Monster is a term for any number of legendary creatures that frequently appear in mythology, legend, and horror fiction. The word originates from the Old French monstre, which derived from the Latin monstrum, from the root of monere, “to warn.”[1]

Saint George versus the Dragon, by Gustave Moreau (1880)

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Monsters in history

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Social concept

At one time, the monster was an important social concept. Monsters were generally composed under a group that befell humans. Monsters were often associated with unknown lands and unknown things. For instance, historically, unexplored areas on maps would be marked indicating that monsters such as dragons lived there. This connection between monsters and the unknown meant that the monster was an important concept in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, as Western society began to use science and other academic disciplines to try to understand the unknown. Monsters were seen as scientific puzzles; things science needed to understand. In the Enlightenment, the cabinet of curiosities would often include monsters in amongst the scientific instruments and toys. Similarly, the monstrous was an important concept on aesthetics during the enlightenment, often closely associated with the wondrous and the sublime.

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Religion and mythology

Many Eastern religions such as Hinduism, as well as ancient religions such as Greek mythology and Norse mythology, depict monsters as the enemies of the gods. Ragnarok in Norse mythology was the final battle between the gods of Asgard and the many monsters of the world.

Ancient peoples considered the birth of “freaks” representations of the wrath of the gods, a demonstration, as it were. The first so-named monstra were the showpieces in traveling carnival freakshows, people afflicted with body deformities or diseases like elephantiasis.

Occasionally, there are monsters who act out of legitimate motives and their monstrous appearance leads to serious misunderstandings. Some well known examples are King Kong , Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Horta in the Star Trek episode, “The Devil in the Dark“.

There is a pattern which many monsters in mythology follow. They are often portrayed as a threat which kills indiscriminatly and mericlessly, only to be eventually slain by the hero. Good examples of this include Beowulf and the legend of St George and the Dragon.

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Monsters in literature

The relationship between science and monstrosity became an important theme in many Victorian-era horror novels, where science was often depicted not merely as studying monsters, but as producing them. Notable examples include Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein. This change corresponded with a decline in the popularity of science among the general public.^{[citation needed]}

Some traces of this classic relation to monsters can be found in the popularity of tabloid newspapers such as the Weekly World News.

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Monsters in philosophy

Contemporary philosophers such as Lorraine Daston have written at length about the relationship between how society depicts monsters and the role of science in that society. Monsters also occur in a variety of philosophical works (Aristotle, Augustine, Montaigne, Locke, Leibniz, Diderot …); see Monsters and Philosophy, ed. by Charles Wolfe (London, 2005; and http://www.monstersandphilosophy.com).

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Monsters in cinema

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Pre-World War II

During the age of silent movies, representations of monsters were the size of a person played by an actor in a costume: Frankenstein’s monster, the Golem, and vampires are the most well-known ones. The film Siegfried featured a dragon that was a giant puppet on tracks. A few dinosaurs were presented by stop-motion animated models, something that was carried over into RKO’s King Kong, the first giant monster of the sound era.

During the sound era, the film studio Universal specialized in monsters, offering Bela Lugosi’s portrayal onscreen of his role in the stage play, Dracula, and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster. They also made many lesser films, such as Lon Chaney, Jr.’s portrayal of an electrified zombie in Man-Made Monster.

The entire notion of the werewolf was introduced by the movies in this era, and a similar type of person afflicted with traits said to come from an animal was presented in Cat People. Mummies also became a fearsome type of monster, and a variant of Dr. Frankenstein was played by Peter Lorre. His mad surgeon, Dr. Gogol, transplanted hands that embodied a malevolent temperament, which would then re-animate in Mad Love, which became another genre. As for giant monsters, the serial Flash Gordon had a man in a monster suit, who played a huge dragon by attacking a doll dressed like the title character. The “monster” cycle eventually played itself out becoming comedic in Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein of 1948.

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Post World War II

After World War II, however, giant monsters returned to the screen in a pattern that has been causally linked to the invention of nuclear weapons. The first was American: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was a dinosaur that attacked a seaport. But later there were Japanese, (Godzilla, Gamera), British (Gorgo), and even Scandinavian (Reptillicus) giant monsters attacking cities. The tantalizing proximity of other planets brought the notion of alien monsters from outer space to the screen; some were huge, (such as King Ghidorah and Gigan), but cheaper movies had those of a more human scale. In this age as well, the monster type of the fish-man was developed in the series Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The British studio of Hammer brought color to the human-sized monster in the late 1950s. At this time, the earlier Universal films were shown on US television by independent stations (rather than being scheduled by a network) by mocking announcers, and these together gained a large number of young fans. Since that era, although the type of monster has changed, it has not disappeared as it did in the late 1940s.

