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None of this page is finished! Sorry about that!
A word on culture and how it affects our perception
Frankly, I think recognizing my upbringing in the USA, aka a predominantly christian country, in an English speaking household, is essential to recognizing the way I view spirituality. Everything in my life effects the way I see the world around me, something I think is true of most people. Since this site is about beliefs, myths, spirituality, the occult, ect. and not provable facts, my outlook will effect the way I relay this information. I've learned a lot about other cultures but I wouldn't view this site as a completely reliable source on any beliefs, or cultural concepts.
Ghosts and ghost-adjacent things
Do I believe in ghosts? I honestly don't know. I guess no, not exactly, but I'd like them to be real, and I've seen and experienced things I can't explain if we assume they aren't real.
Out of the creatures I plan to discuss here, I'd say that ghosts are probably the most likely to exist in some form. Almost every culture has some idea of an afterlife, or something that happens to the "spirit" after it's left the body.You could very easily argue that this is due to many people not wanting this to be the only thing that exists, and I can understand the arguement there but I feel like that's a bit of a dishonest opinion. The idea that death is the end isn't a universal belief. Western ideas of an afterlife still see it as mostly seperate from the world of the living, but not all cultures see life and death in that binary of a way. I won't pretend to have intricate knowledge of such things but I've always found the different views of a human spirit or afterlife very interesting.
Banshees
Onryo
Vampires and other blood suckers
Starting off: How does one define a vampire? Let's go the easy route with this. The oxford English dictionary describes vampires as, "a corpse supposed, in European folklore, to leave its grave at night to drink the blood of the living by biting their necks with long pointed canine teeth." That's a pretty simple explaination, and often how vampires are shown in media. This section includes not only vampires but some things from non european cultures that resemble vampires, mostly in diet, along with a few european vampire catagories.
Jiangshi
Admittedly, I don't know a ton about jiangshi. From my understanding, they're re-animated corpses that, unlike western vampires, don't suck literal blood as much as the life force from their victims (source). Honestly, my favourite thing about jiangshi is the way they move. They jump.
Manananggal
Manananggal are a creature of the philipines, appearing as humans, usually women, in the day. At night, however, they seperate from their legs (hips down is how I've always seen it portrayed) and fly on leathery wings to seek their prey. The creature flies, usually with its organs trailing behind out of the torso, to find victims that it attacks with a long tongue, either to drink their blood or, MUCH WORSE in my opinion, siphon fetuses out of pregnant people. Gross. I've heard that they're pretty easy to take care of if you find their lower half. Simply sprinkle some salt on it and the upper body can't reattach, causing it to die at sunrise. Like an evil slug, I suppose.
Nosferatu
I have a love/hate relationship with the nosferatu. Hate because of what Count Orlock, the star of the Nosferatu film of 1922, represents in an anti semetic portrayal of jewish people as parasites upon Europe (seriously, google it, that's what the film is about), but love because of the design and the new life given by Vampire The Masquerade. Why must everything lead back to xenophobia??
Werewolves and animal shapeshifters
Zombies and otherwise reanimated corpses
Don't get me started about zombies. There's so much to talk about here! First off, the "modern zombie" is incredibly new, and the history of zombies is incredibly interesting (and very intertwined with black culture). I'm going to be receiting a lot of this from memory but any sections that I directly quote, I'll link the references. Let's start off with the original cause of destress associated with being a zombie: Slavery. Zombis (the 'e' came on later) were the re-animated corpses of African slaves, forced to continue working after their deaths. It was believed that zombis would be reanimated by a bokor, a specific user of voodoo (source). Becoming a zombie could be something of a punishment for suicide, since being a slave in life was unbearable, but being a slave for all eternity was worse. (NYT article about it that I can't actually read because I don't have an account but this is where I think I previously learned it). So, if zombies were originally bodies brought back to work under a type of necromancer, where does the modern concept come from?
