Eyewitness stories about the dead. Mystical stories about the cemetery and the dead

A few years ago, the Daily World News magazine published sensational stories from people who allegedly witnessed a real "demonstration" of people from the other world.

According to them, this happened in Austria at a village cemetery near the town of Bruck an der Mur. It was as if the dead had left their graves and, in front of the frightened inhabitants, marched in a column through neighboring village. This terrible procession, the sight of which made the hair stand on end, consisted mainly of yellowed skeletons, but there were also half-decomposed corpses that exuded an unthinkable stench. Indifferent to everything around, the "demonstrators", as if obeying someone, approached the lake and, as it seemed to eyewitnesses, dissolved in its water. Many saw that night in the sky bright light, and some claimed that a meteorite fell into the lake. On the next tribute, people who came to the cemetery found that all the graves were empty.

Researchers paranormal activity attitude to stories with the walking dead is ambiguous. But the appearance of ghosts not only in existing cemeteries, but also in places of ancient burials is considered quite true fact. Moreover, in numerous stories about this, not only village graveyards appear.

Among the most famous is Weserfield Cemetery in US state Connecticut. There were cases when ghosts appeared there during the daytime. One photographer sat in the cemetery for several days without getting out and finally photographed a ghost that appeared on the grave of a man who died from a snakebite. True, later the picture was considered "inaccurate." There were no new hunters to be on duty with a photo or movie camera in the "city of the dead".

The appearance of a ghost was recorded quite by accident in a London National Gallery. They installed an advanced security alarm system. And almost immediately one of the nights it worked. An alarm was raised, but the thieves, no matter how they searched the museum, were not found. The guard, who had no face from fear, muttered something unintelligible to the rushing policemen: “A ghost! I saw him walk through the hall of the old Dutch masters and look at the paintings. And then he disappeared. taken by the security system camera. And what was his astonishment when a dark silhouette of a man appeared on the screen, acting in exact accordance with the story of the guard. Specialists who examined the film came to the conclusion that a real ghost was captured on it.

Further investigation revealed that even before the guards, who made a round of the museum premises at night, saw ghosts in the empty smell. The administration felt that the guards, due to the poor lighting, mistook the bizarre play of shadows for ghosts. But some explained the appearance of immigrants from the other world in the National Gallery by the fact that the museum was built on the site where there once was an old cemetery and a large deep pit, into which, without a church funeral, the bodies of the dead were dumped during a terrible plague epidemic in mid-seventeenth century.

In Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, ghosts haunt the ancient Greyfriars Church. This temple, associated with many different historical events are visited by many tourists. They are especially interested in the ancient church cemetery, where many very popular historical films were filmed. It was the tourists who said that during tours of the old cemetery they heard loud indignant voices, saw ghostly figures and sometimes received rather painful shocks and blows from some unknown force.

Within two years, the number of such testimonies and complaints had exceeded fifty, and the tourist offices, with the consent of the church authorities, invited two expert mediums from the Scottish branch of the Society for the Investigation of the Paranormal to the cemetery. They established that the entire territory ancient cemetery filled with pain and suffering. And in those places where tourists saw ghosts and felt physical impact in the form of shocks and blows, devices recorded powerful energy emissions.

According to medieval chronicles, in the 17th century, on the territory of the cemetery, at the Greyfriars church, there was a prison, where in 1679 King Charles II threw more than a thousand of his opponents. Many were executed there and buried in the local churchyard. Lord Mackenzie, who pronounced death sentences, is also buried next to his victims. The experts who conducted the survey are convinced that it is the spirit of the bloodthirsty lord that terrorizes tourists with energy shocks and blows.

"Kaera" from the other world

Kaer - short for "counter-revolutionaries". This was the name of those who passed under the 58th article, that is, they were accused of counter-revolutionary activities and propaganda. But there was also such a unique case when the investigation on the 58th was conducted in relation to ... ghosts.

In pre-war Moscow, large factories were often located next to residential areas. Aircraft engine plant No. 24 in the Stalinsky district was located not far from the current Semyonovskaya metro station. At the end of the thirties, the plant began to expand, and the territory where the old cemetery was was given to it. No reburials of the remains were made, the graves were simply razed to the ground and a huge test shop was built there. It happened at that factory misterious story haunted.

