I blame Poe, Edgar Allan Poe, for my interest in torture. Who can ever forget that wonderful scene of immurement in “The Cask of Amontillado”? What a delicious way in which to exact revenge on those who slight you. Too bad we don’t have catacombs beneath our houses today.

The practice of torture, in my opinion, is proof positive we as a species have not progressed very far down the road of enlightenment. Torture is routinely practiced today by governments, organized crime, gangs, drug dealers, sex traffickers, and even private citizens. We love killing everything and making it suffer as it expires. Remember pulling wings off flies when a kid?

So while I am suffering in this never ending brazen bull of a Houston summer, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite methods of torture.

Immurement

There’s just something devilishly horrific about being entombed alive. Whether it be in a niche in a wall, as Fortunato, or buried alive in a coffin, the claustrophobic confinement, the sensory deprivation of no light, and the slowly creeping suffocation has to be both horrific physical and psychological agony in the extreme.

The Oubliette

Related to immurement is the Oubliette, which is a French word meaning to forget. Which gives you an idea as to how this torture works.

The oubliette is a form of imprisonment that is close to demonic. In its more severe form, an oubliette is a narrow (just wider than the width of a person’s body) and very long tube. The oubliette was sometimes built into the castle wall. More often, it was simply a very deep hole in the dungeon floor.

A grate covered the opening of the oubliette, which let in not only the victim, but air and maybe a minimum amount of light. It also allowed for the victim to get food and water should the jailer/torturer decide to provide those comestibles. 

But given how narrow most surviving oubliettes were, I doubt the prisoner would be able to take advantage of the largesse. 

You see, the prisoner, once lowered into the oubliette, had very little room to move. Just imagine yourself in a brick tube that’s a little wider than your shoulders and hips. You can’t sit. You can’t move your arms. You can turn your head and that’s about it. And let’s not even talk about urinating or defecating. You get the idea. It’s hell on earth.

The prisoner was usually forgotten and left alone. In the dark. He would slowly starve to death or die of thirst. Often standing on the remains of the victims who had been imprisoned before him.

Imagine, while dying of thirst, you realize that someday someone will be standing on you in that narrow, stinking tube. Not a way I want to leave this world.

The Heretic’s Fork

Another insidious torture device, the Heretic’s Fork was often used on, well, heretics. But a torture device worth its salt was usually quickly adapted to a more general audience.

The Heretic’s Fork was a double ended fork with a strap that secured it around a person’s neck. The one end was positioned on the breast, the other under the chin. To make this device more hellish, the head was tilted back.

So you couldn’t lower your head without inflicting on yourself great pain. I suppose that made eating and drinking quite difficult. And God forbid should you have to sneeze. Ouch.

Pressing

There’s nothing like being tied to stakes in the ground and then having stones or chunks of iron piled on top of you until your ribs break from the incredible weight. Although there’s a good chance you’ll expire from asphyxiation before the bones break.

In either case, asphyxiation or a crushed chest, your path to the next world would be a painful one.

The neat thing about this torture is that it really doesn’t require much equipment to inflict incredible amounts of pain and, of course, death.

Impalement

Vlad the Impaler was very fond of impaling those who displeased him. Hence the moniker.

The process of impalement was simple: a pointed stake was shoved up the anus and through the body until it came out the victim’s mouth. By which time he was probably dead.

It is said that Vlad would drench the impaled with oil, set them on fire, and eat his supper surrounded by the human torches. Nothing like the smell of roasting long pork to give one an appetite.

Vlad was one guy you didn’t want to piss off.

The Judas Cradle

Another torture that was a literal pain in the butt was the Judas Cradle. It was a pyramid-shaped device that had a very sharp point at its apex.

The victim was lowered on top of the cradle, and his weight… Well, I’ll leave it there. I’m sure you get the excruciatingly painful picture.

Burning Alive

Being burned to death has to be one of the nastiest ways to leave this world.

Burning alive is often associated with being burned at the stake. A favorite of the exceedingly pious to dispose of the less pious. 

The victim was tied to a stake and stood on top of a big pile of wood. The wood was lit and pretty soon the flames were roaring.

The rising flames, the intense heat, the suffocating smoke. Hopefully, the heat or the smoke dispatched you before the fire did. If they didn’t, you were barbecue. Oh, the inhumanity!

The Brazen Bull

This relative of burning at the stake is truly ingenious.

The device, the bull, was made out of bronze and was large enough to contain a man. There was a door through which the unfortunate victim was thrust into the belly of the bull. A fire was then started underneath the bull and the poor unfortunate was roasted to death inside the bull. The screams were thought to mimic the bellowing of a bull. Added entertainment. Nothing like value added torture.

Burning at the stake almost seems humane by comparison.

The Swedish Drink

Our final torture was developed by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War. Perhaps so they didn’t have to share their coffee.

The Swedish Drink is a very simple, yet highly effective torture procedure.

The victim is held down, his mouth forced open, and then all manner of foul liquid is poured down his throat until his stomach is literally about to burst.

The liquid was usually urine, liquid manure, sewage, and/or gray water. It might also simply be boiling water.

When the victim was full of the foul drink, his belly was then pressed with boards, or he was kicked and beaten. That must’ve been truly agonizing, as liquid isn’t so easily compressed. And sometimes, a spear was thrust into the unfortunate’s belly. At least that relieved the pressure. It did, though, cause other problems. Not how I’d spell relief.

So there you have it. A few of my favorite methods of torture. Why use the blasé rack or thumbscrew when you have the above truly imaginative approaches to dishing out pain and suffering?

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, stay pain free!