A fetish (from French fétiche; from Portuguese feitiço; from Latin facticius, "artificial" and facere, "to make") is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular a man-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the attribution of inherent value or powers to an object
Unknown "SPIKEY" Peppy - 16 years, 1 month, 15 days ago

Etymology
Mummy (sˁḥ)
in hieroglyphs

The English word mummy is derived from medieval Latin mumia, a borrowing of the Persian or Arabic word mūmiyyah (مومية), which means "bitumen". Because of the blackened skin of mummies, bitumen was once thought to be used extensively in ancient Egyptian embalming procedures.

A mummy is a corpse whose skin and dried flesh have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs. Mummies of humans and other animals have been found throughout the world, both as a result of natural preservation through unusual conditions, and as cultural artifacts to preserve the dead.



Unknown "SPIKEY" Peppy - 16 years, 7 months, 5 days ago

Mummies in fiction

Lon Chaney, Jr. as Kharis in the film The Mummy's Ghost (1944)Mummies are commonly featured in romance genres as an undead creature. During the 20th century, horror films and other mass media popularized the notion of a curse associated with mummies. Films representing such a belief include the 1932 film The Mummy starring Boris Karloff as Imhotep; four subsequent 1940's Universal Studios mummy films which featured a mummy named Kharis, who also was the title mummy in a 1959 Hammer remake of The Mummy's Hand and The Mummy's Tomb; and a remake of the original film that was released in 1999. The belief in cursed mummies probably stems in part from the supposed curse on the tomb of Tutankhamun. American Broadcasting Company's 1979 TV holiday film aired "The Halloween That Almost Wasn't" where a mummy (Robert Fitch) arrived into Count Dracula's castle without speaking to any other monster.


Unknown "SPIKEY" Peppy - 16 years, 7 months, 5 days ago

Karma

(Sanskrit: कर्म kárma (help·info), kárman- "act, action, performance"[1]; Pali: kamma) is the concept of "action" or "deed" in Indian religions understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect (i.e., the cycle called samsara) described in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies.

The philosophical explanation of karma can differ slightly between traditions, but the general concept is basically the same. Through the law of karma, the effects of all deeds actively create past, present, and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain and joy it brings to him/her and others. The results or 'fruits' of actions are called karma-phala. In religions that incorporate reincarnation, karma extends through one's present life and all past and future lives as well.


Unknown "SPIKEY" Peppy - 16 years, 8 months, 24 days ago

Vampire

Vampires are mythological or folkloric revenants, who subsist by feeding on the blood of the living. In folkloric tales, the undead vampires often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 1800s. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularised until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe,[1] although local variants were also known by different names, such as vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to what can only be called mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.

In modern times, however, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures such as the chupacabra still persists in some cultures. Early folkloric belief in vampires has been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of decomposition after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalise this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. Porphyria was also linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.

The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.[2] However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula which is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, and television shows. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre.
Unknown "SPIKEY" Peppy - 16 years, 11 months, 7 days ago