Showing posts with label Blooddrinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blooddrinking. Show all posts

Submission: The Creepy Truth About Chupacabras

The Americas have many legendary creatures in their folklore like Bigfoot and the Mothman, but arguably its most terrifying legend is the Chupacabra. The name for the creature literally means “goat sucker,” and is derived from reported vampirism of livestock like goats.

Its first sightings were reported in Puerto Rico in 1995, and it's often described as either dog-like or lizard-like in appearance. The chupacabra is also said to be the size of a small bear with a row of spines that goes from its neck to its tail. It’s definitely not a creature you want to encounter in the middle of the night. If that’s not enough, we’ve made a video that looks into more creepy truths about the Chupacabra.

Is it bad to drink blood?

Vampires are real, and they exist in all pockets of society. But is drinking blood safe? What does the science say about sipping on blood?

We humans, we're all just flesh and blood. And as we've already covered the costs of consuming flesh, let's have some banter about imbibing blood.

Inside your vessels (blood vessels that is, not drinking vessels), blood carries just about everything your body needs. It picks up oxygen from the lungs and nutrients from the gut and hand delivers them to your cells.

Pantry Preventatives

Believe it or not, there are things that are common to most household kitchens that were once considered to be vampire-fighting ingredients.

Real Vampires

"Real Vampires"-how can this be anything but a contradiction in terms? We all know about vampires. Stock characters of fiction, guaranteed box-office draws, the media vampire has been familiar to us since childhood. Generally speaking, our blood-suckers appear with a tongue planted firmly in one toothy cheek-from Bela Lugosi hamming it up in the 1950's, to last summer's teenage "vamp" movies, to Count Chocula breakfast cereal, the media seldom treat the vampire as truly fearsome. The stereotyped vampire traits are familiar to any child: vampires have big fangs, sleep in coffins, are instantly incinerated by sunlight, and are best dispatched by a stake through the heart. But the most important "fact" that we all know of course is that there are no such things.


Vampires in Myth and History

Vampire myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. Their variety is almost endless; from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair in China to the Greek Lamia which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged serpent; from vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as the Penanggalang in Malaysia.

However, the vampires we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film, are largely based on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated in the far East, and were transported from places like China, Tibet and India with the trade caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. Here they spread out along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.


Count Dracula and the Folkloric Vampire: Thirteen Comparisons

“There are such beings as vampires ...The nosferatu do not die like the bee when he sting once.” -- Van Helsing (Dracula 286-87)

Western European words such as vampire (English and French) and vampiros (Spanish) derive from vampir which occurs in the Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian languages. The term entered the mainstream press of Western Europe during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century along with sensational reports of “vampire plagues” from Eastern Europe. The original vampir of Slavic folklore was indeed a revenant who left his grave in corporeal form (at least in appearance -- there are cases where the revenant was considered to be the spirit of the dead person), brought death to the living, and returned to his grave periodically. There were other Slavic names for such revenants such as vorkudlak (Serbo-Croatian), obour (Bulgarian), upir (Russian, Ukranian, and Polish). But the name vampire became so fixated in western Europe that it has come to be applied to all the corporeal revenants bringing death to the living which occur in the folk beliefs of Eastern Europe.


Feeding Safely

For any Sang vampire, feeding safely from a donor is of the utmost importance. We have many concerns that need to be addressed when forming a relationship with a new donor, and some that need to be re-addressed when with the donor(s) we may already have. The modern ages have many, many fluid born illnesses we must consider before proceeding.


Sanguine Vampires

An explanation of the word FETISH as used in this article: The word 'fetish' means 'magical implement' - A Fetish is used in magic, for healing and many other positive things. The word in modern day usage has more often come to mean a deviant behavior, a sexual act to help gain arousal or completion. With a blood fetish, it means someone who needs the presence of blood during the sexual act, either their own or that of a partner. The bloodist is usually connected to bondage or S&M, where the entire experience is based on power and control for both, or either, of the participants. A Fetishist can be a Bloodist, but a Bloodist may not be a Vampire.


