This week, the Last Tuesday Society hosted a most fascinating lecture on Sex Ghosts of the Palermo Catacombs by Dr Paul Koudounaris.
The upbeat and colourful lecture with accompanying photo slide show recounted stories of some half a dozen lascivious ghosts, showing that the dead entombed in the catacombs in Palermo do not all rest in peace.
The stories included those of a jilted bride, whose lustful ghost is known to haunt men who stand too long in front of her remains, a phantom knicker-thief, a pervy doctor ghost who chews his victims’ pubic hair ‘like a cow chews the cud’, and the spirit of a young girl who died from severe haemorrhaging after being forced by her circus performer husband to perform bestial acts in front of a well-paying crowd.
Dr Paul Koudounaris is an author and photographer from Los Angeles, and has recently published a beautifully presented tome, The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses.
The upbeat and colourful lecture with accompanying photo slide show recounted stories of some half a dozen lascivious ghosts, showing that the dead entombed in the catacombs in Palermo do not all rest in peace.
The stories included those of a jilted bride, whose lustful ghost is known to haunt men who stand too long in front of her remains, a phantom knicker-thief, a pervy doctor ghost who chews his victims’ pubic hair ‘like a cow chews the cud’, and the spirit of a young girl who died from severe haemorrhaging after being forced by her circus performer husband to perform bestial acts in front of a well-paying crowd.
Dr Paul Koudounaris is an author and photographer from Los Angeles, and has recently published a beautifully presented tome, The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses.
