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Medicine in “Nosferatu” (2024): Humorism (Humoral theory)

“You [Dr. Sievers] have bled her to decrease the congestion? [Yes] And her menstruations are also? [Liberal]. Too much blood. Too much.”

Professor Von Franz physically examines Ellen, as her trance is beginning, and determines she has “too much blood”: in connection to “Humorism” (or “humoral theory") with possible origins in Ancient Egyptian medicine, and then used by Ancient Greeks and Romans. Hippocrates suggested that humors are the vital bodily fluids, and they are four: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. This belief was common during Middle-ages and Moderna Era in Europe.

Ellen having “too much blood” means she has a sanguine temperament (not a melancholic temperament); it was believed that, when in good health, “sanguines” are cheerful and loving; but when there's an imbalance, they are “hysterical”, which is what Victorian doctors also diagnose Ellen with (hysteria).

The treatment is bloodletting (bleed the patient, drain their blood to balance the humors and improve health; a practice still used in the early 19th century), to remove the excessive blood; which is what Professor Von Franz and Dr. Sievers also advice in Ellen's case. Even today, leeches are used for medicinal purposes (in a different way, of course).

Bloodletting equipment from 1825

“Congestion”, in the medical sense of this time period, means “containing an unnatural accumulation of fluid", in Ellen's case it's blood. This diagnose will come full circle when Thomas and Dr. Sievers discover that Orlok is with Ellen when they go to Grünewald Manor. Von Franz tells them “She wills it! Your wife wills it!” and Count Orlok “can't resist her blood”, which means Orlok cannot resist Ellen, herself (paralleling Friedrich and Anna Harding “I can’t resist you, my love”).

There’s also a mutual healing happening here. Both characters “curse” each other at the prologue; Ellen raises Orlok from his grave, while he curses her with “melancholy” and “hysteria” (her power medicalized by Victorian doctors).

At the end, Orlok drains Ellen of her excessive blood, balancing her “sanguine temperament” and ending her “hysteria” and “melancholy” (he also gives her an orgasm, a nod to hysteria as repressed and frustrated female sexuality); and Ellen's love and willing sacrifice breaks the curse of Nosferatu, setting their souls free from the rotten vessel they were trapped in (“and freed them from the plague of Nosteratu”); as they are reunited in the spiritual realm, now fully healed.

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"And lo, the maiden fair did offer up her love unto the beast and with him lay in close embrace until the first cock crow. Her willing sacrifice thus broke the curse and freed them from the plague of Nosferatu." Nosferatu (2024) dir. Robert Eggers

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🎥Fave film poll

Tagged by: @gunsighteyes25 thank yewwww

I’m tagging (if you wanna): @tigertofu @wolf-human and who else!

Fave film poll

tagged by @verecunda

Rules: List 5 of your favourite films in a poll and have people vote on which is their favourite.

tagging: @hacash @currently-without @slowlymychaos @tsukimiii @criz-zone @spaceprincessleia

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Me and the Pernštejn Castle, one of the filming locations of Nosferatu ♡

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"I didn't like Nosferatu. It was so long and boring and weird. I don't get why people-"

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We are here encountering the undead plague carrier... the Vampyr... Nosferatu!

NOSFERATU (2024) dir. Robert Eggers

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Nosferatu (2024) is unquestionably a multifaceted work, but what I personally consider to be the unifying idea behind its facets is that, for Ellen, Orlok represents validation.

Her fears are dismissed and called childish?.. He's a nightmarish manifestation of them.

She is consistently disrespected by everyone around her?.. He considers her his only equal. She never uses his title, it's permitted.

She is told to fix herself, misunderstood, and always isolated?.. He knows all the darkest parts of her and is delighted by them. He wants her just as she is, so much that he will lie, kill, and cross the ocean to find her.

