The Feraliminal Lycanthropizer is a fictional psychotechnographic machine Connor, S.
''Dream Machines''
(London:

Open Humanities Press Open Humanities Press is an international open access publishing initiative in the humanities, specializing in critical and cultural theory. OHP's editorial board includes scholars like Alain Badiou, Jonathan Culler, Stephen Greenblatt, Jean-Cl ...

, 2017), p. 131. invented by American writer

David Woodard David Woodard (, ; born April 6, 1964) is an American conductor and writer. During the 1990s he coined the term ''prequiem'', a portmanteau of preemptive and requiem, to describe his Buddhist practice of composing dedicated music to be rendered d ...

, whose 1990 pamphlet of the same title speculates on its history and purpose.Woodard, D.
"Feraliminal Lycanthropizer"
(

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

: Plecid General Outreach, 1990). The brief, anonymously published work describes a vibration referred to as "thanato-auric waves", which the machine electrically generates by combining three

infrasonic Infrasound, sometimes referred to as low status sound, describes sound waves with a Audio frequency, frequency below the lower limit of human audibility (generally 20 Hertz, Hz). Hearing becomes gradually less sensitive as frequency decreases, ...

sine waves (3 Hz, 9 Hz and 0.56 Hz) with tape loops of unspecified spoken text (two beyond the threshold of decipherability, and two beneath the threshold). Sergeant, J.
"Sonic Doom"
''

Fortean Times ''Fortean Times'' is a British monthly magazine devoted to the anomalous phenomena popularised by Charles Fort. Previously published by John Brown Publishing (from 1991 to 2001), I Feel Good Publishing (2001 to 2005), Dennis Publishing (2005 to 2 ...

'', December 2001. Woodard describes the machine as "a low frequency thanato-auric wave generator" that is "known for its use by the Nazis and for its animalizing effects on human subjects tested within measurable vibratory proximity". The machine creates violence and sexual desire, its essential function being "to trigger states of urgency and fearlessness and to disarmour the intimate charms of the violent child within. The Trithemean incantations richly pervading the machine’s aural output produce feelings of aboveness and unbridled openness." His use of the word ''disarmour'' concomitantly suggests military applications and evokes

orgone Orgone () is a pseudoscientific concept variously described as an esoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force. Originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich, and developed by Reich's student Charles Kelley after Reich's death in 1 ...

. The text is predicated on the idea that a mind-altering technology has for decades, at the behest of American intelligence during the Cold War, been withheld from scrutiny. Dispensing

sensitive information Information sensitivity is the control of access to information or knowledge that might result in loss of an advantage or level of security if disclosed to others. Loss, misuse, modification, or unauthorized access to sensitive information can ...

in the interest of enhancing civilian life, the narrator shares his erstwhile classified notes along with those left by earlier researchers concerning a machine that can "set into motion the process of subtle change at the innermost loci of the DNA molecule."

Etymology

The name Feraliminal Lycanthropizer is composed of two

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words''ferus'' (wild animal) and ''limen'' (threshold), while the second, Lycanthropizer, combines the Ancient Greek root ''lycanthrope'' (werewolf) with a generic suffix, -''izer'', conferring agency. Together the words suggest something hidden that triggers wild or aggressive conduct.

Legacy and influence

Despite the pamphlet's brevity and obscurity, its story has acquired mythic overtones, and readers have since made attempts to replicate the Feraliminal Lycanthropizer or invoke its described "animalizing effects on human subjects tested within measurable vibratory proximity."Anon.
"Inaudible sound that kills"
''Украина Криминальная'', July 31, 2012. The machine's neologistic name has thus appeared in conjunction with disparate music groups and artists.

Scientific and historical inconsistencies

Apart from its title and the term ''thanato-auric'', other hitherto unknown coinages (

nonce word A nonce word (also called an occasionalism) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language''. Ed. David Crystal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ...

s) introduced in Woodard's text are, in order of appearance: ''Plecidic'', ''aurotic'', ''nucleopatriphobic'' and ''Eugenaestheticus''. Moreover, journalistic coverage appears to have roundly debunked the myth of the machine. According to ''Fortean Times'': In ''TechnoMage'', a compendium of writings on technology and the occult, author Dirk Bruere relates, "The recording '... contains two infrasonic frequencies, 3hz and 9hz, which, combined, generate a lower, third frequency of 0.56hz.' They do not." Paranormal researcher Michael Esposito opines, "I’m not sure the Feraliminal Lycanthropizer is as effective as a woman leaning against the spin cycle of a

Maytag The Maytag Corporation is an American home and commercial appliance company owned by Whirlpool Corporation since April 2006. Company history The Maytag Washing Machine Company was founded in 1893 by businessman Frederick Maytag. In 1925, ...

."Zylo, A.
"Interview with M. Esposito"
WFMU's Beware of the Blog, March 14, 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feraliminal Lycanthropizer 1990 hoaxes American speculative fiction Fictional technology Devices to alter consciousness Urban legends

Etymology

Legacy and influence

Scientific and historical inconsistencies

See also

References