Ironically, from a movie that never even uses the term "zombie" in it. Night Of The Living Dead (1968) was the birth of the modern zombie. These creatures, refered to in the film as 'ghouls', weren't the result of a spell to bring them back to life, rather being implied to have been reanimated by the radiation of a fallen satillite. The film never directly confirms this, but it is implied by the news actively talking about the space probe teeming with radiation crashing back towards earth only a short time before the dead decided to get up and wander around. Now, you may think that the fact this movie came out in the late 60s and completely reinvented the zombie means that it doesn't have it's roots in black culture, but you'd be wrong. The movie was, seemingly unintentionally, very much also a racially based film. The main character of the movie is a black man, stuck hiding from the zombie with a white family who he constantly clashes with. Unintentional or not, the political climate of the time made the movie about much more than the living dead. Spoilers for Night Of The Living Dead (1968) ahead: The movie ends horrifically. Ben, our protagonist and black lead, survives the zombies who have been ravenging the house throughout the night. He tried his best to save those around him but, ultimately, a combination of the insane circumstances and a mistrust in Ben has led to the others in the cast dying at various points through the night. Hope is on the horizon, as a posse led by the sheriff are outside to handle the remaining zombies. In what is, to me, a gutwrenching scene, the group sees Ben and mistakes him for a zombie, shooting him and burning him in a mass grave with the others. A scene of a black man being mistaken for the attacker rather than the victim then shot and killed by law inforcement would be a startling and upsetting scene no matter when it happened, but this was likely elevated by the fact this film came out in October of 1968, a few months after the assasination of MLK.
Okay, both of those were very depressing. History and culture is usually uncomfortable or upsetting to learn about. But learning is important and, if you're like me, more fun when monster movies are involved. But let's move past that and on to a more recent developement for zombies: brain eating. Where does that originate from?
Behold: My beloved Tarman. I don't remember if it was last year or earlier in this one (2024), I was channel surfing and found Return Of The Living Dead on, uncensored and just now starting. Jack pot. His name is pretty obvious when you look at him but the character design is his best feature! He doesn't speak much, but what he says meant more to the horror genre than anyone would have thought. "Braaaaainnnnnsssss". Tarman was the first zombie to actively seek brains, along with a female zombie's upper half confirming that they only sought brains as to dull the pain of being dead. This is one of the best recognized zombie features, and it's not even fourty years old yet!
Demons and similar creatures
Other creatures I find interesting but am unable to catagorize
Kuchisake-Onna
Kuchisake-Onna is also a type of onryo but a specific one, as opposed to an over arcing type of spirit. Depending on the adaptation of the story, Kuchisake-Onna was a beautiful woman disfigured before her death, having her face slit across her mouth.
Teke-teke
Much like Kuchisake-Onna, Teke-teke is a specific onryo. The story I heard of teke-teke as a kid was that she was a school girl who either jumped in front of a train or was pushed. Regardless of how she ended up on the track, she was cut down the middle, seperating her upper torso from her legs. Her ghost is called teke-teke after the sound she makes running on her elbows after her next victim. A victim of teke-teke is often similarly disfigured by a scythe cutting them across the waist in the same form she was. I can't seem to find a story other than the train one, so it seems odd that she uses a scythe to kill her victims and disfigure the bodies the same way she was disfigured. I can't blame her, though. Scythes are pretty cool, honestly
Djinn
I remember once seeing djinn described as being as powerful as angels or demons but with the same freewill allowed of humans. Something about this facinated and concerned me. I never particularly believed in djinns, even as a child, but the idea of someone who behaved like a human but with great power seemed oddly threatening to me. If you're unaware, a djinn/jinn/genie is a creature of immense power and intellect which can take the form of a human or an animal. They're similar to angels, albeit a lower rank than them according to muslim theology.
Hasshaku-Sama
For some reason, this woman scared me. I don't know why. She still somewhat does. Also known as "eight feet tall", Hasshaku-Sama is literally just a crazy tall lady. I don't know why this bothers me but it does. I guess the idea of her watching through windows or over fences freaked me out. You can tell she's coming near by her signiture call of "Po". She actually made a cameo in Omori, which was the scariest part of the game to me.
Aka Manto
Aka Manto was one of my favourite ghost stories in junior high. I learned about her around the same time as teke-teke and found her very interesting, but was mostly amused by how to escape her. Aka Manto, aka "Red Cape", is a spirit that appears in bathroom stalls. The story goes that she will ask if you want a red cape or a blue cape. Answering red will lead to her slitting your throat, covering you in a 'red cape' which is your own blood. Answering blue will have her strangle you, leaving your oxygen deprived body blue. So, what's the other option? Well, I've been told that saying anything other than red or blue just means she'll take you to hell, which isn't really preferable to either in my opion. HOWEVER, the one answer I've been told will leave you alive, likely with damaged pride in tow, is answering "a yellow cape." You can see where this is going, I'm sure. She'll grab you and throw you into the toilet, covered in your own piss. But hey, beats being slaughtered, I think!
Rokurokubi