In the spring of 1941, the instrumental technician, the old party member Ivan Khrapov, was summoned to the secretary of the party committee. There, next to the party chief, sat a military man with KGB buttonholes. The confidential conversation that took place surprised Khrapov a lot. According to the enkavedeshnika, someone is trying to disrupt the implementation of an important defense task. In the test shop appeared mysterious personalities disguised as ghosts. They intimidate motorists to such an extent that they refuse to go to work on the days when testing of new motors is planned. Additional security posted around the workshop did not help: the "ghosts" inexplicably manage to get inside.

Since Khrapov once served in the emergency, he is entrusted with a secret mission. Under the guise of a trainee, he will be transferred to a test shop, where he must establish whether there really appear individuals posing as ghosts, or whether it was invented by mechanics, possibly members of a counter-revolutionary group who planned to disrupt the production of new aviation equipment.

Khrapov took up the task entrusted to him. But there were no new incidents with ghosts in the test shop. Until, after the May Day holidays, a batch of new motors was received for testing.

In the very first night shift the shop manager urgently called Khrapov to one of the stands. Pale as a sheet, the minder on duty said that as soon as he turned on the engine, a ghost suddenly appeared from somewhere and began to choke him. Khrapov ransacked the entire workshop. Nobody. And the ghost did not appear again, although the motors were "chasing" on all the stands.

In the future, such emergencies were repeated at least once every two weeks, and only at stands with new engines. But when Khrapov ran there, there were no messengers from the next world. In the end, he agreed with the head of the workshop that the ill-fated motors be tested for several shifts in a row only on one stand, and began to be on duty around the clock near him. And on the third night, Khrapov sat, immersed in his thoughts. Suddenly, the terrible roar of a nearby motor suddenly stopped. Ivan Sergeevich turned to the minder who was at the dashboard and could not believe his eyes: between him and the panel a translucent figure of a man was clearly visible, which the minder was trying to push away from himself. Ivan Sergeevich jumped up - but the ghost immediately melted into the air ...

Khrapov told the Chekist about what he saw. He was clearly puzzled. He promised that relevant specialists would be involved in the investigation. However, the outbreak of war soon prevented. Plant No. 24 was evacuated to Kuibyshev, where the ghosts no longer appeared.

This story was told to me by Ivan Sergeevich Khrapov himself. But in one of the closed educational institutions The NKVD people from the next world took into circulation ... the Chekists themselves!

Revenge of the inhabitants of the "City of the Dead"

Halfway from Leningrad to Peterhof stands the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, founded in 1732. Noble persons and monks were buried in its cemetery for almost two centuries. After the revolution, the monastery was closed, and in the thirties, a school for training paramilitary guards moved into its spacious buildings. The new owners began with the destruction of the "legacy of the times of autocracy and obscurantism." Comrade Feldman, head of the school, showed particular zeal, personally destroying the rich tombstones in the monastery cemetery.

A week after that, strange things began to happen. At night, someone's shuffling steps were heard in the echoing corridors, indistinct muttering and plaintive groans were heard. The orderlies noticed vague shadows in the service rooms and felt the distinct smell of decay.

After a while, everyone noticed how unrecognizably the head of the school had changed. Feldman stopped conducting weekly political information, became haggard, aged, became irritable and timid. At night, he locked himself in his office, where, according to rumors, he drank vodka. Sometimes muffled voices could be heard from behind the door, but no one knew who the boss could talk to. And in March 1940, a pistol shot rang out in Feldman's office. There was some nonsense in the note he left: they say that he is dying because he can no longer endure the persecution of two white elders. The commission sent to investigate the state of emergency, of course, did not believe in ghosts, but came to the conclusion that the Chekist simply drank himself to hell.

After the war, the monastery housed a police school, and a parade ground for drill training was arranged on the site of the cemetery. And the ghosts again made themselves felt: at night ghostly figures roamed the corridors, groans and curses were heard.

In the early nineties, girls began to be admitted to the police school.

Like the young cadets, they were in the barracks. And then one night in the women's building there was a wild screech. The duty officer quickly figured out the reason. It turned out that someone secretly entered the barracks and climbed into the bunk of one of the cadets. The head of the school was immediately notified of the incident.