The scene in their death/wedding bed is a direct parallel to the scene of her waking in that bed at the beginning of the film. She complains to Thomas that the "honeymoon is yet too short" and tries to pull him down with a kiss - however, he is worried about being late for work, and so he extricates himself and leaves. Cut forward to her sharing the same bed with Orlok, similarly early in the morning; he is startled by cock-crow and begins to rise, but she guides his head back down - and, even though he knows that he will die, he stays. He is her sexual and emotional desire, realized.

Given that there is a plethora of emotions Ellen is forced to suppress on daily basis, there is no singular correct interpretation of her relationship with Orlok. To erase any one of them is to render it shallower than it actually is; but there is no doubt as to why their attachment is mutual. To each, the other is something they’ve never had before.

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I think a fundamental difference between book Dracula and Nosferatu is how the protagonists work as a collective. In Dracula, they are the Scooby Gang (trusting, collaborative, polyamorous). In Nosferatu, they are the teens from an 80s slasher (suspicious, deceitful, jealous). The count can be defeated, but only the power of friendship can save Mina.

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Lily-Rose Depp on Ellen’s Agency and Repressed Female Desire

“And someone said to me in an interview the other day, well, you know, isn’t Ellen like this victim? What is like to play this kind of victimized character? And I was like, well, I don’t think she’s a victim, at all. Because she’s kind of calling the shots the entire time. And he, you know, there’s a power play there. He’s [Count Orlok] trying to overtake her in this way, and, you know, destroy the lives of those around her. But, she calls out to him. And she makes the sacrifice that only she can make. She has a great deal of agency in this story that I felt we haven’t seen in iterations of the past.

And there’s a lot of, you know, themes of female oppression in this movie, of course, it’s a part of the society we are representing as well […] and part of that is the element of sexuality, like repressed female desire, and Ellen, you can see from the beginning, has that within her. She’s got that fire, if you will. And you see that mirror again in one of the first scenes when we are at the Hardings House and everything, and there’s this kind of steamy moment with her husband, and you can tell that she has that within her but doesn’t really know what to do with it. And then, there’s like the moment when Friedrich tries to kiss Anna and she’s like “really? In public?”.

It’s an interesting mirror because I think Ellen has so much going on within her the she doesn’t know what to do with because of the environment that she’s a part of. And I think that Nosferatu himself is the physical manifestation of that darkness and those darker desires that she’s learning to come to terms with, I suppose.”

Lily-Rose Depp & Robert Eggers on Sexual Dynamics & Power in "Nosferatu"

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NICHOLAS HOULT 'This or That — Hero vs Villain' | GQ Germany

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The beast .´｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+*⁠。

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Give him a shave?

Film: The Big Gundown (1966)

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Break time!

Film: Day of Anger (1967)

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Occult Themes in “Nosferatu” (2024): Spiritism and Possession

What is commonly known as “possession”, 19th century writer and founder of Spiritism, Allen Kardec called “subjugation”, the last stage of spiritual obsession, on his “Book of the Mediums”.

Kardec rejects the term “possession” mostly because of it’s “satanic” connotations; historically and on a religious level, it was believed only the Devil and demons could communicate with the living (even though this was in direct contradiction with apparitions of angels and saints). But Spiritism is all about communication with the spirits (or souls) of the deceased, and many might act evil and oppress the living, due to being “at different stages of imperfection and who are susceptible to improving themselves”.

“Subjugation is a constriction that causes its victims' will to become paralyzed, making them act in spite of themselves. In other words, they find themselves under true bondage.”

“Formerly, the dominion exerted by evil spirits was called possession, when their influence reached the point of producing an aberration of the human faculties”. Kardec didn’t believe in actual “possession”, as in “a body being taken over by a foreign spirit, a kind of cohabitation”, but in coercion. This means, evil spirits coerce the ones they have subjugated to act against their wills, but can’t take residence inside of their bodies.

“Subjugation can be either mental or physical. In the former, those who are subjugated are led to make frequently absurd and compromising decisions, which, under a kind of delusion, they regard as sane - it is a type of fascination. In the latter, the spirit acts upon the physical organs to produce involuntary movements.”