Occasionally, monsters are depicted as friendly or misunderstood creatures. The monsters of Monsters Inc. scare to create the energy to run their secret world, and the furry monsters of The Muppets and Sesame Street live as complete equals to their fellow humans and animals.

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Miscellaneous

They are also a mainstay of role-playing and video games in general. “Monster” often, but not always, implies that these creatures are larger than or equal to human size. It also almost always implies that the creatures are powerful and hostile to the hero (and consequently evil), and must be defeated to progress. The monster par excellence is the dragon.

In heavy metal and gothic rock, frequent references are made to monsters. The Finnish band Lordi, who rose to international fame in 2006 after winning the Eurovision Song Festival Contest, dress like monsters and wear hideous masks.

Corporeal

Corporeal undead have an animated physical body that is otherwise biologically deceased.

• Draugrs, from Norse mythology
• Ghouls, from Arab folklore
• Hopping corpses, of Chinese folklore
• Medieval revenants, stories of undead from medieval chroniclers
• Vampires, of various cultures
• Zombies, from the Voodoo tradition

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Incorporeal

Incorporeal undead have no tangible form, but exist in the world of the living as spiritual entities.

• Ghosts, common in many cultures — all types of non-corporeal undead could be said to be variations of ghosts
• Mylings, incarnations of the souls of unbaptized or murdered children from Scandinavian folklore
• Phantoms, a spirit which may be sensed, heard, or experienced, but perhaps not seen
• Poltergeists, spirit or ghost that manifests by moving and influencing inanimate objects, originally of German origin
• Spectres, a spirit with a visible presence
• Will o’ the wisps, sometimes said to be undead spirits in parts of Europe and North America
• Wraiths, an apparition of a living person, or the ghost of a dead person

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In fiction

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Corporeal

• Death knight, an undead corruption of a righteous warrior who broke their code of honor and embraced evil.
• Inferius, a mindless, dead body that has been bewitched by another to complete a task — referenced in the book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Liches, an unholy living corpse, usually an evil magician
• Mohrg, reanimated dead controlled by a parasite
• Mummies, in modern popular culture
• Skeletons, usually animated through magic
• Revenant, a sentient creature whose desire to complete a goal (usually to avenge its death) allows it to return from the grave as a creature vaguely resembling an intelligent zombie. Revenants exist primarily in role-playing games and horror movies. Examples include The Crow and Al Simmons, the protagonist of Spawn.
• Wights, invisible entities, neither dead nor alive
• Zombie Ghouls, cannibalistic reanimated corpses from modern fiction (1954 to present)
• Ringwraiths, from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Also called “Nazgûl” and “Ulairi”, the Ringwraiths were once mortal men of great power who passed from life into living death due to the power of the Nine Rings.

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Semi-Corporeal

• Barrow-wights, spirits that can transition from non-corporeal to corporeal forms

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Non-Corporeal

• Ghosts, common in many cultures — all types of non-corporeal undead could be said to be variations of ghosts

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Creation

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus introduced a new variant of undead, the dead brought back to “life” by science, though Frankenstein’s creature bears some similarity to a golem. Similar works include H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “Herbert West—Reanimator” and the Re-Animator film franchise inspired by the story.

Both legend and popular culture discuss various methods for creating undead creatures. Most involve the reanimation of a corpse, as with zombies, skeletons, and ghouls. Regarding ghosts, the spirit lives on after death, forming an intangible physical body that often mirrors the one the spirit had in life.

In some cases, the undead, especially skeletons and zombies, are under the control of a sorcerer. In other cases, such as zombies as depicted in film and vampires, the undead existence is passed on like a curse or disease. With liches, the powers of undead are sought after by the participant of a magical ritual that turns them from a living being to a lich. Ghosts are said to be kept in their undead state by willpower, either from a keen desire to remain with the living or from a wish to see something completed that they could not do during their lifetime.