Blood: How Much Is Too Much?

For some blood drinkers there is no such thing as too much blood. However, However, there is such a thing as giving too much blood. It is important for blood drinkers to be aware of how much blood they are taking from a donor and at what level blood loss causes health problems.

Very few vampires would be willing to go to the doctor and ask about how much blood is okay to take from a donor. On the same note, not many donors would want to go to the doctor and admit that they have been donating to a blood drinker. (ed note: In researching for this article even I was not overly fond of the idea of approaching a doctor.)

Phlebotomy: The art of drawing blood

Treatment Overview

Phlebotomy is a procedure that removes blood from the body. Regular phlebotomy treats people who have too much iron in their blood, such as with hemochromatosis, or who are producing too many red blood cells, such as with polycythemia. Removing blood regularly decreases iron levels in the body by reducing the number of iron-rich red blood cells.

Health professionals perform phlebotomy in a medical clinic. The process is similar to donating blood. A health professional inserts a needle into a vein in your arm and removes about 500 mL(16.9 fl oz) of blood. The procedure takes about 30 minutes. You do not need to fast or make special preparations before phlebotomy.


Vampires: The Real Thing

For the past two years or so, I have researched "real" vampires. The method of my research has been observance of and discussion with those people I have met who claim to be real vampires. I decided to heavily research this topic when an acquaintance of mine claimed to actually be a vampire. Since then, I have cultivated this relationship into a close personal friendship. She was my first contact into the world of vampires and has been my best research associate ever since. Special thanks to her and all the other vampires who have been kind enough to talk about this condition.

Now for the nitty-gritty of real vampires as I have observed them. I have been able to classify real vampires into several categories. These are as follows:


On the terms "Sanguine" and "Sanguinary"

The words sanguine and sanguinary are opposing terms which describe a state of mind. They are NOT plural and singular terms referring to vampyres. To be “sanguine” is to be hopeful, optimistic, enthusiastic and lively, to be “sanguinary” is to be bloodthirsty, savage, ruthless and cruel. Some have misappropriated the term Sanguinary as a noun, as in The Sanguinary. However, when referring to individual members, you should probably be using sanguinary or a non-existing construct such as sanguinarium as the singular and construct a plural form of the noun such as sanguinaries. It is probably massively incorrect to use “sanguine” for both the plural and singular, which is basically saying that vampyres are cheerful ruddy faced cherubs. To be referred to as “sanguinary” may be just as bad, since we would like to assume that vampyres would not want to consider or label themselves as bloodthirsty, cruel ruthless and ferocious murdering savages.



Author: Rev. Osiris Spindell

The Hunger -- Is it controllable?

There is some debate about whether or not vampires are able to go for any prolonged amount of time without feeding. With some research I was able to find that some vampires say they are unable to go any real length of time without blood, they find the pains become unbearable. They may suffer from insomnia, headaches, cramps, and so on. These people resort to drinking animal blood, or in some cases auto-vampirism.

However, there is an equal amount of vampires that go forever without feeding on blood. Some people believe that this is because they have psychic vampirism capabilities and are able to feed off of other peoples life energies that way. Is it possible that the vampires that can't go without are lacking this capability?


Youth Vampire Culture: From the Darkness Toward the Light

As a growing number of youths in America begin to challenge the notion of inequality and repression, they are turning their heads away from the darkness of society's constraints and toward the light of the freedom of a vampire lifestyle. Vampires today symbolize power and life for many youth, including Asian Americans.

The idea of what is a vampire has changed across time. As legend has it, vampires are creatures of the night, damned for eternity to feed on the blood of the living for survival, feared and hated by the world. If this is the legend of vampire, how did their image change over the years? To understand the evolution of vampires, you must first look at its very beginnings.


Staking Claims: The Vampires of Folklore and Fiction

We know about Dracula and the would-be vampires in the news, but what were the "real" vampires all about? People who learn that I wrote a book on vampire lore often say, "Oh, you mean like Vlad Drakul?"


