The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

ITS BIRTH



The Occult was actually born following the life of Christ. Up until this time, most religions had been pagan, and even the few non-pagan religions maintained a spiritual tradition of mysticism. Survivals of this are the Christian tradition of Gnosticism and the Jewish Cabala. Both employing ritual and meditation designed to enter a more spiritual world in order to understand and manipulate the physical world, they enshrine what was to become Occult. The death and Resurrection of Christ was, infact, a deeply Occult event. What Christ symbolised was that man could descend to a God-head, manipulate the physical world, and return. This was the essence of Gnosticism of the time. But in order for Christ to be different, unique, He had to become the only person who could do this. Hence, Gnosticism had to be wiped out - ruthlessly - and this natural Occult power branded as evil. This was the genesis of Occultism as evil. And it has remained so ever since - even though throughout Western intellectual life the Occult has been at the cutting edge of the knowledge systems and societies we have created.



THE HERMETICA



Other than Gnosticism and the Cabala, several other Occult sciences were to impede on western consciousness. These included Astrology, Alchemy, and a system of knowledge known as the Hermetica. The Hermetica itself is an ancient treatise thought to have been written by the mythical magician Hermes Trismegistos. Most likely an amalgamation of the Egyptian god Thoth and Greek messenger of the gods, Hermes, the treatise is an identification of the existence of ‘prime matter’ as the roots of the physical universe, and the work deals in the relationship and sympathy between man and the universe. The Greek philosopher Plato produced a system of forms which seem to be based on the Hermetica. To him, above the physical world was a world of ideas, where everything in the physical world was taken from. Here, everything had a physical form and an ethereal, other-worldly form, including knowledge and new inventions. The central philosopher of early Christianity, Augustine of Hippo, was a Platonist at heart, and his idea of God became based on Plato’s forms. Arguably the entire Christian system was therefore based on Occult leanings.



ASTROLOGY



Plato’s pupil Aristotle was also intrigued by such ideas as the Hermetica. He grew up in a world where future Occult symbolism was all around. Astrology, for instance, had been around for centuries as a means of reading the positions of the planets in order to offer guidance to kings. It was a specifically Greek notion that Astrology should be available to everyone. This was the birth of the horoscope. But in birthing the horoscope, the ancient Greeks said something else. For in taking this mighty magic away from simply assisting kings, this popularisation of Astrology was fundamental to the birth of the idea of democracy and individuality. Occultism can here be seen as important to the life of the ancient Greeks. Aristotle reflected this by using many of the principles of Astrology to devise Cosmology. Later, the Greek physicist Ptolomy was to rationalise our knowledge of the universe in his Astronomy. Yet it was fuelled by his knowledge, also, of Astrology. Indeed, Astrology was the father of astronomy and our knowledge of the universe would not have existed without it. Aristotle also used the principles of Alchemy for philosophy and science. For, like Alchemy, Aristotle was interested in discovering ‘prime matter’. His theory was very much based on Alchemical practices. So we can clearly see how important Occultism was to science and democracy.



WESTERN OCCULT TRADITION



As Christendom arose in Europe, the Occult was slowly to be seen as evil, and to be banished. Yet Astrology was taught in universities well into the l3th century. The idea of Black Magic itself was invented by priests, who tried to use reverse Christian symbolism and ritual to affect bishops to enhance their chances of promotion. Thought to have been created by evil occultists, Black magic was, infact, a Christian idea. Aided by the witchhunts, Christendom finally seemed to have banished the Occult from their knowledge systems. But as soon as the Medieval world began to crack in the Renaissance, Occultism rose once more to assist man’s knowledge. Principle to this was the 15th century Italian scholar Marsilio Ficino - an intellectual who is hardly known today because he is too much of an embarassment to modern scholars. One of the first translators of Plato and other Greek philosophers, he became head of the Platonic Academy in Florence. His translations included the Hermetic texts. Around his work was the idea of a form of planet magic where the sympathies of the universe had an effect on the betterment of man.



