Not all reunions are the same. To meet your long-lost, separated-at-birth identical twin? Aw! To meet your Double-Walker, the doppelgänger of German lore which is your exact replica and your phantom forerunner? Awwwwwww! Your doppelgänger is your psychopomp or death omen. With a shiver down the spine, you'll know your doppelgänger the moment you meet it, just before you collapse, even as cats and dogs are said to have the ability to see and recognize a doppelgänger.
The literature establishes that every living being, man or beast, has a spirit copy of itself. When your path of life leads you to meet your doppelgänger, everything will change. That's because the doppelgänger causes you to question everything you presumed about your family, your friends, your hometown. Couldn't it have replaced your loved ones with their likenesses? Might those likenesses even have been replaced by other copies and others in an ever-blooming cycle of selves, none of whom are those you loved? But we're getting ahead of ourselves, even as our doppelgänger walks ahead of us. What we'll explore now will become progressively mind-blowing, and I'll save the chilling-most idea for the end.
One thing seems certain: the doppelgänger beckons you to your doom. It comes to fetch you and is even called a fetch. You are fetched away by your mirror image, your detachable soul, your exact counterpart that wanders abroad. Such entities have been described throughout human history, including the ancient Egyptian concept of a second self and the Christian idea of one's personal guardian angel. Norwegian lore speaks of a similar figure known as the Follower, but it often takes animal form and is more akin to a werewolf.
The famous Austrian psychotherapist Sigmund Freud avoided ever meeting the dramatist Arthur Schnitzler for fear of meeting his double and dying from the encounter. Admitting such was actually Freud's RSVP to Schnitzler, and it's a reasonable excuse to use, that one cannot attend a party for fear of encountering one's doppelgänger.
There are so many other historical accounts of doppelgängers. Russian empress Catherine the Great was often seen entering her throne room while simultaneously lying in bed. English queen Elizabeth the First saw her own doppelgänger as a corpse before dying herself. Poet Percy Shelley encountered his doppelgänger twice, and during one encounter it asked him, "How long do you mean to be content?" President Abraham Lincoln saw his paler doppelgänger in a mirror.
Disturbing questions begin to ask themselves. Are we each two creatures? Are we each ourselves and an enemy doppelgänger? Even more disturbing, which of the two is the "senior," so to speak — are you the real one, like the landlord of your body, or are you the unwelcome guest who would seek to evict you from your own estate? It's said that when one's double selves meet, only one can remain, and that's because the second self must sap the other's energy in order to fully manifest.
Is the idea of multiple dimensions or parallel universes at play? Could a second self transgress the dimensional veil and glimpse itself in another existence? Author and supernaturalist Charles Williams, a colleague of the more famous J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis but frankly the best writer of the three, posited another, darker idea. He saw the doppelgänger as one's spirit form after death, wandering the timeless Otherworld and, during a prolonged life review, revisiting key moments from life. So one's doppelgänger could be one's future, deceased self, shifting backward through time and possibly choosing a point from which to begin again. Imagine being possessed not merely by a ghostly walk-in but by your own dead self ... to die prematurely by your future spirit usurping you in its past but your present. To be a host to the parasite that you will become, living an infinite loop like a snake eating its own tail, your dreams and memories progressively breaking down through redundancy. It's something to think about before you fall asleep — has it already happened to you, or are you yet to meet your doppelgänger, perhaps upon the very moment you open your eyes in the morning?
We'd leave it there, for how could we top that visual? But it's fair to wonder what can be done. Here are some tips I've gleaned from the literature. Try never to feel out of place or appear anywhere at the wrong time. Keep your alter ego in check. Avoid double-talk, repeating yourself, reiterating points, double entendres, and double negatives. Never go on double-dates. Avoid too much self-reflection. Never double-cross another. Don't seek to know yourself too clearly. Avoid getting into a double bind. Avoid double-glazing your windows. Never be a double-dealer. Reduce the number of mirrors in your living space. Don't work as a double-agent. Never host unwanted guests. Don't be deceitfully double-faced. Use corrective lenses to avoid double vision. Don't talk to yourself. Never trick others as an impostor. If you are already the product of a broken home, just know that I'll pray for you.
I'm Prof. Oddfellow, a Permanent Official in many impermanent offices, the first authority in the world on certain subjects, and the first authority in the nether regions on one or two more, always conducting several lines of research at once, some perfectly wholesome. See me in glorious monochrome in the long-running series Prof. Oddfellow's Penetralia and Grave Mood Rings, on Roku, Youtube, MysteryArts.com, and in the House of Scream Studios horror specials.
