album's main engineers had a nervous breakdown, equipment began to malfunction, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala's foot was injured. Following these bad experiences the band buried the Ouija board.

Other musically related uses: Early press releases stated that Vincent Furnier's stage and band name "Alice Cooper" was agreed upon after a session with a Ouija board, during which it was revealed that Furnier was the reincarnation of a 17th century witch with that name. Brandon Flowers, the lead singer of The Killers, believes his death will be associated with the number 621 (which is also his birthday, June 21) from having used a Ouija board. The Fiery Furnaces said that they used a Ouija board to write lyrics for their album Widow City.

This is a photograph that was taken by a friends son. Akash was working for a roofing outfit from Tremont, Illinois Koch Construction. He snapped this photograph with his camera phone. The story he told me was that they were hired to roof the house by the new owners. According to him, the lady who lived there had passed away nearly three months before. They had been working on the house for two days and had seen no one there. I know the picture looks suspicious but Akash isn't one to lie to me.

This was just another ordinary picture of a computer work-station in a suburban home and nothing was noticed out of the ordinary until the film was developed. Clearly floating on the computer screen, which was turned off at the time, is a disembodied head which is definitely not someone in the background or the picture-taker herself. The photographer believes it to be the ghost of her deceased husband but he appears much younger than when he left this earth .

The Bachelor's Grove Cemetery was empty when this photo was taken (the woman appeared only after the photo was developed).

This 1800s-era cemetery has been largely abandoned since 1965, and since then has fallen victim to vandals. Among the toppled tombstones it is said that satanic and occultist groups perform ceremonies, and over 100 reports of strange phenomena have been collected.

Among them, ghost lights, inexplicable lights and voices, apparitions, strange photos, anomalous recordings and sightings of unbelievable creatures. There is also a nearby haunted lagoon, a phantom farmhouse and a stretch of haunted turnpike near Bachelor's Grove.

The Hickory Hill mansion was built in 1842 by a wealthy man, John Hart Crenshaw, who owned several salt tracts. Although it was illegal to own slaves in Illinois at this time, it was legal to lease slaves from other states to work in the salt mines.

Crenshaw imprisoned slaves, some of whom were kidnapped, in the attic of the mansion in narrow cells and manacles. He reportedly tortured and beat the slaves for many years, and also "bred" his own slaves, until eventually his cruel practices were discovered and he retired to become a farmer.

In the 1920s, the house was opened as a tourist attraction where slavery existed in Illinois, however tourists began reporting sounds of people crying and moaning coming from the attic, cold chills, and whispers. Things intensified when a ghost hunter named Hickman Whittington went to the attic shortly after it opened and spent a few hours there. Though he was in perfect health at the time, he died a few hours after leaving the mansion.

Reportedly, hundreds of people tried to spend the night in the attic after Whittington's death, but would leave, terrorized, before morning (one man did finally spend the night there in 1978, and reported strange sounds).

Currently, the Hickory Hills mansion is owned by the state of Illinois, and is scheduled to open as a historic site (but has not yet re-opened to visitors).

Stairs to the ceiling in the Winchester Mansion, San Jose, California.

Sarah Winchester, a wealthy widow, built the 160-room Victorian Winchester mansion in 1884. It was such an unprecedented project that construction workers worked on the home 24 hours a day for 38 years. The home has many bizarre features, built to keep out evil spirits, including false doors, a room built for seances (where Sarah developed building plans that ghosts sent to her) and a stairway that leads to the ceiling, and many supernatural occurrences have happened there.

Sarah Winchester reportedly spoke to spirits nightly at midnight and since then people have reported organ music in the Blue Room where Sarah died, apparitions, cold spots, a smell of chicken soup in the kitchen, red balls of light and more. Today visitors can take tours of the mansion (including special nighttime flashlight tours).

Strange images in the mirror at the Myrtles Plantation (photo taken by a guest).

Now a bed-and-breakfast, the Myrtles Plantation is said to house many ghosts and spirits due to 10 murders and 1 suicide that have occurred there since it was built in 1796. Among them are the ghosts of Cleo, a former slave who was hung for poisoning two little girls, the ghosts of the little girls, and William Winter, a former owner who was shot on the front porch.

