Five science-based reasons why you should be afraid of the zombie apocalypse. Zombies in real life Turning a person into a zombie

1982 - Harvard ethnobotanist Wade Davis leads an expedition to Haiti. Found that local sorcerers can prepare a poison that can cause deep. When the powder is rubbed into the skin, it paralyzes nervous system, breathing almost disappears.

With the help of local clerics, Davis was able to meet with the sorcerers and obtain samples of the poison for analysis. Its main ingredient was tetradoxine, one of the most powerful nerve poisons in the world, exceeding the effect of potassium cyanide by 500 times. This poison is obtained from the bidentate fish (diodon hystrix). In Haiti, the recipe for such a poisonous powder was known 400 years ago. So far, there are no convincing versions that could explain how tetradoxine works and why the victim remains fully conscious.

The practice of turning a person into a zombie was once brought to the island by voodoo priests and descendants of black slaves from Benin (formerly Dahomey). It consists of two stages: first killing, and then returning to life. The victim, who was intended to be turned into a zombie, was sprinkled with the poison tetradoxin (according to other sources, this poison was rubbed into the skin). The victim immediately stopped breathing, the surface of the body turned blue, his eyes turned glassy - it was advancing.

A few days later, the deceased was kidnapped from the cemetery in order to allegedly bring him back to life. So he became a living corpse. The awareness of his "I" did not return to him completely or did not return at all. Eyewitness accounts who have encountered zombies speak of them as people staring blankly ahead.

There is a lot of documentary evidence of zombies in real life. So, in 1929, the New York Times reporter William Seabrook published the book "The Island of Magic", in which he talks about his life in Haiti, in the house of the famous sorceress Maman Seli.

Here is how he described his meeting with the living dead: “The most terrible thing is the eyes. And it's not my imagination at all. They were in fact the eyes of a dead man, but not blind, but burning, unfocused, unseeing. Because the face was terrible. So empty, like there's nothing behind it. Not just a lack of expression, but a lack of ability to express. By that time, I had already seen so many things in Haiti that lay outside the ordinary human experience that for a moment I completely blacked out and thought, or rather, felt: “Great God, maybe all this nonsense is true?”

According to the observation of a researcher who spent 3 years in Haiti, physically stronger people were chosen for zombies in advance, so that later, when they were brought back to life, they were used as slaves on sugarcane plantations.

As mentioned above, the practice of zombies was brought to Haiti by Negroes - immigrants from Benin. As you can see, some examples of the return to life are practiced in Benin in our time. This was told by a traveling doctor from America, who visited one of these sessions.

“On the ground,” he wrote, “lay a man who showed no sign of life. I sat up so that my body shielded him, and with a quick movement lifted his eyelids to check pupillary reaction. There was no reaction, and there were no signs of a heartbeat. The man was actually dead. Those gathered under the direction of the priest sang a rhythmic song. It was a cross between a howl and a growl. They sang faster and louder. It seemed that the dead would hear these sounds. Imagine my surprise when this happened.

The dead man suddenly ran his hand across his chest and tried to turn around. The screams of the people around him merged into a continuous howl. The drums began to beat even more furiously. In the end, the living corpse turned, tucked its legs under it, and slowly rose to all fours. His eyes, which were unresponsive to light a few minutes ago, were now wide open and looking at us.”

It is possible that an eyewitness described here something similar to the Haitian zombie ritual.

Another such story, told by Z. Hurston heard from the mother of a deceased boy. On the night after the funeral, his sister suddenly heard singing and an incomprehensible noise in the street. She recognized her brother's voice, and her crying woke the whole house. The family saw from the window an ominous procession of the dead and with them the boy who had been buried the day before.

When he, with an effort moving his legs, came up to the window, everyone heard his plaintive cry. “But such was the horror inspired by these creatures that even the mother and sister did not dare to go out into the street and try to save him.” The procession was out of sight. After that, the boy's sister went mad.

