The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

His name was Thorne. In the ancient language of the runes, it had been longer–Thornevald. But when he became a blood drinker, his name had been changed to Thorne. And Thorne he remained now, centuries later, as he lay in his cave in the ice, dreaming.



When he had first come to the frozen land, he had hoped he would sleep eternally. But now and then the thirst for blood awakened him, and using the Cloud Gift, he rose into the air, and went in search of the Snow Hunters.



He fed off them, careful never to take too much blood from any one so that

none died on account of him. And when he needed furs and boots he took

them as well, and returned to his hiding place.



These Snow Hunters were not his people. They were dark of skin and had slanted eyes, and they spoke a different tongue, but he had known them in the olden times when he had traveled with his uncle into the land to the East for trading. He had not liked trading. He had preferred war. But he’d learnt many things on those adventures.



In his sleep in the North, he dreamed. He could not help it. The Mind Gift let him hear the voices of other blood drinkers.



Unwillingly he saw through their eyes, and beheld the world as they beheld it. Sometimes he didn’t mind. He liked it. Modern things amused him. He listened to far-away electric songs. With the Mind Gift he understood such things as steam engines and railroads; he even understood computers and automobiles. He felt he knew the cities he had left behind though it had been centuries since he’d forsaken them.



An awareness had come over him that he wasn’t going to die. Loneliness in itself could not destroy him. Neglect was insufficient. And so he slept.



Then a strange thing happened. A catastrophe befell the world of the blood drinkers.



A young singer of sagas had come. His name was Lestat, and in his electric songs, Lestat broadcast old secrets, secrets which Thorne had never known.



Then a Queen had risen, an evil and ambitious being. She had claimed to have within her the Sacred Core of all blood drinkers, so that, should she die, all the race would perish with her.



Thorne had been amazed.



He had never heard these myths of his own kind. He did not know that he believed this thing.



But as he slept, as he dreamt, as he watched, this Queen began, with the Fire Gift, to destroy blood drinkers everywhere throughout the world. Thorne heard their cries as they tried to escape; he saw their deaths in so far as others saw such things.



As she roamed the earth, this Queen came close to Thorne but she passed over him. He was secretive and quiet in his cave. Perhaps she didn’t sense his presence. But he had sensed hers and never had he encountered such age or strength except from the blood drinker who had given him the Blood.



And he found himself thinking of that one, the Maker, the red-haired witch with the bleeding eyes.



The catastrophe among his kind grew worse. More were slain; and out of hiding there came blood drinkers as old as the Queen herself, and Thorne saw these beings.



At last there came the red-haired one who had made him. He saw her as others saw her. And at first he could not believe that she still lived; it had been so long since he’d left her in the Far South that he hadn’t dared to hope she was still alive. The eyes and ears of other blood drinkers gave him the infallible proof. And when he looked on her in his dreams, he was overwhelmed with a tender feeling and a rage.



She thrived, this creature who had given him the Blood, and she despised the Evil Queen and she wanted to stop her. Theirs was a hatred for each other which went back thousands of years.



At last there was a coming together of these beings–old ones from the First Brood of blood drinkers, and others whom the blood drinker Lestat loved and whom the Evil Queen did not choose to destroy.



Dimly, as he lay still in the ice, Thorne heard their strange talk, as round a table they sat, like so many powerful Knights, except that in this council, the women were equal to the men.



With the Queen they sought to reason, struggling to persuade her to end her reign of violence, to forsake her evil designs.



He listened, but he could not really understand all that was said among these blood drinkers. He knew only that the Queen must be stopped.



The Queen loved the blood drinker Lestat. But even he could not turn her from disasters, so reckless was her vision, so depraved her mind.



Did the Queen truly have the Sacred Core of all blood drinkers within herself? If so, how could she be destroyed?



Thorne wished the Mind Gift were stronger in him, or that he had used it more often. During his long centuries of sleep, his strength had grown, but now he felt his distance and that he was weak.



But as he watched, his eyes open, as though that might help him to see, there came into his vision another red-haired one, the twin sister of the woman who had loved him so long ago. It astonished him, as only a twin can do.



And Thorne came to understand that the Maker he had loved so much had lost this twin thousands of years ago.



The Evil Queen was the mistress of this disaster. She despised the red-haired twins. She had divided them. And the lost twin came now to fulfill an ancient curse she had laid on the Evil Queen.



As she drew closer and closer to the Queen, the lost twin thought only of destruction. She did not sit at the council table. She did not know reason or restraint.



“We shall all die,” Thorne whispered in his sleep, drowsy in the snow and ice, the eternal arctic night coldly enclosing him. He did not move to join his immortal companions. But he watched. He listened. He would do so until the last moment. He could do no less.



Finally, the lost twin reached her destination. She rose against the Queen. The other blood drinkers around her looked on in horror. As the two

female beings struggled, as they fought as two warriors upon a

battlefield, a strange vision suddenly filled Thorne’s mind utterly, as though he lay in the snow and he were looking at the heavens.



What he saw was a great intricate web stretching out in all directions, and caught within it many pulsing points of light. At the very center of this web was a single vibrant flame. He knew the flame was the Queen; and he knew that the other points of light were all the other blood drinkers. He himself was one of those tiny points of light. The tale of the Sacred Core was true. He could see it with his own eyes. And now came the moment for all to surrender to darkness and silence. Now came the end.



