MAGIA POSTHUMA:

a Weblog Approach to the History of Central and East European

Vampire Cases of the 18th Century
by Niels K. Petersen (Copenhagen)

first publication In 2006 I started working on a history of vampires. As a teenager and young man from
the late 1970’s and into the 1980’s I had been fascinated by vampires, and over the years
collected a great number of books on the subject. In time my interest developed from a fasci-
nation with anything related to vampires to a search for sources on the historical vampires.
In general, however, I got increasingly dissatisfied with the books I obtained, and as other
aspects of adulthood required attention, for many years I only occasionally resurrected my
interest in vampires.
Returning to the subject decades later, I found that a few important studies had been pub-
lished, mainly in German, and that the internet provided me with an important source for
all sorts of relevant information. Internet shops made it easy to purchase books that would
otherwise have been almost impossible to obtain. Online library database enabled me to get
hold of specialist literature, and some books were even available online. A lot of background
information was easily at hand through online dictionaries, newspapers, geographical servi-
ces etc. Not least it had become easy to get in touch with other people through e-mail and
other online services.

Recovering the Vampire of History

1 One notorious example is the One basic aim of my work has been to recover the vampire from the mythical »Neverland«
Checklist of Vampirism published where it has been located by authors of both fiction and non-fiction books. The sloppiness
in Haining, Peter: The Dracula of some popular books1 in getting the facts right, in my opinion, is not only caused by a lack
Centenary Book. London: Souvenir Pr.
of access to source material, but in many cases rather a lack of care for the fine line between
1987, pp. 142-146.
fact and fiction when it comes to the subject of vampires.
2 Schroeder, Aribert: Vampirismus. One central aspect of my work consequently has been to go ad fontes to investigate, to
Seine Entwicklung vom Thema zum put it popularly: »what really happened«, which not only requires the use of textual sources,
Motiv. Frankfurt/M.: Akad. Verl.ges. but also a certain amount of contextual information: geography, contemporary events, histo-
1973; Hamberger, Klaus: Mortuus
rical background information, etc. So, instead of just focusing on the vampire and the isolat-
non mordet: Kommentierte Dokumen-
tation zum Vampirismus 1689–1791. ed descriptions of vampires, my aim has been to get a grasp of the vampire and how it was
Wien: Turia + Kant 1992; Lambrecht, conceived by its contemporaries as part of history.
Karen: Hexenverfolgungen und Zau- Fortunately, a few scholars have provided important research, in particular Aribert
bereiprozesse in den schlesischen Schroeder and Klaus Hamberger, but also others like, e.g., Karen Lambrecht and Peter
Territorien. Köln: Böhlau 1995; Kreu-
Mario Kreuter.2 Schroeder visited a number of archives around Europe to look for archival
ter, Peter Mario: Der Vampirglaube in
Südosteuropa. Berlin: Weidler 2001. material on vampires. He did, however, not visit my native country, Denmark, although
even here one finds a connection to the vampires of the 18th century that provides another
3 Ordbog over det danske sprog, example of the interest in vampires in the 1730’s.
originally publ. 1919–1956. Available According to the standard Danish dictionary,3 the earliest use of the word »vampyr«
online at http://www.ordnet.dk/ods/.
in the Danish language occurred in the May 29, 1732 issue of Nye Tidender om lærde og
4 Published under various titles since curieuse Sager4 in connection with a mention of a book on vampires by Otto von Stein.5
1720, this was the most popular But even earlier that year the Danish government of King Christian VI received a letter
Danish magazine of the 18th century, from Count Christian August von Berckentin, then royal envoy in Vienna, dated February 9,
inspired by a.o. the German Neue 1732, in which von Berckentin mentions a »curieuse piece« about »so-genannte Wampyre
Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen
oder blutsaugende Todten«. Von Berckentin enclosed a copy of the curious text: the famous
published in Leipzig since 1715.
report of an investigation of a vampire case in the Serbian village Medveđa, the Visum et
5 The unpublished Unverlohrnes Repertum.6
Licht und Recht der Todten unter den
Lebendigen, oder gründlicher Bewiß
der Erscheinung der Todten unter
den Lebendigen, und waß jene in der
Ober-Welt untern den Lebendigen,
und waß jene vor ein Recht unter
denselbigen haben können.