Sanguine Feeding Lecture

All right, first of all, if you are under 18, easily offended or not interested in the topic of bloodplay and its safety, you might as well hit the "back" button on your browser and leave now. No insult is meant, this page is simply not for you.

Still here? Okay. I am only going over feeding methods for blood drinkers here, not anything on psivampirism or sexual vampirism. I don't know too much on those topics, so I have no authority to speak on them. I have been drinking blood for over 9 years now, so I do have some experience. Also look up the Sanguinarius Vampire Support Page and the article in "Blue Blood" magazine by Rev. Fish for other information and views.


Genetics Theory on the Origins of Vampirism

The first essay covers the commonly accepted Vampire Virus theory. It also goes through he process of the Change for vampires. I cannot write on the process of the Change in different races of Otherkin (having no experience with such) but would welcome articles or ideas from such people.

The Second essay is my theory on genetic memory as a way to explain reincarnation. It leads into the subjects covered in the third essay. The third essay is much newer and covers a current theory of mine. I have published both so that the reader may see vampirism from two points of view. I currently consider this hypothesis more likely, but that can always change based on research.


Vampires: a pain in the neck

Dr. Stephen Kaplan met me in a coffee shop at an anonymous intersection of Queens, New York.

He was cautious about having strangers over to his house, he said, because in his line of work he ran into some very weird people. "Murderers, psychopaths, blood cultists, vampiroids, degenerates...last year I got fan mail from a werewolf in Georgia…"


What Every Blood Drinker Should Know

There are few things more disturbing than contracting a life threatening disease from sheer ignorance. In this day and age there is no real reason one cannot access the information they need to reduce the risks of blood feeding. Unfortunately, myths surrounding blood borne diseases and how they are transmitted are still rampant. The most frightening myths are probably those surrounding HIV.


Real Vampires

There are many myths surrounding vampirism in the context of reailty. Some of these myths serve to amuse real vampires and other tend to frustrate them. Perhaps most frustrating of all is that the myths perpetrate this idea of what a vampire is and the romantized version leaves some believing that they want to be a vampire Then of course there is the other end of this which mostly encompasses the unbelievers.


The Blood Is the ... Food?

Over the centuries people like the Mongolian warriors used animal blood as a source of food, often ingesting it fresh. Today, some Masai of Tanzania still follow this practice, ingesting blood for nutrition as they travel with their herds. Elsewhere, blood (primarily from pigs, cows, chickens and geese) is still used as a thickening agent in some dishes, such as blood sausage (also known as black pudding because of the dark color of cooked blood).

Blood should never be boiled, or it will clot. A little vinegar keeps blood from clotting during storage. In winemaking, blood is used as a fining agent to help clear suspended particles and clarify the wine.

Blood is usually available by special order through some butcher shops.



Source: FoodNetwork
Ownership: Copyright (c) 1995 by Barron's Educational Series, from The New Food Lover's Companion, Second Edition, by Sharon Tyler Herbst

Human Living Vampires - What Investigators Need to Know

Forensic nurses, regardless of their practice area, will at times come in contact with the same types of deviant behavior. Some of these behaviors may be considered rare or even non-existent. It is to our benefit that we share our investigative experiences with these cases. Vampirism is one such behavior.

In the modern age, vampires have become media stars. The word "vampire" became a household name in 1897 after the publication of "Dracula."1 More recently, the vampire novels by Anne Rice have become best sellers.2 Television shows such as "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer" and movies with vampire themes are increasingly popular. However the popularity of these characters can lead some people, teenagers in particular, down a dangerous road.


Case Study


Hunger For the Marvelous: The Vampire Craze in the Computer Age

This summer may have been the season of bats and Batman, but the rest of the year belongs to the vampire. If pop culture's current preoccupation forecasts what to expect from the '90s, we're in for a lively time.

Little did anyone know when Anne Rice first published Interview with the Vampire in 1976 that it would grow into a trilogy (The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned) that has sold millions. Or that it would spawn an invasion of the undead and raise some interesting questions about why the computer generation has such a fascination with getting its bytes the old-fashioned way.


