Note: Unless otherwise noted, definitions are courtesy of dictionary.die.net, an Internet dictionary in the public domain.
Vampire--a corpse that rises at night to drink the blood of the living.
Vanishing--the sudden disappearance of an object that may or may not reappear or be seen again; many such vanishings are said to have occurred in the so-called Devil’s, or Bermuda, Triangle; see “Bermuda Triangle” and “Saladin balloon” (the author).
Veronica cloth, miraculous image of Christ on--veils or other cloths upon which the image of Christ’s face appears or is a part, as a result of a miracle; see “holy relic”) (the author).
Victor, wild boy of Aveyron-- “a boy who apparently lived his entire childhood alone in the woods before being found wandering the woods near Saint Sernin sur Rance, France (near Toulouse) in 1797” (Wikipedia); see “feral children.”
Virgin Mary--the mother of Jesus Christ; according to the gospels, she conceived as a virgin, impregnated by God, and bore and delivered his son, the founder of Christianity, in which religion he is considered “the only begotten son of God”; see “Fatima, Virgin Mary appears at” (the author).
Vitalism--a doctrine that life is a vital principle distinct from physics and chemistry.
Voodoo--a religious cult practiced chiefly in Caribbean countries (especially Haiti); involves witchcraft and animistic deities.
Wandering Jew--according to legend, a Jew who was cursed to wander the earth forever because he taunted Jesus on the way to his crucifixion (the author).
Warlock--a male witch or demon.
Wells, H. G.--science fiction author (see his story in the column to the right) (the author).
Werewolf--a monster able to change appearance from human to wolf.
Witch--a female sorcerer or magician.
Wizard--one who practices magic or sorcery.
Xenophobia--an irrational fear of strangers (the author).
Ying-yang--a Chinese symbol of opposites united or reconciled (the author).
Zen Buddhism-- “school of Mahayana Buddhism that asserts that enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation, and intuition rather than through faith and devotion and that is practiced mainly in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. (Answers.com).
Zombie--a dead body that has been brought back to life by a supernatural force; a spirit or supernatural force that reanimates a dead body; god of voodoo cults of African origin worshipped especially in West Indies; someone who acts or responds in a mechanical or apathetic way.
Zombie, philosophical--a a human body without consciousness which would nevertheless behave like a human body with consciousness (The Skeptic’s Dictionary).
A Note on the Dictionary Entries
Many short stories, novels, epic poems, television series, and motion pictures that involve elements of Gothic romance or horror are based, in part or in full, upon the concepts, beliefs, theories, legends, or folklore mentioned in the definitions of the terms in this blog’s “Dictionary of the Paranormal, the Supernatural, and the Otherworldly.” Here is a sample:
Ad hoc analysis: many stories, in print and on film, make use of the ad hoc hypothesis as a means of explaining, explaining away, or diverting attention from the cause of the bizarre series of incidents that have been taking place of late.
Aliens populate many stories, including H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds and countless movies, from Invaders from Mars to Alien and Independence Day.
Dracula nearly always wears an amulet.
The Argo and its crew, the Argonauts, appear in several movies of the 1950’s, including Jason and the Argonauts.
Stephen King alludes to auras throughout Insomnia.
Willow Rosenberg channels spirits in several Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes, as do several of the series’ characters in “Conversations with Dead People.”
Close Encounters of the Third Kind occur in the movie of that title and in many others in which human characters encounter extraterrestrial aliens.
Crop circles occur in Signs.
In Stephen King’s Children of the Corn and other films and stories, cults are central to the plot.
Curses are featured in many films, one of which is Curse of the Mummy.
Buffy Summers has a déjà vu experience in “Becoming, Part I.”
Demons appear in countless stories, in print and on film, including, perhaps mist notably, in William Peter Blatty’s novel The Exorcist and the movie based upon it.
Dinosaurs still walk the earth (or part of it) in such films as The Lost World, King Kong, One Million Years B. C., and plenty of others, and they’re brought back in Jurassic Park.
Stephen King’s novel, Desperation, includes an encounter with the divine, as do many other horror stories, such as Bentley Little's novels, University and Revelation.
Prophetic dreams are plot elements in a number of horror stories, including Nightmare on Elm Street.
The protagonist of the film 1408, based upon Stephen King’s short story by the same title, has evidence of the haunting he experienced in the tape-recorded voice of his deceased daughter, an example of electronic voice phenomena.
Poltergeists appear in Poltergeist and many other movies and in some novels.
What would The Exorcist be without demonic possession and exorcism?
Feral children are the adversaries in Cat People and other films, and, one might argue, appear, in a sense, in H. G. Wells’ novel, The Island of Dr, Moreau.
The theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung inform virtually every horror story every written, but are especially discernable in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Ghosts are plentiful in the fiction of horror, appearing in a myriad stories, not the least of which by any means is Henry James’ classic, The Turn of the Screw.
Hallucinations appear frequently as ad hoc hypotheses to account for the mysterious doings that characters perform and the bizarre beliefs they hold.
Without hell, Dante couldn’t have written The Inferno any more than John Milton could have penned Paradise Lost.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Christabel is about a lamia.
Lycanthropy and full moons underlie every story ever written or filmed in which a werewolf appears, from The Wolfman and I Was a Teenage Werewolf to The Howling and An American Werewolf in London.
It’s largely thanks to lucid dreaming that Nancy is able to confront Freddie Kreuger in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Logical positivism, as a convenient ad hoc hypothesis, underlies the initial rejection of supernatural realities in movies such as The Exorcist and countless other movies that include demons, vampires, and other things that go bump in the night.
A fungus, delivered courtesy of a meteorite, is the death of the character in the “The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verril” segment of Stephen King’s Creepshow.
Numerology is at the heart of the psychological thriller, The Number 23.
Ouija Board is about, well, a Ouija board. So is Ouija.
Psychics appear in Poltergeist, Rose Red, The Psychic, The Shining, and many other horror stories, in print and on film.
Repressed memories are vital to The Turn of the Screw and the movie, The Innocents, based upon the Henry James ghost story.
Urban Legends is based upon urban legends.
Mummies, trances, vampires, voodoo, witches, and zombies are in movie after movie and book upon book, including The Mummy, Trance, Dracula, Burn, Witch, Burn!, and Night of the Living Dead.
Sources
Note: Unless otherwise noted, definitions are courtesy of dictionary.die.net, an Internet dictionary in the public domain.