The ritual of the zombie strangely echoes the magical practice that is still practiced by the natives of Australia today. According to their stories, recorded by ethnographers, a sorcerer kidnaps a person who was previously scheduled as a victim and, laying him on his left side, stabs him in the heart with a pointed bone or stick. When the heart stops, it means that the soul has left the body. After that, through various manipulations, the sorcerer brings him back to life, ordering him to forget about what happened to him. But at the same time, he is told that after three days he will die. Such a person returns home without really knowing what happened to him. Outwardly, he is no different from other people, but this is not a person, but only a walking body.

In one Tibetan monastery, the writer and historian A. Gorbovsky observed the performance of the “rlanga” rite, the purpose of which is to help the soul in its posthumous state. With a large confluence of people, the deceased is brought and laid in the monastery courtyard. In front of him in the lotus position is a lama. Everything happens in complete silence. Some time passes, and the deceased slowly rises. His eyes are still closed, his face remains the face of a dead person. Moving like an automaton, he circles the place where he lay three times, lies down again and freezes, ready for burial.

Perhaps the method of short-term revival of corpses in Tibetan monasteries is based on the belief that even in the absence of the vital functions of the body, some levels of consciousness, some element in a person continues to perceive the environment.

Research recent years found that death does not occur immediately. This is a gradual long-term evolution of an organism with a known probability of reversibility - a special kind of existence. The corpse does not have a biofield, but this is also not a sign: this is how a living person can lose it and live without it for some time.

The resurrection of a living corpse - how it is explained

Doctor of Economic Sciences, a physicist by education Boris Iskakov created a bold hypothesis. Its essence is as follows. AT modern science more and more evidence of the existence in nature of such a phenomenon as the global lepton gas (MLG) is accumulating, penetrating all the bodies of the Universe. It consists of ultralight microparticles, of which dozens are described today in the scientific literature - electrons, positrons, theons, muons ... To put it very simply, leptons are carriers of human thoughts and feelings, information about objects and phenomena of the material world. The MGL contains information about everything that was, is and will be in the Universe.

It is the interaction of the world lepton gas with the object physical world and the human brain can explain many phenomena that are still considered mysterious. This is telepathy, clairvoyance, etc. There are several hundred biologically active points on the surface of human skin. Their radiation creates the total quantum shells of the human body, located one inside the other - according to the principle of a nesting doll. One's own body is not the whole person, but only its visible core, around which its informational and energy counterparts are located. The emission of quantum shells can be associated with low-energy "cold beta decay" reactions that occur in nerve cells.

The experiments of some of the researchers showed that when the "core" is destroyed, the quantum shells also begin to dissolve. If they do not receive information and energy replenishment, then their half-life will be approximately 9 days, and full decay - 40 days. This applies to both living beings and inanimate objects.

It is curious that these dates coincide with the time of commemoration for the dead. The ancient Russians believed that the soul “walks” around its home for six days, and for another three days through the fields and gardens near its native village. Therefore, they celebrated such rituals: on the 3rd day - burial, on the 6th - farewell to the house, on the 9th - farewell to the village, on the 40th - farewell to the Earth. It is interesting that 40 days also appear in Buddhism, during which the soul is looking for a new body for reincarnation. During these 40 days, the lama had to read instructions to the deceased, and loudly, clearly and without errors. During the reading, it was forbidden to cry and lament, because it was considered harmful to the deceased.

According to B. Iskakov's theory, it is possible to assume that ancient sensitives could observe the quantum shells of dead people and see critical moments when these dead needed to be nourished by the thoughts and feelings of relatives and friends.

With the further development of this theory, perhaps, it would be possible to find explanations for the mysterious phenomena in Tibetan monasteries.

In preparation for a public lecture on personality psychology, I was looking through excerpts from the book The Enlightened Heart by the psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim. In it, he describes his experience as a prisoner in the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps, in which he was in 1938-1939, as well as the experience of other people who faced the system of destruction of human dignity later, when the Nazis "revealed" at full power. I made notes, extracts, and as a result this article turned out.

