America's Forgotten Vampire Panic

Just a spoon full of ashes helps the (vampire) medicine go down.
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**CREDITS**
Mortician and Writer: Caitlin Doughty
Producer and Writer: Louise Hung (@LouiseHung1)
Editor & Graphics: Andy Windak
A special thanks to Michael E. Bell, whose book “Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires” was incredibly informative in the creation of this video. We are so grateful for your scholarship and VAMPIRE SLEUTHING.
Thank you to the National Museum of Health and Medicine for your thoughtful response to our questions and your important work with JB-55.
**SELECTED SOURCES & ADDITIONAL READING**
Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires
Bell, Michael E.
Wesleyan University Press. Middletown, Connecticut, 2001.
Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend
Jenkins, Mark Collins
The National Geographic Society. Washington, DC, 2010.
A History of Vampires in New England
D’Agostino, Thomas
The History Press. Charleston, South Carolina, 2010.
“The Great New England Vampire Panic”
www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...
“Mysterious Connecticut 'Vampire' Finally Identified 200 Years After Burial”
www.livescience.com/66087-vam...
“The Vampires of Rhode Island: Bright, Like An Angel. Nancy Young, 19, Foster. 1827”
the-avocado.org/2019/10/23/th...
“A ‘vampire’s’ remains were found about 30 years ago in Connecticut. Now DNA is giving him new life.”
www.courant.com/news/connecti...
"Deadly Professions: Dracula, Undertakers, and the Embalmed Corpse"
www.jstor.org/stable/3828796

[@savon1710]

Caitlin coming right out and saying "Look, I'm not a vampire! I'm aging right before your eyes!" when she literally hasn't visibly aged a day since video one. Very bold, but you can't hide from me.

[@typacsk]

@Coolsville Another "White Trash Zombie" fan?

[@imniamhmoneyy]

it’s something a vampire would say

[@QUEERVEEART]

This comment is my favorite

[@HouseplantDaddy]

Hmmmm... you've got a point. 😮

[@DibIrken]

@Coolsville iZombie?

[@joelover270]

i feel so blesst that caitlin is taking time for herself and not churning out videos but we still get GEMS

[@pembrokelove]

That’s why we get gems, because she doesn’t churn out video after video, just when she has a good story and the desire to share it. :)

[@saotiago]

tru! the production value has been *chef's kiss*

[@danielaxc2900]

Funeral homes also be redic busy right now too. Death rates have barely noticeably gone down in the PNW, and Fall going into Winter + Winter months usually see a spike in deaths as well. A lot of us deathcare workers, the few still holding on that is, as are kind of holding our breathe.

[@Amberk1985]

Practicing self care is being a good influence (er).

[@birdgirl8390]

yes 🙌🏻 my fav KZbinrs are the ones who take their time.

[@murdoch2Dnoodles]

I am from Romania, "the land of Dracula", and I can promise you guys the only vampires we have are in the parliament but they don't suck our blood, just money from our pockets...

[@Chris-zm3uc]

This sounds like a universal problem. So maybe the do exist after all?

[@catriamflockentanz]

Funfact: The term "vampire" originally described a feudal leader who sucked his subjects dry as in excessive overworking and undervaluing their work regardless.

[@114Mwaaaaaaaaaaah]

​​@@catriamflockentanz im sorry but im gonna be that ☝🏼🤓 guy here Although yeah, it was used for a while as an insult to monarchy and burgeoisie, it was deffinitly no the very origin of the word, if it was used in that context, it was because the word and concept of vampire was already popular in culture

[@nitrofairywing1541]

​@@catriamflockentanzSo the American government?

[@catriamflockentanz]

@@nitrofairywing1541 Not a feudal system. Though some people wanted an American Monarchy after the Liberation War against Britain. Though their supposed king, you know whom, didn't want any part of it.

[@theclassicalstudent]

Fun fact we learned during last year’s Dracula Daily: Stoker’s version of vampirism (as seen in Lucy’s story) was almost point-by-point a list of rabies symptoms.

[@petuniaodwyer1834]

Stoker's mother lived through a Cholera outbreak when she was a teenager. She detailed the panic around the sick and dead during that time seems to have impacted him too :)

[@maddieb.4282]

That solves it, I’m sure he wasn’t influenced by anything else and probably had no imagination either, he simply rewrote a medical textbook lol

[@cherylmaden5989]

​@@maddieb.4282I concur

[@user-io9ie5cs8j]

Oh boy.....

[@traci3868]

"Generalized undead tomfoolery." I'm going to find ways to work this into every conversation I have from now on.

[@GenXfrom75]

If you watch any zombie shows, it'd be a nice addition to conversation on the undead in it. Lol 🤣😅🤣🤣

[@victoriahoward8244]

Me too!!

[@phillip5245]

That's my new indie band's name.

[@user-io9ie5cs8j]

I put actual Consecrated Olive Oil on my swords, arrows etc. Why, you may ask? As I told my Bishop, "Zombie Apocalypse; Hello!" He didn't get the humor. I think it's because I actually have. Huh. Anyway, moving on......

[@debanam]

As a hospice nurse I can attest that many, if not most, people do not know what a natural death looks like. It looks nothing like death on TV or in film does. Thank you Caitlin, for helping people understand that death isn't the scary thing people think it is.

[@texaskatydid1081]

As a kid we practiced sitting up with the dead for my Louisiana relatives. It was a last sign of love and respect to have the body watched over until the funeral and yes kids were included. It definitely took a lot of fear away from the death process.

[@apextroll]

I prefer the one on tv thanx.

[@_JustJoe]

@@texaskatydid1081 I wish everyone did this (unless you have a horrible phobia obviously)

[@TruthNeverFade]

You're right! Death is (mostly) pretty peaceful and sometimes even funny. It shouldn't be such a taboo in modern society.

[@rainblaze.]

I take the woody allen approach to death: Im not afraid of dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens

[@hello_robot]

Tuberculosis makes it difficult for people to breathe, feeling like there is a heaviness on their chest. Explains why so many reports of TB + vampires describe someone sitting on their chest. I also wonder if the general weakness and fatigue of the disease causes people to hallucinate? Edit: I just did a brief lookup and it seems advanced stages of untreated TB are linked to psychosis as the disease can start affecting around the spinal cord and brain.

[@amandahealey2216]

That actually explains a lot

[@nathanjasper512]

We don't necessarily need hallucinations to explain what happened. People living in a community with very little knowledge of science and believing in vampires and spirits is enough.

[@StopXPlease]

Also, sleep paralysis demons like the old hag are universally known now, but back then they weren't, thats why people see a now known phenomenon like sleep paralysis as demonic and horrifying.

[@WouldntULikeToKnow.]

Not to mention sleep paralysis. That can make you hallucinate and feel like "someone" is sitting on your chest.

[@Oakleaf700]

My mum was one of the last people to die young of TB in uk. Her illness was a slow and awful process, over years. Now, of course, it's treatable.

[@etainvelorum5814]

"I'm not a vampire! I'm aging as you can see!" Something a vampire would try to say. Can't fool us, Caitlin. There is such a thing as video editing.

[@ilarious5729]

Honestly she hasn't even aged since her first videos, the little changes there are visible can be explained with makeup, this is all very sus imo.

[@spookyvegan1402]

😂I love how she says I’m decaying slowly 😂

[@spookyvegan1402]

This video was AWESOME!! As usual you blow my mind with the things you teach us all thank you ❤

[@Appophust]

VAMPIRE DEEP FAKE FOR THE WIN!!

[@4bibimimi]

We are clearly being glamored!

[@mrs.w5539]

It's nice to have these stories covered in a way that doesn't just call the people who believed this stupid. People didnt know germ theory or antibiotics. Like you said, this was their medicine. They just wanted to save their families.

[@xXyaoixXxmatXx]

Kpo8op]

[@domiro8156]

I agree.... but unfortunately some religious, superstitious and mentally deficient individuals still wallow in that nonsense!!!