Do you remember that bastard? Can you recognize? - the angry boss asked the frightened, sobbing girl.

He's not a cadet at all. Some old man. Pale, smelly and cold as ice!

The investigation of this case from the position of materialism did not give any results, and local old-timers whispered about the revenge of those who were buried in the former cemetery.

What is behind the revenge of the dead

From time immemorial in Rus' there has been a tradition to bury away from housing and to treat places of eternal rest with respect. Our ancestors knew that the destruction of the churchyard could bring trouble. That is, even in the old days, people were convinced that our material world and the other world are connected with each other. But if there is a connection between the two worlds, confirmed by facts, then there must be a mechanism for its implementation. Newest Scientific research confirm this and, moreover, reveal the essence of such interaction. And it's not about the revenge of the dead.

Many scientists, including psychologists, biologists and physicists, believe that a person, as a person, consists of physical body and souls, or, as they say now, energy-informational essence. Research using supersensitive devices has now established that after the death of a person, the soul does not leave the body immediately, but gradually, over a certain period of time. This, in particular, was confirmed by experiments using the Kirlian effect by the St. Petersburg physicist K. Korotkov. And British researchers, who placed special receivers on the graves, recorded energy surges on the ninth and fortieth day after the death of a person.

Scientists believe that during the first burst, the energy-informational entity leaves the physical body, and during the second, it flies away from it into thin world. But even after that, it retains an information connection with the flesh remaining in the grave, that is, the human skeleton. Thanks to the presence of such a connection, relatives who come to the graves of the deceased can make contact with their souls in order to receive support in critical life situations.

At the same time, it is the connection of the soul with the ashes of its former biological carrier remaining in the earth that leads to a kind of materialization of the energy essence in the form of a ghost. Most often this happens when the eternal rest of the remains is violated. And the catalysts or subjects that send a challenge to the subtle world are the souls of those who died untimely as a result of an accident or violent death. They cannot go to the afterlife and are forced to remain on Earth next to the living, before whom they often appear as ghosts. But in general, science is still only coming to unraveling the mysteries of the "city of the dead."

Creepy stories about the dead, death and cemeteries. At the junction of our world and the other world, very strange and unusual phenomena sometimes occur that are difficult to explain even to very skeptical people.

If you also have something to tell on this topic, you can absolutely free.

Recently, a woman friend's mother died. She was very worried and shared her thoughts. She told a story that she woke up early in the morning, got out of bed and wanted to turn on the light. The switch clicked, the light came on and then went out. I tried to turn it on several times, but it did not light up, then I decided to replace it. Pulled it out and it's whole. She thought that this was a sign and began to ask for forgiveness aloud from the soul of her mother.

Recently I read about the deceased with a lit candle in front of his photo. I was reading late at night, and at the end of the prayer, for some reason, I felt fear. It was on the 9th day after the funeral. Anxiety crept in.

Before that, the day before, a dead person had been seen, as in a dream. I didn’t understand anything at all, since it flashed very quickly, and I remembered only the image of a candle lighting and burning so brightly.

write about small strange cases that happened to me, and about which I heard from witnesses of the phenomena.

Mom lives in a private house. When she was in power, she often baked something, she made such wonderful pies. I come to visit my mother. She is sitting at the table with my brother's daughter. They sit at a table near the window, eat pies, drink tea. Immediately from the threshold, they begin to vying with me to say: “But we saw this! Just now! 5 minutes ago they flew past the window over the beds somewhat perfectly. So slowly, everyone is a little different in size, the size of an average ball. as light as bubble. And they are all bright, iridescent different colors. They flew purposefully, calmly, as if someone was walking and leading them on a thread. And they flew away towards the neighbors, to the woman Field. They watched as much as they could from the window, they didn’t go out into the street, because, despite the fact that it was summer, the day, the sun, for some reason it was scary. I helped them eat pies, and after an hour and a half, Lena and I went home. They went out into the yard, and the neighbors were in some kind of fuss, they left the yard, on the street a neighbor from the house opposite says: “Baba Polya died.”

