Norman Bates (Psycho), Leatherface (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and Buffalo Bill (Silence of the Lambs). What do the three fictional characters have in common? All three (and many others of lesser notoriety) were inspired by the real psycho, Ed Gein. You can find scores of websites telling you about this guy, but here's the nutshell version of his crimes:
In 1957, a Wisconsin sheriff arrived at Gein's house while trying to locate the whereabouts of a missing woman. He found her, hanging decapitated and disemboweled from a rafter in the kitchen. Subsequent investigations discovered the remains of several other women throughout the home. Turns out they had been disinterred from a local cemetery. Curious things like lampshades and soup bowls had been made from the skins and skulls of these corpses. Gein admitted to sometimes wearing a "shirt" of skin (complete with breasts) around the house. Gein later admitted to one other murder, as well.
And just what has that to do with this column? Well, for that, we turn to the reasons why Gein's screws were loose. And this, it turns out, was largely due to his domineering mother.
Augusta Gein has been described as a "fanatical Christian." She hammered her views of the world into her two sons. (Ed's brother died during a house fire, though there is the possibility that he'd been killed by his brother before the fire. It may even be that Ed started the fire to cover up the deed.) Her views were lovely: she painted the world as an inherently immoral place, preached against lust and all things carnal, and portrayed all women other than herself as whores.
It's nearly certain that Ed was a lifelong virgin. Certainly, he never had any healthy relationships with women. Whenever he felt attracted to a female, his mother's tirades about damnation brought him up short. Ultimately, he developed an intense bond with his mother, to an unhealthy degree, even living with her until she died. Ed was 39 by this time, and it was after her passing that he began his disturbing practice of digging up dead women to keep him company.
So am I blaming religion for the psychoses of Ed Gein? I suppose in a way, I am. Certainly, his mother had psychoses of her own. You can't be that fanatical (about anything) without having mental problems. Augusta's behavior was undeniably very far from typical for Christians. But the point, which I've made many times before, is that religion, unlike most other things, gives plenty of fuel to the fires of mental instability. If Augusta Gein had been fanatical about something else, would she have had any reason to brainwash Ed with her warped views? Her views, of course, were the result of her fundamental faith. And this is what makes fundamentalism so dangerous to society.
Oh, yes… If you enjoy irony, you'll get a kick out of the fact that after Gein died in 1984, he was buried in the same cemetery from which he'd taken his "trophies."
