What Is Doppelganger And Weirdest Stories In History

Rosemary January 14, 2023 | 09:03

Have you ever come across someone who looks like you? That’s weird but in fact this phenomenon does exist.

The Weirdest Stories About Doppelganger - Photo abcnews

Contents
What is Doppelganger? What is Doppelganger’s Origin? What are the likelihood of yourself having a living Doppelganger? Does Everyone Have a Doppelgänger? Weirdest Stories About Doppelganger Emilie Sagee Guy de Maupassant Sister Mary of Jesus

What is Doppelganger?

Doppelganger is a word from Germany. As described by ancient documents, a Doppelganger is a "strange clone" of a living person (or people) and you may also have a "replica" of yourself or vice versa somewhere in the world. You may also see them appear in mirrors or in certain strange situations.

According to the Western concept, the Doppelganger was said to be an entity created by the devil, also known as the "Evil Twin". They are children born by demons and swapped with people's children, so growing up will bring disaster to the victim.

Today, this phrase is accepted to refer to the strange but identical people in the world. However, if compared, these two meanings describe two completely different phenomena in nature.

One of the oldest documents about the Doppelganger is in Zurvanism, a branch of Zoroastrianism. Accordingly, this religion realized the abstraction of "fire" with a pair of twins, Ahura Mainyu and Ahura Mazda - symbolizing good and evil. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the word "ka" refers to a person whose appearance, memories, and emotions are almost identical to someone else's.

What is Doppelganger’s Origin?

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In German culture, the twin can signal death and illness, so it is considered a bad omen. Therefore, it is taboo for a person to see another person like him or her.

The word Doppelganger first appeared in 1796 in the novel Siebenkas by German writer Jean Paul. In the novel, the main character is always in dialogue with a person who looks like him, but that is in fact his ego.

However, from time immemorial, the ancient Egyptians referred to referred to the entity with the same appearance as "Ka". Twins have also been described in Irish and English literature from the 18th and 19th centuries as omens.

Doppelganger became widely known after appearing in the paranormal, supernatural novel The Night-Side of Nature by Catherine Crowe.

After that, many films have taken advantage of this element to arouse curiosity and attract the public's attention.

The word Doppelganger is now used in a softer sense, referring to people with similar appearances.

What are the likelihood of yourself having a living Doppelganger?

Folk wisdom has it that everyone has a doppelgängers; somewhere out there there’s an almost perfect duplicate of you, with your mother’s eyes, your father’s nose and that annoying mole you’ve always wanted to have removed.

Apparently there is a one in 135 chance that there’s a single pair of complete doppelgängers.

This was a result of a study by University of Adelaide biologist Teghan Lucas and her team, who analysed the faces of nearly four thousand individuals, measuring and comparing them across eight distinct facial features – although didn’t disclose which features these were.

The team concluded that the chances of someone looking exactly like someone else in all eight features is about one in 1 trillion. This means:

There’s definitely a mathematical chance for two doppelgängers to exist, but it’s highly unlikely.

Does Everyone Have a Doppelgänger?

Mostly people do not come across doppelgangers of themselves.

“The human face is extraordinarily unique. I mean think about it. The chance has to be quite low otherwise you would be bumping into people who looked like you all the time, and you don’t,” said Sir Walter Bodmer, a professor of human genetics from the University of Oxford.

Weirdest Stories About Doppelganger

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Emilie Sagee

Emilie Sagee is one of the most unsettling examples of a doppelganger. Robert Dale-Owen first described her account in his book Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, published in 1860. He himself learned of the tale through Julie von Güldenstubbe, Baron von Güldenstubbe's daughter, who in 1845 studied at the prestigious boarding school Pensionat von Neuwelcke in what is now Latvia. Emilie Sagee worked at this particular school during that particular year.

At this point, Emilie was just 32 years old. She was liked by both the school's kids and staff because she was charming, intelligent, and all around kind. Curiously, though, she had previously worked at 18 different schools over the course of the previous 16 years, with Pensionat von Neuwelcke marking her 19th location of employment. It gradually became apparent why Emilie couldn't hold onto her position at any of the positions for an extended period of time.

