Size of an Elephant:An Evening with Those Animal Men.

Just over a week ago I attended a London Fortean Society meeting that was like no other I had previously attended. Not because of its subject matter (shapeshifters fit in pretty well with aliens, conspiracy theories, killer clowns, and Satanic architects) but because of where I attended the talk.

It wasn't in The Miller, The Bell, or Conway Hall. The LFS's three usual venues. It was in my front room looking at my own computer screen. The words "Zoom webinar chat" would have seemed gobbledegook to me six weeks ago but we've all learnt lots of new phrases recently (furlough/social distancing/self-isolation) and, during lockdown, it's the only way. I could have sat in my pants throughout the entirety of the talk. But I didn't. I had no idea if it would work or not so I'm pleased to report that not only did it all come off but it was absolutely brilliant, a real tonic in trying times for many, and the virtual attendees easily outnumbered those we could have fitted in the pubs of Whitechapel and Borough. Two hundred registered and at least one hundred and forty of them logged on.

John B. Kachuba (pronounced, says the man himself, like the sound of a sneeze) is a Creative Writing instructor at Ohio University and has written the books Ghostbusters (2007) and Dark Entry (2018). He's an amiable, knowledgeable guy who pitched his talk, Shapeshifters, just right. Not too obscure for us hobbyists but interesting enough so that we could both learn and laugh along.

In a Zoom talk, that LFS head honcho Scott Wood hosted from his shed which following a few very minor teething problems soon ran incredibly smoothly, Kachuba told us how, over the last two decades, he'd been involved in paranormal research and his interest in ghosts had, over time, led to an interest in shapeshifters.

The most well known shapeshifters are probably werewolves but they're not the whole story. A shapeshifter is a person who can transform into an animal (or, less often, another person or even an inanimate object - there's apparently a Star Trek character who turns himself into a puddle and a Japanese animation shows someone transforming into what looks like a tea chest bass) and then back again (usually) under their own volition. You may remember the Arabian Knights cartoons where Bez (yes, that was the character's name) became a large and helpful pachyderm merely by shouting out "SIZE OF AN ELEPHANT".

That's shapeshifting. Kachuba's talk covered three different ways of viewing shapeshifting. First he looked at it through the prism of religion, mythology, and folklore (like they're three different things), then he focused on the cultural aspects of it, before finishing with a look at how psychologists have considered the human desire to believe in, and invent, shapeshifters throughout time.

An image of some neolithic cave drawings in France, Kachuba contested, seems likely to have been made during a shamanistic ritualistic gathering that had been fuelled by the use of magic mushrooms. Attendees at these events felt that in order to hunt and kill animals for food they needed to understand their prey better and what better way than to trip your nuts off so much that you imagine you are the animal. You are the quarry.

One cave drawing of a deer shows it with toes and bicameral vision neither of which are features of the Cervidae family but certainly are things that most humans have and Kachuba cites this as potential evidence of prehistoric shapeshifting. Elsewhere, he spoke about the nomadic Yukaghir tribe of Siberia hunting elk and the Berserkers, an Icelandic tribe of the 10-12c who, again on hard drugs - Julian Cope was on to something, adopted a ritualistic state before battles that involved wearing the hides of the animals, in their belief system becoming the animals, they were to wage war against.

Ancient Egyptian Gods often took therianthropic forms:- Anubis had the head of a jackal, Hathor that of a cow (or sometimes she simply was a cow, sorry Hathor love), and Tawaret had the back of a crocodile, other attributes more familiar to a hippopotamus, and large pendulous human breasts. You'd be alarmed to see her come up on Tinder.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Zeus/Jupiter was a supreme god that could transform himself into anything. In the case of Zeus, most famously into a swan who then seduces, or in some version of the story, rapes the Aetolian princess Leda. Greek mythology also tells of a blind prophet from Apollo in Thebes by the name of Tiresias who when out walking spotted two snakes in the act of copulation. Seemingly horrified by this serpentine sex show he, quite logically, beat them with his staff and for doing so he was instantly transformed into a woman.

Sounds legit. As a woman, Tiresias married and went on to have children until twenty years later out for another walk what do you know, she only came across another two snakes having a sexy time and, Tiresias hadn't learned her lesson, beat them again. Which, you guessed it, resulted in Tiresias being turned back into a man. You can only imagine the conversation with her kids when she got home:- "Mum/Dad, have you been beating copulating snakes with your staff again?".

Between making up stories about women being raped by swans and sexy snakes, the ancient Greeks also invented what is believed to be the world's first werewolf. Lycaon was so jealous of Zeus and his power that he hatched a plan to exact some vengeance upon the supreme god. Zeus was invited to dinner round at Lycaon's place and was served his own chopped up son for dinner as a test.

Even the worst Come Dine With Me contestants would turn their nose up at that and Zeus certainly did. It made him quite cross and Lycaon's punishment was to be turned into a wolf. And to have his entire civilisation destroyed as well. A nasty punishment for sure but what Lycaon had attempted can only be described as 'a cunt's trick'.

 

Greek mythology gave way, over time, to the Christian mythology (that is still practiced in many parts of the world now) and there's a theory that Jesus himself was a shapeshifter. Translation of an ancient Coptic script by the early Christian scholar Origen claims of Jesus that "to those that saw him he did not appear alike at all" and when two of his disciples were joined by the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus they didn't even recognise him.