Other apparitions seen by visitors include ghosts from the slave graveyard on the property, and a ghost that meets guests at the inn's gate and says the plantation is closed. A psychic who visited the building said visiting the parlor was like walking into a "crowded cocktail party of spirits," while the owner of the bed-and-breakfast said the ghosts have proven to her that there's life after death.

This Images Sender Person Says : While taking photos in our local park, I saw the strange mist in two photos. I don't know if it is something paranormal, or if it was something wrong with my camera. In this photo I captured something really weird. It looks like some ghostly face with glowing eyes to me. By the way, there are no lights or lamps in the distance; there is only a wall and the end of a park. And darkness. So I can't understand how these lights could appeared on the picture.

The main hall of Ellis Island has been the site of many unexplained phenomena through the years...

They buried her father last summer. As she said her final goodbye to her dad, she sensed that this was not the last terrible loss she would face. Two months later, her husband was killed in a car accident.

He played on that corner for 20 years. One day, he stopped playing, forever. But if you stand still and listen, when the traffic dies down, you can sometimes hear harp music, very faintly.

Little Elsa died many years ago in this run down Polish hospital - she can still be seen wandering the halls on her daily walk through the corridors - some people even claim to have heard her singing old local lullaby's in the hours before a child dies.

During my honours degree I had to complete a photography folio of black and white images, I done a shoot at an old house nearby my home. This was the first, and only picture from the spool I developed, I've been to scared to develope the rest!
says sender..

Three middle-aged people were sitting in the library. They were telling ghost stories to each other, trying to outdo each other. A forlorn-looking child was also sitting there but no one was paying any attention to him. The first one narrated a story of a woman who died when her lover didn’t turn up in the church for their wedding. She waited for hours, all dressed up as a bride, only to realize that he never intended to come in the first place. She ran all the way to a nearby cliff and jumped down. She still haunts the church and many people have seen a lady running all the way to the cliff, dressed as a bride. Many tried to run after her to save her too but they could never stop her from jumping. Then, naturally, there was no dead body to be found.

The boy was aghast and wild-eyed. These people seem to have no sense of age-appropriateness and what could such stories do the child’s mind. Second one told a more ghastly tale of a mother who was buried with her child. She appeared everyday to the milkman and used to snatch a bottle from him and run towards the cemetery. Third day, the milkman ran after her, only to find that she disappeared in a particular grave. He could also hear cries of baby from the grave. He was terrified. He ran back and brought more people with him. When they dug the grave, they found that the child was alive and the dead mother had a half-empty bottle in her hands with the nipple in baby’s mouth.

The boy was very agitated by now. He stood up and started pacing the room. He could not hear more. Before the third man could open his mouth, he suddenly lurched towards the three men and tried to shake them to sense and not talk about such fearful things. But his hands just passed through their bodies. He turned and tried to touch each other things but he kept passing through them. It was then he realized that he was not some made-up story of these three old-aged men. He was a ghost, a very lonely ghost.

seriously spooky ghost picture I picked up at GazetteLive.co.uk From their site: Matthew Summers, 17, got a shock when he snapped seven friends - and eight faces stared back. A haunting child’s face appeared at knee-height in the photo taken before a night out in Billingham. "I zoomed in to my sister’s mate’s little sister who was crying and I saw a face," said the Norton teenager. "You can see all the facial expressions and everything. Usually when you see pictures like that it’s a blur but this one is really weird." Who knows what or who is lurking behind us right now...

Photograph taken at Tantallon Castle, Scotland in 2008 by tourist Christopher Aitchison. According to the photographer, it was taken around 3 pm and there were no re-enactments taking place or any mannequins placed in the castle windows at the time. Trick of the light, or an actual ghost in period clothes? I'm not sure. This photograph is one of many that Richard Wiseman, who studies the paranormal, has been collecting for quite some time.

Members of the Cheshire Paranormal Society took this fantastic picture on Packhorse Bridge, Caergwrle, Wales. Although this was just a random shot, orbs had been captured by the group already and several members felt uneasy at the time. It's believed a number of ghosts haunt this bridge possibly in connection with a former burial ground nearby, for which the bridge was the entrance. Very Spooky!

This picture was taken in 1999 inside the Sefton Church located in England. The church itself is a very old structure. The photographer claimed that there was nobody else present at the time of the photograph. Because the apparition appears to be wearing black, some think that it could be the ghost of a minister.