[@gnarthdarkanen7464]

It's worth adding here somewhere... That at least with the Brown Family, if I recall correctly... It wasn't even a subscription to "the faith" of locals, but a matter of seeking peace with the neighbors "who believed in that nonsense" that allowed the "medical process" more than excitedly scoured the cemetery to participate in "the hunt"... Besides... It's one thing to grasp at straws when you're reaching the limits of your own sanity while you watch your family deteriorate in spite of everything you know to do and every "expert" you know to trust in a situation with lacking scientific rigor or data... It's a whole different category of "stupid" that ascribes the "obviously supernatural undead" with antagonizing the living in the face of a literal plethora of evidence to the contrary... or to resist said science and its support of devices and processes that CLEARLY have valid results and offer protection or cure by plunging into a faithless and superstitious dark-age idealism anyway. Some folks never had the chance nor access to better information or education. Some people have worked VERY HARD to earn the title "stupid" in the face of everything. ;o)

[@miketalas7998]

Germ theory has turned out to be a Scam also!!! Money Grubbing Haaah (scientists) & PigPharma have Scammed the World for Gain of Money I, I, I, mean Gain of Function! To make the Sheeple run with Naked Arms To Get Jabbed!!!!

[@orlock20]

Enough people still don't know about germ theory. · People taking Ivermectin for Covid will lead to future mocking tales.

[@deepsea5348]

The tuberculosis explains the trope of vampires being pale, thin, red-lipped, sometimes sickly looking and sometimes beautiful in a haunting way.

[@andreagorches68]

Being sick with consumption was considered a beauty trend back during the Victorian era.

[@milisiacook5617]

I thought it was there lack of melatonin because of them not getting iñ the sun.

[@jaydenklaus]

@@milisiacook5617 I think you mean melanin. Melatonin is a hormone associated with the sleep cycle, not skin pigmentation.

[@damian4628]

And it would explain the blood in the organs

[@TheKweenII_09]

the "das vampyrenstande" (i'm not sure i spelled this correctly) part...

[@mmunster]

Caitlin: "It was officially declared that the source of this whole debacle was..." Me: "Rats?" Caitlin: "Cows." Me: "Oh."

[@nephicus339]

What a twist!

[@Scarshadow666]

Now I know why the vampire cows were a thing in The Little Vampire! It was just for a joke bit in the movie! ...And I just revealed my old fart age with that statement, lol.

[@jax4652]

@@Scarshadow666 best movie ever.

[@Daelyah]

@@Scarshadow666 Precisely what I was going to say! ...also, the vampire dad from that film was one of my very first crushes, when I was little...pretty fair warning for how weird I'd turn out... 😅

[@nataliestavrum4451]

@@Scarshadow666 Is it based on the books? :0

[@Martell364]

The more stories like this I hear, the more sense John Green's stance of "everything leads back to tuberculosis" makes sense. ^^

[@jito7377]

Or barn owls, if you think about cryptozoologie...

[@bakugoukacchankatsuki6434]

TB and rats lmao

[@marissadanielle2469]

"That's how you can tell I'm not a vampire, I'm aging!" .........Are you sure about that?

[@theblackbaron4119]

I would keep an eye on her, I haven't seen her age in the last two hundred years... I mean so I've been told.

[@abuntykhan184]

@@theblackbaron4119 huh... You are suspicious, are you sure it wasn't you who had been keeping an eye on her for past centuries 🧐

[@wratched]

I mean, look at her neck. Those marks came from somewhere.

[@gowdsake7103]

Could be makeup

[@margaretgibbs6673]

Yeah lmao I was like ....bish where

[@rwandaforever6744]

Just for the fresh-blood-in-corpse-theory: I exhumed a man who died in the hospital three years after he was buried. He looked like you would expect him to look...on the outside. When I cut open his thigh to get to the femur I wanted to take as a DNA sample, I cut through the femoral artery and dark red blood, not even clotted, ran out of it. I still took the bone sample, but in the end used the blood sample for analysis. And it yielded good results. The DNA was not deteriorated. In another case, I had to exhume a woman after 10 years of burial. She was mostly skeletonized, but her brain was well preserved within her skull. So good in fact that I took a swab of brain matter for analysis and it worked like a charm. Thus, it's not uncommon that corpses or parts of them are not break down at the same speed or decay at the same level. There are also reports from anthropological digs, where they found a grave with the upper half of the body being only a "shadow" in the ground, but the lower half bones still OK. Ground composition can vary even within a single grave and outside factors may play a role in this, too. The fresh blood in the first corpse may still have been liquid due to anti-coagulation medication, and the lack of decay due to antibiotics or chemo therapy given in the hospital. Well, at least we in professions that work with the dead will be the first to see the undead^^ After app. 50000 corpses not seen one get up and eat brains/drink blood yet. But surely I am just one lucky scientist...or I am in on the global cabal to keep the undead a secret...who knows?

[@bloodyneptune]

I like the 'yet'. Now Im just imagining you looking over the still morgue before you shut the lights off at the end of your shift, sighing sadly

[@seaborgium919]

Ok that is cool input.

[@helenl3193]

Well, they're not going to do it *in front of you*, are they?! They have human servants for avoiding that sort of thing. Being dug up by scientists? So uncouth! What would they neighbours say! Only the rookie undead do that sort of thing, and they don't last very long as a result!

[@StratospheralNurse]

Thank you for sharing. Such an interesting and informative comment. What do you do for a living?

[@_JustJoe]

@@feitme 💀

[@dinahmyte3749]

I have anemia and asthma, and often have sleep paralysis where I wake up and struggle to breathe and my low iron counts often leave me breathless and having weird brain glitches when I don't take my supplements. When my night asthma was worse, when I was a child, I would "hear" my imaginary friend, Stephen, whisper stuff to me. He once said there was a monster in my room and I had to scream or I'd die. I screamed, my parents ran in, comforted me and I went back to sleep... there was a bat in my room, found in my closet the next day or so. So I 100% believe people with liquefying lungs might hallucinate or have auditory hallucinations. I never had another imaginary friend when we moved, and my parents were like, "Don't worry, Stephen will meet us in Kansas!" and I was like "No. He's not allowed to leave, this is his home." So... who knows what that was about... My asthma improved, my iron stabilized, and I only get "weird stuff" when things go wrong. When I had Covid, my oxygen levels were around 80 to 95% every day, it was awful. I don't remember a lot of it from that time and the lasting damage to brain and lungs is only now being explored, but my roommate said I was confused, I would wander our small home, I would talk things that weren't there... it was scary all around. (Ghosts? No. Lack of oxygen and other vital nutrients the body needs to function.)

[@MariaBareiss]

In my family, people who are dying *always* report being "visited" by relatives that our family thought were no longer with us!

[@viylangager4020]

I get sleep paralysis due to Narcolepsy. It can be quite scary.

[@cjheasley5713]

Your lungs can actually produce a chemical very similar to DMT. On top of that, lack of oxygen to the brain can cause hallucinations

[@cjheasley5713]

​@@MariaBareiss That's very normal.

[@mareofmaers3590]

@@MariaBareiss Unqualified opinion here, but I can imagine it has a lot to do with outer circumstances causing hallucinations in align with the topics that plague us. I had sleep paralysis once during my final exams at school and my hallucinations were about my fellow students in hippie costumes (it's a thing to dress up before the final exams over here) screaming in my room while I begged them to let me sleep. The other hallucination-like thing I had I remember was with a bad fever. I had to leave a wedding early because I was so feverish. It also was during the time the Ukraine war broke out so guess what? In my dream I was in that) war alongside the best woman of the bride of that wedding (who was all dressed up in her dress, makeup and all). And when you are already on your death bed, you probably think a lot of the people that might wait for you on the other side and your brain cooks up the rest.

[@agroneman6005]

As a child, I lived next to the church that Mercy Brown is buried at in Exeter, RI. People always came to visit and try to steal her headstone. I thought of it as a sad story of a young girl who died, dug up, and her heart fed to her younger brother. She died of TB at 19

[@walterfechter8080]

My English grandmother's take on vampires, "Rubbish!" My Romanian grandmother's thoughts on vampires, "We keep our stakes of ash or iron very sharp." Thank you, Caitlin.