6 The letter and the copy of Visum et Count Christian August von Berckentin (1694-
Repertum are stored at the national 1758), Danish diplomat in Vienna from 1722 to
archive, Rigsarkivet, in Copenhagen. 1740. Part of a painting attributed to George
Desmarées ca. 1738–1740. Photo by NP.

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 MAGIA POSTHUMA
by Niels K. Petersen (Copenhagen)

Cf. Olsen, Poul: Blodsudgydelser i To my knowledge, the vampire cases that caused a stir in other parts of Europe did not leave
Serbien. In: Siden Saxo 9/3 [Copen- any other traces at the court of Christian VI, but evidently von Berckentin found cause to
hagen: Statens Arkiver] (1992),
notify the Danish court of the vampire report and the speculations it provoked.
pp. 5-10.
Von Berckentin’s letter shows vampires as part of history, and to understand why they
7 Oldridge, Darren: Strange Histories. caused a sensation and learned speculations is in my opinion more interesting than follow-
The Trial of the Pig, The Walking ing the latest developments in the vampires of fiction. Understanding the vampire as part of
Dead, and other Matters of Fact history is, as all history, an attempt at understanding the development of human concepts
from the Medieval and Renaissance
and ideas. In that sense, I concur with Darren Oldridge, when he says:
Worlds. London: Routledge 2007, p.
ix. Cf. also Oldridge, D.: »Dead Man
Walking«: The Historical Context of
As historians have often noted, our failure to comprehend the beliefs of people in
Vampire Beliefs. In: Day, Peter (Ed.):
the past is a measure of the distance that separates us from them. It is the very
Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of
strangeness of these ideas – from a modern perspective – that makes them worth
Rodopi 2006.
looking at. If we can begin to understand why a French judge warned people about
demonically possessed apples in 1602, we might start to unravel the intellectual
8 E.g., Pohl, Christopher J.: Dissertatio
context in which he lived.7
de hominibus post mortem sangui-
sugis vulgo sic dictis Vampyren. So, to me, the vampires of history are not only worthwhile studying, because I grew up with
Leipzig: Christian Langenhem 1732. a fascination for the subject itself, but rather because it serves as an interesting case in point
of how fundamental concepts and views developed during the so-called »Enlightenment«.
9 Cf. also Kremer, Peter: Draculas
Vettern: Deutschlands vergessene
Whereas in the 17th century all sorts of tales and evidence concerning dead bodies were
Vampire. Düren: PeKaDe 2006. collected as miracula mortuorum, during the 18th century a discrimination is established
between these phenomena, as collecting evidence from written sources is superseded by
empirical studies. The history of vampires then can be viewed as, e.g., history of the develop-
ment of science in that period, in particular of medicine, but in a broader sense it also con-
cerns the development of our understanding of, e.g., phenomena related to death or the con-
cept of »superstition«.
For that reason my interest in vampires focuses to a large extent on findings in archival
sources or books from that period concerning vampires and related topics. These vampires,
however, do not necessarily display the traits that we nowadays would associate with vam-
pires.
Although von Berckentin refers to blood sucking in his description of vampires, and
blood sucking immediately entered the literature, as some authors chose to use the Latin
word sanguisuga, usually referring to a leach, for the vampire,8 it is apparent from a num-
ber of the original vampire cases that there is very little evidence of blood sucking per se.
The victims rather talk of being suffocated by the vampire. For this and other reasons I have
come to view vampires as one aspect of a broader set of traditions and beliefs concerning
revenants, which includes the so-called posthumous magic, magia posthuma.9