The far-flung complex web grew glistening and bright; the core appeared to explode; and then all went dim for a long moment, during which he felt a sweet vibration in his limbs as he often felt in simple sleep, and he thought to himself, Ah, so, now we are dying. And there is no pain.



Yet it was like Ragnarok for his old gods, when the great god, Heimdall, the World Brightener, would blow his horn summoning the gods of Aiser to their final battle.



“And we end with a war as well,” Thorne whispered in his cave. But his thoughts did not end.



It seemed the best thing that he live no more, until he thought of her, his red-haired one, his Maker. He had wanted so badly to see her again.



Why had she never told him of her lost twin? Why had she never entrusted to him the myths of which the blood drinker Lestat sang? Surely she had known the secret of the Evil Queen with her Sacred Core.



He shifted; he stirred in his sleep. The great sprawling web had faded from his vision. But with uncommon clarity he could see the red-haired twins, spectacular women.



They stood side by side, these comely creatures, the one in rags, the other in splendor. And through the eyes of other blood drinkers he came to know that the stranger twin had slain the Queen, and had taken the Sacred Core within herself.



“Behold, the Queen of the Damned,” said his Maker twin as she presented to the others her long-lost sister. Thorne understood her. Thorne saw the suffering in her face. But the face of the stranger twin, the Queen of the Damned, was blank.



In the nights that followed the survivors of the catastrophe remained together. They told their tales to one another. And their stories filled the air like so many songs from the bards of old, sung in the mead hall. And Lestat, leaving his electric instruments for music, became once more the chronicler, making a story of the battle that he would pass effortlessly into the mortal world.



Soon the red-haired sisters had moved away, seeking a hiding place where Thorne’s distant eye could not find them.



Be still, he had told himself. Forget the things that you have seen. There is no reason for you to rise from the ice, any more than there ever was. Sleep is your friend. Dreams are your unwelcome guests.



Lie quiet and you will lapse back into peace again. Be like the god Heimdall before the battle call, so still that you can hear the wool grow on the backs of sheep, and the grass grow far away in the lands where the snow melts.



But more visions came to him.



The blood drinker Lestat brought about some new and confusing tumult in the mortal world. It was a marvelous secret from the Christian past that he bore, which he had entrusted to a mortal girl.



There would never be any peace for this one called Lestat. He was like one of Thorne’s people, like one of the warriors of Thorne’s time.



Thorne watched as once again, his red-haired one appeared, his lovely Maker, her eyes red with mortal blood as always, and finely glad and full of authority and power, and this time come to bind the unhappy blood drinker Lestat in chains.



Chains that could bind such a powerful one?



Thorne pondered it. What chains could accomplish this, he wondered. It seemed that he had to know the answer to this question. And he saw his red-haired one sitting patiently by while the blood drinker Lestat, bound and helpless, fought and raved but could not get free.



What were they made of, these seemingly soft shaped links that held such a being? The question left Thorne no peace. And why did his red-haired Maker love Lestat and allow him to live? Why was she so quiet as the young one raved? What was it like to be bound in her chains, and close to her?



Memories came back to Thorne; troubling visions of his Maker when he, a mortal warrior, had first come upon her in a cave in the North land that had been his home. It had been night and he had seen her with her distaff and her spindle and her bleeding eyes.



From her long red locks she had taken one hair after another and spun it into thread, working with silent speed as he approached her.



It had been bitter winter, and the fire behind her seemed magical in its brightness as he had stood in the snow watching her as she spun the thread as he had seen a hundred mortal women do.



“A witch,” he had said aloud.



From his mind he banished this memory.



He saw her now as she guarded Lestat who had become strong like her. He saw the strange chains that bound Lestat who no longer struggled.



At last Lestat had been released.



Gathering up the magical chains, his red-haired Maker had abandoned him and his companions.



The others were visible but she had slipped out of their vision, and slipping from their vision, she slipped from the visions of Thorne.



Once again, he vowed to continue his slumber. He opened his mind to sleep. But the nights passed one by one in his icy cave. The noise of the world was deafening and formless.



And as time passed he could not forget the sight of his long-lost one; he could not forget that she was as vital and beautiful as she had ever been, and old thoughts came back to him with bitter sharpness.



Why had they quarreled? Had she really ever turned her back on him? Why had he hated so much her other companions? Why had he begrudged her the wanderer blood drinkers who, discovering her and her company, adored her as all talked together of their journeys in the Blood.



And the myths–of the Queen and the Sacred Core–would they have mattered to him? He didn’t know. He had had no hunger for myths. It confused him. And he could not banish from his mind the picture of Lestat bound in those mysterious chains.



Memory wouldn’t leave him alone.



It was the middle of winter when the sun doesn’t shine at all over the ice, when he realized that sleep had left him. And he would have no further peace.



And so he rose from the cave, and began his long walk South through the snow, taking his time as he listened to the electric voices of the world below, not certain of where he would enter it again.



The wind blew his long thick red hair; he pulled up his fur-lined collar over his mouth, and he wiped the ice from his eyebrows. His boots were soon wet, and so he stretched out his arms, summoning the Cloud Gift without words, and began his ascent so that he might travel low over the land, listening for others of his kind, hoping to find an old one like himself, someone who might welcome him.



Weary of the Mind Gift and its random messages, he wanted to hear spoken words.



