If someone looks like a person, speaks like a person, and even smells the same, it may not be a person at all.
Who are they?
Many creatures look like humans or are masked. Many of them, including vampires, ghosts and werewolves, have fascinated and frightened us for centuries. For a good reason, we are all very afraid of them, because we simply do not know who or what is hiding in the dark. Have you ever seen your colleague eat garlic? Or can you say that you were by his side during the full moon? How do you know that your closest friends are not something completely different? Are you sure that the people with whom you communicate are exactly people, and not the described creatures?
Changelings
Stories of swapped children are popular in European folklore. They are creatures that are planted by evil spirits instead of stolen children. The babies who were substituted rarely lived normal human lives. When they grew up, they looked and behaved quite differently from ordinary people. Why did fairies or other creatures do this? For some, just for fun. But other stories claim that being raised by humans is more respectable than other creatures, so substitution was a way to increase the social status of a child.
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Medieval literature is teeming with stories of changelings as society struggled to come to terms with such horrors as infant mortality, disability, childhood illnesses, and the like. It was difficult for parents to understand why some children suffered, while others rejoiced in life, because everyone is under the protection of God. And it all ended with the fact that they began to come up with different stories about kidnapped children and substitution in order to try to understand the tragic reality.
But this is not just medieval fear. The 2008 film Swap, starring Angelina Jolie, reveals a real-life case of child swapping. In 1928, in Los Angeles, a mother discovered that her son had been kidnapped. The police managed to find the child a few days later, but the mother does not believe that the boy returned to her, it was not her son.
Demons and the devil
The best way to push people to sin is to convince them that you are one of their own and live among them. For this, demons and the devil sometimes disguise themselves as people in order to fulfill their insidious plan. Sometimes this manifests itself as one person's obsession with another, but often demons simply take on human form. However, they are bad at disguise, especially if the people they are trying to deceive are righteous. Some neglect to, so to speak, hide their horns or their forked tongues.
When demons take on human form, they can usually be easily spotted. If suddenly they are discovered, then they, as a rule, will have to disappear. However, sometimes a person who noticed a demon or devil did not deny him and was not against temptation. The best example of this in folklore is Faust, who sold his soul to the devil. Tom Walker in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story The Devil and Tom Walker does the same.
Angels
Demons aren't the only ones who see the human form as a good cover. Angels also disguise themselves to deal with people directly, although the Bible describes them as beings that cannot be seen. Nevertheless, the first appearance of angels in the Bible occurs in the Book of Genesis, where they are sent to assess the moral state of Sodom and Gomorrah. In order to do this, they pretended to be ordinary travelers.
Many stories describe angels or beings who are considered angels, the kind of creatures that people visit. While demons often prefer to take the form of powerful people, businessmen or lawyers, angels tend to turn into people with a more modest standard of living. They usually try to use words and wisdom to gently nudge people on the right path, although they can get angry if they are not treated correctly.
Angels disguise themselves just like demons, they try to be invisible. Where demons are "dark," angels tend to be shining, white, and pure. Their holiness overshadows and outstrips their false human forms. But those who are tainted by sin will not be able to see it, and they risk facing divine punishment.
Twins
Perhaps the most famous creature on this list. It is an entity that looks like someone else. Obviously, these people are completely different, the double is not even a person. It is completely impossible to tell them apart. But in all actions they are the same.
Maybe each of us has our own doppelganger - an exact duplicate who lives in a neighboring city or across several streets, but we never meet, because we have different social circles, we never come into contact with each other. But should we meet? If you see your doppelganger, it is an omen of death. It won't kill you, but something will happen.
Many believe that everyone has a double, and this is true. It is possible that we all have a doppelganger that we have yet to meet. What if you are still alive, and this is because your doppelganger saw you first, and not vice versa? How do you know you're not a doppelganger?
Kitsune
These are foxes in Japanese folklore and mythology. Like foxes, they use their cunning and intelligence to outsmart those they encounter, but their greatest ability is to disguise themselves as humans. Why are they doing this? Maybe this is a game or a prank in order to steal something or just to attack the victim. Sometimes kitsune uses human form to have sex with sleeping people. Whatever the reason, the disguised kitsune is always a wolf in sheep's clothing.
However, many kitsune disguises are imperfect. Some retain their shadow, despite the fact that they look like a person, they are given away by long red hair. However, the best way to see a disguised kitsune is to keep her near you until she gives herself away and says something that proves that she is not human. Can you outsmart the fox?
Werewolves, ghouls, vampires
Many different creatures try to look human, and some succeed. For example, vampires. They are almost indistinguishable from humans, but the fangs cannot be hidden. They have many physical limitations that clearly mark them as vampires. Werewolves have similar problems - they are usually humans, but on certain days they become disgusting, carnivorous animals.
Zombies, vampires, ghouls, ghosts - they all exist, and all can be among us. These creatures push us to think about what it means to be human. What does this say about us as humans if these creatures make us doubt how human we are?
But such monsters penetrate deeper and deeper into our fears. Any woman we meet could be kitsune, or our friends could be vampires, or when our newborn babies seem a little weird, things change for us all at once. We feel betrayed, captured and used for insidious purposes. And when we think that this creature is a person whose life is practically no different from ours, what does this say about us? How long can we believe that it is our actions that make us human? It's scary to think that we share such an intense personal connection with the worst killers and criminals, while being alike. We are all so close to monsters and we don't even realize it.
Conclusion
All of these evil and good beings in disguise encourage us to confront our fear and define our own human path.
Victoria Ivashura