[@ms10089]

haha, we take our vampires seriously here in romania

[@berthaschwarze6704]

But ever ask a British grandma about ghosts. Never came across one Person in Britain not believing in ghosts or having had an experience. The more north you get, the more ghosts a house has

[@walterfechter8080]

@@berthaschwarze6704 -- That's so true! My Gran told me that ghosts were, "the national treasure of England." She lived in the Cotswolds for a short time. The house she lived in was supposedly haunted by a soldier and his family. I just went along with it. LOL :-)

[@walterfechter8080]

@@ms10089 -- Quite so! Vampires are good for tourism. :-)

[@badateverything5392]

@@berthaschwarze6704 I'm from the South, no ghosts here; my northern friends... OH. MY. GOODNESS!

[@hbrecker]

Another layer to consider- in the 18th and 19th centuries, many Christian denominations believed that proper burial of the dead was paramount, because a person would need their body in order to be resurrected during the Second Coming of Christ. By burning the bodies of their loved ones during the vampire panic, the families were abandoning the hope of ever seeing that wife/daughter/brother/etc again. It was likely very emotionally taxing for them, and shows just how scared they were of the vampire possibility.

[@r.muller8289]

Y e a h. It's easy to read the burning of corpses as "hillbilly's nonsense" when, in a religious culture where you spent your entire life minding how you behave in hopes of joining the afterlife, the DIY cremation was the ultimate sacrifice an individual could undergo.

[@babablacksheepdog]

@@r.muller8289 Yeah, it's easy to leap to the conclusion that they were all foolish yobs, but it was their way of trying to make sense of what was happening to them and their community, in the absence of germ theory and modern medical knowledge. And vampirism very much fits as an explanation for the symptoms of tuberculosis (the weight loss, the pallor, the shortness of breath and coughing up blood, even the way it spread among members of a household).

[@neolexiousneolexian6079]

@Wolf-dog Cat-dog Jesus can save you from everything except Entropy, apparently. Or God's a bit of a prick, and just because he can save you doesn't mean he'll break the thermodynamic laws he designed to do it. Those Puritans were onto something.

[@julietfischer5056]

@@neolexiousneolexian6079 - The Puritans didn't have a vampire panic. For them, dead meant dead.

[@SadisticSenpai61]

My mom reacted similarly when I told her I signed up to be an organ donor. She was horrified because "What about the resurrection?!" I was kinda baffled. I was like, "What about it? What about ppl buried at sea or burned up in fires or eaten by animals? Do you think God can't put those ppl back together?" It was the weirdest thing I'd ever heard - and that was back when I believed in all that stuff.

[@howlingghosts7304]

FUN FACT : Le Fanu and Stoker were both Irish and may have taken inspiration from Irish folklore with a 5th century druid king called Abhartach , who similar to Dracula drained the blood from villagers after being buried upside down.

[@queer-ios3155]

Or the Irish myth dearg due, a young woman who drains the life of young men (starting with her ex husband and father)

[@flyin4352]

9:33 Oh my god I just found where the inspiration for Vampire Cows from The Little Vampire movie came from. I legit thought they made that up for the film.

[@widethigh6ix9ine]

Her storytelling ability is just incredible, she’s giving morbid curiosity a whole new meaning. I’m so glad I found this channel

[@heartabduction]

Seriously! I found her channel a couple weeks ago and I've barely watched anything else since😅

[@LizzyDel]

@@heartabduction she doesn’t upload much anymore. 🥺😭😭😭 I used to hang on her weekly uploads.

[@cyan7613]

@@LizzyDel I've been watching her since almost the beginning, I'd recommend going back and looking at her old videos. They aren't as long and don't have as much editing, but the content is still both interesting and informative!

[@LizzyDel]

@@cyan7613 yeah!!! I’ve watched them all several times! Haha :)) she’s soothing. :))

[@TheKatKitten]

Welcome ! ☺️

[@ShortHax]

It's the 18th century, let's have some common sense it wasn’t a vampire, it was obviously a witch.

[@douglaswarden2584]

Oh come ON!!!!.......this has demon written all over it.

[@krakenteethgaming]

Definitely the SPIRITS had a hand in this tho

[@bethmoore7722]

Yes, it is scientifically proven that vampires and witches are different species. And please don’t confuse either of them with werewolves, who have an entirely different evolutionary history.

[@CryBlueofZ]

Maybe it was BOTH

[@stop-the-greed]

But which is witch

[@Pootycat8359]

It's interesting to note, that Bram Stoker's novel, "Dracula," is not only a horror tale, but science fiction. It describes two innovations--blood transfusions & the dictaphone--which would come into use many decades later.

[@bubbafug00gle51]

Interesting that the people didn't use the word "vampire" to describe what they believed was happening. it reminds me of how the characters in most zombie media never use the Z word. I think this is definitive proof that "Funk" is real

[@ninjasstabthings]

I truly hope Caitlin’s next book is “Chicken Soup for the Vampire Afflicted Soul” lol 😂

[@BananaPhone234]

The joy this thought brought me is immeasurable!

[@sweetromance8264]

I'll bet I'd order a copy❤🌹

[@KaiInMotion]

Followed by a self-help book called *Kill A Vampire, Save A Life*

[@euansmith3699]

"Coffin Coughing: The Dangers of Secondary Smoking in Vampire Cremations"

[@ninjasstabthings]

@@euansmith3699 hahahahaha yes!

[@Marcus51090]

I can actually see her as a vampire character in “what we do in the shadows” lol

[@stormbourbon8379]

Ha! I just posted that she needs to dress up as Nadja!

[@Marcus51090]

@@stormbourbon8379 Nadja is my favourite.

[@hannatude]

“Ask What Morticians Do in the Shadows” is the crossover Death Mom deserves.

[@AquariusSoul]

Totally lol

[@EBThisThat]

Same with myself as well as my friend who is obsessed with the show. This is absolutely fascinating, though. I've always been drawn to vampire myth !

[@YAUUN]

What you also have to remember is that progress was not just unevenly spread, but unevenly spread to a quite extraordinary degree. From what I've read some rural areas only received indoor plumbing and electricity in the 60's or 70's. And not just in the rural US. My mother's village only received electricity and indoor plumbing post WWII.

[@izabellagoebel6961]

My family didn't get indoor plumbing until mid to late 90's, and they still had to build their restroom themselves with what was left over of their outhouse. I don't even think we lived out as far as a good portion of our neighbors, we lived by the train tracks and by a creek and most of our neighbors lived by the same stretch of road as us and just as close to the train tracks and the creek. Idk when we got electricity exactly but I know my granmothers oil lamps were still being used until she died in 2000. Things are distributed very uneven at times sadly :/

[@abbygail1317]

My mil is in in her mid 50s and they didn't get indoor plumoing til she was in HS. Even then they still used the outhouse. Rural S IL.

[@helenr4300]

I was shocked when encountered villages that had TV before piped water (in middle of UK) because that was so much the wrong way around in my understanding of progress and technology. I have led funeral services for women that recalled how they would meet with neighbours at the village well when collecting water each day.

[@suzzannegabel1636]

My husband's family in rural PA, United States didn't have an indoor bathroom until 1973, when he was 9.

[@cjheasley5713]

There are vast areas where I live with no cell service

[@crusmonster1397]

“Sometimes, like with the Brown’s, it was eaten, or drank. Drunk? Drinked? ✨Imbibed✨” 😂😂😂 I have to rewatch that part a couple of times each time I watch this video. It’s so funny to me.

[@littleblackcar]

"Sitting on her chest". I feel like there needs to be some more discussion of ghost stories vs. sleep paralysis. So many accounts of the paranormal seem to involve entities sitting on chests while people are paralyzed. I've had this happen and, yeah, if I hadn't already known what was going on I would absolutely have believed it was a ghost encounter. In my case, I could feel the bed sink, the blankets lift, and something touch my leg. I knew it wasn't real and that I was dreaming but my brain was convinced I was actually feeling it. It happened during "Hell Week", the week before final exams in college, when I was stressed out and my sleep schedule was completely out of whack--prime set-up for sleep paralysis.