Copywrite Anne Rice

1999

1) What actor has played Dracula more than any other actor?



2) How did the vampire's high-collared cape originate?



3) How many times did Bram Stoker travel to Transylvania in order to research his famous novel?



4) Name one actor Anne Rice wanted to play the role of Lestat, before she saw Tom Cruise's performance in the part.



5) What author wrote several books about a vampire called the Count of Saint Germain?







ANSWERS

1) Christopher Lee (not Bela Lugosi as you might think).



2) Hamilton Deane toured a play based on Dracula that was very popular from about 1924 to 1927 in England. The actor Raymond Huntley, who played the part of Dracula had to supply his own evening clothes, but not the cape, which was considered a prop. When the actor stood with his back to the audience, the tall collar hid his head, allowing him to seemingly vanish from sight, while actually disappearing down a trap door.



3) Bram Stoker never went to Transylvania. Instead he researched the area through a number of books. Stoker took meticulous notes and incorporated considerable detail from his reading about Transylvania into his novel.



3) Rutger Hauer - Rice had seen him in Blade Runner and thought he would be perfect. However, now that she has seen Tom Cruise as Lestat, she thinks he's great.



5) Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.

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.



Our modern concept of the vampire still retains threads, such as blood drinking, return from death, preying on humans at night, etc in common with the Eastern European myths. However many things we are familiar with; the wearing of evening clothes, capes with tall collars, turning into bats, etc are much more recent inventions.



On the other hand, many features of the old myths such as the placing of millet or poppy seeds at the gravesite in order to keep the vampire occupied all night counting seeds rather than preying on relatives, have all but disappeared from modern fiction and film.



Even among the Eastern European countries there is a large variety of vampires.







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SLAVIC VAMPIRES:

The Slavic people including most east Europeans from Russia to Bulgaria, Serbia to Poland, have the richest vampire folklore and legends in the world. The Slavs came from north of the Black Sea and were closely associated with the Iranians. Prior to 8th century AD they migrated north and west to where they are now.

Christianization began almost as soon as they arrived in their new homelands. But through the 9th and 10th centuries the Eastern Orthodox Church and the western Roman Church were struggling with each other for supremacy. They formally broke in 1054 AD, with the Bulgarians, Russians, and Serbians staying Orthodox, while the Poles, Czechs, and Croatians went Roman. This split caused a big difference in the development of vampire lore - the Roman church believed incorrupt bodies were saints, while the Orthodox church believed they were vampires.



The origin of Slavic vampire myths developed during 9th C as a result of conflict between pre-Christian paganism and Christianity. Christianity won out with the vampires and other pagan beliefs surviving in folklore.



Causes of vampirism included: being born with a caul, teeth, or tail, being conceived on certain days, irregular death, excommunication, improper burial rituals etc. Preventative measures included: placing a crucifix in the coffin, or blocks under the chin to prevent the body from eating the shroud, nailing clothes to coffin walls for the same reason, placing millet or poppy seeds in the grave because vampires had a fascination with counting, or piercing the body with thorns or stakes.



Evidence that a vampire was at work in the neighbourhood included: death of cattle, sheep, relatives, neighbours, exhumed bodies being in a lifelike state with new growth of the fingernails or hair, or if the body was swelled up like a drum, or there was blood on the mouth and if the corpse had a ruddy complexion.



Vampires could be destroyed by staking, decapitation (the Kashubs placed the head between the feet), burning, repeating the funeral service, holy water on the grave, exorcism.







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ROMANIA:

Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries, so it isn't surprising that their vampires are variants of the Slavic vampire. They are called Strigoi based on the Roman term strix for screech owl which also came to mean demon or witch.

There are different types of strigoi: strigoi vii are live witches who will become vampires after death. They can send out their soul at night to meet with other witches or with Strigoi mort who are dead vampires. The strigoi mort are the reanimated bodies which return to suck the blood of family, livestock, and neighbours.



A person born with a caul, tail, born out of wedlock, or one who died an unnatural death, or died before baptism, was doomed to become a vampire. As was the seventh child of the same sex in a family, the child of a pregnant woman who didn't eat salt or was looked at by a vampire, or a witch. And naturally, being bitten by vampire, meant certain condemnation to a vampiric existence after death.



The Vircolac which is sometimes mentioned in folklore was more closely related to a mythological wolf that could devour the sun and moon and later became connected with werewolves rather than vampires. The person afflicted with lycanthropy could turn into a dog, pig, or wolf.



The vampire was usually first noticed when it attacked family and livestock, or threw things around in the house. Vampires, along with witches, were believed to be most active on the Eve of St George's Day (April 22 Julian, May 4 Gregorian calendar), the night when all forms of evil were supposed to be abroad. St Georges Day is still celebrated in Europe.



A vampire in the grave could be told by holes in the earth, an undecomposed corpse with a red face, or having one foot in the corner of the coffin. Living vampires were found by distributing garlic in church and seeing who didn't eat it.



Graves were often opened three years after death of a child, five years after the death of a young person, or seven years after the death of an adult to check for vampirism.



Measures to prevent a person becoming a vampire included, removing the caul from a newborn and destroying it before the baby could eat any of it, careful preparation of dead bodies, including preventing animals from passing over the corpse, placing a thorny branch of wild rose in the grave, and placing garlic on windows and rubbing it on cattle, especially on St George's & St Andrew's days.