The photograph to the right was taken by a woman mourning her 17 year old daughter who had passed away. She only meant to take a picture of the grave. What she actually captured has managed to stir quite a debate over the years. The woman claims that there were no children anywhere near at the time of the shot. She further stated that she did not even recognize the child, therefore it wouldn't have been someone she would have taken a photo of. This supposedly rules out double exposure. She also states that it does not resemble her deceased daughter as a child. So the ghost baby remains a mystery still today.

This interesting photograph was supposed to be of the man you see in the cowboy hat. He had the pictures done in black and white to create more of an old west feel. When he had the pictures developed he was scared by what he saw. What looks like a man rising from the ground and holding what looks to be a knife. The man who took the photo says that there were no other people anywhere nearby. What makes this photo so mysterious is the fact that the figure is not casting a shadow as it should be and is only visible from the chest up, as if it were in a hole.

A strange legend surrounds this intersection of roadway and railroad tracks. It was supposedly the site of a
terrible accident in which several school children were killed. Legend
has it that their ghosts still linger at the spot and will push idling cars across the tracks, Some people believe the figure in the photo looks like a little girl with a dog sitting next to her.

This photo may not be real but it was quite scary. The ghost in this picture is “Pontianak” (Lady Dracula) which is the most scariest and violent ghost in Malaysia and Indonesia. a dress snapped in a graveyard.

A picture After a car accidend. Looks to me like someone was driving by the car and took the photo through their window and the "ghost" is a reflection on their glass.
What do u think?

This photo was taken at the Lyme Regis Boys Club in Lyme Regis, a coastal town in West Dorset, England, in December 2005. When one of the children, a 2 year-old girl, was seen talking to herself, she was asked who she was talking with, she replied that she was talking to 'Sam'. There was no one there named Sam. When everyone had left, one of the adults took some pictures with a digital camera, and this eerie photo is the result. Is this a real picture of the ghost of Sam?

The building was once the Parish Church Hall and was also used by the American Army during WWII. It was taken over by the Boys Club in 1978 and refurbished in 1993.

This was taken along with dozens of other pictures at Louisburgh Fortress in Louisburgh Nova Scotia Canada. The fortress is original and a national park; it was the site of many battles between French and English troops to gain control of the area.

When I took the picture nothing was strange in the room but it turned out with what looks like someone in old clothes\dress stitching the bed or maybe a dress? I can't tell. It's creepy either way.

Hi Friends, look at the left side of the photo, there is some thing strange marked in red. what do you thing, is hat a human or a ghost? if that is a human that will be wonderfull because he is very huge and trasparent. wether you believe or not i prefer to believe thet this is s ghost

A ghost is appearing near a dog in this photograph. what would u say that is real or not. May be dogs can see the souls all the time.

Somebody is appearing on the bed in the photograph. but in actual there was nobody.

Penny from Ontario, Canada sent us this ghost picture recently. Do you see a face in the window behind them? Take a closer look...

"This picture was taken in 1963. It is of my dad, my older sister and my great-grandpa. Notice the face in the window behind my great-grandpa.. My mother was the one who took this shot and she said that there was no one else there. This picture still freaks her out today. We have no idea who this could be, but my grandmother thinks it could be a family member. To me he looks like someone from the 1800's - notice the derby style hat."

This ghost picture, taken by the late Robert D. Walsh at a mill in the United States, was published in 1929.
The lady appears to be looking downward, as she descends. It is an incredible photograph and story:

"(The) photo is what was published local in 1929. Far as I know, it made no big impact at that time. I now reside in the UK and just really needed to let you have this. Personally, I think it is genuine and probably one of the best I have ever seen for existence of life after death. (The) picture was taken in what was then called Fanham Wood Mill in early January 1929, by builders aid Robert D. Walsh. Mr. Walsh was renovating the inner staircase and needed a photographic aid to measure timber needed for the project (timber was expensive even then). Mr Walsh did not see anything other than the staircase and timber jointed roof, whilst taking the photograph, and he swears nobody other than himself and his dog were present. However Mr. Walsh did think his dog was being 'different' that afternoon, but he just thought it was because the dog was in a strange place (Note: Mr. Walsh did not say what he meant by referring to 'different.'). Mr. Walsh did renovate said mill several weeks later, and says he did not see or hear anything unusual at all. The photograph was given to us by Mr. Walsh's great granddaughter who wishes to remain anonymous. Mr. Walsh died in November 1943, having sworn many times to the authenticity of the enclosed photo."