The priests do not recommend opening the coffin after the deceased has been buried and the lid has been nailed shut. I have always known about this prohibition, but could not find an explanation for it. Googling, I came to the conclusion that, as it were, official version Why is it forbidden, no. And now even, with the permission of the priest, sometimes it is allowed to open the lid at the cemetery so that people who were not in the church at the funeral could say goodbye to the deceased. But it's still undesirable.

With this question, I turned to my 80-year-old grandmother. To which she told me a story that happened to her relatives in the village.

As a child, every summer I rested with my grandparents in the village. But when I was nine years old, my grandmother died of cancer. She was responsive and kind person, and a very good grandmother.

At the age of fourteen, I came to the village to my grandfather, who was very lonely and sad without his wife. In the morning my grandfather went to the local market while I slept in a cozy bed.

Then, through my sleep, I hear some incomprehensible footsteps on the wooden floor. It creaks clearly. I lay face to the wall and was afraid to move. At first I thought it was my grandfather who had returned. Then I remembered that he was always at the market in the morning. And suddenly someone's cold hand falls on my shoulder, and then I hear the voice of the late grandmother: "Don't go to the river." I couldn’t even move from fear, and when I pulled myself together, nothing strange happened.

I'm here that we live next to the cemetery and I had a young drinking neighbor. Her late father came to her, and we talked about life and death. She eventually died. Recently it has been a year since his death.

She lived in a house located along the main street and by which she had to pass every day. And this year, I went to the store almost every day, past her house, but I didn’t pass calmly, but ran faster without looking. There was always a bad feeling and some deadness. I attributed everything to past death and time.

When I got my profession, I lived in a hostel not in hometown. I went home once every two weeks. There were 3 girls living in our dorm room, their native home was closer than mine and they went to visit their parents every weekend.

In January 2007 my only grandmother died. Although during her lifetime we did not communicate so often, and our relationship with her was not as close as many, but after her death, I often dreamed of her for some time. But we will talk about one dream or phenomenon, I don’t even know what to call it.

It was the fortieth day for my grandmother, but I didn’t go to the wake, we just had exams (and, as I said, we didn’t have any particularly warm family relations). I stayed alone in the room and prepared for the exams, it was already about 2 am, and I decided to go to bed. I did not turn off the light (the girls and I often slept with the light on), closed the door on the latch and, turning to the wall, lay down. Son did not want to come to me, and I lay and thought about all sorts of exams.

I have lived since childhood in a small village near railway and there was a forest all around. My parents worked in another city and rarely came, and I lived with my grandparents.

When I was very young, we did not live in the village itself, but on the outskirts near the cemetery. There were some very old, probably nineteenth century houses built and people still lived in them. Then grandfather built new house in the village itself, and we moved.

Since childhood, I got used to the cemetery and was not at all afraid of it and even often walked there. The cemetery was also very old, but sometimes people still buried there. Small, easy to get around. I liked to look at the photos and names on the tombstones, imagining what kind of people were lying here, what they saw and experienced, what they could talk about. Nearby there was about my age, I came to her and put flowers on the grave, there were several more graves of elderly people that I especially liked. Maybe it was all from loneliness. There were no other children in the village, only adults, there was no one to play with. But it always seemed to me that the Dead, as I called them mentally, were quite real creatures with whom you can communicate, if you try.

