Name of student: Valeria Kipnis

Submitted to Andrew Lang

Date of submission: 27/03/2024

Name of article and journal of presentation:

Hugo Sanches, Leonardo Villaverde Buback Ferreira, João Pedro Gonçalves Pacheco, Luiz
Carlos Schenberg and Marcos Sampaio Meireles “When Cotard’s syndrome fits the sociocultural
context: The singular case of Per “Dead” Ohlin and the Norwegian black metal music
scene” Transcultural Psychiatry 2022, Vol. 59(2): pages 225–232
Hypothesis of the article: Ohlin's eccentric beliefs and behaviors were symptoms of an
unrecognized psychiatric condition, Cotard's syndrome.

What’s Cotard syndrome? “Cotard's syndrome, also known as Cotard's delusion or walking
corpse syndrome, is a rare mental disorder in which the affected person holds the delusional
belief that they are dead, do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs”.
(Wikipedia). Cotard’s syndrome is a rare psychiatric condition described in 1880 by the French
neurologist Jules Cotard. The person who’s diagnosed with this syndrome believes that he’s
already dead, which is an illusion.

Per Yngve Ohlin,” Dead”, a member and the lead singer of Mayhem:
A black metal band member, Per Ohlin, was the frontman of “Mayhem”, Researchers believed
that Dead had this syndrome, following similar symptoms after his clinical death. Per Yngve
Ohlin (16 January 1969 – 8 April 1991) was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to parents Anita
Forsberg and Lars Ohlin, who divorced soon after his birth. He was the eldest of five children.

Method of the research:

Ohlin’s relatives and friends were interviewed. His brother told the interviewers (Johannesson &
Klingberg, 2018) that Ohlin went through violent bullying at high school. He was beaten so
intensely that he suffered a spleen rupture followed by severe internal bleeding. He was labeled
clinically dead. The near-death experience fascinated him. Ohlin began to think that he wasn’t a
human being, already dead. After this experience, Ohlin “fell in love with death”; He began to
collect dead things, His music lyrics were inspired by his experience, therefore he wrote and
sang about death. He tried to perform magic rituals to understand better his near-death
experience, Ohlin found a dead crow and kept it in a plastic bag, to smell death all the time. He
wanted to look like a corpse, therefore he put makeup: black and white paint on his face, later
called “Corpse Paint”. Ohlin used to bury his clothes into the ground so that they could start to
rot and get the scent of death. He even asked us to bury him in the ground as he believed that it
would turn his skin pale. He would cut himself, both on the stage or alone in his room. Ohlin
would usually starve himself due to his depression and his belief that he wasn’t a human being.
Also, his stage name was “Dead”. Ohlin loved the heavy metal genre, especially black metal. He
founded the Swedish death/thrash metal group “Morbid”. Ohlin decided to contact members
of Mayhem, a new Norwegian black metal band, as he was aware the group needed a new
frontman following vocalist Maniac's departure. His friends and bandmates described him as a
melancholic persona. Despite Ohlin becoming an important member of the black metal scene
after joining Mayhem, he faced a lot of difficulties: The band was not as successful, and he had
financial problems and violent quarrels with a bandmate he lived with. Ohlin couldn’t speak
Norwegian and had no friends, therefore lacked emotional support. His body was discovered by
Aarseth, a member of the band. He committed suicide and left a note.
"Excuse the blood, but I have slit my wrists and neck. It was the intention that I would die in the
woods so that it would take a few days before I was possibly found. I belong in the woods and
have always done so. No one will understand the reason for this anyway. To give some
semblance of an explanation I'm not a human, this is just a dream and soon I will wake. It was
too cold and the blood kept clotting, the new knife was too dull. If I don't succeed dying to the
knife I will blow all the shit out of my skull. Yet I do not know. I left all my lyrics by "Let the
good times roll"—plus the rest of the money. Whoever finds it gets the fucking thing. As a last
salutation may I present "Life Eternal". Do whatever you want with it. / Pelle. I didn't come up
with this now, but seventeen years ago" – Ohlin’s suicide note, Wikipedia

Why the topic is important?

Some people would say that this was his artistic persona, which Ohlin stuck to it. Artists are
known to be creative, for better or worse, so it was thought that Ohlin stuck to his dark creativity,
rather than mental illness. Cotard syndrome is not as common as other mental illnesses, making
it more difficult to diagnose. Ohlin probably had the syndrome, in addition to his depression, and
Ohlin’s condition worsened, as he was isolated and didn’t have proper support. proper diagnosis
on time would help another patient prevent suicide and self-harm.

Conclusion
In conclusion of this article, the researchers tried to understand each side of Ohlin's life, to
uncover another case of Cotard syndrome, which to this day has no treatment or cure. A lot of
people are not familiar with this syndrome, so it has no awareness. Investigators believe that if
Ohlin committed suicide, he most likely suffered from a mental illness.

Did the author make the point? The writer reinforced the point that Ohlin had the
syndrome, and best illustrated why he had more than just depression.