Amanda sent us this wonderful ghost picture of a baby on grandpa's chair. It's an older photo that was re-photographed with a camera instead of copying it via scanner (to get it on her computer). Please disregard the white flash on the baby's legs, but consider the human form or apparition seemingly holding the infant:

"My aunt's best friend gave birth to the baby boy in the picture, a few weeks after her father passed away. During a visit when the child was about six months old and crawling, his mother and grandmother noticed he had crawled up on 'grandpa's chair.' Out of nostalgia, his mother placed him up in the chair and took his picture. Apparently 'grandpa' decided to 'hold' his grandson and pose with him.
All the negatives on this roll were examined to see if there was a possible bleed through from another photograph, but there was nothing even close to cause something like this. All we can assume is grandpa still lingers in his home and still enjoys sitting in his chair; or he is his

Note: "I had no scanner, so this is a photo taken of the original picture with my camera. The white around the baby's knees is the flash from my camera. (The date on the picture is the stamp from my camera.)"

The man appears rather gaunt, and older than the children in the foreground of the ghost photograph from India. At right is the negative image of the man.

This is an excellent example of an apparition ghost picture.

Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England, is most famous for the ghost of "the Brown Lady," which was captured on film in 1936 in what is considered one of the most authentic ghost pictures ever taken.

Ghost Photo by Joe LaRocca : Queen Mary Ghost
While aboard the Queen Mary a few years back my Uncle George took this picture of what he thought was an ordinary vestibule. When he got home he printed out his pictures but wasn’t expecting to find what looks like a ghost walking down the hall. My Uncle is 78 and does not believe in ghosts, but this freaked him out. He doesn’t even like to talk about the incident. I was just watching a special on the 10 most haunted places and when the Queen Mary was listed I felt compelled to send in the picture.

Many emails have poured in since the original poating of the photo. All stating that they belive this to be the best Ghost Photo ever taken on the Queen Mary to date. Many have also voted this to be the best Ghost Photo of the year for 2008.

"This is a picture of my dog Homer and what I believe to be a the Ghost of the woman who haunts my house," says Leslie Farmer of, Anchorage, Alaska.

Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of a female "vampire" in Venice, buried with a brick jammed between her jaws to prevent her feeding on victims of a plague which swept the city in the 16th century.

Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist from the University of Florence, said the discovery on the small island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in the Venice lagoon supported the medieval belief that vampires were behind the spread of plagues like the Black Death.

"This is the first time that archaeology has succeeded in reconstructing the ritual of exorcism of a vampire," Mr Borrini said. "This helps ... authenticate how the myth of vampires was born."

The skeleton was unearthed in a mass grave from the Venetian plague of 1576 – in which the artist Titian died – on Lazzaretto Nuovo, which lies around 2 miles northeast of Venice and was used as a sanatorium for plague sufferers.

The succession of plagues which ravaged Europe between 1300 and 1700 fostered the belief in vampires, mainly because the decomposition of corpses was not well understood, Mr Borrini said.

Gravediggers reopening mass graves would sometimes come across bodies bloated by gas, with hair still growing, and blood seeping from their mouths and believe them to be still alive.

The shrouds used to cover the faces of the dead were often decayed by bacteria in the mouth, revealing the corpse's teeth, and vampires became known as "shroud-eaters".

According to medieval medical and religious texts, the "undead" were believed to spread pestilence in order to suck the remaining life from corpses until they acquired the strength to return to the streets again.

"To kill the vampire you had to remove the shroud from its mouth, which was its food like the milk of a child, and put something uneatable in there," said Borrini. "It's possible that other corpses have been found with bricks in their mouths, but this is the first time the ritual has been recognised."

While legends about blood-drinking ghouls date back thousands of years, the modern figure of the vampire was encapsulated in the Irish author Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, based on 18th century eastern European folktales.

Hypertrichosis is a genetic disorder that triggers uncontrolled hair growth due to physical defects like non-functioning of endocrine gland, infections, mutation, malnutrition, drugs or hereditary factors. Also called werewolf syndrome, it leads to hair formation in unwanted areas generally exempting the hands, feet and eyes. Werewolf syndrome is a rare condition which affects only one person among ten billions. Hypertrichosis either originates during birth or develops after a person grows up especially on the verge of puberty. A person affected by hypertrichosis is often devastated since he is physically abnormal and cruel people taunt them.