[@imnottwelve1126]

Having experienced both of these (Sleep Paralysis and these type of dreams while lungs were bad) I would say these are really opposites. I don't want to try for hundreds of thousands of words to explain so.. I can try just comparing a couple things. During Sleep Paralysis you are awake and aware of your surroundings. During these dreams you are the deepest in sleep of your life. You could be so oxygen deprived and became so exhausted and relaxed that you might never wake up. Those seem like opposites to me. While having Sleep Paralysis the situation makes you fearful and panicked... this gets your brain to make scary, unfamiliar things that startle you. Versus noticing your chest is weighted down but it's your favorite person or pet here to comfort you... it's a dream though. I don't feel much progression with Sleep Paralysis. Just random things startling you while you fight to either fully wake up or fully fall asleep. Versus comforting dream is trying to fulfill your wishes while you slowly recall your state and can actually eat or drink in your dreams. These people also had a mouth full of blood randomly. So that's what they'd taste if they tried to eat or drink anything in their dreams. So some negative progression likely or depressing realizations like Fido died when you were ten so they can't be here or this isn't real. Comforting to depressing or frustrating.

[@ayesha36]

Oliver Sacks talks about this and the concept of "night-mares" (demonic beings that sit on your chest) as being signs of sleep paralysis or similar hallucinations. That they were so common and universal going back centuries is quite interesting.

[@wombat.6652]

We probably experience these things in different ways. Depending on life experience, stories we put into our dream worlds , state of health and so on and on. Waking up from one general anesthetic I was terrified: not of anything just totally terrified, and still paralyzed. Woke up from normal sleep in that state of terror for many months. I could explain it to myself, " oh ok I am awake now and at home. this is just a "hangover" from the G.A. Having asthma sometimes felt like someone was standing on me, - and waking up like that is not fun. I do have a scientific explanation of asthma, so even in the worst attacks I understand what is happening. If the only explanation I had was vampires I think I would be much more scared.

[@aphyngodiva2551]

I was also rather irked by this, I'm not super mad that Caitlin didn't include it, but wished it was included. The history of sleep paralysis and the mythologies surrounding it are extremely fascinating! I also think another part of the hysteria could have been due to the trauma of seeing so many of their loved ones dying, that is a lot to cope with and if someone doesn't have a good support system, I can absolutely see them slowly losing their minds, having dreams about their loved ones wanting to kill them too and that they are becoming monsters etc. Plus consumption/tuberculosis affecting oxygen delivery to the brain probably, more likely for people to experience delusions.

[@erinpeterson3202]

i started getting sleep paralysis as a side effect of one of my meds and its creepy af. if i didnt know better, i wouldve guessed ghosts or demons too

[@tracib.7725]

It’s so nice to hear about a “dark” part of our past where no one was murdered by their own society. Every “vampire” was already dead. Very refreshing! Thanks!

[@victoriahoward8244]

Yeah! Refreshing already dead corpses! Nice change, isn’t it? 😁

[@antauljn543]

Yes! So much better than the witch trials. I'm really glad no one was killed by mass panic.

[@elizabethcassidy8082]

As a Rhode Islander, thank you for the kindness shown to the Brown Family. Mercy Brown and Bathsheba Sherman (of Conjuring fame) have gone through enough. Folks who would love an (unintended!) companion piece watch Kaz Rowe's The Gruesome History of Real Life Vampire Hunting.

[@TheRainyKingdom]

I love Kaz Rowe!!

[@milicakrstic8642]

As a former goth AND Serbian, I was very surprised when an actual anthem just exploded before my eyes. Caitlin, you did it. You did it again!

[@indigothecat]

How Caitlin Doughty doesn't have her own PBS show yet is a mystery. I always genuinely learn things from her content, both history and science!

[@oliveoilz2112]

I’m pretty sure years and years ago she was supposed to have a tv show, she talks about something like that in her kardashian will video

[@jaynekranc8607]

I'd love that.

[@Tinyvalkyrie410]

She has a lot more creative control here than she would on a classic television channel, even one like PBS. Honestly I can’t think of a single youtuber that transferred to television and had their content improved. Plus here her content is freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection

[@AirQuotes]

She did do some videos on KZbin with pbs I think

[@indigothecat]

@@Tinyvalkyrie410 True, there is that piece of it as well. If she did put tons of her stuff on TV, the network would probably be afraid she was getting "too political." Though honestly I think that PBS tends to be a little more liberal most of the time anyways, as solid science and education is now considered lefty instead of just normal. (It shouldn't be, but that's where we are these days.)

[@RatQueer]

Caitlyn has always given me goth mom vibes, knowing that she smoked djarums outside the goth club and listens to Bauhaus makes me feel safe. Honestly she's everything I want to be.

[@lazyhomebody1356]

So did I, but Caitlin's STILL cool,lol

[@PRDreams]

I don't know what djarums is... Or Bauhaus... But sounds German...

[@lazyhomebody1356]

@@PRDreams They are clove cigarettes and are delicious!! But addictive so don't smoke, kids. Oh, and Bauhaus is a cool rock band, named after an art movement.

[@PRDreams]

@@lazyhomebody1356 thanks for the information! I used to smoke and FINALLY quit June this year. Never again! I just really hope I don't end up with lung cancer for my bad decisions. I regret it so much...

[@stanlygirl5951]

@@PRDreams Yay! Congratulations to you! I'm 20+ years into my freedom. I wish you the same or better.

[@alexandrajay2001]

not only is Lucy in Dracula a portmanteau of Mercy Lina, but those leftover letters make Mina, the other leading woman in the novel. Stoker basically just switched the first letters.

[@mimisezlol]

It's like he split her in two

[@JustAnotherNerdGirl7]

I'd like to recommend Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla. It's the precursor to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Edit: For context, I took a class on Irish Literature and Culture. My professor brought Carmilla to us, but not before he provided the historical context for the European Vampire Panic. I've actually read the report you've mentioned. You're spot on with all of your facts on it as well.

[@charlottesmith4434]

Is it just me that wants to hear more about being a Goth growing up in Hawaii....? I'd love to hear more of Cailtin's stories about this.... and if it's even possible!

[@JimmyNails27]

Seconded!

[@BIBLE-a-s-m-r]

Let's move to Portland it's cold and there's a goth scene lol

[@nmartin5551]

This may be dumb, but do you mean expanding on what she tells in her book?

[@robininlow3044]

Caitlin, I love the compassion that you show while talking about history. It would be so easy to mock the misguided-ness of the past, but you help us remember that this was truly terrifying for people, and I really appreciate that perspective.

[@elainelouve]

Besides, after having seen otherwise reasonable people fall into all the anti masking, anti vax superstitions, I feel like I totally understand. They had their science folks and those who didn't fall into the panic, but many did. Just like these days.

[@michelewalburn4376]

You should do cemetery tours and tales. You have the perfect look, voice, and personality for it.

[@AlwaysKDawg]

Carmilla is very good, also Stoker drew a lot of inspiration from it. The queer undertones are so subtle too that if you don't tell someone, they might miss it, it's definitely a read between the lines kind of book and Le Fanu wrote it in response to tithe wars in Ireland (his father was a protestant chaplain and they were very involved in their church and faith).Le Fanu basically wrote vampirism as a disease to stand in for catholicism and I have always found that both interesting and kind of funny in a satirical way. I love the true blue clip. My mom and I always make fun of how Bill says Sookie's name lol

[@brelonwy]

I do not recall Carmilla being subtle in the slightest with how queer it gets. Unless you're being sarcastic?

[@16poetisa]

@@brelonwy It probably depends a lot on how well you know 19th century literature.