Coffin Medicine

New research explodes the bloody myths of vampirism

Scary tales about vampires and werewolves continue to be a lucrative Hollywood staple. The evil bloodsuckers who slept in caskets, hid from sunlight, and feared crosses and garlic, have experienced a movie renaissance with the recent sawtooth cinema of Blade and John Carpenter's Vampires, while the premise of hairy, lupine creatures baying at a full moon resulted in the Christmas 1997 release of An American Werewolf in Paris.


Finding Substitutes

A lot of vampires tell me, "No substitute can quench my thirst for blood." While this may or may not be true, more than usual, these folks haven't taken the time to find substitutes that suit them.


Vampires: Eternal Bloodlust

Everybody knows vampires, those immortal creatures that drink the blood of their victims. Hollywood is especially fond of them -- there are probably as many vampire pictures as there are gangster movies. In fact, it's mostly through this medium that they've gained their popularity.

With the new vampire flick Eternal coming out soon, interest in the genre is expected to shoot up again. Let's get prepped by exploring the mythical world of vampires from a scientific, historical and sociological standpoint.

Some info:

Let's start with what most of us know of the vampire myth.

Christianity and Vampirism

Long before the Christian church began to unfold its wings throughout Europe, the vampire was an established myth. Vampire-like creatures had been a part of superstition since ancient Greece. The roots of the vampire were Pagan in nature, and the beliefs were widespread. The relationship that eventually formed between vampires and the Christian God is a tale riddled with irony.



In The Blood: A serious look at vampire-myth origins

Part One

For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement. (Leviticus 17:11)

Any broad exploration of pre-Industrial European society cannot help but touch upon the plethora of peasant tales that both served to entertain the populace and teach morality to the children of Europe. On surface examination, at least, this function of folklore seems apparent enough. It is a perfectly valid assessment of the function of common fable--but in many respects, it is inadequate. Peasant tales served, in many cases, as more than simple fables. The fact that the vast bulk of European humanity remained illiterate in pre-Industrial Europe should stimulate questions about the more complex and subliminal purposes of this entirely oral form of literature.


Vampire Physiology

Blood

Blood has been a symbol of life since very ancient times. The blood in our veins has always been iconic of our continuing life. To lose too much blood is to lose consciousness, breath, and eventually, our very lives. If a person or animal is already dead and is cut open, blood does not flow. Only the living have blood that flows. Blood has been used throughout the ages as a ceremonial sacrifice. In pagan times our forefathers worshipped their gods with blood sacrifice. And today, indeed, we are not so different. Even in modern times, in our churches, there are those taking communion or the Eucharist, and drinking of the wine that symbolizes Christ's blood.

It seems appropriate, then, that this creature who is an antithesis of both death and life should gain his strength from feeding from the life's blood of humans. For the vampire, the drinking of blood is its life, its sustenance, and the single thing that makes it identifiable all around the world, regardless of the culture in which you were raised or the language you speak.


Vampire Creation Myths

Cain and Lilith

This myth begins at the very creation of man. Lilith, according to Hebrew/Jewish texts, was the first woman created for Adam.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it.

Genesis 1:27-28


Vampire and Ghost Stories from Russia

The Coffin Lid

A moujik was driving along one night with a load of pots. His horse grew tired, and all of a sudden it came to a stand-still alongside of a graveyard. The moujik unharnessed his horse and set it free to graze; meanwhile he laid himself down on one of the graves. But somehow he didn't go to sleep.

He remained lying there some time. Suddenly the grave began to open beneath him: he felt the movement and sprang to his feet. The grave opened, and out of it came a corpse -- wrapped in a white shroud, and holding a coffin lid -- came out and ran to the church, laid the coffin-lid at the door, and then set off for the village.