And this is what we see in “Nosferatu” (2024) with Thomas Hutter, Anna and Friedrich Harding characters, when they are subjugated by Count Orlok. But this subjugation only happens after he fed on their bloods. Because Robert Eggers’ Count Orlok was inspired by the early folk vampires of the Strigoi and the Nachzehrer; he’s a psychic vampire, and it’s not blood per say he feeds on, it’s life force, souls.

And this will be confirmed by the narrative with Thomas’ exorcism, Orlok commanding these characters telepathically (“don’t awake” to Friedrich Harding; “More blood shall stain thy hands, another night has passed. Tomorrow night, the third, shall be his last” to Thomas Hutter), and Herr Knock revealing to the vampire hunters “I relinquished him my soul” = he allowed Orlok to feed on him.

The Orthodox Nuns were able to stop the “blood plague” from killing Thomas Hutter with the exorcism, but the spiritual effects remain, as he’s still under Orlok’s influence. Thomas is absolutely convinced he unleashed Orlok into the world, because he sold him a house in Wisburg: “I came here to sell the count a home in Wisburg. He is bound for Wisburg! He seeks after Ellen. I know it!”

Orlok has fed on Thomas' soul, and while he was exorcised, a part of his soul is still inside of Nosteratu, connected to Orlok's. Which is why Thomas is so certain of Orlok's intentions. The novice warns Thomas he mustn't leave because he's not well, he's still lost in Orlok's shadow, but Thomas doesn't listen to these warnings: “You are lost in his shadow. Enchanters turn their spirit into shadow to infect your dreams.”

Once he arrives at Wisburg, Thomas is weak and drained off his life force. He tells Ellen: “He hasn't found you. I... I feared I'd never see you again” because he knows what Orlok's plan is. He's also taken by delirium (like the "blood plague" victims), ever now and again. When Herr Knock offers himself to kill Thomas, Orlok declines and says “I have use in him.”

While he and Ellen are asleep, at the Harding household, Orlok influences Thomas in his sleep, and he kicks Ellen out of bed, because he can't breathe. And this tells the audience Thomas is not free from Orlok's grasp and he is, indeed, lost in his shadow. And Orlok can reach him in his dreams, exactly like the Romanian eldery lady and the Orthodox Nunes told him (“Beware his shadow. The shadow covers you in nightmare. Awake, but a dream. There is no escape.”). As Thomas will later confirm: “Yet I fear I am not free of his spell.”

Besides the physical symptoms of the “blood plague”, there’s a notorious change of behavior on Orlok’s victims, as they experience nightmares and seem taken by madness and delirium. This is interpreted as “fever”, but it’s them having access to Orlok’s soul inside of Nosferatu, and vice-versa. He's dragging these characters into darkness (Nosferatu) alongside him, forcing his own pain and torment upon their souls.

And this is foreshadowed by Clara and Louise Harding (the foreshadowing devices in this narrative), who will become victims of Orlok, too: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” The “Lord” being Count Orlok, “Your Lordship”; “Your Lord. I will be addressed as the honour of my blood demands it”; “My Lord.”

Possessed characters

Thomas believes he was the one who unleashed Orlok into the world (because he sold him a house in Wisburg) and vows to destroy him. His delirium is about unbearable guilt (because he blames himself for everything that has happened), and seeks both Ellen and Friedrich Hardings' forgiveness. He's now on a vendetta against Orlok, driven by desire to avenge Ellen, the Hardings and himself. He wants to drive a spike of cold iron through Orlok (like he saw it done in Transylvania, bringing this story full circle) as revenge.

“I will kill him! I will! He shall never harm you, again!”

Anna Harding's delirium is about motherhood; her daughters (she asks to see the girls to reassure them) and her pregnancy (it's eating her away), but also her sexuality (as she has similar convulsions to Ellen). She laughs and cries at the same time, touching her husband's face. It's the burden of reproduction, a consequence of sexual activity. She says she doesn't known herself anymore, and talks about insufferable darkness. And relates this to Ellen, asking her what is this she's experiencing.