In Search of Magia Posthuma

10 Paris: de Bure 1746. Here quoted While searching for source material and other information, I was particularly annoyed by
from Paris: de Bure 1751. Tome II, the inaccessibility of one book referred to by Augustin Calmet in his Dissertation sur les
p. 32f.
apparitions des anges, des démons et des esprits, et sur les revenans et vampires:10
11 The decline of witches and rise
of vampires in Oldridge, D. (Ed.:) The
Ces apparitions ont donné occasion à un petit ouvrage intitule: Magia posthuma,
Witchcraft Reader. London: Routledge
composé par Charles Ferdinand de Schertz, imprimé à Olmuz en 1706. dédié au
2001, pp. 387-398, here p. 393.
Prince Charles de Lorraine Evêque d’Olmutz & d’Osnabruch.
An updated version of the paper is
available in Bertschik, Julia/Tuczay,
[These apparitions have given rise to a little work, entitled Magia Posthuma,
Christa Agnes (Eds.): Poetische
printed at Olmutz, in 1706, composed by Charles Ferdinand de Schertz, dedicated
Wiedergänger. Tübingen: Francke
to Prince Charles of Lorraine, Bishop of Olmutz and Osnaburgh.]
2005.
Referred to by Gábor Klaniczay as »the first widely read book on vampires«,11 I considered
12 Wienerisches Diarium, July 28,
it important to find out if and in what way this book was actually associated with vampires.
1725 [Wien: Johann Peter v. Ghelen],
p. 11f.
Not least as I found it highly improbable that a book published in Moravia about two decades
before the word »vampire« got printed in connection with a vampire case in Kisiljevo in
North Eastern Serbia12 should actually contain that word.
An initial inquiry at the Royal Library in Copenhagen in 2006 left me with a message
saying that the book could not be verified in the standard databases used by the library. Even
the literature left little hope, as various scholars during the 20th century had been unable to
obtain the book:
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 MAGIA POSTHUMA
by Niels K. Petersen (Copenhagen)

13 Hock, Stefan: Die Vampyrsagen • Stefan Hock, 1900: »Mir leider nicht zugänglichen Magia posthuma.«13
und ihre Verwertung in der deutschen • Aribert Schroeder, 1973: »Das Werk konnte nicht eingesehen werden.«14
Literatur. Berlin: Ducnker 1900, p. 36.
• Karen Lambrecht, 1994: »Karl Ferdinand von Schertz berichtete in seinem nicht mehr
14 Schroeder, Aribert: Vampirismus.
zugänglichen Werk von 1706.«15
Seine Entwicklung vom Thema zum
Motiv. Frankfurt/M.: Akad. Verl.ges. Apparently few, if anyone, had read the book since Calmet, as no one else seems to have
1973, p. 247. quoted from or referred to the contents. The book seemed so hard to find, that at times I
wondered if the book had in fact been lost, as was apparently the conclusion reached by
15 Lambrecht, Karin: Wiedergänger
und Vampire in Ostmitteleuropa. In:
Karen Lambrecht.
Jb. f. deutsche und osteuropäische As Magia Posthuma could not be verified in standard library databases, I considered
Volkskunde 37 [Marburg: Elwert] trying to contact other people via the internet to find out if anyone happened to know the
(1994), pp. 49-77, here p. 67. whereabouts of a copy. The same might be the case for locating other kinds of information,
e.g., local information from places where vampire cases took place.

Magia Posthuma Online: The Weblog

16 The English Wikipedia defines I was, however, apprehensive about going online with my interest in the subject. The internet
a »weblog« or »blog« as: »A blog (a is full of web sites, blogs, mailing lists and forums about vampires, and most of them are
contraction of the term ›weblog‹) is
either mainly associated with the vampires of fiction or cater for subcultures inspired by
a type of website, usually maintained
by an individual with regular entries of
fictional vampires. So I was concerned about being considered another »vampire freak«.
commentary, descriptions of events, Consequently I felt that I had to dissociate myself from other web sites about vampires.
or other material such as graphics or For that reason I chose to rather use the term magia posthuma and use it as a kind of
video. Entries are commonly displayed »brand«, as it could stress my emphasis on the historical context and a broader and serious
in reverse-chronological order.«
approach to the subject.
17 Google’s free tool for blogging at
As for the format, I needed one that would allow me to add information and communicate
http://www.blogger.com. with others without spending too much time on it at a time, so that it would be easy to
update it frequently. The weblog16 (or simply: blog) format seemed most suitable for these
18 Using the Blogger address: http:// purposes.
magiaposthuma.blogspot.com. Later
So on May 2, 2007 I published my first blog post on a Blogger17 blog called Magia Post-
on I purchased the domain http://
www.magiaposthuma.com, which
huma:18
refers to the blog. The blog can also
be accessed on Facebook: http:// Welcome to Magia Posthuma
www.facebook.com/pages/Magia-
Posthuma/63043307934. There are literally thousands of web sites on vampires, but practically none of them
are dedicated to the themes that are of particular interest to me. My primary aim
19 http://magiaposthuma.blogspot. is to understand what happened in the 17th and 18th century cases of vampirism,
com/2007/05/welcome-to-magia- how people viewed and debated these occurrences, and how they are related to the
posthuma.html. general evolution of ideas, society, and religion. I want to get the historical facts
right, and I want to understand the thoughts and backgrounds of the people who
20 Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is investigated and wrote about vampires.
a web feed: a data format that allows
web browsers or other applications to In creating this blog it is my hope that I will get in touch with other people around
obtain frequently updated content. the world who like me are intrigued by the facts and thoughts of those early modern
Europeans who tried to investigate and understand vampires cases, in particular
those that occurred on the periphery of the Habsburg empire during the 18th Cen-
tury. To stress that this is the primary subject for this blog, I have decided to name
it Magia Posthuma: posthumous magic, which was the term used by some
writers of that day to describe the phenomena of uncorrupted corpses harassing the
living and the means used to stop the activities of these corpses.19