The Compulsion of Real/Reel Serial Killers and Vampires: Toward a Gothic Criminology

ABSTRACT

The most gripping and recurrent visualizations of the "monstrous" in the media and film lay bare the tensions that underlie the contemporary construction of the "monstrous," which ranges in the twilit realm where divisions separating fact, fiction, and myth are porous—a gothic mode. There appear to be two monstrous figures in contemporary popular culture whose constructions blur into each other, and who most powerfully evoke not only our deepest fears and taboos, but also our most repressed fantasies and desires: the serial killer and the vampire.


Vampires and Blood Types

Did you know?

"For the blood is the life," highly quoted in vampire literature, is a direct quote from the Bible.


An Essay on Vampire Biology

Before speculating on any specific pathogens capable of producing a condition akin to vampirism, I wish to post an old line of reasoning on how vampires manage to survive on a diet which contains so much water and so little else.

Speculation on the subject of the dietary requirements of vampires must first deal with what the blood is actually being used for. Some fiction, including Elrod's novels, seems to assume that it is for circulatory purposes. I am inclined to doubt this, in view of the general agreement that hose who walk by night need not breathe. If the lungs are not being ventilated, the purpose of blood circulation to the tissues seems questionable at best.


A Freudian interpretation of the vampire myth

by Laura Collopy

The vampire is a monster that has both thrilled and terrified people for hundreds of years, from sophisticated Parisian theatre-goers to quaking Eastern European peasants. Elements of the vampire legend are found in North and South America, Europe, and Asia are older than Christianity. Although the modus operandi and physical appearance may differ from culture to culture, one thing remains constant: The vampire is an animated corpse, un-dead and kicking through the intervention of Satan and the warm blood of his living victims.

Few folkloric creations have survived for so long in such diverse cultural and geographic situations, and therefore, there must be something common to human nature to create such universality and endurance. A Freudian interpretation of the myth can uncover such a bond.


The Vampire Clan

Original news report:

MURRAY, Kentucky: (AP) -- For years, this quiet college town was perhaps best known as home of the national Boy Scout museum. Now it is newly notorious, and its residents increasingly afraid, with the discovery that some of its teens belonged to a vampire cult. The news that four area teen-agers are suspected of beating a Florida couple to death was frightening enough. Now prosecutors say the youths were involved in a strange role-playing game that went much too far -- from the mutilation of animals to drinking each other's blood and eventually to murder.

Vampires in Myth and History

Vampire myths go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. Their variety is almost endless; from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair in China to the Greek Lamia which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged serpent; from vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as the Penanggalang in Malaysia.

However, the vampires we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film, are largely based on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated in the far East, and were transported from places like China, Tibet and India with the trade caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. Here they spread out along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.


Mortal Blood Drinkers of the Past

Dracula. The name has become synonymous with vampirism in the past century thanks to Bram Stoker's 1897 novel of the same name and Bela Lugosi's portrayal of the character on the screen. Of course, the Dracula of the silver screen does not closely resemble the literary Dracula. Whoever reads the novel after seeing any of the hundreds of images of vampires that fill stores every Halloween is likely to be quite shocked.


Bloodlines: A Brief on the life and death of Hungary's infamous Blood Countess, Elizabeth Bathory-Nadasdy

by Mathew Amaral

The infamous "Blood Countess" of Transylvania, who was purported to be a witch, vampire, werewolf, and supposedly bathed in the blood of virgins in order to maintain her beautiful and youthful appearance, has been the subject of many legends some of which have affected even the American culture half a world away. Dracula, created by the Irish author Bram Stoker, was based, albeit loosely, on the Romanian Prince, Vlad Dracula, the Impaler. Raymond T. McNally, who has written four books on the figure of Dracula in history, literature, and vampirism, in his fifth book, "Dracula was a Woman," presents insights into the fact that Stoker's Count Dracula was also strongly influenced by the legends of Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary. Why, for example, make a Romanian Prince into a Hungarian Count? Why, if there are no accounts of Vlad Dracula drinking human blood, does blood drinking consume the Dracula of Stoker's novel, who, contrary to established vampire myth, seems to appear younger after doing so? The answers, of course, lie in examining the story of Countess Elizabeth Bathory.


