|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
The Religious Monomaniac Reconsidered
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Ripper Suspects:
The Religious Monomaniac Reconsidered
Author: R.J. Palmer
Saturday, 19 October 2002 - 01:00 pm |        | Someone is killing prostitutes in Iran. Three weeks ago the police arrested Saeed Hanayi (a married man & father, aged 39) who has confessed to strangling 16 prostitutes in the holy city of Mashhad. His motive, he claims, was a religous one--to rid the sacred city of these fallen women. But since his arrest, two more women have turned up dead in Tehran...strangled in an identical manner. It is reported in western papers that some religious clerics in Iran are demanding Hanayi's release. He evidently has some popular support and is even looked on as somewhat of a religious martyr.
Hmm. Now how do I put this?
I'm not wishing to make a direct comparison between these two very different cultures-- Whitechapel of 1888 and Iran of 2002-- but I would like to make an observation. One can argue from contemporary sources that the most popular theory about the Whitechapel murderer was that he was a religious monomaniac. This was a widespread belief on both sides of the Atlantic. It shows up again & again, and makes it's most well-known appearance in Winslow's theory and in the novel The Lodger. And yet, as we bask here in the smug sophistication of the early 21st Century, we tend to utterly ridicule the idea. We've seen many serial killers since, and logically argue that prostitues were only chosen as 'convenient' and vulnerable victims.
Yet, of all the so-called 'crack pot' theories of the Whitechapel murders, this one intrigues me the most. What was it about Victorian culture that made this theory so appealing? And so probable to its advocates? Why did so many well-informed and educated people find it tenable?
Robert Anderson, I can only imagine, must have found the theory utterly appalling. Was his own theory a reaction?
Finally, could we be mistaken in supposing that the murderer didn't specifically target prostitutes? Clearly, there were many types of women & children out in the streets of the East End at all hours of the night. Why only prostitutes? |
Author: Scott Nelson
Saturday, 19 October 2002 - 04:34 pm | | | I suspect most people would think that the killer specifically targeted prostitutes, because he didn't like them. Anderson, I think, found that the "theory" was based on more than mass reaction, and had some basis in fact. |
Author: David Radka
Saturday, 19 October 2002 - 09:37 pm | | Scott,
What is the information that you think Anderson had? I can't recall reading anywhere that Anderson had information that his suspect disliked prostitutes. Kaminsky/Cohen, if he were the suspect, supposedly was apprehended in a brothel raid, so I wouldn't think he disliked them. I don't recall in my readings that Kosminski was said to not like prostitutes. Are you working through Anderson toward a non-Kaminsky/Cohen, non-Kosminski suspect?
Regards,
David |
Author: Caroline Morris
Sunday, 20 October 2002 - 07:15 am | | Hi RJ, All,
A prostitute is the most obvious symbol of male (usually) physical/biological 'weakness'. A man who is unable to confront, in himself, what nature has provided, and deal with it in a 'normal' way (eg give into it and pay a prostitute, or masturbate, or use self-control, whatever it takes to keep him sane and happy) could see the prostitute as the real evil that needs confronting and eliminating - in other words, no more than a blame-shifting exercise to exorcise his own misguided sense of moral failure. (Hope this doesn't come across as sexist, because I happen to be female - it's truly not meant to be.)
In Victorian London, (and again in 21st century Tehran), this sense of self-loathing, due to the conflict between what society/religion etc lays down as the 'right thing' and the biological needs of the male animal (Christ, even masturbation was pronounced evil by men who must have been secretly indulging and coming to terms with it somehow), would no doubt be greatly magnified. And many people at the time would have appreciated this moral dilemma and therefore imagined the ripper to be thus afflicted.
Doesn't mean he was, of course, but it makes sense to me why such a theory would take hold.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Scott Nelson
Sunday, 20 October 2002 - 11:40 am | | Hi David, Caz,
This is just a short reply and I'm gone for some time. I was basing the dislike of prostitutes on Macnaghten's Memorandum, which said about Kosminski, "He had a great hatred of women, especially of the prostitute class, & strong homicidal tendencies;...." This statement was presumably made because the police possessed information about "Kosminski", whoever he was, that is now lost. |
|
|
|
|