At school, in the 6th grade, a new boy was planted with me. At the end of the school year, he and I were inseparable, but after graduation, life parted our roads to other cities. Then we were carefree children and it didn’t even occur to me why my friend’s dad was all gray-haired at such a young age. I only knew in passing that he works in medicine and special attention did not pay attention to this fact, only years later, having met her school friend at the homecoming party we didn't have 7 for long years, we started talking and I learned a terrible story.
It turns out that Denis's dad was a forensic pathologist, in my opinion, that's what they call it, in general, he found out the causes of death of his "patients". Denis remembers only one fact from childhood, when dad went to an emergency call in the evening as an ordinary dad, and returned as a dad with a white head. When a boy asked his father about White hair, dad said that it was necessary that people sometimes get old because of hard work. The boy noticed that his father became silent and gloomy, his mother always tried to talk quietly and calmly with him.
Only as an adult, and having experienced his father's stroke with his mother, did his mother tell what happened that night when his hair turned gray.
He was urgently called to work - the neighbors were worried about the fact that the young girl had not been heard or seen for a week, after a quarrel with her husband, who left with a suitcase and did not return. The apartment is quiet, they broke the door and found the corpse of the girl. It was necessary to find out what was the cause of death. In general, Dan's father took up his immediate duties. He opened the corpse, began to do his job, as at first a strangled gurgling moan escaped from the mouth of the victim, and then she opened her eyes and grabbed Father Denis by the hand. From the unexpectedness and unreality of what is happening, the man simply lost consciousness. As it turned out later, due to severe stress, the girl fell into a lethargic sleep, she had no pulse or heartbeat, her skin was pale, in general, all signs of death were on her face. In a hurry, the doctors recorded the death and gave the body for examination. Den's father, with all the accepted conclusions, began his work. The girl woke up at the autopsy, fortunately she was saved, but Denis’s father, along with gray hair, acquired a sick heart at the age of 34, went to various psychologists and psychotherapists a lot and never again did forensic examination, transferring to a regular clinic as an ordinary therapist. Perhaps, after numerous silhouettes and monsters, this story will seem like nonsense, but imagining the whole nightmare of what happened, I really get creepy.

A loss loved one This is a great grief and an irreparable loss. Here are 8 shocking stories about people who could not come to terms with the loss and part with a dead person. They somehow continued to live with their loved ones, but people who left them. Not for the faint of heart!

The man who spent all his days at his wife's grave for 20 years

When Rocky Abalsamo's wife died in 1993, a part of him died with her. In sorrow and longing, Rocky spent 20 years every day at her grave in St. Joseph's cemetery in Roxbury. He hardly ate or drank while he was there, and came to the grave in spite of the cold or bad weather.

On January 22, 2013, Rocky died at Stonehenge Health Center in Roxbury after a long illness, at the time of his death he was 97 years old. He was buried in the same cemetery as his wife Julia. Their graves are very close - Rocky does not part with her even after his death.

Vietnamese man sleeps in the same bed with his dead wife

In 2009, Le Van, a Vietnamese citizen, hit all the local newspapers: it became known that he had slept in the same bed with his dead wife for five years. Two years later, reporters from the newspaper Nguoi Lao Dong contacted Le Van again, and he confirmed that he continued to sleep next to the body of his beloved. The government can't do anything about it, of course.

Le Van sleeps in the same bed as a plaster statue containing the remains of his late wife. During the funeral, the man realized that he could not live without his beloved, so he dug up the grave, removed the remains from there, placed them in a plaster statue and continues to share a bed with her.

The 57-year-old Vietnamese explains that by doing so he hopes to increase the chances of their reunion in the next life.

Georgian woman takes care of her son who died 18 years ago

Joni Bakaradze died 18 years ago when he was 22 years old. But instead of burying him in the cemetery, the family decided to keep the body intact so that the two-year-old son could someday see his father's face.

For the first four years after Joni's death, his mother Tsiuri Kvaratskhelia used embalming fluid to preserve Joni's body, but then she had a dream in which someone told her to use vodka instead. So she did: Tsiuri made a vodka poultice every night to prevent her body from turning black and starting to decompose.

For the first ten years after her son's death, Tsiuri dressed him up for every birthday. But the older she got, the more difficult it was for her to take care of her son in the way she used to. She says that the lack of care quickly became noticeable and her son's face turned black, but as soon as she used her alcohol tincture again, the face turned white again.

Currently, Joni's body is kept in a wooden coffin with a window in front of her face. Tsiuri says her grandson, now 20, saw his father's preserved body and believes his grandmother made the right decision.

An Argentinian widow sleeps in her late husband's mausoleum to keep him company

A widow from Argentina named Adriana Villarreal sleeps in the small mausoleum where her husband is buried so that he won't get bored. A 43-year-old widow from Buenos Aires came to the attention of the media in 2012 when she admitted that she spends several nights a year in this mausoleum.

According to Dos de Mayo police commissioner Gustavo Braganza, his colleagues decided to see what was happening at the San Lazaro cemetery, as several people complained that loud music. They knocked on the door of the mausoleum, and the door was opened by Adriana Villarreal in pajamas. It was evident that she lived for some time next to the coffin and the embalmed body.