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Vulnerabilities

In fiction and folklore, undead creatures are often hostile toward the living. Defending against the undead is often difficult as they are usually depicted as being resistant to normal attacks. Nonetheless, they are often vulnerable to sacred or blessed objects, such as crosses and holy water.

Vampires traditionally can be killed by a stake through the heart or by decapitation, though various traditions have different means of dealing with them. ^[2]

Zombies can often continue to attack when dismembered. To dispatch them, it may be necessary to destroy the head or to kill the person who reanimated them. Firearms, such as shotguns, may be effective against zombies.

Incorporeal undead are difficult to defend against because normal physical weapons pass harmlessly through their forms. In many video games and role-playing games, ghosts can only be dispatched by enchanted or silver weapons.^[3] However, in other fiction the only way to get rid of them permanently is to discover what duty or task they failed to complete in life (an example of this is found in Chapter 4 of The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis).^[4]

Undead are often depicted as vulnerable to sunlight and fire. They may also perish when their creator is likewise dispatched. Undead may be unable to cross certain symbolic boundaries or even natural barriers like running water.

In some cultures, various plants are said to repel the undead. Examples include garlic and wolfsbane, as well as rosewood, rowan, hazel, willow, and holly. This modern tradition appears to be based on pre-Christian belief that some plants are sacred^{[citation needed]}.

Additionally, a line of salt is sometimes said to act as a barrier to the undead

A zombie is an undead person in the Afro-Caribbean and Creole spiritual belief system of voodoo. These folkloric zombies are human bodies re-animated by supernatural means and shamanistic medicine to create dread among the living. Other more macabre versions of zombies have become a staple of modern horror fiction, where they usually engage in human cannibalism.

According to the tenets of voodoo, a dead person can be revived by a bokor or mambo. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor or mambo since they have no will of their own. “Zombi” is also the name of the voodoo snake god of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kongo word nzambi, which means “god.”

In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered the case of Felicia Felix-Mentor, who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. Villagers believed they saw Felicia wandering the streets in a daze thirty years after her death, as well as claiming the same with several other people. Hurston pursued rumours that the affected persons were given powerful drugs, but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote:

“What is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony.”[1]

Several decades later, Wade Davis, a Canadian ethnobotanist, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books – The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis travelled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by the ingestion of two special powders. The first, coup de poudre (French: ‘powder strike’), induced a ‘death-like’ state because of tetrodotoxin (TTX), its key ingredient. Tetrodotoxin is the same lethal toxin found in the Japanese delicacy fugu, or pufferfish. At near-lethal doses (LD50 of 1mg), it can leave a person in a state of near-death for several days, while the person continues to be conscious. The second powder, dissociative hallucinogens, put the person in a zombie-like state where they seem to have no will of their own. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice. There remains considerable skepticism about Davis’s claims, and opinions remain divided as to the veracity of his work.

Others have discussed the contribution of the victim’s own belief-system, possibly leading to compliance with the attacker’s will, causing quasi-hysterical amnesia, catatonia, or other psychological disorders, which are later misinterpreted as a return from the dead. Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing further highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification.

See also: History of Haiti

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Zombies in folklore

In the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed that the souls of the dead could return to earth and haunt the living. The belief in revenants (someone who has returned from the dead) are well documented by contemporary European writers of the time. According to the “Encyclopedia of Things that Never Were,” particularly in France during the Middle Ages, the revenant rises from the dead usually to avenge some crime committed against the entity, most likely a murder. The revenant usually took on the form of an emaciated corpse or skeletal human figure, and wandered around graveyards at night. The “draugr” of medieval Norse mythology were also believed to be the corpses of warriors returned from the dead to attack the living. The zombie appears in several other cultures worldwide, including Japan, China, the Pacific, India, and the Native Americans.

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Zombies in literature and fiction

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The first book to expose modern western culture to the concept of the zombie was The Magic Island by W.B. Seabrook in 1929.

Zombies are regularly encountered in horror- and fantasy-themed fiction, films, television shows, video games, and role-playing games. They are typically depicted as mindless, shambling, decaying corpses with a hunger for human flesh, and in some cases, human brains.

Prior to the mid-1950s, zombies were usually presented as mindless thralls controlled like puppets by mystical masters. Sometimes the zombies were reanimated corpses, and sometimes living humans, but never malevolent by their own will. There was sometimes a strong sexual component in the depiction of these mindless beings.

