The Werewolf, Is It A Curse? Or Just A Genetic Mutation
At the beginning of the 17th century, the French writer Henri Boguet believed, like many people, that Satan transformed into a lycanthrope, controlling the minds of his victims. According to Boguet, the devil could control people’s minds to such an extent “that he made people believe that they were werewolves and had killed other people.”
Robert Burton, clergyman and scholar, considered the lycanthrope to be a form of madness as he mentioned in his book “Anatomy of Melancholy” in 1621.
“History of Magic,” written by the 19th-century French occultist Eliphas Levi, believed they were clear cases of possession. An entity that acts as a mediator between a living organism and the soul, thus in the case of a man whose instinct is wild and bloodthirsty, he would have a transformation like a wolf. Levi believed that the injuries reported in the werewolf cases could be attributed to the out-of-body experience.
Today it is believed that werewolves are the perfect cross between a wolf and a man, with the best qualities of both man and wolf and consequently, have been described as a creature of the night. A terrifying abomination of nature, so hideous and grotesque, it surpasses any monstrosity of nature.
theories
The diet of medieval peasants could have been one of the sources of the origin of werewolves. Ergot infection in cereals such as wheat and rye was very common in Europe during the Middle Ages. This is a fungus that grows on grains in very humid seasons of the year after very cold winters. The symptoms of this fungus are chemically related to the drug LSD, a strong psychoactive hallucinogen that produces dreamlike changes in mood and thinking, alters perception of time and space, as well as lack of self-control, extreme terror, and sense of blur between the individual and the environment. Other symptoms are hallucinations, mass hysteria and paranoia.
Some researchers today give other versions such as rabies, hypertrichosis (excessive hair growth all over the body), or porphyria (an enzyme disorder with symptoms including hallucinations and paranoia) as an explanation for the werewolf beliefs. Congenital erythropoietic porphyria has clinical features that include photosensitivity (which is why they only come out at night), hair on the hands and face, poor healing of the skin, pink urine, reddish color, and even fang-like teeth.
Also according to psychiatrists there is a rare mental disorder called clinical lycanthropy, in which an affected person has a delusional belief that he or she is transforming into another animal, although it is not always a wolf or a werewolf.
Others believe that the legends of the werewolf arose as part of the animals in shamanism and the totem of primitive nature-based cultures.
A virus of unknown origin
One of the latest scientific theories speaks of a virus from prehistoric times that was initially contracted by a species of prehistoric wolf. The virus infected and modified the DNA of the genetic sequence of prehistoric wolves, which in turn was transferred to humans upon contact by bite. For some men, the genetic structure remained intact, while for others this DNA joined the genetic sequence of wolves, evolving to the present day.
The origin of the virus remains unknown, but science is already studying whether, due to its complex biological structure, its origin may finally be extraterrestrial.