Bram Stoker, Elizabeth Bathory and Dracula

by Elizabeth Miller



[The following is a revised excerpt from Elizabeth Miller, Dracula: Sense & Nonsense (2000). Further details about this book can be found at http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/SNinfo.htm]



"[Bathory's] legend certainly played a major role in the creation of the character of Count Dracula." (Raymond McNally, Dracula was a Woman, 99)

Rubbish!


Biographical Notes for the Life of Elizabeth Bathory

Excerpted with the Author's Permission from The Dracula Book by Donald F. Glut, The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Metuchen, N.J. 1975

published in the U.S. as The Truth About Dracula. You can visit Donald F. Glut's web site by clicking here (New York: Stein and Day) was another scholarly investigation of Dracula and the un-dead. Much space was devoted to the origins of vampire traditions and to Countess Elizabeth Bathory, whose deeds, according to Ronay, could have influenced Bram Stoker's literary creation of Count Dracula." p. 16

Anne Rice's Vampires

Did you know?

The birth of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles occurred while she was mourning the death of her daughter, the inspiration for Claudia in the 1976 novel Interview With the Vampire. The movie rights to Interview were purchased back in 1976, but the film wasn't produced until 1994.

== Method of creation of fledglings ==

In almost all cases, fledglings are created when a master vampire chooses a successor or 'child' and drains him or her almost to the point of death. The victim then, if possible, drinks some of the old one's blood in return. This is necessarily an act of will and trust as well as a physical exchange. One unusual characteristic is that after the transformation, the fledgling and the master can no longer psychically hear one another.


The Vampire's Dilemma: Animal Rights and Parasitical Nature

Imagine that you are a twenty-five-year-old living in New Orleans, called Louis. The date is 1791. You suffer a terrible bereavement due to the untimely death of your brother -- a death for which you blame yourself. You spend nights drinking in New Orleans in a state of near despair. One night, just a few steps from your door, you are attacked by an unknown assailant. To experience family bereavement, to be consumed by guilt and remorse, to verge on the abyss of despair -- surely these are terrible things. Even more terrible when one is violently attacked -- without provocation -- to boot. And yet such is the way of life that as terrible things are happening to us, even more terrible things are just round the corner.


Lore of the Vampire

The vampire has held its place in superstition as long as any other creature. The vampire of today is, for the most part, quite different from the one of ancient times. In researching the vampire lore, I attempted to find out just how different they are. I wondered what people thought of them now compared to yesteryear.


Deconstructing the Myths of Vampire Folklore and Examining the Truths of Modern Day Vampires

Why do we, as humans, have a long standing fascination with vampires? Is it our own morbid love affair with death? Or perhaps the twisted psyche of the unknown afterlife which has incarnated into this hideous, Earthly creature? It may be impossible to ever say. There is one thing for certain, however, and that is this: vampires have always, and will always, continue to emerge in various forms throughout history. They have already been with us for many generations, through a myriad ghoulish lore.


Richard Trenton Chase - Vampire Killer of Sacramento

The Making of a Vampire


Richard Trenton Chase had a thing for blood. He also had a fear of disintegrating.

Born May 23, 1950, he liked to set fires as a child and to torment animals. He had a sister, four years younger, and his father was a strict disciplinarian who bickered constantly with his wife. By the time Richard was ten, he was killing cats. As a teenager, he drank and smoked dope, getting into trouble several times but showing no shame over it


The Real Prince Dracula

Yes, there was a real Dracula, and he was a true prince of darkness. He was Prince Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad Tepes, meaning "Vlad the Impaler." The Turks called him Kaziglu Bey, or "the Impaler Prince." He was the prince of Walachia, but, as legend suggests, he was born in Transylvania, which at that time was ruled by Hungary.