Initial posts concerned my search for the book Magia Posthuma, Gerard van Swieten,
various 18th century texts on vampires, texts available on the internet, a Yugoslavian TV vam-
pire movie, and recent books about vampires and other related subjects. I chose to write the
posts in a more formal, »intellectual«, and even arrogant style.
Slowly, the number of visits grew and I began receiving comments and e-mails from visi-
tors. To avoid spam and harassment comments were allowed by moderation only.
The number of visitors has remained relatively limited. As of mid June 2009 there were
typically between 20 and 40 unique visitors a day, and approximately 600 unique visitors
a month. Apart from these, there are those who subscribe to either RSS feeds20 or e-mails
from the blog. By mid June 2009 there were around 50–70 subscribers to RSS feeds, and
about 10 e-mail subscribers.

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 MAGIA POSTHUMA
by Niels K. Petersen (Copenhagen)

Graphical presentation from Google Analytics of the geographical distribution

and number of visits (»besøg«) to the Magia Posthuma blog during one month:
from June 22 to July 22, 2009.

21 http://magiaposthuma.blogspot. Some of the most visited blog posts are the ones presenting more in depth information on
com/2008/09/visum-et-repertum. original vampire sources, e.g., concerning source texts or the Medveđa vampire case.21 As
html.
for what people are searching for when following a link to the blog, by mid June 2009 the
22 http://doaav.blogspot. »top 10« of most popular search terms were:
com/2008/07/just-quick-one.html.
1. Magia posthuma
23 Michael Szollosy on his blog 2. De cruentationibus cadaverum
Excretera: http://michaelszollosy.
3. Ferdinand de Schertz
blogspot.com/2008/08/magia-
posthuma.html. 4. Vlado Vlačić
5. Magia Posthuma by Karl Ferdinand von Schertz
6. Vampire cases
7. Visum et Repertum
8. 1740, Maria Theresa, werewolves
9. 18th century Vienna
10. Princess Eleonore von Schwarzenberg

In general the feedback has been very positive. It has come from like minded people, »fans«
of vampires or horror fiction, school pupils, graduate students, PhD students, researchers,
and people who just happened to stumble on the blog. I have even been contacted by a
couple of people who claim to be descendants of 18th century persons related to the history
of vampires.
I am told by visitors that my blog has stimulated their interest in the subject, even influ-
enced some project choices of students and researchers. It has also been an inspiration
for other bloggers, including the so-called Amateur Vampirologist from Australia who
mentioned »Niels K. Petersen’s brilliant Magia Posthuma« as one of the sources of inspira-
tion in his initial post to the blog Diary of an Amateur Vampirologist.22
Generally, the blog has been linked to and mentioned in a number of other blogs. It was
e.g. referred to this way by a lecturer in literature and psychoanalysis on his blog:

Magia Posthuma is a blog dedicated to the study of vampires, but not in a vulgar,
another-goth- freak-thinking-death-is-cool sort of way. As the blog’s mission
statement makes clear, it‘s about contextualising the idea of the vampire in the
social and cultural history of knowledge.
It is the sort of history, the sort of project, that Foucault would applaud, and one
that I find particularly fascinating.23

So far the blog has only experienced one slight case of harassment, by someone using the
nom de plume »The Overseer«. The harassment included appropriating a portion of text
from my blog, which was however removed on my request.

