The German folk belief of the doppelganger dates to at least as early as the 1500’s. However, this was simply the earliest it had been written down, and was probably an ancient oral belief prior to the 16th century. The word means “double walker” or “double goer”. In Irish and Northern English folklore, it was known as a “fetch”.

One of the earliest descriptions of this belief was simply “one who has seen himself”. This appears to have been closely tied with the increasingly common use of mirrors in homes. However, the pre-Christian beliefs of the old world almost universally contained mirror mythology. The Mayans, Northern American Indians, Hindus, Jews, Greeks, and Egyptians all believed mirrors and reflective objects were either means of seeing the future or portals to another reality. This other reality was believed to be related to dreams, astral planes, or the threshold between this world and the next. A recent archeological find has shown that even the ancient Scythian tribes of Russia each carried a small mystical mirror on their belt at all times, and were buried with it upon death.

In these early German mirror beliefs, the image seen in the mirror was believed to be an identical, flesh and blood copy of the gazer. If a person saw their double elsewhere, however, it was a sure omen of imminent danger, or even death. This doppelganger was not exactly considered a ghost, since the original person was still living.

Queen Elizabeth I reportedly saw a vision of her double while lying on her deathbed, shortly before she died. In addition, both Goethe and Shelley claimed to have seen their doubles and lived to tell about it. When Catherine the Great of Russia saw her own coming toward her, she supposedly took no chances and ordered her soldiers to kill it.

As Christianity gained a greater foothold on the belief systems of the peasantry, doppelgangers were increasingly attributed to demonic, devilish forces. Suspected witches and warlocks were considered capable of projecting their own doubles in order to wreck havoc. Either the devil, or his minions, was also believed to take possession of another person's mirror double, and then commit evil acts, for which the original would later be blamed.

This “theft” of one’s doppelganger produced an interesting variation on the myth, which I have an origional theory for. Sleepwalkers were often said to wander into the Black Forest. The demons which dwelt there could then steal the real person and put the demonic double in its place. It’s interesting to point out that those affected with somnambulism, the medical term for sleepwalking, are most susceptible to the condition when about 12 years old. This creates a fabulous excuse for a pre-teen’s mischief. If they had an alibi, then perhaps their doppelganger had been stolen by evil forces. If they had no alibi, then the folklore provided a convincing rational for why they were not themselves at the time of the act.

In it’s most developed form, the doppelganger myth was absorbed into the larger Christianized Occult mythos. For instance, the summoning of any mirror apparition was believed to attract ravens. These particular messengers of evil appear to have been barrowed from Nordic, pre-Christian religion. The earlier “pagan” god Odin always had ravens near him. As these gods were labeled Satanic, so too were related symbols, which were then incorporated into the new folklore.

To this day, the fear of the double is observed in the Judea-Christian custom of covering all the mirrors in a house where a death has just occurred – thus preventing one’s double from being taken by the deceased into the afterworld. In addition, music, TV, film, and literature continue to use this spooky folklore as inspiration. While searching the internet, one is far more likely to find a rock song called “Doppelganger” or a reference to the television series Twin Peaks, than a scholarly description of the actual Germanic belief.

Sources:

Dictionary.com … “doppelganger”

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/gerchange.html

Brittanica.com … “doppelganger"

http://www.pantheon.org/mythica/articles/d/doppelganger.html

http://www.dromo.com/fusionanomaly/doppelganger.html

http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/religion/magbib.html

http://www.thexfiles.com/ … “Fight Club” and “Chimera”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2517siberian.html ... NOVA episode #2517: Ice Mummies: Siberian Ice Maiden

"The Last Laugh", by Raymond Moody