The depiction of zombies in mass media changed with the 1954 publication of I Am Legend by author Richard Matheson. It is the story of a future Los Angeles, overrun with undead bloodsucking beings. One man is the sole survivor of a pandemic caused by a bacterium that infects humans and causes vampirism. He must fight to survive nightly attacks by the creatures on his fortified home, as well as gather supplies, and hunt them during the daylight, and deal with being alone in the world. Although ostensibly a vampire story, it had enormous impact on the zombie genre when it influenced the film maker George A. Romero in his making of the first modern take on zombies, the film Night of the Living Dead. The film “The Last Man On Earth” (1964) starring Vincent Price is based on this story, as is the 1971 Charlton Heston film The Omega Man, though less faithfully. A new film version, starring Will Smith, is currently in pre-production.

Many works of fiction feature zombies who spread their affliction from one to another, in a disease like fashion. More often than not, the condition is spread through means of a bite or scratch, and the victim will most likely die and mutate soon after. In others instances the condition is simply acquired after death of any kind.

A common plot in zombie fiction is an outbreak of the zombie plague growing out of control, resulting in an apocalyptic scenario. The story then focuses around a small group of survivors attempting to either stop the plague, or merely survive and escape the destruction. In typical horror fashion, zombie fiction rarely has a happy ending, generally ending in a dark or ambiguous manner. Popular causes of zombie outbreaks in fiction include radiation or toxic chemicals acting on the brains of the dead, evil magic or voodoo, aliens, nanotechnology, the use of drugs, viral infection, and telepathic control.

In pop fiction, zombies can generally be disabled by decapitation or destruction of the brain and/or upper spinal column. In a few cases the entire body of the zombie must be destroyed, generally by burning, as individual body parts continue to move after being severed from the body.

In the Xanth series by Piers Anthony the zombies are re-animated by a magical talent held by Jonathan the Zombie Master. He can re-animate any deceased creature, human or otherwise, and have it under his personal control. Even when he commits suicide, he himself returns to life as a member of the undead. The zombies of Xanth can continually fall apart without losing any mass.

In the Dune series of novels by Frank Herbert, the Gholas are essentially clones grown in tanks from genetic material retrieved from the cells of a deceased subject. (Note the similarity to the word ghoul.) The distinction between gholas and clones is that the ghola retains many personality characteristics of the dead person, and this can be unsettling to others. In the period of Dune, gholas are merely physical copies, but at the end of Dune Messiah, the ghola of Duncan Idaho recovers the memories of the original, essentially becoming a reincarnation of Idaho.

The character of Reginald Shoe in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books becomes a zombie by refusing to stay dead after being shot and killed. He later forms a support group for other undead, claiming they are merely “differently alive”. Several other Discworld zombies, including Mr. Slant, work as unsympathetic lawyers. This is one of the few areas of fiction where zombies retain all memory and cognitive function.

In contemporary horror fiction, Leisure Books has published Brian Keene’s debut novel The Rising and its sequel City Of The Dead, which deal with a worldwide apocalypse of intelligent zombies, apparently caused by demonic possession. Walter Greatshell’s novel Xombies is about a plague that turns women into the undead.

In comic books, Dark Horse Comics ZombieWorld series features various stories of the undead, told by various artists. The Walking Dead series by Robert Kirkman is an attempt at an ongoing story set in a zombie infested world, following the same group of characters as they attempt to survive. In the comic series The Goon by Eric Powell the prominent villain is a necromancer who constantly rejuvenates his undead army by employing lepers to rob the graves of the town cemetery. A Marvel Comics miniseries called Marvel Zombies features an alternate Earth where a zombie plague has infected all the heroes and villains. In the Tokyopop comic The Abandoned by Ross Campbell, everyone aged 23 and older turns into zombies, forcing teens to fend for themselves against undead grown-ups.

In the book, The Zombie Survival Guide, author Max Brooks standardizes zombies and goes on to explain ways to survive in his four different stages of zombie out-breaks. The levels range from a handful confined locally to complete world domination. His upcoming follow up book, World War Z, is a fictional look at various survivors first hand accounts of a major global zombie outbreak, told in mock interview-like fashion.