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 MAGIA POSTHUMA
by Niels K. Petersen (Copenhagen)

Magia posthuma by Karl Ferdinand von Schertz

24 At the Národni knihovna České Although I have obtained some information on the whereabouts of Karl Ferdinand von
republiky in Prague, and at the Schertz’s Magia Posthuma with the help of the visitors of my blog, it was through my own
Benediktinské opatství Rajhrad.
efforts that was finally able to point the Royal Library in the direction of a copy.
25 http://magiaposthuma.blogspot.
My search has made me aware of three copies of the book, two in the Czech Republic24
com/2007/05/carl-ferdinand-von- and one at the Bibliotheque municipale de Nancy in France. As Augustin Calmet was an
schertz-magia.html. abbot in Nancy before going to Senones Abbey in 1719, it is likely that the copy in Nancy
was the one that Calmet himself read. An anonymous visitor to the blog notified me of this
26 Ranft, Michael: Tractat von dem
copy.25
Kauen und Schmatzen der Todten in
Gräbern. Leipzig: Teubner 1734.
In the fall of 2007 I was finally able to review a microfilm copy of von Schertz’s Magia
Posthuma per Juridicum illud Pro & Contra Suspenspo Nonnullibi Judicio Investigata.
27 The Remarques were not publish- Judging from the book alone, it must have been written no later than early 1704, as the
ed until 1756 in Italian, and in 1768 approbation of censors are dated February and July 1704.
in German. According to the Vorrede
In his preface von Schertz notes that: »leges isthic quiddam non facilè lectum alibi«, i.e.
to the translation in Abhandlung des
Daseyns der Gespenster (Augsburg
what the reader reads in his book would not have been easy to read elsewhere before. So, von
1768), the text was actually translated Schertz is conscious of the fact that previously very little had been written on this particular
into German already in 1756: »Sie ist subject, and his book may actually be the first one to use the term magia posthuma.
bald hernach im Hornung 1756. von Curiously, the term and von Schertz’s book seem to have disappeared from the literature
einer gleichfalls gründlichen Feder
until Calmet’s Dissertation in 1746. Neither the term nor the book is mentioned in the nu-
ins Deutsche versetzet worden.« I am,
however, not aware, if this translation
merous articles on vampires in the journal Commercii litterarii ad rei medicae et scientiae
was actually published. naturalis. Michael Ranft who claims to have reviewed »alle von dieser Materie bißher
zum Vorschein gekommene Schrifften« does not mention the book in his comprehensive
28 Theresianisches Gesetzbuch. Vol. list of books on vampires.26 Even the Catholic Archbishop Giuseppe Davanzati mentions
III. Wien: Joh. Georg Mößle 1786,
neither the book nor the term in his posthumously published Dissertazione sopra i vampiri
p. 172.
(1774).
29 Calmet 1751, Tome II, p. 36. But after Calmet referred to von Schertz’s book in the first edition of his Dissertation in
1746, the term magia posthuma is used in 1755 by Gerard van Swieten in his Remarques sur
les Vampyrisme de Silesie de l’an 175527 and by Maria Theresia in her March 1 1755 order
No 385 Der Aberglauben ist abzustellen.28
The connection between vampires and magia posthuma is even more explicit in the
introduction to the 1768 German translation of van Swieten’s Remarques, as they are identi-
fied as one and the same phenomenon:

Der Aberglauben vom Vampyrismus wird lateinisch Magia Posthuma, oder

Zauberey der Abgestorbenen, genennet.
Von Schertz, however, does not use the word »vampire« in any form. Most likely he did not
know the word. Furthermore there is no mention of blood sucking in Magia Posthuma. The
closest one comes, is this sentence:

Pecora quoque mortificantur: vaccæ velut exsangves reperiuntur prostratæ.

[The cattle were also killed: Cows were found prostrate as if bloodless.]
Evidently Magia Posthuma was neither a widely read book, nor a book about vampires per se,
and it seems to have had no impact on the vampire debate before Calmet’s Dissertation.
Having von Schertz’s book at hand, it is possible to compare Calmet’s references with the
original text, e.g., in this short passage where Calmet reports from von Schertz that:

et l’on a vu depuis peu à Olmuz, continue toujours notre auteur, un spectre qui
jetait des pierres, et causait de grands troubles aux habitants.29
[And within a short time, continues our author, a spectre was seen at Olmutz,
which threw stones, and caused great trouble to the inhabitants.]

Calmet based this on the following passage in von Schertz’s book:

Recentissimè Olomucij Moravorum spectrum turbulentias cievisse lapidum projec-

tione viderunt incolæ. Déque tali lapidum projectione meretur legi Delrio Almæ
Societatis JESU glorious scriptor. Disquis:mag: 2.27. 2.15.
[Recently the inhabitants of Olmutz in Moravia saw a spectre who caused alarm by
throwing stones. About such throwing of stones one should read Del Rio, the famed
author of the Society of Jesus, Disquis. Mag. Book 2, questions 27 and 15].