To destroy a vampire, a stake was driven through the body followed by decapitation and placing garlic in the mouth. By the 19th century people were shooting a bullet through the coffin. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and given to family members as a cure.







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GYPSIES AND VAMPIRES:

Even today, Gypsies frequently feature in vampire fiction and film, no doubt influenced by Bram Stoker's book "Dracula" in which the Szgany gypsies served Dracula, carrying his boxes of earth and guarding him.

In reality, Gypsies originated as nomadic tribes in northern India, but got their name from the early belief that they came from Egypt. By 1000 AD they started spreading westward and settled in Turkey for a time, incorporating many Turkish words into their Romany language.



By the 14th century they were all through the Balkans and within two more centuries had spread all across Europe. Gypsies arrived in Romania a short time before Vlad Dracula was born in 1431.



Their religion is complex and varies between tribes, but they have a god called O Del, as well as the concept of Good and Evil forces and a strong relationship and loyalty to dead relatives. They believed the dead soul entered a world similar to ours except that there is no death. The soul stayed around the body and sometimes wanted to come back. The Gypsy myths of the living dead added to and enriched the vampire myths of Hungary, Romania, and Slavic lands.



The ancient home of the Gypsies, India has many mythical vampire figures. The Bhuta is the soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wandered around animating dead bodies at night and attacked the living like a ghoul. In northern India could be found the brahmaparusha, a vampire-like creature with a head encircled by intestines and a skull from which it drank blood.



The most famous Indian vampire is Kali who had fangs, wore a garland of corpses or skulls and had four arms. Her temples were near the cremation grounds. She and the goddess Durga battled the demon Raktabija who could reproduce himself from each drop of blood spilled. Kali drank all his blood so none was spilled, thereby winning the battle and killing Raktabija.



Sara or the Black Goddess is the form in which Kali survived among Gypsies. Gypsies have a belief that the three Marys from the New Testament went to France and baptised a Gypsy called Sara. They still hold a ceremony each May 24th in the French village where this is supposed to have occurred.



One Gypsy vampire was called a mullo (one who is dead). This vampire was believed to return and do malicious things and/or suck the blood of a person (usually a relative who had caused their death, or not properly observed the burial ceremonies, or who kept the deceased's possessions instead of destroying them as was proper.)



Female vampires could return, lead a normal life and even marry but would exhaust the husband. Anyone who had a hideous appearance, was missing a finger, or had animal appendages, etc. was believed to be a vampire.



Even plants or dogs, cats, or farm animals could become vampires. Pumpkins or melons kept in the house too long would start to move, make noises or show blood.



To get rid of a vampire people would hire a dhampire (the son of a vampire and his widow) to detect the vampire. To ward off vampires, gypsies drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. Further measures included driving stakes into the grave, pouring boiling water over it, decapitating the corpse, or burning it.



In spite of the disruption of Gypsy lives by the various eastern European communist regimes, they still retain much of their culture. In 1992 a new king of the Gypsies was chosen in Bistritz, Romania.







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BATS:

No discussion of vampires is even thinkable without talking about bats. They are integral to the modern day concept of the vampire, but this was not always the case.

Many cultures have various myths about bats. In South America, Camazotz was a bat god of the caves living in the Bathouse of the Underworld. In Europe, bats and owls were long associated with the supernatural, mainly because they were night creatures. On the other hand, the Gypsies thought them lucky - they wore charms made of bat bones. And in England the Wakefield crest and those of some others have bats on them.



So how did bats end up becoming associated with vampires? There are only three species of vampires bats in the entire world, all of which occur in Central and South America. During the 16th century the Spanish conquistadors first came into contact with them and recognized the similarity between the feeding habits of the bats and those of their mythical vampires. It wasn't long before they began to associate bats with their vampire legends. Over the following centuries the association became stronger and was used by various people, including James Malcom Rhymer who wrote "Varney the Vampyre" in the 1840's. Stoker cemented the linkage of bats and vampires in the minds of the general public.







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EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VAMPIRE CONTROVERSY:

Today everyone is familiar with vampires, but in Britain very little was known of vampires prior to the 18th century. What brought the vampire to the attention of the general public? During the 18th century there was a major vampire scare in Eastern Europe. Even government officials frequently got dragged into the hunting and staking of vampires.

This controversy was directly responsible for England's current vampire myths. In fact, the word Vampire only came into English language in 1732 via an English translation of a German report of the much publicized Arnold Paole vampire staking in Serbia.



Western scholars seriously considered the existence of vampires for the first time rather than just brushing them off as superstition. It all started with an outbreak of vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Austro-Hungarian empire from 1725-1734.



Two famous cases involved Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole. Plogojowitz died at the age of 62, but came back a couple of times after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the next day. Soon Plogojowitz returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.



In the other famous case Arnold Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who had been attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After death people began to die and it was believed by everyone that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbours.



These two incidents were extremely well documented. Government officials examined the cases and the bodies, wrote them up in reports, and books were published afterwards of the Paole case and distributed around Europe. The controversy raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural people having an epidemic of vampire attacks and digging up bodies all over the place. Many scholars said vampires didn't exist - they attributed reports to premature burial, or rabies which causes thirst.



However, Dom Augustine Calmet, a well respected French theologian and scholar, put together a carefully thought out treatise in 1746 which said vampires did exist. This had considerable influence on other scholars at the time.