“I fear little Friedrich is so strong and hungry, he's eating me weary.”

Friedrich Harding delirium is about maddening grief. He's a wealthy ship merchant, but nothing of that matters anymore. He lost his greatest treasures; Anna and their children. He blames Professor Von Franz and Ellen; and then he'll go on to blame himself when Thomas shows him Nosferatu is real: “Anna, my love. Our son... our little son... forgive me.” But, unlike Thomas, Friedrich doesn't care about revenge. He's already dying from the “blood plague”, and instead of using his last strength to avenge his wife and children's killings, he goes to them, to die alongside them, and he defiles his wife's corpse.

“Your diseased mind has brought all of this outrage! Your very presence does me wrong!”

Herr Knock delirium is about regret, and wanting to die as fast as possible, seeking an violent execution, instead of being killed by the “blood plague”. Orlok fed on him (“I relinquished him my soul”), and he found out the master he has been serving has to interest in fulfilling their covenant (share the secrets of immortality with him) because he only cares about Ellen (“his pretty bride”).

“Strike again!”

Ellen’s story of spiritual obsession comes full circle at the end, when she allows herself to be actually possessed by Nosferatu, when Count Orlok feeds on her blood, to break Nosferatu curse. Like Suzanne Stokes-Munton (head of Make-up and Hair departament) says; this is “her most possessed look” in the entire film, because she’s, indeed, possessed by Nosferatu. And her blood plague delirium, as confirmed by choreographer Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, is about love.

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Folklore Themes in "Nosferatu" (2024): Solomonari and Zalmoxis

“A black enchanter he [Count Orlok] was in life. Solomonar. The Devil preserved his soul that his corpse may walk again in blasphemy.”

Don’t believe the Nuns; the Devil has nothing to do with Count Orlok nor the Solomonari (or Şolomonari) in this particular story. True to the folklore that inspired Count Orlok’s character, corpses reanimated by a demon or the Devil are almost unheard of in Romanian folklore. But let’s find out how and why.

It’s no coincidence Robert Eggers’ Count Orlok is a Solomonar, since his book counterpart Count Dracula was one as well, in the book, where Van Helsing tells Dracula “learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due”.

In “Mitologia Daco-română”, Simeon Florea Marian describes the Solomonari as dark wizards from Transylvanian folklore, who controlled the weather and rode dragons. In some versions, they were believed to be strigoi vii (living strigoi) who sold their souls to the Devil. Solomonari were considered great sorcerers of storms and winds, master of all lakes, tall mountains and deep caves, creators of frost, mist and hail. Sometimes they presented themselves as beggars, but lived mostly in isolation, away from human society.

According to the same author, Solomonari were trained at the Solomonărie (or “Scholomance”, in the Germanic version) in their childhood; where they spent seven uninterrupted years in darkness beneath the ground, without seeing the light of the sun. Silvia Chitimia, on her essay “Les Traces de L’ Occulte dans le Folklore Roumain”, writes some versions tell boys chosen to become Solomonar are taken by an older sorcerer and hidden underground for seven years.

According to E. Gerard on his essay “Transylvanian Superstitions”, the Solomonărie (some call it “Devil’s school”, others “School of the Dragon”) is a underground school located at the End of the Earth, in a deep cave. In some versions its location is at heart of the Carpathian Mountains, where students (seven, ten or thirteen, depending on the version) are taught by the Devil himself. There, “they learn all the secrets of nature, language of animals, and all imaginable magic spells and charms”. When the course ends, “nine of them are released to return to their homes, the tenth scholar is detained by the devil as payment, and mounted upon an Ismeju (dragon) he becomes henceforward the devil's aide-de-camp, and assists him in 'making the weather,' that is to say, preparing the thunderbolts.”