In ancient times, werewolves mostly thought of as evil spirits were often sacrificed and they were not allowed to lead a normal life. The hair that is normally affected due to werewolf syndrome is the vellus hair, which is hazily present all over the body. These hairs due to hormonal changes or genetic mutations start growing uncontrollably with individual distinctions in growth variations. It is common for people with hypertrichosis to have imperfect teeth and erratic growth of gums, a reason why people identify them with names like ape man, werewolf or wolf man.

Werewolf syndrome is being researched and still no cure has been sought for the disease. Since the symptoms rarely occur in people, medical treatments have not evolved properly to treat people who are affected. Bleaching, waxing, electrolysis or laser treatments used in cosmetic treatments lighten the problems faced by hypertrichosis affected persons temporarily or permanently. Regular shaving controls the disheveled appearance of a hypertrichosiatic. Bleaching and laser procedures during hair removal for werewolf syndrome affected people must be professionally done with the help of a cosmetician. People often were and still are terrified of werewolves since it is an uncommon phenomenon.

Werewolves lead an isolated life because very few people identify hypertrichosis as an ailment. Hypertrichosis is often associated with amazing mythological stories. The common conviction is that human beings transform into werewolves especially on full moon days. Even today, werewolves are normally employed in circuses or as beggars as they are not allowed to lead a natural life.

Therianthropy is a term referring to the metamorphosis of humans into beasts. One of the most common talked about therianthropy or human shape shifter is the werewolf. Werewolves and other half man, half beast creatures have always been a part of popular mythology. There are several different types of Therianthropy. In many cultures there is talk of people being inhabited by animals’ souls. These creatures are generally thought to keep the outside appearance of human beings but they are controlled by the soul of animals. In Native American mythology there are many references to animal spirits.

As a young man reaches the age of maturity he receives his animal spirit; depending on the tribe these animals were sometimes killed by the man. He would then keep the skin and bones to make his ‘medicine.’ This ‘medicine’ would be kept with him forever. Another kind of Therianthropy is the werewolf of popular culture. There are several movies as well as hundreds of books on the subject, each having their own mythology. In some versions the werewolf is a hybrid creature that transforms physically once a month. These transformations are thought to happen when the moon is full. It is thought that one becomes a werewolf when you have been bitten by another werewolf. In most mythology’s werewolves can only be killed by a silver bullet.

There are others that believe any silver weapon can kill a werewolf. In some versions werewolves are very solitary creatures. In other myths werewolves live in communities called clans. These clans generally are not friendly to one another. The biggest enemy of werewolves in popular culture is vampires. In some myths, there has been a war for centuries of werewolves vs. vampires. Werewolves, whether they are real or not, are a continuing part of our culture. There is no doubt that we will continue to see both films and literature created about werewolves and other therianthropes.

Vampires and werewolves are familiar monsters to most of us. They star in movies and are popular Halloween costume choices. However, these mystical creatures also share deeper similarities. Both vampires and werewolves are shape-shifting creatures. They are thought to change form from a human to an animal. In the case of a vampire, an undead human can change into a bat at will, especially on a dark and spooky night.

Werewolves, on the other hand, do not have any control over their transformation. They shift shape from human form to wolf-like form whenever they are in the presence of a full moon. Perhaps because vampires are thought to have control over their form, while werewolves do not, each creature has a distinctive set of personality characteristics when stereotyped in film and literature. Vampires are seen as cold, both figuratively and literally.

They are capable of regarding normal humans placidly, with icy sharp logic. The iconic image of a vampire is of a pale man in a cape laughing creepily or simply staring. In contrast, werewolves are seen as passionate and almost animalistic. The iconic image of a werewolf is of a man caught mid-transformation, ripping at his shirt as his body turns from human into fierce and bulky animal. These two creatures also differ in terms of the type of threat they present to humans.

Vampires actively seek humans to kill (or to turn into vampires, depending on the story). They require regular meals of fresh human blood in order to survive, and so they act as literal silent predators. The fear that we feel when watching a vampire movie is the fear of what unknown and alien force might wait hidden in the darkness. Werewolves are not typically described as actively stalking humans, and indeed are often shown as very loving to humans when the moon is new. However, they can hurt human beings when they are in wolf form. The fear evoked at a werewolf movie is the fear of betrayal, the fear of those we trust and care for transforming into something utterly different and destructive.