Eventually, Austrian Empress Marie Theresa sent her personal physician to investigate. He said vampires didn't exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies. This was the end of the vampire epidemics. But by then everyone knew about vampires and it was only a matter of time before authors would preserve and mould the vampire into something new and much more accessible to the general public.

"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.



Of course, in terms of the mythical, literary and cinematic conventions, we are correct: there are no "legions of the undead" stalking the unwary. We have explained the folklore with politics, misunderstood diseases, and hysteria, the literary and cinematic images with psychology, history, and sociology. We of the 20th century are confident that vampires could not really exist. But then, most of us are never forced to think otherwise. For a number of people, the concept of vampires becomes a critical and often lifelong concern. To live with, love, or befriend a real vampire is to encounter a set of problems which may demand expanding the boundaries of one's accepted reality. To come to terms with being a real vampire oneself is to face a lifetime's karmic challenge.



Some people reading this article already know this. The rest are probably thinking, "Real Vampires, give me a break! Sure, there are some pretty weird people out there, but all they need is a good therapist." Yes, there are people who take on all the trappings of a gothic novel: dressing in black, claiming or pretending to be "vampires" in the supernatural sense, wearing capes, sleeping in boxes, even getting their teeth capped. There are more frightening people who seek to torture or kill animals or human beings in order to gain power, emotional release or sexual thrill, and who sometimes call themselves (or are called) "vampires". But most of these individuals are troubled people who have been attracted by the cultural myths about the vampire: supernatural powers (because they feel powerless), overwhelming sexuality (because most of them have sexual issues and no true relationships), immortality (because they fear aging and death). Individuals like these are the most recent "explanation" for humanity's persistent belief in vampires. But beyond and behind all the folklore, the psychological theories, the role playing, even the traditional spiritual assumptions, lies the real truth about vampires.





The field of vampirology is complex and mysterious. There are many aspects to the vampire phenomenon, and they would require several books to fully explore. One aspect of vampirism which frequently troubles magickal, spiritual and other small groups, the most common form of vampire, is found among living people who share with us the benefits and disadvantages of physical existence on this plane, yet are not quite human. These people appear on the surface to be somewhat eccentric members of society, yet their outward idiosyncrasies only hint at how different they are from those around them.



Each of us incarnates for a lifetime with a certain way of relating to the physical world through the vehicle of our physical body. A vampire is a person born with an extraordinary capacity to absorb, channel, transform, and manipulate "pranic energy" or life force. She also has a critical energy imbalance which reels wildly from deficit to overload and back again. This capacity for handling energy is a gift, but the constant imbalance of her own system is the cause of the negative behavior patterns and characteristics which may be notable about a vampiric person.





Real vampires do not necessarily drink blood-in fact, most of them do not. Blood-drinking and vampirism have been confused to the extent that for the average person, a vampire is defined as something that drinks blood (such as a "vampire bat"). But when we look beyond casual assumptions to the details of common beliefs, we find something quite different. Throughout both folklore and literature, there is an understanding that vampires require energy or life force. Many old folktales accept that vampires suck blood, yet never describe this actually happening. The victims slowly decline and waste away, and the survivors assume that some evil fiend is draining them of blood. They know that the Bible says, "the blood is the life", and anyone who was losing their life force must be losing blood. Yet, in many instances the vampire's "attack" does not even involve physical contact. In others, it is clearly sexual energy which is exchanged.1





Fresh blood is the highest known source of pranic energy (life force).2 Human beings have practiced blood-drinking for many reasons throughout history, but drinking blood alone does not indicate that a person is a vampire. Only real vampires can directly absorb the pranic energy in fresh blood, and for this reason some real vampires are attracted to blood and find different means of obtaining it.3 However, it is a rare vampire who cannot absorb energy in much more subtle ways. This is the mechanism that causes real vampires to inflict harm on others and themselves if they fail to recognize what is happening and do conscious work on transforming their inner natures. Vampires are no more likely to be either malicious or spiritually aware than the general population, but without awareness, they can spend their lives making themselves and others unhappy, and will continue to incarnate in this pattern until they take action to change it.



There are a number of external symptoms of vampirism, but it is important to realize that some of them are found in ordinary human behavior. Real vampires are identifiable partly because they have a majority of the symptoms, not just one or two. But more significantly, real vampires are distinguished by a certain quality to the energy. While anyone reading a description of the symptoms and behavior patterns might find a few that apply to people he knows, or even to himself, real vampires have a way of standing out vividly to everyone who interacts with them. There are few people who do not know at least one vampire.



Physically, vampires are usually "night people"" on a biochemical level. They have inverted circadian rhythms, with body cycles such as temperature peaks, menstrual onset, and the production of sleep hormones in the brain occurring at the opposite time of day from most people. They have difficulty adjusting to daytime schedules and frequently work nights. They tend to be photosensitive, avoiding sunlight, sunburning easily, and having excellent night vision. Their vitality ranges widely, and they can be vigorous and active one day, depressed and languorous the next.



They frequently have digestive trouble. Even those with cast-iron stomachs have many issues with food that are rooted in their constant hunger for energy. Contrary to the image of the vampire as thin, many real vampires are troubled by obesity because of a hunger that makes them food addicts, and a system that is sluggish in processing physical food. They are also sometimes troubled by other substance addictions for the same reasons, but since their systems are tuned to pranic energy more than to processing physical substance, they may not be as sensitive to drugs and alcohol as an ordinary person would be.