The police examined the tomb: it turned out that the woman even equipped the mausoleum - she brought a bed, a radio, a computer with Internet access, and even a small stove.

Adriana's husband, Sergio Yede, committed suicide in 2010, when he was 28 years old. Adriana built a mausoleum for him with the money he saved to buy a house.

Widow slept with her husband's decaying body for a year after his death

A woman slept with her husband's decomposing body for a year, until the horrifying fact came to the attention of the authorities in November 2013.

Marcel H., 79, from Liege, Belgium, died in November 2012 from an asthma attack. The grief of the wife was so strong that she did not find the strength to announce the death of her husband and continued to sleep with the body in the same bed until the authorities intervened.

They came to the widow only because the owner of the apartment complained about the evasion of this family from paying rent for a year. The body was not mummified, but, surprisingly, the neighbors never complained about an unpleasant smell.

Man lived with mother's mummified body for more than ten years, and it was only revealed when he himself was found dead

Claudio Alfieri, 58, was found lying in a chair in his Buenos Aires apartment next to the woman's remains. Her body was wrapped in plastic bags, she had slippers on her feet, and her body was sitting on a chair at the kitchen table.

Police and firefighters broke into the apartment after neighbors complained about the disgusting smell. Forensic experts and neighbors identified the woman as Claudio's mother, Margherita Aimer de Alfieri. Neighbors said that last time saw this woman alive ten years ago, when she was 90 years old, but the son continued to claim that she was alive and well. An autopsy showed that both mother and son died of natural causes.

Husband kept his wife's death a secret for 35 days and treated her like she was alive

The contractor went to work and lived for 35 days ordinary life while the body of his 42-year-old wife decomposed in the bedroom of their two-story home in Damai Impan, Malaysia.

When family friends asked about her, her husband answered vaguely, never giving any reason to think anything was wrong. But his wife, Lim Ah Tee, died on September 2, 2013 after complaining of chest pain.

According to police, their 16-year-old son knew his mother had died but gave his father time to come to terms with the reality of her death. The heartbroken man reported the death of his wife to the police only when it became impossible to bear the stench.

The police were shocked - they found the body on the bed, clean and in fresh clothes - this indicated that her husband regularly washed and changed her clothes. The room also smelled strongly of perfume - probably her husband was spraying perfume everywhere to kill the smell of a decaying body.

The guy hid the dead body of his father for five months to receive benefits

In March 2012, a man was jailed for three years after police found the body of his 54-year-old father, Guy Blackburn, on the bed of his home in Lancashire, UK. The son did not report the death of his father for almost five months, because he wanted to receive benefits for him.

Christopher Blackburn, 29, lived in the house next to the body, but did not report the death of his father, who died of natural causes. It also turned out that Christopher's ten-year-old daughter lived in the house - she was told that her grandfather was just sleeping in his room.

Blackburn pleaded guilty to denying his father a decent burial from October 31, 2010 to March 22, 2011, and to embezzlement of £1,869, which he took on behalf of his father at the post office. Blackburn also lied to police, saying he talked to his father in November 2010 and had drinks with him on Christmas Day.

« life of the dead continues in the memory of the living,” said Cicero. But it happens that this “life” continues not only in memory, but right in front of your nose. How? We tell.

Chichikov & Co.

The plot described in famous poem Gogol, as you know, was suggested to the author by Pushkin. Buying and selling business dead souls in those days it was not uncommon, but it acquired a particularly wide scope in the Moldavian city of Bendery. Alexander Sergeevich learned about him during his exile in Chisinau in 1820-1824.
In the aforementioned city, from the moment it was annexed to Russia and over the next few years, people suddenly stopped dying. At first it didn't bother anyone. But when the guardians of law and order began an investigation, it turned out that after joining Moldova, fugitive peasants from the central Russian provinces poured in. In order not to be recognized, they took the names of dead people, that is, the documents of the dead were simply sold to the living. A similar plot, perhaps creatively embellished, was told by Pushkin to Gogol.