I was interested in the psychological aspect of what was happening in concentration camps. How the Nazi system broke personalities, how personalities resisted the system and the monstrously destructive psychological field, what strategies were used and how they deformed. In the end, personality is our strategies for adapting to the world around us, and what we are, this world, largely (but not everything) depends on what we are. - writes Ilya Latypov.

So, let's begin…
The Nazi system in 1938-1939 - the time of Bettelheim's stay in Dachau and Buchenwald - was not yet aimed at total extermination, although then life was not considered either. It was focused on the "education" of a slave force: ideal and obedient, not thinking about anything but mercy from the owner, which is not a pity to waste. Accordingly, it was necessary from resisting an adult personality to make a frightened child, to infantilize a person by force, to achieve his regression - to a child or even to an animal, a living biomass without a personality, will and feelings. Biomass is easy to manage, it does not cause sympathy, it is easier to despise it and it will obediently go to the slaughter. That is, it is convenient for the owners.

Summarizing the main psychological strategies for suppressing and breaking the personality, described in the work of Bettelheim, I singled out and formulated a number of key strategies for myself, which, in general, are universal. And in different variations they were repeated and are repeated at almost all levels of society: from the family to the state. The Nazis only collected it all into a single concentrate of violence and horror. What are these ways of turning personality into biomass?

Rule 1. Make a person do meaningless work.
One of the SS men's favorite pastimes is to force people to do completely meaningless work, and the prisoners understood that it did not make sense. Carrying stones from one place to another, digging holes with your bare hands when shovels lay nearby. What for? "Because I said so, you kike muzzle!"

(How is this different from “because you have to” or “your job is to do, not think”?)

Rule 2. Introduce mutually exclusive rules, violations of which are inevitable.
This rule created an atmosphere of constant fear of being caught. People were forced to negotiate with the guards or "kapos" (SS assistants from among the prisoners), falling into complete dependence on them. A large field for blackmail was unfolding: the guards and kapos could pay attention to violations, or they could not pay attention - in exchange for certain services.

(Absurdity and inconsistency parental requirements or state laws - a complete analogue).

Rule 3. Introduce collective responsibility.
Collective responsibility blurs personal responsibility - this is a well-known rule. But in conditions where the price of a mistake is too high, collective responsibility turns all members of the group into overseers of each other. The collective itself becomes an unwitting ally of the SS and the camp administration.

Often, obeying a momentary whim, the SS man gave another senseless order. The desire for obedience ate into the psyche so strongly that there were always prisoners who followed this order for a long time (even when the SS man forgot about it after five minutes) and forced others to do so. So, one day the guard ordered a group of prisoners to wash their shoes inside and out with soap and water. The boots became hard as a stone, rubbed his feet. The order was never repeated again. However, many long-term prisoners in the camp continued to wash the inside of their boots every day and scolded anyone who did not for negligence and dirt.

(The principle of group responsibility ... When "everyone is to blame", or when a particular person is seen only as a representative of a stereotyped group, and not as a spokesman for his own opinion).

These are the three "preliminaries". The following three act as a shock link, crushing an already prepared personality into biomass.

Rule 4. Make people believe that nothing depends on them.
To do this: create an unpredictable environment in which it is impossible to plan anything and force people to live according to the instructions, stopping any initiative.

A group of Czech prisoners was destroyed like this. For some time they were singled out as "noble", entitled to certain privileges, they were allowed to live in relative comfort without work and deprivation. Then the Czechs were suddenly thrown to work in a quarry, where there were the worst working conditions and the highest mortality, while cutting back on food rations. Then back - to a good home and easy work, after a few months - back to the quarry, etc. No one was left alive. The complete lack of control over your own life, the inability to predict what you are encouraged or punished for, knocks the ground out from under your feet. The personality simply does not have time to develop adaptation strategies, it is completely disorganized.

