wakeful phantasm

Day dreams or wakeful phantasms are said to have provided Mary Shelley with the inspiration to write her story The Modern Prometheus; Frankenstein. The novel is romance and horror which is the definition of Gothic fictional literature which was a genre introduced in the middle of the 18th century with writers like Horace Walpole and gothic stories like The Castle of Otranto.

Shelley claims that the name Frankenstein was part of the wakeful phantasm she experienced while looking for a subject to write a story about. The name Victor is suspected of being influenced by "the Victor" mentioned in Paradise Lost which Shelley quotes on the opening page of her book. 

Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein at the age of 18 in 1818. Now, using a bit of illogical thinking it is easy to work 666 into this wakeful phantasm story. If 18 is 9 then 181818 is 999 and reverse engineering death into life as Doctor Victor attempts to do is 666. Too easy...... I agree.....

Interestingly however, the story of Frankenstein's monster mentions galvanism which was a theory of this period and involved using electricity on dissected animals. Today that animal electricity that Luigi Galvani was working on in the late 1700's is more commonly referred to as electrophysiology.

Frankenstein was not a name invented by Shelley. 

In the 1200's a castle made of stone " stein " became Castle Frankenstein.  This was the project of Konrad II Reiz von Breuberg who elects himself as the founder and Lord of Frankenstein. Is there any truth to the legend that the Castle Frankenstein was once occupied by a body snatcher who stole bodies in order to study anatomy ?

The story goes something like this. Konrad II is the son of elitists who are inhabitants of the Breuberg castle. This rich family has real estate holdings and business in surrounding places like Darmstadt, Beerbach, Hesse, Wetterau, and more. Konrad II builds the Stone Castle on a hill about 5 miles from Darmstadt and seeks the protection of Knights who will help him keep his businesses trading or supplying with little interference from vandals. Konrad II calls his realm Frankenstein and names himself lord of Frankenstein. Thus he begins a new dynasty. His message to the neighbours is that he is a sovereign free imperial lord and his lordship of Frankenstein is answerable only to the Holy Roman Emperor. In time Lord Frankenstein connects with the Katzenelnbogen. I guess being in the business of protecting the wealthy is not a bad way to make a little spare cash. Within a hundred years the Castle of Frankenstein was split into two sections. Half was controlled by the Knights and the other by the Lords. A century or so later the Katzenelnbogen/Frankenstein allegiance is broken.

In 1662 the lordship of Frankenstein is sold to the Holy Roman Empire state of Hesse-Darmstadt which had been formed in 1567. When the Holy Roman Empire is dissolved in 1806 the state ( landgrave ) of Hesse Darmstadt is made subject to the German Confederation. From 1806 to 1918 it is referred to as the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, then simply Grand Duchy of Hesse by the Rhine......or something like that.

Shelley is said to have visited the castle in Germany not long before writing her Prometheus themed story.

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Wicked images of the wakeful phantasm of someone who created artistic sculpture inspired by Lord Konrad Arminius