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Zombies in film

A zombie with his victim in cult movie Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)

A young zombie (Kyra Schon) feeding on human flesh, from Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Although the depiction of zombies in film has recently become much more varied, they were originally presented in White Zombie (Victor Halperin, 1932) as mindless, unthinking henchmen under the spell of an evil magician/overlord. This depiction continued through the 1930s until they started to move around more of their own accord, as in I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943). There was often a strong sexual component in the depiction of zombies of this era.

In 1968, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead premiered. Critics initially reacted negatively to its depiction of cannibalism and gore and the movie’s pessimistic tone, but the film soon developed a strong following and is now considered a modern classic. Though cannibalism in horror was nothing new at the time, the movie standardised the practice of eating human flesh in zombies, and created new rules still in use today, such as a severe head injury being the only way to kill a zombie. The depiction of zombies staggering around slowly, moaning and in various states of decomposition, can also be traced back to Romero’s movies. Romero’s even more successful sequel, Dawn of the Dead (1978), can be regarded as the father of the modern zombie movie subgenre. The third entry in the series was Day of the Dead (1985), followed two decades later by the fourth entry, Land of the Dead (2005). Still, it is interesting to know that the original movie made no reference to the creatures as “zombies,” though the word was used once in the sequel. It is quite likely that the term “zombie” was coined in reference to the trance-like stupor of the creatures, not their cannibalistic tendencies. By 2005, the term was accepted by Romero, with the Land of the Dead character Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) exorting “Zombies, man. They creep me out.” [2]

Internationally, Dawn of the Dead was released under the name Zombi, inspiring Italian director Lucio Fulci to create Zombi II (1979), an unofficial sequel to Dawn of the Dead, which would be released in North America as Zombie and spawn its own series. In America, Dan O’Bannon’s 1985 movie, Return of the Living Dead, took a more comedic approach to distinguish his movie from George Romero’s; it had the zombies hunger specifically for brains instead of all human flesh. 1981’s Night of the Zombies, starring Jamie Gillis, was the first film to reference a mutagenic gas as a source of zombie contagion, later echoed by Trioxin in 1985’s Return of the Living Dead.

After the mid-1980s, the subgenre became mostly relegated to the underground. Although director Peter Jackson made a notable entry with the ultra-gory Braindead (1992) (released as Dead Alive in the US), and Michele Soavi received rave reviews for Dellamorte Dellamore (1994) (released as Cemetery Man in the US), it was not until the next decade’s box office successes (the Resident Evil movies (2002, 2004), 28 Days Later (2002) (a film with similarities to zombie films), the Dawn of the Dead remake (2004), and the homage/parody Shaun of the Dead (2004) that the zombie subgenre experienced a resurgance. The new interest allowed Romero to create the fourth entry of his zombie series. In some of these recent films the zombies differ from previous versions. They retain the speed and agility that they had in life, have collective intelligence, or in the case of 28 Days Later are still living humans, and not actually zombies.

Around the turn of this century, there have been numerous direct-to-video (or DVD) zombie movies made by extremely low-budget filmmakers using digital video. These can usually be found for sale online from the distributors themselves, rented in video rental stores or released internationally in such places as Thailand.

In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the beings known as “inferi” are zombies.

See also: List of zombie films

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Zombies in television

Numerous storylines of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel featured zombies in various guises. Some resembled the voodoo model, while others craved human flesh, and had various degrees of autonomy. Other zombie storylines appeared on The X-Files.

Michael Jackson’s Thriller is a 1983 music video directed by John Landis. One of the most popular music videos of all time, is a horror film parody featuring choreographed zombies performing with Jackson. During the video, Jackson transforms into both a zombie and a werewolf.

In the South Park episode Pinkeye zombies overrun the town. The character of Chef was turned into a zombie that was based on the zombie played by Michael Jackson in his famous Thriller video.

Professional wrestler Tim Arson wrestled as “The Zombie” on the debut of ECW’s program on Sci-Fi Channel, losing to Sandman.

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Zombies in gaming

A zombie in promotional artwork for the video game Resident Evil (1996)

The Flood Combat Forms are zombies of a sentient life that has been infected by a Flood Infection Form in the Halo videogame series.