“The survival of man depends on his ability to retain some area of ​​free behavior, to retain control over some important aspects of life, despite conditions that seem unbearable ... Even an insignificant the symbolic opportunity to act or not to act, but according to one’s own will, allowed me and people like me to survive.”
B. Bettelheim

The cruelest daily routine constantly urged people on. If you delay one or two minutes on washing, you will be late for the toilet. If you delay making your bed (there were still beds in Dachau then), you will not have breakfast, which is already meager. Hurry, fear of being late, not a second to think and stop... You are constantly driven by excellent guards: time and fear. Don't you plan day. You don't choose what to do. And you don't know what will happen to you later. Punishments and rewards went without any system. If at first the prisoners thought that good work would save them from punishment, then the understanding came that nothing guarantees against being sent to mine stones in a quarry (the most deadly occupation). And they were just rewarded. It's just a matter of whim of an SS man.

(This rule is very beneficial for authoritarian parents and organizations, because it ensures the absence of activity and initiative on the part of the recipients of messages like “nothing depends on you”, “well, what have you achieved”, “this is how it has always been and will be”).

Rule 5. Make people pretend they don't see or hear anything.
Bettelheim describes such a situation. An SS man beats a man. A column of slaves passes by, which, noticing the beating, unanimously turns their heads to the side and accelerates sharply, showing with all their appearance that they “did not notice” what was happening. The SS man, without looking up from his occupation, shouts "well done!". Because the prisoners demonstrated that they had learned the rule "not to know and not to see what is not supposed to." And the shame, a sense of powerlessness intensifies among the prisoners and, at the same time, they unwittingly become accomplices of the SS man, playing his game.

(In families where violence thrives, it is not uncommon for someone to from relatives He sees and understands everything, but pretends that he sees and knows nothing. For example, a mother whose child is sexually abused by her father/stepfather… In totalitarian states, the rule “we know everything, but we pretend…” is the most important condition their existence)

Rule 6. Make people cross the last inner line.
“In order not to become a walking corpse, but to remain a man, even humiliated and degraded it was necessary all the time to be aware of where the line passes, because of which there is no return, the line beyond which one must not retreat under any circumstances, even if it threatens one's life. Recognize that if you survived at the cost of crossing this line, you will continue a life that has lost all meaning.
B. Bettelheim

Bettelheim gives such a very illustrative story about the "last line". Once an SS man drew attention to two Jews who were "losing". He forced them to lie down in a muddy ditch, called a Pole prisoner from a neighboring brigade and ordered them to be buried alive. The Pole refused. The SS man began to beat him, but the Pole continued to refuse. Then the warder ordered them to change places, and those two received an order to bury the Pole. And they began to bury their partner in misfortune without the slightest hesitation. When the Pole was almost buried, the SS ordered them to stop, dig him back out, and then lie down in the ditch themselves again. And again he ordered the Pole to bury them. This time he complied, either out of a sense of vengeance or thinking that the SS would also spare them at the last minute. But the warder did not pardon: he trampled the ground over the heads of the victims with his boots. Five minutes later they were sent to the crematorium, one dead and the other dying.

The result of implementing all the rules:
“Prisoners who learned the idea constantly inspired by the SS that they had nothing to hope for, who believed that they could not influence their situation in any way - such prisoners became, literally, walking corpses ...”.
B. Bettelheim

The process of turning into such zombies was simple and clear. At first, a person stopped acting of his own free will: he had no internal source of movement left, everything he did was determined by pressure from the guards. They automatically obeyed orders, without any selectivity. Then they stopped raising their legs when walking, they began to shuffle very characteristically. Then they began to look only in front of them. And then came death.

People turned into zombies when they abandoned any attempt to comprehend their own behavior and came to a state where they could accept anything, anything, everything that came from outside. “Those who survived understood what they did not realize before: they have the last, but perhaps the most important human freedom - in any circumstances to choose their own attitude to what's going on." Where there is no self-relationship, zombies begin.