According to Silvia Chitimia (“Les Traces de L’ Occulte dans le Folklore Roumain”), the course lasted between three to seven years. A Solomonar initiation involved a grindstone, where the students sit on a spinning circular table and it was said one of them was taken by a demon (died). Simeon Florea Marian (“Mitologia Daco-română”) writes the Devil demanded a pupil’s sacrifice for a student to become a Solomonar.

Silvia Chitimia (“Les Traces de L’ Occulte dans le Folklore Roumain”) says Solomonari were described as tall, red-haired and carrying peculiar objects: his magic book (the source of all his powers), a piece of wood (summoning the winds) and an iron axe to create hail. This book was said to contain all of the Solomonar knowledge, and it was often called “Stone of the Wise” (or “Stone of the Wise Man”). Sometimes square-shaped or round, it was used to summon dragons. Simeon Florea Marian (“Mitologia Daco-română”) adds Solomonari kept their books hidden in places that only they knew of.

A "codex" is a book of laws or a set of rules, and an ancient manuscript in book form, usually written in Latin, and illuminated, which deals with themes like Bibical Scripture, early literature, or ancient mythological or historical annals.

Connections with King Solomon

Silvia Chitimia, on her essay “Les Traces de L’ Occulte dans le Folklore Roumain” acknowledges the connection between the biblical King Solomon and the Solomonari. Adrian Majuru in “Khazar Jews. Romanian History And Ethnography” describes the Solomonari as “the successors of the wisdom and wizardly skills of King Solomon”.

The 13th century grimoire Ars Notoria connected to King Solomon, and his angelic magic. It’s worth mentioning, in the 2016 script, Robert Eggers had his Count Orlok speaking in Enochian, the "language of the angels" (before setting on reconstructed Dacian); said to have been received by Dr. John Dee and his "seer" (medium) Edward Kelly, in their communications with angels and spirits.

“Ars Goetia” of anonymous authored 17th-century grimoire “Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis” (“The Lesser Key of Solomon”), gives magical procedures for invocation and communication with them, as well as with God (sigils, amulets, magical alphabets, sound, perfumes, etc.); and the kabbalistic tree of life (hierarchies of angels and Demons associated with each sephirot). The idea behind this conjuring is to infuse the lower angelic orders with the light they receive from God, as the conjurer instructs the orders.

The Solomonari invocation sigil Herr Knock uses to conjure Orlok and communicate with him, is also clearly inspired by the Sigillum Dei Aemeth (“Sigil of Truth” or “Sigil of God”) by Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelly; an angelic magic seal to possess the Spirit of God and when activated, become the Living God; or the Lord God itself, and communicate with spirits, angels and archangels.

Zalmoxis Cult

Orlok sigil: an heptagram surrounded by a Draco ouroboros (symbol of alchemists; death; rebirth; reincarnation); the letters are cyrillic for “Zalmoxis”; the center is the alchemist symbol for blood; the symbols appear to be Vinča; with archeological findings in Romania of these symbols being over 8,000 and 6,500 years old, and considered by many as the oldest form of human writing, but their meaning is still unknown.

They are here either to show Orlok comes from an ancient bloodline; or he has known reincarnations throughout the ages? This quote from Robert Eggers, in one interview, seems to point to the latter, because Orlok is a 16th century corpse:

“Orlok is an ancient noble, predating even the foundations of the Romanian Empire,” Eggers stated, in explaining his choice of this forgotten language. “He needed a voice that felt as timeless and forgotten as his own existence. Dacian was perfect — it’s a spectral presence, much like Orlok himself.”

Heptagrams are connected to the seven elements of Alchemy but aren’t represented like this. Heptagrams are also connected to divine feminine goddesses, like Babalon and Isis.

The Dacians were a Indo-European people from Ancient times (6th century) which inhabited modern-day Romania (as well as parts of the surrounding countries) and were eventually conquered by the Romans. Their cult was a deity called Zalmoxis, God of life and death, who granted eternal life and knowledge to the worthy, ensuring their place in the Afterlife. Sacrifical rites and shamanism were practiced in his honor. Zalmoxis was considered a prophet, represented as a handsome man, a priest who controls the forces of nature, with power over wild animals.