Zombies are common foes in horror-themed computer and video games. One of the earliest zombie games, SNK’s Beast Busters (1989) was an arcade favorite. Resident Evil, which was heavily inspired by the Romero zombie movies, has spawned at least 5 sequels, as well as a remake of the original game called Resident Evil (or REmake) for the Nintendo Gamecube and a multitude of ports to other systems for the original PlayStation titles. Resident Evil brought zombies into the mainstream of videogames and spawned many imitators, Sega’s The House of the Dead being one of the main ones.

The upcoming Xbox 360 game Dead Rising features a reporter trapped in a mall, as in Dawn of the Dead, that dispatches hundreds of zombies with various everyday items, such as CDs, chairs, and hatchets. You can also re-deadify the zombies with such esoteric slaughter tools such as a lawnmower (a tribute to Braindead), various swords, and even an umbrella. The game will be released on August 6, 2006.

Several varients of zombie-like creatures can be found in both the PC games Half-life and Half-life 2, controlled by small creatures called headcrabs. In the original Half-life, scientists were the hosts of the headcrabs. In Half-life 2, citizens are zombies.

Many other genres, especially fantasy role-playing and adventure games, also prominently feature zombies as enemies. In most gaming scenarios, especially Dungeons and Dragons, zombies are slow, mindless, and relatively weak creatures. The Elder Scrolls series of RPG’s also feature zombies in this fashion, although they can sustain a great deal of damage before extermination. Some titles, such as Stubbs the Zombie and the browser-based Urban Dead put the player into the role of the zombie itself.

Zombies also frequently appear in fantasy-themed trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, as well as in traditional fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. In the MMORPG RuneScape, zombies are present, attacking weak players. In the popular MMORPG “World of Warcraft”, one of the Horde races are the Undead, the Undead are much more intelligent than zombies displayed in movies however. The RPG All Flesh Must Be Eaten is premised upon a zombie outbreak and features rules for zombie campaigns in many historical settings. There is also an award-winning tile-based strategy boardgame entitled Zombies!!! in which players attempt to escape from a zombie-infested city.

The Flood from Halo are parasitic life forms infecting a host, and turning them into Combat Forms like zombies. The Combat Forms have been taken from UNSC Marines and Covenant Elites. They can employ any weapon that their host might once have used and they have been known to operate machines and drive vehicles by using the minds of their host. These zombies are unique in pop-culture in that they are spawned by lesser parasite like ‘bugs’ which give ‘birth’ to the re-animated Combat Form.

Similarly, the “The Many” in System Shock 2 include humans controlled by an annelid parasite, who groan and attack in a fashion very similar to zombies. Unlike standard zombies, they are motivated neither by bloodthirsty instinct or by some sorceror, but contribute to what seems to be a kind of hive mind.

Zombies are a staple in the Doom series. In the original games they were re-animated, gun-toting soldiers. In Doom 3 more traditional shambling corpses were added.

The preternatural or praeternatural is that which appears outside or beyond (Latin praeter) the natural. While this may include what is more commonly called the supernatural, it may also simply indicate extremity – an ordinary phenomenon taken ‘beyond’ the natural. One may have, for example, a preternatural desire, a preternatural curiosity, a preternaturally acute ear (sense of hearing), or even preternaturally big ears.

Often used to distinguish from the divine (supernatural) while maintaining a distinction from the purely natural. For instance, in theology, the angels, both holy and fallen, are endowed with preternatural powers. Their intellect, speed, and other characteristics are beyond human capacities but are still finite.

Other examples of preternatural creatures include Lycanthropes (such as Werewolves), Vampires and Zombies.

The supernatural (Latin: super- “exceeding” + nature) refers to forces and phenomena which are beyond ordinary scientific or any other type of measurement. Concepts in the supernatural domain are closely related to concepts in religious spirituality and metaphysics.

The term “supernatural” is often used interchangeably with paranormal or preternatural — the latter typically limited to an adjective for describing abilities which appear to exceed possible bounds.

Supernatural claims assert phenomena beyond the realm of current scientific understanding, and may likewise be in direct conflict with scientific concepts of possibility, plausibility, or reality in general. The supernatural concept is generally identified with religion or other belief systems — though there is much debate as to whether a supernatural aspect is necessary for religion, or that religion is necessary for holding a concept of the supernatural.

Those denying the plausibility of the supernatural typically claim that the only events which cannot be studied scientifically are those which cannot be perceived by any means. If an event claimed to be supernatural really has happened, it can therefore be studied scientifically and is not supernatural.