The Nazi system in 1938-1939 - the time of Bettelheim's stay in Dachau and Buchenwald - was not yet aimed at total extermination, although then lives were not considered either. It was focused on the "education" of a slave force: ideal and obedient, not thinking about anything but mercy from the owner, which is not a pity to waste. Accordingly, it was necessary to make a frightened child out of a resisting adult personality, to infantilize a person by force, to achieve his regression - to a child or even to an animal, a living biomass without personality, will and feelings. Biomass is easy to manage, it does not cause sympathy, it is easier to despise it and it will obediently go to the slaughter. That is, it is convenient for the owners.

Summarizing the main psychological strategies for suppressing and breaking the personality, described in the work of Bettelheim, I singled out and formulated a number of key strategies for myself, which, in general, are universal. And in different variations they were repeated and are repeated at almost all levels of society: from the family to the state. The Nazis only collected it all into a single concentrate of violence and horror. What are these ways of turning personality into biomass?

Rule 1. Make a person do meaningless work.
One of the SS men's favorite pastimes is to force people to do completely meaningless work, and the prisoners understood that it did not make sense. Carrying stones from one place to another, digging holes with your bare hands when shovels lay nearby. What for? "Because I said so, you kike muzzle!"
(How is this different from “because you have to” or “your job is to do, not think”?)

Rule 2. Introduce mutually exclusive rules, violations of which are inevitable.
This rule created an atmosphere of constant fear of being caught. People were forced to negotiate with the guards or "kapos" (SS assistants from among the prisoners), falling into complete dependence on them. A large field for blackmail was unfolding: the guards and kapos could pay attention to violations, or they could not pay attention - in exchange for certain services.
(The absurdity and inconsistency of parental requirements or state laws is a complete analogue).

Rule 3. Introduce collective responsibility.
Collective responsibility blurs personal responsibility - this is a well-known rule. But in conditions when the price of a mistake is too high, collective responsibility turns all members of the group into overseers of each other. The collective itself becomes an unwitting ally of the SS and the camp administration.

Often, obeying a momentary whim, the SS man gave another senseless order. The desire for obedience ate into the psyche so strongly that there were always prisoners who followed this order for a long time (even when the SS man forgot about it after five minutes) and forced others to do so. So, one day the guard ordered a group of prisoners to wash their shoes inside and out with soap and water. The boots became hard as a stone, rubbed his feet. The order was never repeated again. However, many long-term prisoners in the camp continued to wash the inside of their boots every day and scolded anyone who did not for negligence and dirt.

(The principle of group responsibility ... When "everyone is to blame", or when a particular person is seen only as a representative of a stereotyped group, and not as a spokesman for his own opinion).
These are the three "preliminaries". The following three act as a shock link, crushing an already prepared personality into biomass.

Rule 4. Make people believe that nothing depends on them. To do this: create an unpredictable environment in which it is impossible to plan anything and force people to live according to the instructions, stopping any initiative.
A group of Czech prisoners was destroyed like this. For some time they were singled out as "noble", entitled to certain privileges, they were allowed to live in relative comfort without work and deprivation. Then the Czechs were suddenly thrown to work in a quarry, where there were the worst working conditions and the highest mortality, while cutting back on food rations. Then back - to a good home and easy work, after a few months - back to the quarry, etc. No one was left alive. The complete lack of control over your own life, the inability to predict what you are encouraged or punished for, knocks the ground out from under your feet. The personality simply does not have time to develop adaptation strategies, it is completely disorganized.
“The survival of a person depends on his ability to retain some area of ​​free behavior, to keep control over some important aspects of life, despite conditions that seem unbearable ... Even an insignificant, symbolic opportunity to act or not act, but at will, allowed to survive me and like me." (in italics in quotation marks - quotes by B. Bettelheim).

The cruelest daily routine constantly urged people on. If you delay one or two minutes on washing, you will be late for the toilet. If you delay making your bed (there were still beds in Dachau then), you will not have breakfast, which is already meager. Hurry, fear of being late, not a second to think and stop ... You are constantly driven by excellent guards: time and fear. You don't plan the day. You don't choose what to do. And you don't know what will happen to you later. Punishments and rewards went without any system. If at first the prisoners thought that good work would save them from punishment, then the understanding came that nothing guarantees against being sent to mine stones in a quarry (the most deadly occupation). And they were just rewarded. It's just a matter of whim of an SS man.
(This rule is very beneficial for authoritarian parents and organizations, because it ensures the absence of activity and initiative on the part of the recipients of messages like “nothing depends on you”, “well, what have you achieved”, “this is how it has always been and will be”).