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 MAGIA POSTHUMA
by Niels K. Petersen (Copenhagen)

30 In his partial translation, Del Rio, Here von Schertz refers to parts of the second book of Martin Del Rio’s famous Disquisi-
Martín: Investigation Into Magic. Man- tionum magicarum libri sex (1599-1600), where this Jesuit theologian discusses demons
chester: Manchester UP 2000, P.G.
or evil spirits30 that are able to throw stones and work other things which would otherwise
Maxwell-Stuart prefers to translate
»daemon« as »evil spirit«, cf. p. 25.
require hands and bodily instruments.31
Apparently Calmet was mainly interested in extracting information about the revenants
31 »Dæmones lapides iacere queant and the way they were treated, whereas von Schertz carefully established the connection to
& alia huismodi operari, quæ videntur prevalent legal and theological literature. Von Schertz’s aim was to analyze how to handle
manus & corpora instrumenta
instances of magia posthuma in practice: Would the practice of, e.g., burning the corpses
requirere.«
suspected of posthumous magic be permitted from a legal point of view, and could there be
32 »Qui idem casus una demonstrat, alternative ways of dealing with these spectres?
non veram esse illam sententiam So, Magia Posthuma is a book in the tradition of Catholic demonology, relying on various
famosissimi (utroque sensu) Hobbezij: Jesuit authorities. Von Schertz certainly does not question the existence of posthumous
non dari ulla spectra.«
magic or of spectra, spectres. In fact, at the end of his thorough examination of a particular
33 Emler, Josef (Ed.): Fontes rerum
case, he notes that it refutes the claim of Thomas Hobbes that spectres do not exist.32
bohemicarum 3. Hildesheim: Olms
2004. The 118 unpaginated pages of von Schertz’s Magia Posthuma overall consists of

34 »Acsi, inquam, incorruptio non ex

1. a dedication to Charles Joseph of Lorraine (1680–1715), bishop of Olomouc (1695–
causis naturalibus proveniret!«
1711),
35 Die Stellung des Deutschen 2. an introduction,
Ordens zum Aberglauben am Beispiel 3. a discussion and analysis of a case of magia posthuma along with further examples,
der Herrschaften Freudenthal und 4. an appendix of sources and even more examples,
Eulenburg. In: Arnold, Udo: Von Akkon
5. some further questions (quæstiunculæ),
bis Wien: Studien zur Deutschordens-
geschichte vom 13. bis zum 20. Jahr-
6. the approbation of the censors.
hundert. Marburg: Elwert 1978,
pp. 261-271. The case of posthumous magic concerns a woman (referred to as »Mævia«, anywoman)
who in life had been suspected of magic, but despite having received the last rites and
being buried in consecrated ground, returned to haunt and harm both men and cattle. It is
extensively retold by Calmet.
Von Schertz gives away neither the name of the village where it occurred (he only refers
to it as: »in Pago N.«), nor the year in which the events took place, and so far I have not been
able to identify the case with any of those mentioned in the literature.
The most prominent further examples of magia posthuma mentioned by von Schertz are
from the same region of Europe and are well-known in the literature on vampires, namely
the stories of the shepherd from Blov, and the »witch« of Levin. Both tales are from the 14th
century and recounted in the Kronika Neplachova.33 Von Schertz knew them only from the
later chronicler Hagecius (Václav Hájek z Libočan), whose original text on the former case
he reprints in the Czech language with a translation into Latin.
Von Schertz takes the sceptical point of view of a lawyer and examines the cases and
the modus operandi carried out to stop the spectres. He, e.g., discusses the notion that
incorruptibility is a sign of posthumous magic, and points out that incorruptibility can in
fact be caused by natural means,34 and here he once again refers to Del Rio. Furthermore
he suggests that instead of exhuming and burning the corpse, one might try exorcising it by
masses and prayer, because he himself has experienced that as being helpful against »den
Polter-Geist«.
The nature of the haunting related to magia posthuma – usually referred to by von
Schertz by words meaning »running around«, e.g., »circumcursitat Spectrum« – is of a
kind not typically attributed to vampires, cf. the abovementioned stone throwing spectre.
Obviously the spectres haunt the living in various guises and cause a lot of alarm and tumult.
In that sense it seems appropriate to use the term Poltergeist, which is also the term chosen
by Winfred Irgang in his paper on the subject.35 But even phenomena usually related
to incubi and succubae are connected to the spectres. A witness in the case concerning
»Mævia« testifies that