Emotionally and physically, vampires are unpredictable, moody, temperamental and overwhelming. The major distinguishing characteristic of real vampires as opposed to ordinary people who share those qualities is the vampire's intensity. Vampires are extremely intense people. They are frequently given nicknames such as "the black hole." When others talk about them (usually to complain about them), vampires are often described by such terms as "needy," "attention-seeking," "grandstanding," "manipulative," "exhausting," "draining," "monopolizes the conversation," "jealous," "huge ego," and so on. A vampire's emotions are deep, fervent, and powerful, and she usually displays great psychic ability and has uncontrolled magickal and psychic experiences. Vampires are also empaths, and while they remain unconscious of their natures, they are frequently "psychic sponges" who simply absorb vibrations from everywhere, with the expected emotional instability resulting.





A "hungry" vampire -- one whose energy level is imbalanced to the deficit side -- becomes an involuntary psychic vortex, drawing all pranic energy in the area towards her. When the energy does not flow in fast enough -- and it is typical of vampires that the energy never flows fast enough for them -- she will begin manifesting behavior patterns to increase the amount of conscious attention she gets from others. For this reason, some vampires develop a pattern of being aggressively confrontational, or of constantly antagonizing people with whom they have relationships. Nearly all vampires, whatever ploys they use, have a talent for attracting (or distracting) the attention of everyone present.



Once a vampire overloads on energy, she reverses her behavior patterns. She may become morose, silent, withdrawn and introverted. Some vampires become maniacally cheerful when they are satiated, but even their good moods seem to annoy others, and it is more typical for vampires to be infamous as wet blankets. "Hungry" and "overload" phases can occur within a few minutes or last for days at a time. Vampires are commonly loners, in part because they feel so different from those around them, but also because they have a need to control the degree of contact they have with sources of energy.





Real vampires are not the demonic fiends of Christianized folklore, but as long as they refuse to accept their inner nature, their bad reputation is not undeserved. Unconscious vampires have a tendency to reach adulthood with less than the average level of social skill and general finesse, and tend to be selfish and self-centered. The demands of their own energy systems are so distracting to them that it is difficult for them to pay attention to the needs of others. Their relationships tend to be disasters. Different vampires develop different patterns according to what works best for them in their life situation, but several patterns are common. The "femme fatale" or "lady-killer" vampire forms a continuous series of sexual connections with one partner at a time, dropping each unfortunate lover as they become too exhausted (or defensive) to support the vampire's energy needs. Other vampires form a long-term relationship with a single person: either another vampire whose energy cycle complements their own, or a person who derives satisfaction from being a psychic servant or martyr. A common pattern, especially in young adults, is to continuously join social, religious, political and magickal groups and either blow them apart or end up being thrown out. Vampires may go through roommates, housing situations, magickal groups, jobs and lovers like so much Kleenex.



Many people find that they feel "creepy" or "weird" around a vampire. This is usually due to the effects of one's own life force being drawn towards the vampire's vortex. Most people feel uncomfortable and distracted when their energy is pulled away from themselves. In addition to this, a common result of such an energy drain is for the aura to pull in tightly towards the body, and this causes a prickling sensation on the skin -- the "creepy-crawlies."



It is no more common for vampires to be psychopaths or killers than it is for any random person on the street. However, a prolonged, or very involved, relationship with a vampire can put a severe strain on the emotional and psychic energy systems of an ordinary person. Folklore suggests that victims of a vampire become vampires themselves. In reality, people who have been seriously "drained" -- that is, have had their own energy pulled off balance into a deficit -- also become psychic vortices which pull life force away from other living things. However, they are never as powerful as a true vampire, and unlike vampires, quickly recover and stabilize. True vampires are born the way they are -- no one can be "turned into a vampire." However, years of energy depletion can lead to health problems ranging from depression and malaise to a suppressed immune system and susceptibility to serious illnesses. Most people will break off the relationship before it gets that far.





Many vampires are attracted to magickal paths. In a magickal working group, their ability to wreak havoc is increased because of the psychic openness and trust that exist there. But there can be a benefit, as well. Some vampires become aware of their true natures and choose to undertake serious work to transform themselves. As soon as they begin doing so, they become more acceptable working partners and companions. Once in control of their capacity for handling energy, they become extraordinary magicians and healers. Their ability to hold the attention of others gives them the potential to be fine leaders and teachers. Ultimately, the purpose of vampires is not to plague the universe but to facilitate its healing. Vampirism is the dark, or unfocused, side of a certain kind of psychic talent, one which has been developing for many lifetimes. It is destructive only when a vampire either refuses to face the truth about herself and work with her abilities, or when she chooses to play out a sinister role because of the illusion of power it gives her.



Because of this, many of the vampire characteristics described above are far less evident in the most powerful vampires, the ones who have done considerable work on their inner selves. Many of these are poised, pleasant, competent individuals, with great personal power. They have come to terms with who and what they are, and no longer exhibit the negative qualities associated with "psychic vampirism." 4 Unfortunately, unconscious vampires are far more common than evolved ones, and it is these troubled souls who more usually appear in magickal groups.



