Three thoughts come to mind: 1. These are obviously vivid experiences; most museum visits aren't. 2. These places somehow help people deal with -- come to terms with? -- what they fear and dread, which strikes me as not sick but healthy. 3. A psychiatrist friend once said to me, when a human behavioral phenomenon is so widespread as to be all but universal -- we were talking about the dinosaur craze of late -- it doesn't make sense to try to explain it; it's simply that a lot of people are interested in the same thing. On Wed, 20 Jul 1994 20:40:24 -0500, Marc Becker wrote: >Would anyone care to speculate what it means for museum professionals to >have twice as many answers to the ghoulish request than to any other >requests on this list? What is the fascination with these small macabre >dens of the grotesque? Is this an untouched corner of material culture with >which we theoretically disassociate but feel compelled toward?