Brett Courtenay
Knowledge Hunter, History Specialist who Yearns to Learn about Everything.
68w ago
The most painful form of death would have to fulfil a number of criteria to ensure that for most if not ALL victims, it would be considered the MOST painful way to die.
These criteria would include:
The method used caused the most excruciating PainLength of time such Pain was inflicted before Dying.Pain was both Physical and MentalThere was no Hope of Relief even after DeathVictim knowing that his/her entire family line will die an agonising death due to his /her actions crime.
In all of History there is only one way of dying that fulfills all the above criteria and as such must truly be considered the most painful form of death possible on so many levels, by the ways, method, cost, effect, longevity and consequences and by all these, encompassing a totality that no other way of dying could ever match .
As no other way of dying covered as many bases and created such pain in so many ways as does that which was employed as the execution methodology used upon those found guilty of High Treason and a few most heinous crimes in China from the 9th century right up to the earliest 20th century and was called LINGCHI.
Also known as “Slow Slicing”, “The Lingering Death” and “Death by a Thousand Cuts,” Lingchiliterally was the slow and methodical disassembly of a person and involved the slow painful removal by knife of flesh in small pieces or chunks as well as small, non-deadly cuts to the limbs and torso that could continue for days as the executioner was skilled in the ways of making sure that no critical area was cut or torn away that would quicken the pain and torture of the slow agony that was Lingchi.
After a multitude of cuts and many chunks of flesh had been removed from each of the limbs, they were then amputated either one by one or together from the torso of the still living victim and in some instances cauterised so that loss of blood did not hasten the victim’s demise any faster than what was desired.
The remaining Torso of the still living victim would then be subjected to final tortured cuts and flesh removal until the victim was either on death’s door or had nothing further to lose and it was only then that their throat was cut or their heart pierced and they finally were allowed to die.
This would have been the very worst that Lingchiever got and whilst there are records of Emperors ordering 3 days of cutting torture and by the Ming dynasty that 3000 incision/cuts being made to a single person, more often than not the actual torture would last rarely beyond an hour and if relatives could bribe the executioner considerably less. Evidence suggests that much of the Mutilation and further cutting and disfigurement happened after death to as visual testament to the crime to serve as warning to others as well as provide greater humiliation to the victims relatives and name for the crime comitted.
HOWEVER, before that final moment came, the victim was subjected to mental torture and pain to rival that being felt by cut and torn flesh as it was slowly removed from their body as they were told that along with their execution by Lingchi as punishment for the crime of Treason, they would also suffer another terrible price and consequence for their act of treason called The Nine Familial Exterminations whereby the entire Family of the guilty individual would also be executed by Lingchi to 8 levels of of relationship meaning that this tortious, lingering painful death would be applied to the victim’s Wife, children, Parents, Grandparents, siblings, siblings in-law, Parents in-law, Aunts and Uncles! This was a personal favourite of some Emperors who used it to completely destroy any chance of further problems, by wiping out the entire family line.
Imagine the horror and mental anguish of knowing that your actions had caused this most heinous and dreadful fate to befall your entire Family line! Even worse , as the victim was slowly taken apart he/she may have also been forced to watch their loved ones scream in agony as they also went through Lingchi. Surely there could be nothing as terrible and soul destroying as knowing or seeing your entire Family line being tortured in slow agony until eventually dying. All for your sins and in the knowledge you were the reason/cause for it all to happen.
There is one final horrible fear and mental anguish victims were put under due to the widespread (and no doubt encouraged) belief that Lingchi was such a debilitating and horrible way to die, that even in the Afterlife the spirit/soul/mana/being that one became was as broken and disassembled as the Body was when it died and left the mortal coil.This meant that the victims knew and feared as well as believed that even in death they weren’t to be granted any solace or final freedom as even in their Afterlife they would be forever in pieces and not whole.
This was the complex, multi leveled, multi-tiered agonisingly painful slow torture of body , soul , mind and being known as Lingchi…Death by a Thousand Cuts.
POSTSCRIPT: What is perhaps most frightening about this most horrible and painful way to die was how long it was used and practised in China encompassing a period of over 1000 years from when it was first used as the ultimate penalty for treason against the Emperor right up to the early years of the 20th century when it was finally banned in 1905.
The last recorded and known execution by Lingchi was in April 1905 just 2 weeks before it was abolished when used to execute a Mongol Guard who had killed his Master a Prince of Inner Mongolia[1]
Lingchi was still in use when photography became available in the mid 19th Century and as such the photos included in this answer for reference and viewing are highly detailed, graphic and given the subject, gruesome. Readers are advised to consider this before looking at the images.
Photos of Lingchi Victims taken in China in the late 19th Century…
A Lingchi scene depicted on a postcard of the time.
Footnotes
Coby Tran
works at Students
51w ago
Immortality.
Assuming that pain adds up, immortality is the worst way to “go”, because you have all the time in the world to feel pain.
Ok, enough with the jokes. Lingchi was already mentioned, so I’m gonna take a more non-traditional look at this. Instead of looking at purely physical pain, let’s look at the 10 most common fears:
Arachnophobia (spiders)Ophidiophobia (snakes)Acrophobia (heights)Agoraphobia (crowded places)Cynophobia (dogs)Astraphobia (storms)Claustrophobia (small spaces)Mysophobia (germs)Aerophobia (flying)Trypophobia (holes)
(Source: fearof.net)
I think I’ve got it.
Obtain the victim in which you want to kill. Disable them and tie/chain them to a post on a plane. Get the plane flying.When they are still unconscious, get lots of dogs. Put a few snakes here and there, but make sure there’s a vast majority of dogs. Drill a hole just large enough for them to fall through beneath their feet. Right before they wake up, put a lot of spiders in their hair and clothes.When they wake up, it must be storming. Casually mention how sanitary the situation is.
Congratulations, you’ve successfully exploited all of the ten most common fears. They’re on a plane flying (check) far above sea level (check) surrounded by dogs (check), snakes (check) and spiders (check and check). They also have a hole (check) directly beneath them, almost too tight for them to fit (check). It’s also storming outside (check) and the whole situation is just a wonderland for germs (check).
Now the physical torture begins … and not just by your hands anymore, but also theirs.
TL;DR: The worst type of pain cannot be inflicted upon you by others alone … only self inflicted pain can cause that.
Shreedhar Kodate
FreakingEncifer
182w ago
Everyone feels pain in a different manner. Exploiting one’s fear can cause him/her a painful death.
daybreakonline.news.blog 