There is no "generic advice" to give those who believe they may be dealing with a real vampire. Those who are so inclined might try to help a friend or fellow group member explore their inner nature and come to terms with their destructive behaviors. Those who feel victimized can choose to end the relationship. Each case is different, and can only be judged by the individuals concerned. But it is important for anyone involved in magickal or psychic work to understand that vampires are a real phenomenon, and that, like all perils, they should not be greeted with fear or anger. Nothing is evil by nature -- only by choice. Terror of discovery (followed by ridicule or rejection) inhibits the self-development of many real vampires. When they reach out for friendship, they are often reaching out for help.





A person who believes she may be a real vampire herself has a long and difficult process ahead of her. The most important step on her path is complete self-awareness: of her relationships, patterns, energy levels, and all other personal qualities. The most challenging work may often be summarized in the simplest of terms. Knowledge, awareness, and control are the lessons real vampires must learn in order to harness their abilities. If real vampires are not the immortals of fiction, they can at least be confident of one thing: for better or worse, they will keep the qualities they develop for many lives to come.



(The author welcomes inquiries from readers with a personal interest in the subject of vampirism. She is available at vyrdolak@net1plus.com. Readers wishing for more information about vampire lore in general are referred to the Bibliography.)





NOTES

For a thorough examination of traditional vampire folklore, see the works of Montague Summers and Anthony Masters.

Other high sources of pranic energy include semen, fresh fruits and vegetables, and the breath of living animals. Meat -- filled with chemicals, long dead, refrigerated, frozen and "aged" (partially decomposed) as it is -- contains almost none. Many real vampires, aside from drinking blood, are vegetarians.

For a somewhat flawed but interesting look at blood-drinking and vampirism, see Stephen Kaplan. Leonard Wolf explores this subject from a more philosophical and personal viewpoint.

This is not to suggest that even evolved vampires are always comfortable to be around. They remain unpredictable, intense, emotional, and altogether overwhelming personalities. Most are remarkable sexually, and all still draw energy, although they can generally control this to some extent. Furthermore, this article is not intended to mislead -- real vampires, even evolved ones, do sometimes drink blood in order to obtain their energy. Those who understand the many ways that life "gives way" to nurture more life will see this as no more unnatural than eating live vegetables or animals for food.

PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Stephen Kaplan,Vampires Are (ETC Publications, 1984)

Anthony Masters, The Natural History of the Vampire (Berkley Publishing Corp., 1972)

Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu, In Search of Dracula (New York Graphic Society, 1972)

Montague Summers, The Vampire, His Kith and Kin (University Books, 1960)

Montague Summers, The Vampire in Europe (The Aquarian Press Limited, 1980)

James B. Twitchell, The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature (Duke University Press, 1981)

Leonard Wolf, A Dream of Dracula (Popular Library, 1972)

I invoke and conjure thee, O spirit (name of the spirit), and, fortified with the power of the Supreme Majesty, I strongly command thee by BARALAMENSIS, BALDACHIENSIS, PAUMACHIE, APOLORESEDES and the most potent princes GENIO, LIACHIDE, Ministers of the Tartarean Seat, chief princes of the seat of APOLOGIA in the ninth region; I exorcise and command thee, O Spirit N., by Him Who spake and it was done, by the Most Holy and glorious Names ADONAI, EL, ELOHIM, ELOHE, ZEBAOTH, ELION, ESCHERCE, JAH, TETRAGRAMMATON, SADAI: do thou forthwith appear and shew thyself unto me, here before this circle, in a fair and human shape, without any deformity or horror; do thou come forthwith, from whateverpart of the world, and make rational answers to my questions; come presently, come visibly, come affably, manifest that which I desire, being conjured by the Name of the Eternal, Living and True God, HELIOREM; I conjure thee also by the particular and true Name of thy God to whom thou owest thine obedience; by the name of the King who rules over thee, do thou come without tarrying; come, fulfil my desires; persist unto the end, according, to mine intentions.





If the spirit comes not at the rehearsing of these Conjuration, as without doubt he will, proceed as follows, it being a Constraint:







The Constraint





I conjure thee, O spirit (name of the spirit), by all the most glorious and efficacious Names of the Great and Incomparable Lord the God of Hosts, come quickly and without delay, front whatsoever part of the world thou art in; make rational answers to my demands; come visibly, speak affably, speak intelligibly to my understanding. I conjure and constrain thee, O Spirit (name of the spirit), by all the aforesaid Names, as also by those seven other Names wherewith Solomon bound thee and thy fellows in the brazen vessels to wit, ADONAI, PRERAI, TETRAGRAMMATON, ANEXHEXETON, INESSENSATOAL, PATHUMATON and ITEMON; do thou manifest before this circle, fulfil my will in all things that may seem good to me. Be disobedient, refuse to come, and by the power of the Supreme Being, the everlasting Lord, that God Who created thee and me, the whole world, with all contained therein, in the space of six days; by EYE, by SARAY, by the virtue of the Name PRIMEMATUM, which commands the whole host of Heaven; be disobedient, and behold I will curse and deceive thee of thine office, thy joy and thy place; I will bind thee in the depths of the bottomless pit, there to remain until the Day of the Last judgment. I will chain thee in the Lake of Eternal Fire, in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, unless thou come quickly, appearing before this circle, to do my will Come, therefore, in the Holy Names ADONAI, ZEBAOTH, AMIORAM; come, ADONAI commands thee.



