Clairvius Narcisse and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Zombie Life | 518

What if you died, got pronounced dead by doctors, buried by your family, and then showed up 18 years later with one hell of an excuse for missing Thanksgiving? Enter the bizarre true story of Clairvius Narcisse, the Haitian man who allegedly became a real-life zombie after being poisoned, buried alive, dug back up, drugged, and forced into labor.We explore the terrifying history of Haitian zombies and Vodou, Wade Davis and his controversial search for zombie powder, and the surprisingly real science behind pufferfish toxin, tetrodotoxin, Datura, paralysis, and premature burial. Could ancient knowledge of neurotoxins actually turn someone into a living zombie, or did science take a fascinating Haitian tradition and run a little too far with it? Plus, we examine the skeptics and competing explanations that make the answer considerably messier than "dead people don't walk."Poison fish, stolen souls, questionable pharmacology, family land disputes, zombie plantations, and perhaps the worst return-to-work story in human history... All that and more this week on Hysteria 51.SourcesWade Davis – The Serpent and the Rainbowhttps://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Serpent-and-the-Rainbow/Wade-Davis/9780684839295Wade Davis – Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombiehttps://books.google.com/books?id=tVxZAAAAMAAJWade Davis – “The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombi” – Journal of Ethnopharmacologyhttps://doi.org/10.1016/0378-8741(83)90029-6William Booth – “Voodoo Science” – Sciencehttps://doi.org/10.1126/science.3353722Wade Davis – “Zombification” – Sciencehttps://doi.org/10.1126/science.3381089Roland Littlewood & Chavannes Douyon – “Clinical Findings in Three Cases of Zombification” – The Lancethttps://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(97)04449-8Harvard Magazine – “The Secrets of Haiti’s Living Dead”https://www.harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/zombie_1986_small.pdfTIME – “Zombies: Do They Exist?”https://time.com/archive/6697896/medicine-zombies-do-they-exist/PBS American Experience – “What Happened When Zora Neale Hurston Studied Voodoo in Haiti?”https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/claiming-space-when-happened-when-zora-neale-hurston-studied-voodoo-haiti/Zora Neale Hurston – Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaicahttps://www.harpercollins.com/products/tell-my-horse-zora-neale-hurstonLibrary of Congress – “Does the Haitian Criminal Code Outlaw Making Zombies?”https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2014/10/does-the-haitian-criminal-code-outlaw-making-zombies/Chen-Yuan Kao & Takeshi Yasumoto – “Tetrodotoxin Intoxication: A Worldwide Problem” – Toxiconhttps://doi.org/10.1016/0041-0101(86)90067-8Jean Price-Mars – “The Story of Zombi in Haiti”https://sites.duke.edu/haitilab/files/2014/11/Mars-1945-The-story-of-zombie-in-haiti.pdfEmail your Contest Entries to:ForthHandmedia@gmail.comEmail us your favorite WEIRD news stories:weird@hysteria51.comSupport the ShowGet exclusive content & perks as well as an ad and sponsor free experience at https://www.patreon.com/Hysteria51 from just $1ShopBe the Best Dressed at your Cult Meeting!https://www.teepublic.com/stores/hysteria51?ref_id=9022 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.