Rule 5. Make people pretend they don't see or hear anything.
Bettelheim describes such a situation. An SS man beats a man. A column of slaves passes by, which, noticing the beating, unanimously turns their heads to the side and accelerates sharply, showing with all their appearance that they “did not notice” what was happening. The SS man, without looking up from his occupation, shouts "well done!". Because the prisoners demonstrated that they had learned the rule "not to know and not to see what is not supposed to." And the shame, a sense of powerlessness intensifies among the prisoners and, at the same time, they unwittingly become accomplices of the SS man, playing his game.
(In families where violence thrives, it is not uncommon for one of the relatives to see and understand everything, but pretend that they do not see or know anything. For example, a mother whose child is sexually abused by the father / stepfather ... In in totalitarian states, the rule “we know everything, but we pretend ...” is the most important condition for their existence)

Rule 6. Make people cross the last inner line.
“In order not to become a walking corpse, but to remain a person, albeit a humiliated and degraded one, it was necessary to be aware all the time where the line passes, because of which there is no return, the line beyond which one cannot retreat under any circumstances, even if it threatens life . Recognize that if you survived at the cost of crossing this line, you will continue a life that has lost all meaning.

Bettelheim gives such a very illustrative story about the "last line". Once an SS man drew attention to two Jews who were "losing". He forced them to lie down in a muddy ditch, called a Pole prisoner from a neighboring brigade and ordered them to be buried alive. The Pole refused. The SS man began to beat him, but the Pole continued to refuse. Then the warder ordered them to change places, and those two received an order to bury the Pole. And they began to bury their partner in misfortune without the slightest hesitation. When the Pole was almost buried, the SS ordered them to stop, dig him back out, and then lie down in the ditch themselves again. And again he ordered the Pole to bury them. This time he complied, either out of a sense of vengeance or thinking that the SS would also spare them at the last minute. But the warder did not pardon: he trampled the ground over the heads of the victims with his boots. Five minutes later they were sent to the crematorium, one dead and the other dying.
The result of implementing all the rules:

“Prisoners who learned the idea constantly inspired by the SS that they had nothing to hope for, who believed that they could not influence their situation in any way - such prisoners became, literally, walking corpses ...”.

The process of turning into such zombies was simple and clear. At first, a person stopped acting of his own free will: he had no internal source of movement left, everything he did was determined by pressure from the guards. They followed orders automatically, without any selectivity. Then they stopped raising their legs when walking, they began to shuffle very characteristically. Then they began to look only in front of them. And then came death.

People turned into zombies when they abandoned any attempt to comprehend their own behavior and came to a state where they could accept anything, anything, everything that came from outside. “Those who survived understood what they had not realized before: they have the last, but perhaps the most important human freedom - in any circumstances to choose their own attitude to what is happening.” Where there is no self-relationship, zombies begin.

Zombies in Haiti

The idea of ​​a significant time during which it is possible to bring a person back to life is suggested by reports of "zombies" in Haiti. This practice was once brought to the island by voodoo priests and descendants of black slaves from today's Dahomey.

It consists, as it were, of two links: first the murder, and then the return to life. The victim, who is going to be turned into a "zombie", is mixed with poison prepared from bidentate fish (diodon hystrix). This fish contains a very strong nerve poison (te-rhodotoxin), exceeding the degree of exposure to potassium cyanide by 500 times. The victim immediately stops breathing, the surface of the body turns blue, the eyes turn glassy - clinical death occurs.

A few days later, the deceased from the poison is kidnapped from the cemetery, supposedly to be brought back to life. So he becomes a zombie. Awareness of one's "I" does not return to him completely or does not return at all. The eyewitness accounts of the "zombies" speak of them as people who "pointlessly stare ahead." (remember the story of old shaman's daughter, also brought back to life: “only her eyes remained cloudy.”)