This form of universal occult love was essential to fuelling the intellectuals of his day. We know of this ground breaking scholarly concept today only as platonic love. Yet when expressing a platonic relationship, you are infact dabbling in Occultism at the birth of its western ascendancy. Another major Occultist of the period was the German physician Cornelius Agrippa. Widely travelled, he was eventually banished for his ideas. Amalgamating the Cabala into western Occultism, he was fascinated with the relationship between mind and the physical world. Reading his treatises today, we find we are reading the work of the first academic psychiatrist. Another major Renaissance figure was almost certainly an Occultist. This was Leonardo da Vinci, who’s paintings, including the Last Supper, are arguably full of occult symbolism. The latest theories concerning the Holy Shroud are that it was a forgery by Leonardo, the image actually being his face atop a cadaver, in order for him to secretly laugh at the Christian world. The art we love seems, therefore, to be essentially Occult. And it was the same with architecture. As later Occult scholars began to look at the symbolism of many of Europe’s Medieval Cathedrals, it became obvious that Occult ideas of the universe were built into them. Some, such as Chartres, seem to be alchemical texts in stone.



ALCHEMY



Alchemy is one of the most puzzling of Occult sciences. Based on the idea of the Philosopher’s Stone, it argues that the world can be manipulated by discovering the stone, which exists throughout the universe, and if properly treated can change one element into another, such as lead into gold. The most likely answer to alchemy on this level is that it is a physical discipline aimed at preparing the mind for transformation, hence, hinting at basic meditative practices. But so sure were many scholars that Alchemy was a reality that they built secret laboratories to experiment. Great academics who attempted this alchemical transformation included Paracelsus, who became the father of modern chemistry. Indeed, none of the basics of chemistry would have been achieved without this occult practice. Yet intriguingly, the practice was later proved to hold a degree of truth. When modern physicists split the atom they transmute one element into another, just as Alchemy said it could be done. Further, the identification of the subatomic particle is close, philosophically, to the Hermetic prime matter. We can argue that modern physics was presaged at the dawn of history - by Occultists. Science does, of course, mock this Occult inheritance. But they can only do so by ignoring the most important part of scientific history. The instigator of the scientific revolution was Isaac Newton, and his discovery of gravity, as well as work on calculus and optics. Yet the reality of Newton was not of some cold, materialist scientist. Newton was infact a deep Occultist who secretly carried out alchemical experiments and wrote over a million words of alchemical text. It seems that gravity and other ‘physical’ theories were simply side-issues to his ultimate goal of discovering the spiritual secrets of the universe.



SACRED GEOMETRY



The word occult actually means ‘hidden.’ And in this, Occultism is exposed as the discovery and manipulation of unseen forces. Science is reluctant to see the similarity, but this is exactly what they do, science being the discovery of unseen forces and, through technology, the manipulation of those forces. And without the ideas behind the work of early Occultists, science would never have arrived to mock Occultism and Magic. But the world owes Occultism an even greater debt of gratitude than this. We noted earlier that the Medieval Cathedrals were full of Occult symbolism. This was down to the almost magical ideals of the ancient craftsmen. Ever since the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids, magic and architecture have gone hand in hand in sacred geometry. The practice involves expressing the Divine in stone. Every church follows this occult practice, the church shaped like Christ on the Cross. Indeed, when you enter a church you do not enter a building, but the actual symbolic body of Christ. These early builders had their own guilds, but also their own Occult organisation. This became the inspiration for Freemasonry. Devised around the spirituality of Brotherhood - a form of platonic love - Freemasons could belong to any religion, but above all deities was the Great Architect of the Universe. When the United States of America was founded, most of the founding Fathers were Freemasons, and the Constitution itself can be seen to be very much based on the Brotherhood found in Freemasonry. Hence, we can argue that America itself was founded on Occult ideals.



IT GETS EVERYWHERE



Western history has been a history of Occult influence, from the Resurrection of Christ to the modern day. This simple fact rests uneasily with the idea that we are material and rational societies. It is too much to bear for our academics and establishment to accept this inheritance. Hence, they have always told an alternative history, denying, until recently, such factors as Newton’s Occult biography. This is mainly so because at the heart of Occultism is passion and a denial of authority. This is no good for a social authority, and in this sense the Occult IS counter to the good. You see, we are all, at heart, pagan. This is so because paganism has always been an ideal based around the individual living in an enigmatic world. Paganism and the Occult actually birthed, millenia ago, the idea of individuality.