Jewish Vampirology

The Blood Is the Life

"The blood is the life", states the Torah, and also declares "the life-force of all creatures resides in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11). Eating blood is strictly forbidden by the Torah. Yet if one were to do so, he would acquire some measure of the semi-spiritual nature of the demons. They are not truly spiritual, since they must eat blood to live; yet they are not strictly bound to physical matter, insofar as they possess the power of invisibility, and the ability to travel great distances quickly. These are precisely the attributes ascribed to vampires! As the Sforno explains (Leviticus 17:7):


Creatures of the Night

There is no known culture on this planet that has not at one time or another cowered in fear because of the savage attacks of a nocturnal predator known as a therianthrope, a human-animal hybrid such as a werewolf, "werebear," "werelion," or a "were-something." Such creatures were painted by Stone Age artists more than 10,000 years ago and represent some of the world's oldest cave art—and they probably precipitated some of the world's first nightmares.


Peering Into a Hunter: Vampires of the World

At the beginning of this informational document, I believe it would be courteous to introduce myself. I am Chris Young, a long-time collector of Vampire information. Over the years, through my studies, I have collected quite a large amount of vampire information, both mythical, and factual. Now, some of you may be think at this point that by factual, I mean pieces of medical information that I will use to attempt to prove or disprove the existence of vampires. In all actuality, I will keep my own personal beliefs on the subject to myself. I encourage you to read the ENTIRE document before making any rash decisions about my writing, insights, or your own beliefs. This is to be an unbiased piece of writing, and my own beliefs will not enter into it. Or, at least, I will keep their entrance to a minimum; to completely exclude them would not be an easy task, if it were possible at all.


Vampyric Myths and Christian Symbolism: The Love Story of Bram Stoker's "Dracula"

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror we are still just able to bear
Rainer Maria Rilke: "The Duino Elegies"


In this paper, I will present my reflections and thoughts on the myth of Dracula in particular, and the vampyre in general, as a love story and show the deeply rooted links between the two myths and Christianity, as refracted through the prism of Francis Ford Coppola's film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).

John George Haigh: The Acid Bath Vampire

Missing Person

On Thursday, March 3, 1949, London's Daily Mirror began a series of macabre stories about murder that began with the headline, "Hunt for the Vampire." They did not name names, but it became common knowledge that a certain prisoner was the man to whom they referred—one John George Haigh.


Peter Kurten: The Vampire of Dusseldorf

The Early Crimes

In the entire history of crime no one killer has caused such widespread fear and indignation as that created by Peter Kürten in Düsseldorf in the inter-war period. It may be said – and without exaggeration – that the epidemic of sexual outrages and murders occurring between February and November 1929 provoked a wave of sheer horror and contempt not only in Germany, but throughout the entire world. The subject of extensive judicial examination, justice has sought not only to punish the killer for his crimes, but also to probe the mind and soul of this outrageously enigmatic man. A clinical study of Kürten has rewarded diligent and patient analysis with an enlargement of abnormal and pathological crime.


Peter Kurten, the ‘Vampire of Düsseldorf’

First appeared in Crimes and Punishment 1973/1976 Phoebus Publishing Co.



The Epitome of Sexual Deviancy

His mild manners and soft-spoken courteousness placed him above suspicion, and to most people he appeared to be totally harmless. Yet his bourgeois exterior concealed one of the most brutal sadists of modern times...

The History of Vampires

I. It Started With Blood

The Vampire persona has evolved from many true and untrue facts, legends and myths. At various times vampires, real and imagined, have been considered fiends, supernatural beings, shape-shifters, mentally disturbed deviants, satanic servants and fetish followers. However, it all began and still revolves around a taste for blood!

Contrary to the popular belief that Vampire history, stories and legends began with Vlad the Impaler, they go back much further than that. Many ancient societies worshipped blood thirty gods. This caused people to begin to associate blood with divinity, leading to the development of the early vampire cults. Regardless of the spiritual value, some people have always had a desire to drink blood and the reasons are as varied as the practitioners. In some societies the practice was accepted, as in ancient Egypt. But in others, vampirism was considered deviant behavior and condemned.

Vampires: Origins of the Myth

The Blood is the Life

"My Friend -- Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence [traveling party] will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land."