True, such a loss of memory and self-awareness is not always irreversible. This can be judged by several cases related to "zombies" that have become known in recent times. A certain Natagetta Joseph died in 1966, about which a certificate from the local police department was issued to her relatives. She was buried, and six years later, fellow villagers met her wandering around the village where she once lived. In another case, a thirty-year-old woman died, which was also recorded in the magistrate. And three years later, her husband met her in a "zombie" state in a remote district where she worked on a plantation.

History of Claudius Narcissus

The story of Claudius Narcissus received special publicity, because. not only scientists, but also television and newspapers became interested in this case. Narcissus had a long battle with his brothers over land. In the spring of 1962, he suddenly fell ill and was admitted to a hospital in Port-au-Prince, where he died soon after. The fact of death was ascertained by two leading physicians of the hospital, one of whom was an American doctor. Mourned by his family, he was buried. When consciousness returned to him, it turned out that he was on some remote farm. There he worked in the fields from dawn to dusk with a good hundred of his kind. Apparently, from time to time some kind of stupefying drug was added to their food, clouding their memory. When one day for some reason this was not done, the "zombies" fled and dispersed around the island. Suspecting that his brother was the reason for what had been done to him, Narcissus did not return to his village or show up at all. However, someone who knew him identified the "zombie" and informed his family. The authorities took an interest in the matter. Narcissus was taken to a family where he had not been since the day of his funeral - eighteen years. Relatives recognized him, but refused to take him back. While waiting for some kind of shelter to be found for him, Narcissus was admitted to the hospital.

According to the observations of a researcher who spent several years in Haiti, the most physically strong are selected for the "zombies" in advance, so that later, when they are brought back to life, they are used as slaves on sugar cane plantations. The fear of turning into a "zombie" is so great that the funeral ritual in Haiti includes a series of actions, the purpose of which is to prevent the kidnapping of the deceased in order to bring him back to life. The ritual of the "zombie" strangely echoes the magical practice that is still practiced by the natives of Australia to this day. According to their stories, recorded by ethnographers, a sorcerer kidnaps a person who was previously scheduled as a victim and, laying him on his left side, stabs him in the heart with a pointed bone or stick. When the heart stops, it means the soul has left the body. After that, through various manipulations, the sorcerer brings him back to life, ordering him to forget about what happened to him. But at the same time, it is suggested to him that in three days he will die. Such a person returns home without really knowing what has been done to him. Outwardly, he is no different from other people, but this is not a person, but only a walking body.

I mentioned that the practice of "zombie" was brought to Haiti by Negroes from Dahomey. Apparently, some methods of returning to life continue to be practiced in Dahomey to this day. Here is how an American traveler doctor tells about it, who happened to be present at one of these "sessions".

How do they turn into zombies?

“The man was lying on the ground, showing no signs of life. I noticed that one of his ears was half cut off, but it was an old wound; there were no more signs of violence. Around him stood a group of blacks, some were completely naked, others were wearing long unbelted shirts. Among them were several priests, who could be distinguished by a tuft of hair on a shaved head. There was a steady murmur of voices: preparations were underway for the ceremony.

Everything was in charge of an old man in an old, faded army jacket that hung down to his knees. He yelled at the others, waving his arms. On his wrist was a bracelet Ivory. The old man was apparently the chief priest of the fetish, and he was to exorcise evil spirits today.

The traveler turned to the companion-local resident who led him there:

I am a white doctor. I would like to examine the man and make sure he is really dead. Can you arrange it?

After some negotiations, consent was given. The head priest stopped his dance that had begun. “The audience gathered around, watching me with curiosity. On the ground lay a healthy young lad, over six feet tall, with a broad chest and strong arms. I sat up so as to shield him with my body, with a quick movement lifted his eyelids to check the pupillary reaction according to Argyle-Robineon. There was no reaction, there were no signs of a heartbeat ...