[@sarahburroughs8807]

Fun fact about European vampire history: Several conditions, including collagen disorders, are suspected to have inspired vampirism. One of those collagen disorders is Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which is classified as a rare disorder but now suspected to be massively underdiagnosed as it can present in many different ways and severities. The most common type, Type 3 hypermobility, is suspected to be caused by a dominant gene as it passes easily through families. Common symptoms include thin, translucent skin susceptible to burning, eyes sensitive to the sun and sometimes with blue sclera, long canines, a small mouth, a lanky build with joints that hyperextend weirdly and also dislocate/relocate easily, weak veins, sensitivity to a lot of foods, weird allergies, and visibly aging very slowly (until your very elderly years where all your skin droops at once) but also internally aging very quickly. Oh, and since it made hard labor quickly disabling, it was a condition more commonly seen amongst nobility, so then even the rarer types with recessive genes that causes other strange symptoms (especially weird skin textures) were also passed down. This could be one indication of why in Europe vampires were so often said to be nobles.

[@sagasjogren2994]

oh my god you're telling me i would technically be classified as a vampire? this is DOPE. i will from now on refer to myself as a disabled vampire.

[@krisherman3513]

You are not describing type III, at least not accurately. What you describe is a mixture of features from several types of EDS. Many think vampirism came from individuals with severe anemia who tried to treat their condition by consuming blood.

[@hesterhenrietta261]

I’m a vampire! Sweet! Wish I could drink blood to fix all the torn ligaments in my ankles and hips though 😭

[@fantasmaregular6475]

@@BK-tp6jf Kuru you only get from those who are infected with it. And it's not THAT common, at least in most parts in the world.

[@samiraperi467]

@@krisherman3513 Then there's porphyria.

[@orange_soda_pop7679]

I just have one question : does Caitlin go out on site visits only when it rains or does it start raining everytime she steps out of her house to fit her aesthetic? 🤔 Either way, what bliss 🖤

[@lotharbeck71]

The answer to your question is “yes.”

[@OrangeSodiePop]

I've been on youtube for more than a decade and I have never seen a username similar to mine until today. lol...Wait...I just now noticed you have a black cat as your avi as well!

[@thetiniestpirate]

Something in my mind is wired to read "either way, what bliss" in the voice of Gomez Addams every time. 🖤

[@hannahbaker6]

@@OrangeSodiePop it’s good luck!

[@mizstories9646]

@@OrangeSodiePop I am so inexplainebly amused by, and excited to witness, this. I hope they respond lol.

[@WeirdDarknessOfficial]

How am I seeing this two years late? This is incredible, Caitlin... you are so good at combining creepy and comedy. Love it!

[@sketchyart8411]

Causally watching this well I have Covid and my chronic medical conditions are acting up. Does feel like consumption. Also as a Vermonter who lives next to many cemetery’s maybe I should go and find a 19th century corpse to smoke lol. But on a serious note people don’t understand my fascination with the dead and I think it’s because I always feel so close to them. I understand they’re pain. I have almost died many times and hav w ever been grossed out as a child. I asked for dissection tools and your book for x mas last year. And honestly without your content I don’t know if I would have continued my life and not ended it all those years ago. You’ve made me realize my dream. And I’m forever thankful. Of course KZbin isn’t the only reason I live. And I don’t just live to dissect the feral pigs and other animals my uncle and mom bought me. But I have to say, it brings me great joy to learn and understand more about the dead. I hope one day to become a medical examiner and to have my medical stuff under control. I always loved medicine but have always been bad with people asd. And hospitals are loud and scary so seeing the death industry makes me so existed for the future. I discovered you at 13 and now at 16 I’m excited to make my way into the field as I advance quickly threw school. Thank you so so much for your inspiration and thanks for this video. Edit: I’ve never seen you age on camera either.

[@kittymervine6115]

"The Plague and I" is a wonderful book about perhaps one of the last people to go to a TB hospital and had the treatment of the time. It was interesting to hear how she was treated, the cold, the REST REST REST, the lots of food and nurses risking their lives by treating those there in the hopes of being cured. Some of these later treatments, were actually thought to help, such as collapsing lungs. Today people make fun of TB treatment, but up into the 1940's, being diagnosed with TB was still a horrific thing to happen.

[@kal5528]

I read "Vampires, Burial, and Death" which was a lot like this video. Great book!

[@lazyhomebody1356]

I read a memoir about a teen girl who went to one of those sanatoriums. They slept out on a screened porch in 30° weather. She DID get better though

[@ZTanMURReneRs]

Hmmm that's in the richer parts of the world though. TB still is in the top 10 causes of death around the world and somewhat on par with traffic accidents.

[@margaretkaraba8161]

Try 1970's. Fort Worth had a TB epidemic in the mid 70's and people were dying for not beng treated or vaccinated (tetracycline for a year - my Dad had to do it and My Mom and I were vaccinated. Shame that TB is resistant to tetracycline now). There were signs all over telling people there were $100 fines for spitting on the streets.

[@sammygirl6910]

Now we have antibiotic resistant TB. Yay😬

[@yensid4294]

At least with the vampire panic the frightened people weren't harming anyone who was actually alive unlike the witch persecutions where thousands of innocent people were tortured horribly & killed in the most brutal ways imaginable. I get the TB-vampire connection & always wondered if rabies contributed to werewolf lore.

[@AbsolXGuardian]

Yeah. If you're burning some corpses from with the consent of the family (especially from a non-marginized group) and it can't be like a scheme for the local leaders to take people's property for themselves, its not really a bad thing in it of itself. The only tragedy is the deaths that precipitated the situation and the fact these communities had no idea what was destroying them

[@cheykurilla1081]

i mean witches aren't exactly the same thing as vampires. witches aren't the undead like vampires are so that's probably why living people weren't harmed with the vampire panic and why living "witches" were harmed.

[@ratboi535]

Nah rabies inspired vampire I think not werewolf. in old legend you became a werewolf by dealing with the devil then wearing a wolf skin no bite involve, but in vampire case bite were sometime involved with bat and wolf... vampire hate the sun, water and garlic same thing can be said of hydrophobia, photosensibilty and the sensibility to smell that plague victims of rabies

[@boldanabrasevic3020]

@@ratboi535 Eeh, it's debatable. In the original Serbian vampire myth, where the word comes from, you would only become a vampire after you died, and there are many ways of dying that would make one a vampire (drowning, dying without being christened, being cursed, visited by vampire, etc) A lot of the things that we associate with vampires, like bats, fear of holy water and the explicit fear of the sun, came later as the panic spread, so we can't really say what exactly inspired vampires. It is said that after you get visited by a vampire (he chokes you/sucks your blood/eats your liver), you will die soon after, but there were many pandemics at the time that would quickly kill the ones who had contact to the vampire that was the carrier. As for the garlic/onions, they were used to drive away witches too, so it's not just a vampire thing.

[@UncleKennysPlace]

In the US, very few "witches" were executed. Too many, to be sure, but not thousands. Or hundreds.

[@blakemccabe15]

My great grandfather got it and had to be put in essentially an asylum until he got better (which he luckily did). A number of years ago, a student I was living on the same building floor as got TB and because we were together a lot, I had to quarantine and get tested (once I was confirmed negative I was free). She had to quarantine and take multiple antibiotics for over a month and then continue taking meds and wearing a masks after until being cured. It was scary and rough. I can't imagine before there was antibiotics. She was super lucky that they caught it and she had no symptoms.

[@cbalparda]

Even when I know about the topic you’re speaking on (morbidly obsessed history major here) I still learn something new from the videos! Your team rocks, and these videos are the best. Love the long form

[@TheLuthkica]

Thank you Caitlin, for explaining beginning of the vampiric panic in Europe, and diving a bit into the crazy Balkan vampiric lore. It's really fun and rich, and if Bram Stoker went in other direction (just across the Danube from Romania) modern vampires would looked and act a bit differently - just imagine Edward Cullen as a peasant wooing Bella next to his family’s watermill, covered in flour and turning himself into a moth. Balkan vampires looove watermills! Jokes aside, I actually have a ancestor who is said to die from vampire fright (my grandmother grandfather). He was found in watermill, alive but in the state of shock, it was said that his hair turned white and he couldn't speak, he died hours latter. Grandmother said there were rumors around village that a vampire scared him, but today everyone agrees that he had a stroke; grinding in the mills was usually done during night, in remote areas, lots of things to mess with your head when you are alone in the woods, he probably heard something and had a fright that lead to stroke. Still, I tell people that my great-great-grandfather was killed by a vampire.