Which would be odd considering they'd spent three years in the desert with him. The idea of transfiguration found in Christianity is echoed in the many different avatars of Vishnu in Hinduism but our journey took us away from religion and back to werewolves and various historical accounts of werewolf activity.

In 1760s France, the Beast of Gevaudan is believed to have killed as many as one hundred people. It was described as a very stinky werewolf that was at large for two years. Royal hunters who were sent to kill the beast failed in their mission and the deaths continued until a local man, supposedly, shot it dead with a silver bullet blessed by the local priest. When the beast's stomach was cut open the remains of its last victim were still inside.

Two hundred years later there were reports of a werewolf being killed in Burma and 1996, in Uttar Pradesh in northern India, thirty-three children were killed and eaten by wolves. Rumours spread about witchcraft being involved after a ten year old reported seeing a wolf that was also a man and, soon, over one hundred people/suspected witches had been killed by lynch mobs. 

Werewolves, of course, have been woven into popular entertainment in recent years and a photo of Lon Chaney Jr that Kachuba used to illustrate this was soon changed to one of Bela Lugosi and then one of Buffy. You can probably work out that the subject had changed to vampires.

Kachuba began his history of modern vampirism in 18c eastern Europe when it was not uncommon for people to die of wasting diseases. The belief was that vampires were 'draining' people and the reaction involved the desecration of cemeteries, the staking of the hearts of corpses, and the burning of internal organs.

The Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa sent her physician to investigate and he found that stories of vampires could mostly be proven to be absolutely untrue and a decree was passed stating there was no such thing as vampires and desecration of graveyards was enshrined in law as an offence punishable by death.

19c New England saw further vampire panic. When members of Mercy Brown's family began dying of consumption following her death of the disease Mercy's body was exhumed and her heart and liver were cut out, burnt, and poured into a potion which her brother Edwin, then suffering from the same complaint, drank in an attempt to cure him. Which it didn't. He died.

Consumption, of course, is now called tuberculosis but what makes this story really tragic is that when these events occurred (1892) tuberculosis was a recognised condition. But, as with the times we currently live in, some sought 'alternative' medicine and, as with the times we live in, that proved dangerous and often fatal.

Vampire communities still exist in New Orleans and Buffalo. On the whole they don't wear long capes, bite people's necks, or (getting back to the shapeshifting theme) transform into bats but there are still people in the states of Louisiana and New York who believe they need to consume human blood in order to survive. Luckily for all concerned there are people who are happy to donate that blood to them.

They'd be in a right pickle otherwise. Werewolves and vampires are probably the most well known 'cultural' shapeshifters but there are contemporary versions too. David Icke's alien reptilian shapeshifters arrived from space aeons ago, according to Icke - who'll believe and propagate any old bullshit, and have been influential in the fields of science, technology, sport, and entertainment. According to the former Coventry City goalkeeper and snooker commentator (and with that CV he'd know) they number among their ranks such luminaries as Queen Elizabeth II, George Bush I & II, Bob Hope, Barack Obama, the Rothschilds (natch), Bob Hope, Al Gore, and, er, Boxcar Willie.

These reptilians, according to Icke, have been with us for thousands of years and are bent on taking over the world which begs the question of why they're taking so long over it? Other mythical shapeshifters who almost definitely don't really exist are the Navajo skinwalkers. Often taking the form of wolves these skinwalkers exist purely to kill. It is their entire raison d'etre. You can summon a Navajo skinwalker to kill an enemy but the price you will pay is that once the task is completed they will also kill you.

It sounds a bad deal. Can't see that getting approved on Dragon's Den. Whilst Kachuba steered carefully in not upsetting those that are open to the possibility of the existence of shapeshifters he rounded up the evening by looking at the psychology that underpins shapeshifting. Why do people believe it and/or why do people want to believe it?

Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) saw Jekyll partake in an experiment in which he hoped to, and succeeded in, unshackling himself of a morality that often felt like a burden and John Kachuba thinks that's the key. We all wish to change ourselves, not necessarily into someone or something murderous and evil, and belief in shapeshifters allows us to do so vicariously and, mostly - the likes of Icke excepted, harmlessly.

It offers an excuse for bad behaviour but it also provides a mask for us to act out alternate personas and gives us perspective on our own fragile existence. If you indulge in cosplay or even simply don fancy dress for Hallowe'en you are, to a degree, doing much the same. Shapeshifting is, more or less, dress up but it's dress up writ large. It's dress up for method actors in life's rich story.

John Kachuba had provided an excellent talk for the first ever LFS online event and I hope I've managed to convey that here. Dog Faced Hermans, Pinnochio, kissing frogs to turn them into princes, manimals, the Book of Daniel, Carl Jung, Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, and Nebuchadnezzar were all mentioned in despatches and there was a polite, well managed, Q&A at the end of the event.

In fact, the whole evening was incredibly polite and orderly and if it felt a little weird not to applaud at the end (people typed 'clapping' and 'yay' into the group chat instead) that wasn't a big deal. The London Fortean Society is a home for the weird (and the wonderful) anyway. If that home has to move online for a while then that's no big deal. There's bigger stuff going on out there. I hope we meet in a pub again soon (whatever 'soon' means right now) but I'd be more than happy to continue with the online evenings even after lockdown ends. A triumph for all concerned.