… We were surrounded by a group of thirty people. In low voices they sang a rhythmic song. It was a cross between a howl and a growl. They sang faster and louder. It seemed that the dead would hear these sounds. What was my surprise when exactly this happened?

"Dead" suddenly ran his hand over his chest and tried to turn around. The screams of the people around him merged into a continuous scream. The drums began to beat even more furiously. Finally, the lying one turned, tucked his yogis under him and slowly got on all fours, his eyes, which a few minutes ago she reacted to light, were now wide open and looked at us.

Local residents, whom the traveler met in different parts of Dahomey, told him that a person can supposedly be brought back to life if not much time has passed after his death. From the words of some Europeans living in the country, it also followed that he was not the only white who happened to be present at such a ceremony.

Other peoples practicing the resurrection of the dead

Unlike the practice of modern resuscitators, when the possibility of returning to life is measured in minutes, representatives of other, non-European cultures consider this time to be much longer. So, in Haiti, voodoo priests, referring to the practice of zombies, speak of ten days. Among the peoples of Siberia, in relation to shamans, this period is determined as seven days. The same seven days are also mentioned in ancient Sumerian clay tablets. The North American Indians and the tribes of New Guinea have six days. Some shamans of Turukan, it was believed, had a critical period to bring a person back to life, a little more than a day. However, what is important here is not the time difference, which is measured in days, but the very stability of the idea that within a certain time, several days, a return to life is possible.

I have cited some of the testimonies of such returns. There is every reason to believe, however, that most of these facts are lost and forgotten, just as much evidence of the past is lost and forgotten.

If we talk about zombies, then involuntarily there are associations with the living dead from American "horror stories". However, zombies are not only characters from horror films, but also quite real people who have completely lost control over their actions and are completely subordinate to the "owner".

They do not feel pain, do not know pity and fear. They are ready to work all day on the plantations and fight not for life, but for death on the first order. In this article, you will learn how ordinary people they turn into zombies and what a living person with a “turned off” brain is capable of.

A tradition from Africa

What associations does it evoke in you, practiced by Africans (and not only them)? That's right, the first thing that comes to mind is the manufacture of a doll that needs to be pierced with needles in order to take revenge on your enemy. But the practice of voodoo is much more complicated and extensive, at the disposal of sorcerers there are methods not only of destruction, but also of enslavement. One of these techniques is the transformation of a person into a zombie.

African shamans know the recipe for a psychotropic drink that has a hallucinogenic effect and temporarily paralyzes the victim. Having intoxicated a person (usually an enemy captured), the sorcerer places him in a sealed box. The victim, meanwhile, falls into a state, even stops breathing. The box is buried in the ground for several days.

The lack of oxygen and the influence of a potent psychotropic drink destroy brain cells. A few days later, the victim is released from a makeshift "coffin". But the man has already turned into a "zombie" - a weak-willed slave, ready to carry out any orders of his master.

Zombies in the modern version

Leaders of religious sects too use various techniques that allow them to influence their "parishioners" and inspire them with false ideas. Of course, their methods of influence are far from the practices of African shamans. Nevertheless, the result is approximately the same - the victim is ready to transfer his savings to the account of the sectarians, give away his living space and, in general, perform any work for the benefit of the “owner”.

Sectarians often use psychotropic substances that suppress a person's ability to think critically and soberly evaluate their actions. They artificially create "an atmosphere of brotherhood and universal love." Specially selected music and verbal techniques used by leaders only enhance the desired effect.

Attending meetings organized by a sect turns into a drug for a person. And one day the victim learns that you have to pay for the pleasure. Over time, the amount of "contributions" and "donations" is steadily growing, because sectarians need to satisfy their appetites.

How to protect yourself and your loved ones from the negative influence of this kind of manipulators? On this score, there is only one recommendation - to critically evaluate all the events that are taking place and not rely on someone else's opinion. There are very few people in this world who are ready to organize free "development circles", "self-improvement groups" (in a word, sects) solely to help their neighbor.