Vidi Mæviam, prout erat in vivis: Incuba immisit s.v. in os meum urinam; quæ
viscera, velut ignis urebat, & nequij tantæ resistere violentiæ; quam tum ab ipsa [...]
perpessus eram.
[I saw Mævia, just as she was when alive. Sitting on top of me she let urine into
my mouth, her flesh burned like fire, and I could not resist the force. How I then
suffered from her.]
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 MAGIA POSTHUMA
by Niels K. Petersen (Copenhagen)

36 »Erat de magia suspecta, ut pote Other witnesses clearly accused the old woman of being a witch (malefica), although von
Psevdo-benedictionibus deblaterandis Schertz says that the accusations only concerned »pseudo-blessings« and amulets.36
dedita, amuletis mirabilibus mederi
After much deliberation on what to do based on various judicial points of view, von
solita.«
Schertz concludes that if the woman was considered to have been a witch, she would have
been burned at the stake if she was found guilty of the crime while alive, but now that she
was dead she could be punished in a similar fashion posthumously.
He also mentions the belief that the magia posthuma of one cadaver can spread to other
corpses, even though they had belonged to people who were not guilty of witchcraft (»Der
gemeine Mann glaubet, es pflege das erste Gespenst, die andere todte nach-begrabene Cör-
per anzublasen.«). Consequently he found good reason to deal with corpses suspected of
posthumous magic.
Although apparently von Schertz’s Magia Posthuma was not widely read, it provides
an insight into the revenant beliefs of the Moravian populace and in particular into the way
revenant cases were considered and handled by the authorities in this part of Europe at the
beginning of the 18th century. Moreover, it presents us with an interesting link between
witchcraft and revenant cases in that region of Europe.
But Magia Posthuma is more than a historical document. Through Calmet the title of
von Schertz’s book has entered popular culture as a household name in the literature on
vampires, cropping up in the fictional library of »Baron Vordenburg« in Sheridan Le Fanu’s
short story Carmilla, and even lending its title to the name of a Belgian »black metal« rock
band, before I borrowed the title and term for my blog Magia Posthuma in 2007.

Karl Ferdinand von Schertz: Magia posthuma

(published 1704 or 1706).

The Future of the Magia Posthuma Blog

It can be difficult to evaluate the effect a blog has. Only a minority of the blog’s visitors can
be expected to give feedback, and the impact it has on the visitors is difficult to assess.
Evaluated on the feedback I have received, very few people seem to be actively involved
in the study of the historical vampire. However, people seem to get easily interested in,
perhaps even fascinated by the approach to the subject that the Magia Posthuma blog
represents. In that respect I hope that I have inspired others in their understanding of the
subject of vampires, perhaps even inspired new research into this or related topics.
From a personal point of view the blog has provided me with a platform for promoting
my own views and theories, as well as for getting into contact with people with a similar
interest. Because of the blog I have had the pleasure of getting in touch with a few like
minded people around the world, and I have received some pleasant feedback and useful
information.
The blog format, however, is very sensitive to the blogger’s other activities, i.e. to the
amount of time the blogger has available for blogging. Since it started in May 2007, the
Magia Posthuma blog has seen long periods of almost daily updates, but also periods of

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 MAGIA POSTHUMA
by Niels K. Petersen (Copenhagen)

infrequent activity. Although any blogger wishes to keep his blog frequently updated, it
is perhaps also difficult to go on writing new information on vampires day after day over
several years. In any case, the Magia Posthuma blog is a con amore project, so there will
probably continue to be both peaks and troughs in blog activity. But as long as I am involv-
ed in excavating more information on vampires and magia posthuma, and while there
is no other recurring source of similar information and debate on the subject, the Magia
Posthuma blog should have a future.

Dr. Niels K. Petersen, MSc in Physics from Niels Bohr Inst., Univ. of Copenhagen. Meteorological
applications developer, Sales & Production, Forecasting Services, Danish Meteorological Inst. Member of
the executive committee and other offices of the trade union Danish Association of Masters and PhDs.
Weblogger, the Magia Posthuma blog at www.magiaposthuma.com.
Contact: [email protected]

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