[@ChristopherSadlowski]

I didn't know that windmills are a common part of vampire lore in some areas. You learn something new every day. I wonder if that's why a windmill is an important landmark in the Secret World Legends computer game. That part of the game even takes place in Transylvania. I have some reading and research to do on vampires and their apparent love of windmills!

[@sailorarwen6101]

I’m terribly sorry for your grandmothers grandfather! That’s quite a story though! Gives me Ichabod Crane vibes only with a vampire

[@TheDramacist]

@@ChristopherSadlowski she said watermill, not windmill

[@adriandurn5903]

@@ChristopherSadlowski mills and bakers were often considered by many European people to be touched by magic, and which direction they go depends on where you live, but the fact that so 'little' inedible foods such as grain can come out as so much edible food, such as bread and beer, was witchcraft.

[@arglebargle23fnord]

7:39 Oh man, My Best Friend Is A Vampire, thanks for that cable TV flashback! RIP Rene Auberjonois, such a class act...

[@jessadelix7415]

“Missing the fact that X/Y came from European immigrants…” you hit the nail in the head with Europe’s attitude to America there Caitlin. We forget we started it all lmao.

[@katherinegaul2327]

I was like: "Oh, what an interesting video! Caitlin never disappoints. And then I looked and saw there were, like, 35 minutes left and thought "oh. There's a lot more to the story!" Caitlin never disappoints; she constantly impresses and amazes us!!!

[@allenorganist2011]

I love how Caitlin always does an original story. One that’s not copied after someone else. You do a fantastic job Caitlin doing all your videos for your fans. Thank you

[@charliekezza]

She's talking about vampires That's not a new topic which she literally points out in this vid

[@yltraviole]

This is about the third time I've heard this story from a content creator I like...

[@osciIIateswildly]

I’m sorry the trolls missed your point. Caitlin always comes at a topic with a fresh perspective. Hello, fellow deathling 👋

[@vortigaunt3013]

She always does it from a fresh perspective, with more charisma, and usually more information than I've known before. I get what you're saying, I'm a long time subscriber to her, she's great.

[@ashleycastro6014]

Hell Yea She does

[@victoriagubrud2373]

Love this lady. Her humor is reminiscent of my own. The part where she called out covid made me laugh. "Hello darkness my old friend".

[@rblad739]

You put such a tremendous amount of work into each video - from research to production. Thank you.

[@ramblingRJ]

I always wondered why the show "DARK SHADOWS" took place in New England. I thought it was a strange place for a vampire story. I had no idea there was a historical precedent. Thanks for the info.

[@gracechenot3743]

I'm from Rhode Island and grew up hearing these stories from my history teachers in class on Halloween, particularly about Mercy Brown. It definitely fueled my long-standing obsession with vampire stories. So cool to see you tell the story too! Also: I will be naming my band The New England Vampire Panic

[@victoriahoward8244]

EXCELLENT

[@urmumzknt]

Let us know when your first album drops.

[@benjaminscribner7737]

My uncle was a Barber, and his family was from Connecticut. JB 55 might be a very distant relation

[@elliewellie_YouTube]

Time to do a 23 and me

[@MariaBareiss]

Tons of Barbers in Mystic, CT.

[@bigbadseed7665]

It really saddens me when people think of Lovecraft as a "cancelled racist." Toward the end of his life, thanks to finally going out into the world and making friends, Lovecraft managed to broaden his view of the world and even concluded that his own prejudices were based on ignorance. It's really unfortunate that so few people know that.

[@redspec01]

I really didn’t know that, what sources would one look at to see this change?

[@bigbadseed7665]

I know I read it in one of his later letters. I'll do my best to find it again.

[@radioactivepower600nanaspersec]

​@@bigbadseed7665 You ever found it?

[@fungustheclown666]

​@@bigbadseed7665did you find it👹

[@maddieb.4282]

A change of heart doesn’t exactly negate all the harm you do during your life, and ignorance is not an excuse for cruelty

[@TwistedStitchesShow]

I couldn’t imagine the true fear people had in those days. Unknown sicknesses, unable to debunk or really dispute the fears, as if you went against the norm you’d be called a sinner, vampire etc etc. love watching/hearing about this part of history!

[@elainelouve]

Just imagine living in an isolated community of anti vaxxers who believe in all the conspiracy theories and hate science. I think we aren't any better these days.

[@TwistedStitchesShow]

@@elainelouve lol I don’t know? I live in FL so…. Take care Happy Holidays

[@michelewalburn4376]

The Godists are trying to resurrect those days. That is why scientists, doctors,and witches (herbalists), are being demonized. That is why they fight education so hard. Educated sheep don't exist.

[@bleachsanchoblastk]

As a teen I was so fascinated with vampires that some classmates of mine thought I was a vampire. My best friend overheard my name being mentioned so she eavesdropped on them for a moment. She laughed so hard telling me about it. 2 girls were talking about how they had never seen me in the direct sunlight (pale completion and really sensitive to the sun), and they had seen me in my new costume fangs I brought to school to show my friend because we had gotten them at the mall the weekend prior and I had finally gotten them fitted on me properly. I did pull a couple pranks on people because I assumed nobody really believed in vampires. Turns out doing that in a rural community is still not cool with them. This was Oklahoma in the 2000s. They must have thought that the House of Night books were based on fact or something.

[@Hannah-cr4fm]

Yo! I had a similar experience when I was in elementary school. Same complexion and sun sensitivity, but I have naturally sharp incisors. Like 4 other kids were terrified of being alone with me cuz “VaMpIrE”

[@devinmandley9066]

Oh my god. Same. And for some reason being a vampire meant I was also a lesbian. I don’t know why. I’m a bisexual which is way more on brand for vampires.

[@maryanneslater9675]

I know someone who fled her small town asap because they thought her love of science meant she was a witch and she'd received a terrifying warning from the church elders. Some small towns are freakin' weird.

[@stellacoles5977]

@@devinmandley9066 Classic.

[@bleachsanchoblastk]

@@devinmandley9066 OMG Same!

[@katherinecooper6159]

I am impressed with how much research yu conduct including adding audio visual information. Great analysis of the fear of death and vampirism.

[@Appophust]

26:56 Claudia was stopped by accident. Armand cuts her head off and swaps it onto the body of Madeleine, the woman Louis had just turned to be her adoptive mother. It was supposed to help Claudia become an adult. It didn't work. They turned out screaming, mewling, brain damaged freaks, so he put their heads back, but it didn't fix it, so he dusted them in the daylight to cover it up.

[@rdvrlrn]

“Her heart and liver were placed on a rock in the cemetary. Maybe that one- or maybe that one. It’s hard to tell now.” This made me laugh a lot.

[@leborhal7450]

Aww Caitlin - you're aging like a fine wine and you're still the prettiest gothic mortician youtuber i know.

[@stop-the-greed]

It's all about the ash cake baby

[@stop-the-greed]

Are saints vampires ....

[@CheshireCad]

The year is 2083. Caitlin, still raven-haired and beautiful, stares anxiously in a mirror, fruitlessly searching for wrinkles. "Dammit, you stupid immortal body, start aging already! I wanna be a corpse..."

[@KianaWolf]

I checked to see if someone else made this comment. Good work. :)

[@goosubux]

She looks good. Love her eyes! And she has very nice curves.

[@donnaleprell50]

Thank you for this episode! I’m obsessed with vampires and can’t get enough. You covered so much I didn’t know.

[@barbarastevens9598]

You finally got me. As it happened, it was the Joshua tree episode, but I've been enjoying your videos for um...four hours today. Yes I need to get out more. I finally realized that if a secret camera were filming my facial expressions during this time, it would reveal wild swings between hilarity, revulsion, and astonishment. You have done more to educate the masses about death, preparing for death, the history of death, and the truth about the funeral industry than anyone I have run across in my life. Oh! And you've thrown in zillions of other fascinating things! So intelligent. Thanks for doing this!

