Of baccoos, ghosts and – werewolves?

Mar 25, 2018 News

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By Dennis Nichols

The recent story about baccoos scaring the daylights out of police and medical personnel at Mabaruma must have puzzled many, and amazed others. These are law enforcement officers and a doctor – people supposedly schooled in legal and scientific investigation, and evidential conclusion. Intelligent ‘civilized’ people do not fall for that kind of nonsense; or do they?
Well, persons who pledge to protect and minister to others do often find themselves in need of the very skills they employ. And when symptoms manifest outside of their knowledge and expertise, to whom do they turn? Psychiatry and religion offer some respite, but may fall short of expectations.
Paranormal phenomena by definition are experiences that make little sense to rational minds. Human beings do have rational minds, but that’s just part of one hell of a puzzle. Only a fool or a supremely arrogant person would deny there are things which happen that we simply do not understand, and although science has disproved many superstitions, millions of people still struggle to come to terms with unexplained happenings. Guyana has had its share, and most of us adults would admit to either having such an encounter or knowing someone who has.
History teems with tales of ghosts, demons, and sorcerers; gods, goddesses, and mythical beings. Why have these tales endured over time and place, cutting across beliefs and cultures? There has to be something to it; something ‘out there’ that creeps into human reason and disturbs it. Or could it be something not out there but wholly within the human brain or mind? That is what psychology seems to be revealing, and what psychologists tell us.
Research in this field of study strongly suggests that some paranormal experiences can be explained by faulty brain activity, including damage to certain regions of the right hemisphere responsible for visual processing, and to certain forms of epilepsy. According to BBC Future, a website guide on ‘how to live more intelligently in a fast-changing world’ reports of ghosts invisibly moving objects and spooky feelings that a presence is stalking you can be explained by these conditions. It adds that a combination of alcohol, drugs, exhaustion, and tricks of the light can also contribute to isolated ‘sightings’.
Matthew J. Sharps, an American professor of Psychology says research shows that many paranormal sightings fall within the category of eyewitness memory deriving from the psychology of the observer rather than from supernatural sources.
He adds that many of the people who report these are sober, educated, reasonable individuals, and that they are neither lying nor mentally ill, but have actually observed and misinterpreted relatively prosaic phenomena – what are called eyewitness errors, such as can be found in criminal investigations via police lineups. Memories become reconfigured, and what we think we’ve seen frequently replaces what we’ve actually seen.
But apart from seeing things that may not be there, what about when the other senses are involved. There are countless stories of persons being physically attacked, beds rocking violently, unnatural sounds, Ouija Board ‘responses’, demon possession, and lycantrophy among others.
Thousands of experiences of these phenomena have been preserved in oral tradition and through documentation. Some are quite believable and of course all the world’s major religions do speak of evil, supernatural beings called by an array of names, from Christianity’s Satan and his demons to Hinduism’s Ravana and his rakshasas. Our little baccoo rates low in the hierarchy of evil entities; just a mischievous imp who will pretty much do your bidding if you regularly supply him with his quota of milk and bananas.
Other entities are considered much more dangerous, and have actually been studied and taken very seriously. Time and space allow only a cursory look at what is considered one of the strangest phenomena in the realm of the paranormal.
Lycanthropy is the ability of a man to transform himself into a wolf or a wolf-like creature and often to attack and kill. In Scandanavian countries he may be called a werewolf; in the French Caribbean, Loupgarou. In medical science the condition is described as a mental disorder – a delusion whereby someone believes he is a wolf or some other nonhuman animal, and acts accordingly (Think of the Kanaima in Guyana folklore).
The thing about lycanthropy is that symptoms may be clearly manifest in recognizable physical changes often accompanied by superhuman strength as would be expected if a human becomes a wolf or, if in Guyana, a jaguar. Here’s a brief sketch of an actual case that has been fairly well documented; furthermore the ‘werewolf’ as far as can be ascertained, may still be alive and living in Essex, England. It is considered one of the most baffling and striking accounts of the paranormal, although some persons believe it’s a hoax. The following is paraphrased from online articles
William ‘Bill’ Ramsey first displayed signs of the malady at the age of nine one sunny afternoon while playing in his backyard. He suddenly felt an icy cold wind sweep over him; the perspiration froze on his body, accompanied by uncontrollable shaking and a foul smell. Images of ocean waves and wolves flashed in his mind. As his bewildered parents watched, Bill was seized with a violent rage that saw him rip out a fence post embedded in concrete with the wire fence still attached, and swing it like a bat before chewing on the wire while emitting a low, deep growl. He eventually calmed down and was let into the house by his parents.
For 15 years nothing like that happened again. He grew up, married, and fathered three children before he began having nightmares, after one of which he woke up to find himself panting like a dog. Again, several years elapsed before the manifestation began once more. Returning in a car with friends after a few drinks, he suddenly growled, clawed his hands, and tried to bite the leg of one of his pals. He reportedly said he had earlier looked in a mirror and saw a wolf staring back at him.
Attacks continued over the years including assaults on staff at a hospital, and on police officers, one of whom he almost strangled to death. Injections, MRIs, x-rays, and psychiatric tests were employed without success. Then two American ‘demonologists’ tried an exorcism at their church in Connecticut in 1989. The night before the event Ramsey tried to strangle his wife as she slept, then the next day as the exorcism progressed, he furiously attacked the priest. However, he subsequently calmed down. Since then, according to reports, there have been no more manifestations or attacks.
Unexplained phenomenon, demon possession, or hoax? I don’t know. And I feel that such a ‘confession’ could be the most honest response from people who look at these things objectively. Many of us though, like to sound knowledgable, even dogmatic, when we expound on such subjects. But if or when we do have an encounter with a ghost, werewolf, or baccoo, we might well sing a different, humbler tune. Just ask those folks in Mabaruma.

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