Welcome to Haiti, land of rhythm, magic, and the OG root of zombie folklore - not the Hollywood flesh-munching kind, but the spiritual kind.
The kind made from dark rituals, powdered poison, and complete mind control.

Enter: Clairvius Narcisse.
Yes, that’s a real name.
Yes, he was a real human being who was legally declared dead, buried, mourned by his family, and then... showed up 18 years later like, “Hey, y’all miss me?”

You’re gonna wanna sit down for this one, boo.

⚰️ The Death

In 1962, Clairvius Narcisse checked into a hospital in Haiti with a high fever, fatigue, and a bunch of symptoms that made doctors go “he’s not gonna make it.”
Sure enough - he “died” two days later.
Pronounced dead. Certified.
Body sent to the morgue.
Buried in the family tomb.
Everyone moved on.

But baby, Clairvius was very much alive and conscious through it all. 😵💫

🧟♂️ The Resurrection

Eighteen years later, a man walks up to his sister in a Haitian marketplace.
Claims he’s Clairvius.
She’s like “YOU’RE DEAD.”
He’s like “Nah, girl. I was buried, but I got dug up by a bokor.” (That’s a voodoo sorcerer, btw. Like a necromancer with Caribbean spice.)

And here’s what he said happened:

🔮 A local bokor had poisoned him with tetrodotoxin - a deadly neurotoxin found in pufferfish. It slows the heart rate so much it mimics death.
⚰️ After being buried alive, he was exhumed the same night.
🧠 The bokor then gave him a mix of hallucinogens and beatings, keeping him in a zombie-like trance, enslaved on a plantation with other “zombies.”

Yes. A plantation. Of zombies.

He worked in the fields, mindless, mute, broken.
Only when the bokor died did Clairvius finally snap out of it and escape.

🧪 The Science & The Spirits

When researchers and ethnobotanists looked into it (yes, Harvard even got involved), they found:

• Real chemical evidence of neurotoxins used in voodoo rituals.

• Cultural practices that support the belief in zombification as both punishment and control.

• And dozens of similar stories of “dead” people reappearing years later.

So yeah, zombies are real, hun.
Just not how you saw in The Walking Dead.
More like: you piss off the wrong sorcerer, they drug your soul, and you spend the next decade picking crops in a trance while everyone thinks you’re fertilizer. 🌿🧟♂️

🖤 Moral of the voodoo horror show?
Respect magic.
Respect the dead.
And never underestimate a pissed-off priest with a pufferfish recipe and a grudge.

Would you rather be haunted, cursed, or turned into a zombie for 18 years?
Or are we pouring rum, lighting candles, and politely bowing to every shadow we pass?