When the spirit appears, say the following.



Welcome of the Spirit



Welcome, spirit, welcome art thou unto me; I have called through Him Who created Heaven, Earth and Hell, with all contained therein, and thou hast obeyed, also by the like power. I bind thee to remain affably and visibly before this circle, within this triangle, so long as I need thee, to depart not without my license, till thou hast truly and faithfully fulfilled all that I shall require.

Some demonologists drew up a hierarchy of devils and ascribed to them power to provoke people to commit the seven deadly sins:



Lucifer - Pride



Mammon - Avarice



Asmodeus - Lechery



Satan - Anger



Beelzebub - Gluttony



Leviathan - Envy



Belphegor - Sloth

First Hierarchy:



1. Beelzebub was Prince of the Seraphim, and next unto Lucifer. All the chief of the nine choir of angels are fallen. Of the choir of Seraphim there fell at first Lucifer, Beelzebub and Leviathan, who did all revolt. Michael was the first that resisted Lucifer , and the rest of the good angels followed him, so that now he is the chief among them.



2. Leviathan is the Prince of the same order, and is the ringleader of the heretics, tempting men with sins that are directly repugnant unto faith.



3. Asmodeus is of the same order. He continues a Seraphin to his day, that is, he burns with the desire to tempt men with his swine of luxuriousness, and is the prince of the wantons.



4. Balberith is Prince of the Cherubim. He temps men to commit homicides, and to be quarrelsome, contentious, and blasphemous.



5. Astaroth, Prince of the Thrones, is always desirous to sit idle and be ease. He temps men with idleness and sloth.



6. Verrine is also one of the Thrones, and next in place unto Astaroth, and he temps men with impatience.



7. Gressil is the third in the order of Thrones, and he temps men with impurity and uncleanness.



8. Sonneillon is the fourth in the order of Thrones, and he temps men with hatred against their enemies.







Second Hierarchy:



9. Carreau, Prince of Powers, temps men with hardness of heart.



10. Carnivean is also a Prince of powers, and does tempt men to obscenity and shamelessness.



11. Oeillet is a Prince of Dominions. He temps men to break the vow of poverty.



12. Rosier is the second in the order of Dominions, and by his sweet and sugared words, he temps men to fall in love.



13. Verrier is Prince of Principalities, and temps men against the vow of obedience.







Third Hierarchy:



14. Belias, Prince of the order of Virtues, temps men with arrogance.



15. Olivier, Prince of the Archangels, temps men with cruelty and mercilessness toward the poor.



16. Iuvart is Prince of Angels.

There are three grades or degrees in contemporary witchcraft. They are, in ascending order of importance:



1. Priest and Witch of the Great Goddess;



2. Witch Queen or, in the case of a male, Magus; and



3. High Priestess or High Priest.



The first degree:



In the first degree the candidate is led naked, blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back, into the "Circle of Power". After various occult mutterings from the leader of the coven, the postulant receives the five-fold kiss (on feet, knees, genitals, breast and lips) and forty strokes of the scourge, and takes an oath of secrecy:



"I, X. . .., in the presence of the Mighty Ones do of my own free will and accord most solemnly swear that I will ever keep secret and never reveal the secrets of the Art except it be to a proper person, properly prepared, with a Circle such as this. And that I will never deny the secrets of the Art to such a person if he or she be vouched for by a Brother or Sister of the Art. All this I swear by my hopes of a future life mindful that my measure has been taken and may my magical weapons turn against me if I break this my solemn oath."



It can safely be said that no oath has so often been broken as this one; for the "secrets of the Art" have been recorded in books, shown on television and described in the popular Press. Following the administration of the oath, the candidate is handed various implements, known as the "working tools of the Art", and has their use explained to him.



For example, he is given the athame, a black-hilted knife, the design of which Crowley and Gardner took from the old textbook of magic known as the Key of Solomon, and told that with it he can "form all Magic Circles, dominate, enslave and punish all rebellious spirits and demons and persuade angels and good spirits".



Finally, the candidate is informed that he is now "Priest and Witch of the Great Goddess".







The second degree:



The second degree again incorporates scourging; the aspirant is asked whether he is willing to "suffer and be purified in order to learn", and after he has answered in the affirmative duly receives forty strokes of the scourge. The leader of the coven then states that "in Witchcraft thou must ever give as thou receive, but triple", and the candidate is instructed to administer 120 strokes of the scourge to the initiator.



These proceedings being concluded, the "legend of the Goddess" is then either read out aloud or, in some covens, acted as a mystery play. This "legend" is a variant on the classical myth of Persephone and concludes with the words:



"There are three great events in the life of Man; Love, Death and Resurrection in a new body. Magic rules them all. For to make Love perfect you must return at the same time and place as the loved one, remember the past and love again."



At the end of the reading or play the aspirant is led around the Circle and it is proclaimed to the "Mighty Ones of the Elements" that a new Magus or Witch Queen has been consecrated.







The third degree:



The third degree is centred around ritual sexual intercourse in the Circle between the candidate and the initiator. The rite is of little interest except to voyeurs and in many covens it takes place in symbolic form only. When this latter course is followed, the magic knife (athame) is solemnly dipped into a chalice of wine and the onlookers are informed that "as is the Woman to Man so is the Cup to the Athame".