Divination is the attempt of ascertaining information by interpretation of omens or an alleged supernatural agency^[1]. If a distinction is to be made with fortune-telling, divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a religious context; while fortune-telling is a more everyday practice for personal purposes. Divination is often dismissed by skeptics, including the scientific community, as being mere superstition: in the 2nd century, Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan, Alexander the false prophet, trained by “one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love-affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure, and successions to estates” [2], though most Romans believed in dreams and charms. However, advocates say there is plenty of anecdotal evidence for the efficacy of divination. Divination is a universal cultural phenomenon which anthropologists have observed as being present in many religions and cultures in all ages up to the present da

Chinese philosophy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yin Yang symbol and Ba gua paved in a clearing outside of Nanning City, Guangxi province, China.

Chinese philosophy is philosophy written in one of the Chinese traditions of thought. Chinese philosophy has a history of several thousand years; its origins are often traced back to the Yi Jing (the Book of Changes), an ancient compendium of divination, which introduced some of the most fundamental terms of Chinese philosophy. Its age can only be estimated (its first flowering is generally considered to have been in about the 6th century BC^[1]), but it draws on an oracular tradition that goes back to neolithic times.

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Brief history

Early Shang Dynasty thought was based upon a cyclic notion of time, corresponding to the seasons. This notion, which remained relevant throughout Chinese history, represents a fundamental distinction from western philosophy, in which the dominant view of time is a linear progression. During the Shang, fate could be manipulated by the great deity Shang Di (Chinese: 上帝; py: shàngdì), most frequently translated “Lord on High”. Ancestor worship was also present, as was human and animal sacrifice.

When the Shang were overthrown by the Zhou, a new political, religious and philosophical concept was introduced called the “Mandate of Heaven“. This mandate was said to be taken when rulers became unworthy of their position, and provided a shrewd justification for Zhou rule. During this period, archaeological evidence points to an increase in literacy and a partial shift away from the faith placed in Shang Di, with ancestor worship becoming commonplace and a more worldly orientation coming to the fore.

In around 500 BC, after the Zhou state weakened and China moved in to the Spring and Autumn Period, the classic period of Chinese philosophy began (it is an interesting fact that this date nearly coincides with the emergence of the first Greek philosophers). This is known as the Hundred Schools of Thought (百家, bǎijiā). Of the many schools founded at this time and during the subsequent Warring States Period, the four most influential ones were Confucianism, Daoism (often spelled “Taoism”), Mohism and Legalism. The short founder Qin Dynasty, where Legalism was the official philosophy, quashed Mohist and Confucianist schools. Legalism remained influential until the emperors of the Han Dynasty adopted Daoism and later Confucianism as official doctrine. These latter two became the determining forces of Chinese thought until the 20th century, with the introduction Buddhist philosophy (mostly during Tang Dynasty) negotiated largely through perceived similarities with Daoism.

The respective influences of Daoism and Confucianism are often described this way: “Chinese are Confucianist during the day, while they are Daoists at night”. Moreover, many Chinese mandarins were government officials in the daily life and poets (or painters) in their spare time.

When the Communist Party of China took over power, previous schools of thought, excepting notably Legalism, were denounced as backward, but their influence on Chinese thought remains.

there are many comaparisons for each philosophy.

Kana (rapper)

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Kana (real name: Marianna Alanen), born 1979, is a Finnish female rap musician. She began her music career in the Finnish TV show Popstars, a contest for new pop musicians. After the show had finished, Kana began a solo career.

The name “Kana” means “hen” in Finnish.

Fu (kana)

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ふ, in hiragana, or フ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. This character is sometimes called “Hu”. The hiragana is made in four strokes, while the katakana in one. Its pronunciation is (IPA) [ɸɯ].

Fu

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Fu may refer to:

• Fu is a word meaning expertise
• Fu is a Chinese suffix (e.g. kung-fu)
• Fu is a type of prepared wheat gluten used in Japanese cuisine
• Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University
• F-U, a signature finishing move of professional wrestler John Cena
• Fu (kana), the ふ or フ kana in the Japanese language.

FU may stand for:

• Free University of Berlin
• Flinders University
• Fordham University
• Fair use
• “Fuck you“