Corpse Synod

IX-X centuries. Roman papacy going through a spiritual and political crisis. In less than a hundred years, 24 pontiffs have been replaced on the holy throne. Everyone pulled the church blanket over himself, strove to denigrate his predecessor and canceled his decrees. Our story is about how the struggle for power touched even the dead. Thus, Pope Formosus, elected in 891, actively intervened in the affairs of Constantinople, intrigued with regard to the French throne and cleared a place near the papal throne. The energy was enough for five years, after which the pope rested in the bose under unclear circumstances. Nine months later, another successor, Pope Stephen VI, decided to get even with the deceased.
They dug up the half-decomposed corpse, tied it to a chair and began interrogation. The deacon, who hid behind a chair, was responsible for the deceased. Formosa, of course, was condemned on all counts and sentenced to punishment: they cut off three fingers with which the pontiff committed sign of the cross, tore off papal clothes and dragged through the streets of Rome, and then buried in mass grave for foreigners. Later, black diggers removed the body and threw it into the Tiber, from where a certain monk fished it out and, finally, buried it in the ground. Subsequent pontiffs either canceled the sentence of Formosus, then again condemned him.

tomb raiders

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a very peculiar business in Britain: digging up recently buried bodies from graves for sale. These guys were called resurrectionists. Who needed a dead man? Yes, at least for doctors - for scientific activity. In addition, the whole industry for the "processing" of dead bodies has become the manufacture of all kinds of medicinal potions from them - from ointments to powders and tinctures.
Finally, in 1752, the British Parliament passed the Murder Act, allowing judges to replace the public display of the bodies of executed criminals with dissection (this was regarded as a "terrible" posthumous fate). But the “biological material” was still not enough, and the doctors had to cooperate with the body snatchers.
Surprisingly, the resurrectors acted almost legally, because the corpses were not anyone's property! Relatives had to take care of the safety of expensive bodies. Cage graves (mortseifs), tombstones made of heavy stone slabs, and “safe” coffins for the rich began to appear in cemeteries.
Only after the resurrectors moved from simply digging up the dead to suffocating the living - from that social stratum that they say "god forgotten" - did the authorities finally pass a bill that allowed medical universities to dissect the bodies of dead inhabitants of the so-called workhouses, which contained petty criminals and beggars.

Love before and after the grave

One of the most striking historical figures with a craving for “afterlife” passion was the Queen of Castile Juan I. She adored her husband Philip the Handsome with the passion of a woman who had lost her mind (she was nicknamed Juana the Mad). At first, the young husband treated his wife with warmth and tenderness, but he got tired very quickly and turned his attention to others. Juana was furiously jealous: she screamed, fought in hysterics, and once cut off one of the king's mistresses her luxurious hair. And when in 1506 Philip suddenly died, she became completely insane. For several years she carried her husband’s coffin with her everywhere, not wanting to part with him at all, and periodically opened the lid to hug the remains of her beloved. However, the queen's necrophilia is debatable - they say that the idea of ​​not burying the faithful was suggested to her by some monks who claimed that he could be resurrected. This did not happen, and about a year after his death, Philip was buried.

But modern "slaves of love" will surpass even the historical ones. In the 1930s, the story of the German microbiologist and immigrant Karl Tanzler von Kosel, who worked in one of the marine hospitals in Florida, spread around the world. There, this elderly man met a beautiful Cuban woman who had a romantic long name Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos and the tender age of 22. Helen, as Karl affectionately called the girl, was 32 years younger than him, suffered from tuberculosis and, despite the best efforts of the man, died a few months after they met. But Carl's love lived on. He built a mausoleum for his beloved, which he visited every evening, and after a couple of years he simply stole the girl’s body from there and “settled” it in his bedroom. The beloved was literally not the first freshness, so Karl had to fasten the crumbling bones with wire, stick a silk cloth soaked in wax instead of decayed skin, and glue a wig from the hair of the deceased on her head. He filled the chest cavity of the corpse with rags, and put on a dress and gloves on top.
In 1940 - about nine years after the girl's death - Dancer's cohabitation with the corpse was revealed. It became known that he put him next to him in bed every night and performed his "marital duty" (a paper tube was found in Helen's vagina, which allowed Karl to have an intimate relationship with the dead). The corpse was taken away from the Dancer (for some reason they put it on public display in one of the morgues), and he himself was placed under arrest. But not for long. Shortly after his release, he made himself a life-size effigy of Helen and attached her to it. death mask. So he lived with him until his death in 1952.