[@sophiejones3554]

I remember the name Sarah Tilinghast from ghost stories I heard growing up (in rural Massachusetts). Storytellers still don’t use the word “vampire” and I’d never seen anyone connect these stories to vampire myths. On a side note, I appreciate your words on the topic of mocking people for believing superstitions. I also want to add an anecdote. My grandmother experienced similar “visitations” as she was dying: she said she could see long dead family members beckoning to her, often radiant “like angels”. Sometimes she also complained of them sitting on her legs: following a heart attack she suffered from poor circulation in her legs. My grandmother was born in rural Connecticut in 1920. My father dismissed the visions as signs of memory loss: but I wasn’t sure about that, because she could accurately give the date, name of the current President, and was aware of current events. I questioned my grandmother and determined that she was very aware these people were dead (she confirmed that they were “saints”: which in our church’s tradition just means spirits of dead people, it doesn’t imply they’re especially holy). Next I talked to all the nurse practitioners who were taking care of her. Two of them said they’d seen this behavior before in patients with degenerative diseases. They were both the only nurses in that facility who had treated TB patients before, as well as other degenerative conditions not known in the States: being the only ones who did their training overseas. What was particularly interesting to me though, was that they came from wildly different cultures: one from the Caribbean and one from Afghanistan. Yet they’d both seen the same psychological phenomenon. This suggested to me that my grandmother’s awareness of her physical condition was in fact causing her visions: or at least that there was a link between physical and psychological phenomena. When you mentioned the TB patients reporting “visitations” from vampires and the vampires sitting on their chests, this memory from my grandmother’s last days came to mind.

[@katieserra6492]

I had a similar thought. It is apparently quite common for people who are dying to *have visions of loved ones.

[@skepticalbadger]

They shouldn't really use the word vampire. The vampire is a specifically Slavic blood-associated form of the same basic myth. The Rhode Island stories are revenant folklore, not vampire.

[@victoriahoward8244]

May your Grandmother’s Memory Be a Blessing ❤️

[@JimJamTheAdmin]

@@skepticalbadger you go ahead and go back in time and tell that to them.

[@vincetravis8701]

@@skepticalbadger Go back in time and tell them that, lol.

[@HunterPeale]

i died 9 years ago, didn't breathe for over 20 minutes; there were issues with necrosis. does that make me a past AND future corpse? thank you for all the wonderful videos, they mean a lot, more than i can say

[@liaminelli9085]

What’s on the other side is my real question 😅

[@theblackbaron4119]

Yes, welcome to the grave my friend, let's welcome the decay. There's no point in being afraid even a violent death is gentle :) I was "dead" or almost died a couple of times. Almost drowned twice, pneumonia at the age of 11, almost bled to death from a cut, and head trauma from falling. In no way shape or form was I afraid, because I know the gentle dark doesn't harbor anything to be afraid of. It's the living people that concern me.

[@dogwalker666]

Agg vampire run 😉

[@shaddowsdieout]

I'm concerned about permanent damage you sustained.. 20 minutes with no oxygen?

[@marymohr2799]

The once and future corpse, you might say? .....I'll see myself out

[@marlocatayong23]

Wow, I really love your videos, the history, the education, the lore, the humor, please keep posting more!

[@LoneWombat2126]

I love the dramatic telling of these stories, particularly with a bit of humor thrown in throughout. Thank you for the laughs with my “obscure history” lessons.

[@stevensansone7502]

"Generalized undead tomfoolery." That's too good.

[@lydzphens]

And the adorable tomfoolery "shimmy" to go with "generalized undead tomfoolery" just made me laugh.

[@matthewbesson5367]

Oh yeah, you don't want that.

[@SidBlackheart]

I didn't expect to see such a good description of Serbian folk lore in a video like this, great job! However, Arnold Paole is the Germanicised version of the name, his real name was Pavle Arnaut. We've had other, even more famous, vampires, like Sava Savanović, who allegedly lived in a watermill and strangled people. A few years ago, the watermill crumbled down, which caused a small-scale vampire panic among some superstitious people. A few years ago, mind you.

[@felipesilva6995]

Hello, I really liked your video, I am from Chile and here there were also cases of alleged vampires, one of these cases ended with a homicide, the case of the Caldera Vampire in the 19th century, the English immigrant John Lewis Mackensey settled in the north miner, suffered from a disease that caused his gums to bleed and left him alone at night, they blamed him for several crimes and he died with a stake to the heart. his grave still stands

[@FyreFlyxo]

I found your channel not too long ago, and I was so excited seeing this video because I am a Rhode Island native and know the stories very well. I am not from the Exeter area, but I like to read up on folklore, myths, and what nots.

[@gryphonshire]

Can you just imagine this Panic if these folks had had Social Media back then? They had to settle for books, newspapers, & gossip. Delighted to see you posting again, Caitlin. Always interesting and fun to watch.

[@livingdeadgirl5691]

The amount of doxxing and "exposing" whould be insane, they whould make the Salem witch trials look like a joke...

[@a.humanbeing8171]

And then there would have been a scientifically proven vaccine, but people chose instead to drink poison and take veterinary medications? I think I would rather have lived in those times. The modern conveniences just aren't enough to make up for discovering that people are wearing adult diapers because the vet meds they're taking instead of listening to actual doctors gives them horrific, uncontrollable diarrhea. No, they are not. They had localized fits of madness back then that affected at most hundreds. Fully half of the United States believes at least one lunatic conspiracy theory including that Covid vaccines have nano technology in them that, when switched on, will make us all slaves of the machine. Or Bill Gates. Or will be be shooting lasers out of our eyes? They're hard to keep separate and anyway in 6 months someone will have found a way to merge all of them into one batshit theory that will make the brains of the sane break when they try to make sense of them... Yes, please let me know where and when the bus back to the times when folks thinking dead people might be vampires was the strangest thing anyone had ever heard of. I'll even settle for 10 years ago, when I first heard about Furry conventions...

[@personzorz]

You're looking at it

[@LadySnowfaerie]

Agreed, no need to imagine anything. xD People don't really change that fast.

[@vampirefrompluto9788]

To quote the most recent episode of Chilluminati "Twitter has always existed it just went by different names & took longer for people to respond".

[@Jablicek]

Love it! Old goths never die, they just migrate to KZbin and swap the cheap cider for a decent red wine. I'll have Bauhaus in my head for days now :)

[@neuralmute]

Same! Peter Murphy has such a beautiful voice... and such beautiful cheekbones!

[@Lakota828]

[@Spiderific]

Hearing Bauhaus and talk of clove cigarettes really brought me back 😁👍

[@neuralmute]

@@Lakota828 Damn, I need to watch that movie again...

[@parkb5320]

I love the scenes of you walking on location in the rain. Great atmosphere!

[@michaelsheridan1048]

I just love your content. I have your videos going while I work from home. I appreciate your humor and education!

[@NeoLithiumCat]

As a fellow medievalist, I really appreciate you doing content like this. It's easy to simplify and look down on the past and think ourselves above all that, but actually the emotional pressures and psychological mechanisms for how people come to beliefs like this are something which will always be part of being human. Usually it's fear of technology or feeling out of control - we as humans will often do anything to feel in control or explain the unexplained, e.g. how tuberculosis is explained as vampirism, with the idea that "if we can stop the vampires, we can fix it!". This is always particularly strong when it affects family or our local communities and the emotional response is something we all perpetually underestimate. My favourite modern examples are how tabloids try to identify the supernatural in blurry Google Earth/Google Maps pictures. It reflects our fear of technology and and our lack of control over what Google takes pictures of.

[@Myria83]

That's what is happening with Covid too...

[@lazyhomebody1356]

Look down upon! They were our superiors, obviously. Compare them to an office drone or a "fit" twenty-something

[@rachelwahlig8756]

I remember back in 2012 reading the Smithsonian article about these cases and the quote from Bell that you ought to start by assuming that people have SOME reason for taking an action. It's an interesting exercise to explore (preferably with some humility) what you would need to believe in order to arrive at a conclusion similar to theirs. As you say, humans aren't that different one from another; there but for the grace of god / discovery of pyrazinamide, etc.