The Vampire, or The Bride of the Isles

This play was written in 1820, adapted from John Polidori's "The Vampyre." This is probably the only version in which Lord Ruthven wears full Highland regalia, kilt and all. The producers of this play are also credited with inventing the trick trap door on the stage floor for their anti-hero to "vanish" into, still known in theatre terminology as a "vampire trap."






INTRODUCTORY VISION

The Curtain rises to slow Music, and discovers the Interior of the Basaltic Caverns of Staffa, at the extremity of which is a chasm opening to the air. The moonlight streams through it, and partially reveals a number of rude sepulchres. On one of these LADY MARGARET is seen, stretched in a heavy slumber. The Spirit of the Flood rises to the symphony of the following...



Der Vampir

Published in 1748, this is credited as the first modern vampire poem.



My dear young maiden clingeth
Unbending fast and firm
To all the long-held teaching
Of a mother ever true;
As in vampires unmortal
Folk on the Theyse's portal
Heyduck-like do believe.
But my Christine thou dost dally,
And wilt my loving parry
Till I myself avenging
To a vampire's health a-drinking
Him toast in pale tockay.


The Book of Were-Wolves

Synopsis: Sabine Baring-Gould was a parson in the Church of England, an archaeologist, historian and a prolific author. He is best known for writing the hymn 'Onward Christian Soldiers'. This book is also one of the most cited references about werewolves. Published in 1865, this book starts off with a straightforward academic review of the literature of shape-shifting; however, starting with Chapter XI, the narrative takes a strange turn into sensationalistic 'true crime' case-studies of cannibals, grave desecrators, and blood fetishists, which have a tenuous connection with lycanthropy.


The Succubus

Synopsis: A short story is about a 1271 trial of a she-devil succubus in the guise of a woman, who amongst other things could use her hair to entangle victims.




Prologue

A number of persons of the noble country of Touraine, considerably edified by the warm search which the author is making into the antiquities, adventures, good jokes, and pretty tales of that blessed land, and believing for certain that he should know everything, have asked him (after drinking with him of course understood), if he had discovered the etymological reason, concerning which all the ladies of the town are so curious, and from which a certain street in Tours is called the Rue Chaude.


Montague Summers’ Guide to Vampires

INTRODUCTION

Anyone curious about the legendary background of vampires is soon bound to stumble across Montague Summers, whose writings in the 1920s established him as the foremost authority of the time and, as it happens, ever since. The Vampire: His Kith and Kin (1928) and The Vampire in Europe (1929) investigated the subject and all its ramifications in fantastic detail, presenting a record of folk beliefs about death and vampires that is unlikely to be equalled for sheer scope and depth.


For the Blood is the Life

We had dined at sunset on the broad roof of the old tower, because it was cooler there during the great heat of summer. Besides, the little kitchen was built at one corner of the great square platform, which made it more convenient than if the dishes had to be carried down the steep stone steps, broken in places and everywhere worn with age. The tower was one of those built all down the west coast of Calabria by the Emperor Charles V early in the sixteenth century, to keep off the Barbary pirates, when the unbelievers were allied with Francis I against the Emperor and the Church. They have gone to ruin, a few still stand intact, and mine is one of the largest. How it came into my possession ten years ago, and why I spend a part of each year in it, are matters which do not concern this tale.


Vikram and the Vampire

PREFACE

The Baital-Pachisi, or Twenty-five Tales of a Baital is the history of a huge Bat, Vampire, or Evil Spirit which inhabited and animated dead bodies. It is an old, and thoroughly Hindu, Legend composed in Sanskrit, and is the germ which culminated in the Arabian Nights, and which inspired the "Golden Ass" of Apuleius, Boccacio's "Decamerone," the "Pentamerone," and all that class of facetious fictitious literature.


The Werewolf of Paris

INTRODUCTION

Where shall I begin my tale?

This one has neither beginning nor end, but only a perpetual unfolding, a multi-petaled blossom of strange botany.