Emilie Sagee had a doppelganger—a ghostly twin—that would make itself visible to others at random moments. The first time it was spotted was when she had been teaching a class of 17 girls. She had been normally writing on the board, her back facing the girl, when out of nowhere a projection like entity that looked just like her appeared. It stood right beside her, mocking her by imitating her movements. While everyone else in the class could see this doppelganger, Emilie herself could not. In fact, she never came across her twin, which was just as well for her. It is considered to be an extremely bad omen to see one’s own doppelganger.

Since the first sighting, Emilie’s apparent twin was spotted quite frequently by others at the school. She was seen sitting beside the real Emilie, eating silently; imitating Emilie while she did her everyday work; sitting in class while Emilie taught. One time, as Emilie was helping one of her students dress up for an event, the doppelganger appeared. The student, as she looked down to suddenly find two Emilies fixing her dress, fainted immediately. The most talked-about sighting of Emilie was when she was seen gardening by a class full of 42 girls, who were learning sewing. When the supervisor of the class walked out for a bit, Emilie walked in and sat down in her place. The students didn’t think much of it until one of them pointed out that Emilie was still in the garden doing her work. They must have been terrified by the other Emilie in the room, but some of them were brave enough to go and touch this doppelganger. What they found was that their hands could go through her, only sensing what seemed like a bulk of cobweb.

When asked about this, Emilie herself was at a loss. She had never seen this twin of hers who was ruining her life and thus had no control over it, either. Because of this ethereal entity, she had been asked to leave all her previous jobs. Even this job of hers seemed to be in jeopardy because seeing two Emilies at once was naturally freaking people out. Many parents had started taking their children out of the institution and reluctantly, the principal had to let Emilie go, despite her diligent nature and capabilities as a teacher.

There are very few explanations for Emilie’s doppelganger because of the bizarre nature of it all. Actual cases of doppelgangers are quite rare in history and Emilie’s story is probably the scariest of them all. It was heard that while Emilie’s doppelganger made itself visible, the actual Emilie appeared very worn out and lethargic as if the duplicate was a part of her spirit that had broken free. When it disappeared, she was back to being her normal self. After the incident at the garden, Emilie had said that she had had an urge to go inside the classroom to supervise the kids herself but hadn’t actually done it. This indicates that the doppelganger perhaps was a reflection of the kind of teacher Emilie wanted to be, doing multiple tasks at once. Some people have a theory that this doppelganger comes out to do the tasks that Emilie herself was doing in an alternate universe, where she had made a choice different from that of the real world.

Guy de Maupassant

After a startling doppelganger encounter in 1889, Guy de Maupassant was moved to compose the short fiction "Lui?" ("He?"). De Maupassant asserted that while he was writing, his body double entered his study, sat next to him, and started narrating the story he was working on. A young man who believes he is going insane after catching a glimpse of what looks to be his body double tells the story in "Lui?"

The tale turned out to be rather prophetic for de Maupassant, who swore he had multiple experiences with his doppelganger. After attempting suicide in 1892, de Maupassant was eventually committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Sister Mary of Jesus

In 1622, at the Isolita Mission in what is now New Mexico, one of the most astounding instances of bilocation occurred. Father Alonzo de Benavides described coming across Jamano Indians who carried crosses, followed Roman Catholic ceremonies, and learned Catholic liturgy in their native dialect despite never having encountered Spaniards before. The Indians informed him that they had been taught Christianity in their own language by a woman in blue who lived among them for a long time. Father Benavides' research upon his return to Spain brought him to Sister Mary of Jesus in Agreda, Spain, who professed to have converted Native Americans "not in flesh, but in spirit."

Sister Mary said she regularly fell into a cataleptic trance, after which she recalled "dreams" in which she was carried to a strange and wild land, where she taught the gospel. As proof of her claim, she was able to provide highly detailed descriptions of the Jamano Indians, including their appearance, clothing, and customs, none of which she could have learned through research since they were fairly recently discovered by the Europeans. How did she learn their language? "I didn’t," she replied. "I simply spoke to them—and God let us understand one another."

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