[@cantrip7]

@@manuelh.4147 Pseudoscience has taken its place and is thriving.

[@janeodee1677]

@@manuelh.4147 We call them conspiracy theories now.

[@crancourt1789]

I'm a native Rhode Islander and my mom's family has been in the southern RI region for generations. As such, the vampire lore has made its way into the family as "ah yes, normal rural Rhode Island things". It's just a generally accepted silly part of our history and culture and I forget that it's a pretty wild story elsewhere. Now that I live in the south, it'll occasionally come up in conversation with friends. It's nice to now have a video to send them so I don't have to spend over an hour explaining the history and trying to convince them I'm not making this shit up. 😅

[@bartho5212]

I live in RI, but am not a native. Living here itself is an otherworldly experience, hard to describe to someone who has never visited. Big personality in a tiny little state.

[@JaimeMesChiens]

Same here. Connecticut and my mom’s from Rhode Island. We have always known about the vampire legends and the Tillinghast family and Mercy Brown.

[@aloradawn4874]

I love you, Caitlin 🎉 Thank you for giving me so much information that is hard to find other places

[@perfectlyimperfect_8528]

The editing of these videos are beautiful. ❤️🤣. Never thought I’d ever be so invested in a mortician hosted channel. But I can’t get enough

[@myragroenewegen5426]

The vampire cows idea is, on the surface, joyously goofy, but it's smarter than we might first think. Pandemics and diseases do spread from animals to people -- it's a staple of how we understand disease threat today and the way that eating leads to illness is reminiscent of how food safety scares like mad cow actually do kind of work (minus the demonic bovine element) the culprit here was a living person, not some otherwise harmless dead corpse. Even as these intuitive kinds of sense-making lead to wildly mythological constructions in some ways, people intuitively reach for very practical, structured ideas at the same time and, once we know the science, we often find they've found something rather nuanced that's true, even fit doesn't apply as they think.

[@margaretgibbs6673]

Yeah, it's like "Okay they got the idea, sorta...they're a little confused but they got the spirit"

[@babablacksheepdog]

If the disease that was causing the epidemic was actually tuberculosis, then the spreading from cows to people does actually make sense, as there is a form of bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis, which is related to the human TB organism Mycobacterium tuberculosis), and it can spread from cattle to humans and cause a similar clinical picture to human TB.

[@MatrixRefugee]

I wrote a story involving zombie chickens, I may need to write a companion piece involving vampire cows,

[@shawnb5899]

Please don't let the SyFy channel find out about vampire cows....

[@mandibailey9104]

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? Yes, mad cow disease from beef to humans but can also be genetic. I can't imagine a patient with CJD being able to physically do much for long due to the lifespan from diagnosis to be 6 months to 1 year.

[@sherrygorse9568]

My eyes first read it as, "America's Forgotten Vampire Picnic." Who else wants this to be Caitlin's next video?

[@mammamiia08]

No need to carry the food, it can walk there by themselves!

[@annettew5740]

😂😂😂

[@Ithirahad]

I misread that as "who else WANTS TO BE Caitlin's next video". Oh dear...

[@bostonsandatot4948]

I believe that's already a thing called Convergence. 💀

[@Pookeroni]

That's what I was assuming the couple was gonna do on their date. Have a romantic picnic among the dead.

[@donkink3114]

Took us almost a year to get there but finally made it there, was very intriguing and cool to stand there and remember Caitlin's video.

[@kellyelrington5663]

Love the "on-location" stories. Thanks so much. These are cool.

[@colorbugoriginals4457]

Whether or not his belief was true, he did it because he believed it was necessary to save the rest of his family. Digging up his children to remove an organ had to be severely traumatizing. This is all just tragic.

[@redwitch95]

Yeah, my grandparents lost one of their three children, and that alone devastated them. I really can't fault him for trying to save eight of his children, especially when he'd already suffered the loss of four of them

[@rubix4195]

One thing about staking the "vampire" corpses, as mentioned by old lore, was the deflation of the body as trapped gases escape from the body. Not sure if it's related but, in pop culture, when a vampire is staked, they all "exhale".

[@brenda5511]

This was fascinating, especially how Caitlin tied it all together! I’m watching this as I put on my makeup, essentially as I try to preserve my own corpse…

[@jessicakennady7893]

I don’t know if you are told this but I truly enjoy your stories, especially how you narrate. I am glad I found you.

[@jorgeluz9560]

I love how these modern real-world "vampires" always dress like they are in Victorian times or like goths straight out of a Marilyn Manson show in 1997. You never see a dude wearing cargo shorts and a polo shirt claiming to be a vampire.

[@halliefritsch]

that’s “my babysitter’s a vampire” erasure 😤😤😤😤

[@KamiAva]

well- 😩

[@evyhorror]

Emmett Cullen would disagree

[@serenitynow85]

@@evyhorror pretty sure that's a *fictional* vampire. Not a real world one

[@camogrrl]

@@serenitynow85 they don’t actually exist silly

[@aiishmael4847]

she had me when she said, "If you thought I wasn't gonna connect this to the rise of the funeral industry..." 🥰

[@FunkyDeleriousPriest]

I love watching these historical videos. You present them so well, Ms. Mortician! Thank you so much. Please take care and love your best life. 👍😎👍

[@cjheasley5713]

I love seeing how your videos have improved. Fantastic script as always. I have a whole book on vampires and the historical hoopla that started it. You did a wonderful job going over the American side of things. Thank you always for your Fantastic work and all the hard work you put into your presentations.

[@basilsaurus1311]

I once read that the reason why modern vampires are often depicted as being vulnerable to wooden stakes is because historically, after a suspected “vampire” was exhumed, its chest would be pierced with a stake. But the intention wasn’t to kill them - just to prevent them from escaping. The reasoning being rearranging the body was of a similar vein.

[@wratched]

Yep. And the reason they were wooden rather than iron was so that the end could be sawed off preventing them from pulling it out.

[@Lunch_Meat]

Did you say "similar vein" as a pun?

[@steventoal6594]

The stakes that were driven into those bodies were impaled and went through the bodies and into the ground beneath them to fix them in place so they could not rise again to feed.

[@sinswept]

In some places they would also bury suspected vampires face down, so when they woke up and tried to dig their way out, they'd go further down instead 😂 At least people had a sense of humour about it 😅

[@nolaray1062]

I know it’s too late for you to see this, but my grandfather is in his last days and I truly value your content. You have helped me prepare for this as best I can. Hopefully that preparation helps with the grieving as well. Thank you for allowing your channel to exist. ❤️

[@lyndsaybrown8471]

Hope you and your family are well. Sorry for what you are going through.

[@followersofyeshuahamashiac462]

❤️🛐❤️🛐❤️✝️

[@commonsense571]

Oh gosh. Well I am seeing it. I am grateful you had quality time especially at the end of his life but also I know how hard it is to lose your beloved family member. I hope his memory brings you comfort always, and I send you my love and sympathy and peace. 🌹🌹🌹 I know it matters to her

[@TheNickleChick]

Grief never ever is easy. Knowing what is coming and preparing just makes closing the wound easier. Best of luck and well wishes to your family.

[@Spyderredtoo]

These mini-movies are so well researched and presented. This is what social media should be, and rarely is. Great job.

[@circumpolarvortex]

Discovered your channel after watching your TFD episode and I'm hooked! Been bingewatching your videos

[@clarimm6675]

Yes our death-positive aunt we all know we want and need uploaded again, thank you so much Caitlin! 🥰 This channel has really become my comfort channel (despite the often times dark themes lol)

[@Chillingcomfy]

It's really is a comfort channel.

[@alcyonae]

Aunt?

[@walterl322]

There's comfort in death, as odd as it seems... there's something very warm and calming about conversations like this... it's like sitting by a fireplace, wrapped in blankets... Also, how dare you, she's not aunt, she's mother...

[@clarimm6675]

@@walterl322 oh sorry haha to me she gives off super cool chill aunt vibes that's why

[@dianadiva58]

Oh No Mother!