Zalmoxis is kind of a mysterious figure, he’s a man who became a God to his people, and in some legends he was a king, in others a slave of the Greeks who freed himself, while in others he’s the high priest of the actual God of the Dacian people. He’s often compared to Jesus Christ because he, too, was resurrected after being three years underground. According to Herodotus, Zalmoxis learned the secrets of immortality when he traveled to Egypt.

Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, associated with Zalmoxis in ancient sources (in many accounts Zalmoxis was said to be a slave of Pythagoras), believed that the soul was immortal and was reincarnated into a new body after death (including animals), in a process he called "transmigration of the soul". 

Ancient greek historian Herodotus wrote about several Dacian legends and rituals; as the priests of Zalmoxis who kept the secret of incantations that could make human beings immortal, and the ritual practice of wrapping a young man who wished to become a warrior in the skin of a wolf (some men were said to be able to change themselves each year for several days into the form of a wolf). There are some theories among historians that hallucinogenic mushrooms were used in the wolf-pelt ceremony, allowing the men to experience a complete psychological transformation into wolves.

Once psychologically transformed into a wolf and thereby initiated into the Brotherhood of the Wolf, the Dacian warrior would enter fearlessly and ferociously into battle under the banner of the Draco, the wolf-dragon. This appeared to be Orlok’s case because he has the Draco on his coat of arms, which he would wear in battle.

Draco: the Dacian battle flag; Brad (Romania)

There are Dacian wolves in both Count Orlok's coat of arms, and sarcophagus.

The Dacian spoken in “Nosferatu” isn’t historical accurate Dacian, because it’s a dead language who hasn’t exist in spoken form for over a millennium and a half. This version is a reconstructed language, fictional but well-researched, by Romanian poet and screenwriter Florin Lăzărescu, who consulted with linguistics specialized in extinct Balkan languages to try and reconstruct Dacian as best as it was possible.

Why do we have Zalmoxis in this story? Because Robert Eggers adapted the academic thesis which links Zalmoxis worship and the folkloric Solomonari. Romanian social scientist Traian Herseni was the first to proposed the "Dacian cloud travelers" and "Solomonari weathermakers" are connected, and this myth has its roots in Dacian religion. Nowadays, this theory is openly embraced by xenoarchaeologist Jason Colavito; who proposes the Romanian folkloric "Devil's School" is, in fact, Zalmoxis' underground chamber where he taught the secrets of life and death, and immortality, to his followers. They were perceived as benevolent forces until Christianity defamed them as “devil worshippers”.

This association between Paganism and the Devil wasn’t exclusive to Romania, it happened throughout Europe when European kings and leaders converted to Christianity and forced their populations to forsake their old Pagan beliefs. The Devil’s School of Scholomance is, then, a distortion of Dacian Pagan beliefs; where Zalmoxis had a underground chamber, a great hall, where he taught the secrets of immortality, and of life and death to his followers.

In “Nosferatu” (2024), it’s the Orthodox nuns who first make the association between Orlok, the Şolomonari, and the Devil; and then the alchemist Professor Von Franz does the same. But none of these characters have first-hand knowledge of what the Şolomonari truly are, and Von Franz admits he never encountered a Nosferatu before. And, indeed, there’s no “satanic” symbols on Orlok’s sigil and coat of arms. He’s Pagan, a follower of Zalmoxis.

Count Orlok, like his 16th century human colleagues (John Dee, Nostradamus, Agrippa, etc,) was also demonized by Christianity as a “devil worshipper” because of his occult work. The Orthodox Nuns tell Thomas that Orlok’s “evil cannot enter this house of God”, which has nothing to do with God not letting him in, but the Nuns themselves not giving him entrance into the convent (because this Orlok, like your regular vampire, needs to be invited in). And the narrative will drive this point home when Count Orlok has his sarcophagus at the chapel of Grünewald Manor, beneath a rose window, and religious items (like crosses) don’t work against him.

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Nosferatu fan art