Authoritarian states therefore have to put down Occult reality in order to create a stable society. But even then, if we take Christendom, whilst the establishment was Christian, the people remained essentially pagan, as the need for the witchhunts testifies. Yet in the modern world, a unique con has been achieved to seem to empower the individual, but actually bases our ethic on consumerism. The modern consumer world is the first authoritarian entity to have the genius to glorify this paganism, but by another name. The modern world calls it liberalism. And it says you can be what you want to be as long as you are not criminal. This does, of course, free you from obligation to others and turns you into a good little consumer. Yet at the heart of paganism is a simple rule, immortalised in what has become known as the Wiccan Rede: Do as you will, but hurt none. The notion is identical to liberalism. We are all witches now.

The progress of medical science in the past 30 years has been so rapid that yesterday's miracles are tomorrow's commonplace procedures. So it has proved with heart transplants, which have become almost routine in hospitals around the world. Yet every once in a while a story emerges which should cause us all to sit up and take note that there is nothing "routine" or "commonplace" about such complex operations.



The suggestion, highlighted again this week, that donor patients could not only be acquiring the organs but also the memories - or even the soul - of the donor is surely one such story. This bizarre possibility was raised by the inexplicable case of Sonny Graham - a seemingly happily married 69-year-old man living in the U.S. state of Georgia. He shot himself without warning, having shown no previous signs of unhappiness, let alone depression. His friends described it as an act of passion, not of reason.



The case might have remained just an isolated tragedy were it not for the fact that Sonny had received a transplanted heart from a man who had also shot himself - in identical circumstances. To make things even more intriguing, shortly after receiving the heart transplant, Sonny tracked down the wife of the donor - and fell instantly in love with her. "When I first met her," Sonny told a local newspaper, "I just stared. I felt like I had known her for years. I couldn't keep my eyes off her."



He spoke of a deep and profound love for her. It was instant and it was passionate. The kind of love where overwhelming passion seizes control of the mind and banishes reason. They quickly wed. The tragedy of Sonny Graham will, no doubt, be written off as mere coincidence. After all, there is surely no conceivable way that the memories, let alone the character of a donor, can be transplanted along with their heart. Virtually every doctor and scientist will tell you the heart is a mere pump. The seat of our mind, our consciousness, our very soul - if such a thing exists - lies in the brain.



The heart's only control over our mind is whether or not it sends it blood. Ever since William Harvey unravelled the mysteries of the heart and circulatory system centuries ago, this fact has remained beyond doubt. Well, almost beyond doubt. For a few brave scientists have started claiming that our memories and characters are encoded not just in our brain, but throughout our entire body. Consciousness, they claim, is created by every living cell in the body acting in concert. They argue, in effect, that our hearts, livers and every single organ in the body stores our memories, drives our emotions and imbues us with our own individual characters. Our whole body, they believe, is the seat of the soul; not just the brain.



And if any of these organs should be transplanted into another person, parts of these memories - perhaps even elements of the soul - might also be transferred. There are now more than 70 documented cases similar to Sonny's, where transplant patients have taken on some of the personality traits of the organ donors. Professor Gary Schwartz and his co-workers at the University of Arizona have documented numerous seemingly inexplicable experiences similar to Sonny's. And every single one is a direct challenge to the medical status quo. In one celebrated case uncovered by Professor Schwartz's team, an 18-year-old boy who wrote poetry, played music and composed songs was killed in a car crash. A year after he died, his parents came across a tape of a song he had written, entitled, Danny, My Heart Is Yours.



In his haunting lyrics, the boy sang about how he felt destined to die and donate his heart. After his death, his heart was transplanted into an 18-year-old girl - named Danielle. When the boy's parents met Danielle, they played some of his music and she, despite never having heard the song before, knew the words and was able to complete the lyrics. Professor Schwartz also investigated the case of a 29-year-old lesbian fast-food junkie who received the heart of a 19-year-old vegetarian woman described as "man crazy".





After the transplant, she told her friends that meat now made her sick, and that she no longer found women attractive. If fact, shortly after the transplant she married a man. In one equally inexplicable case, a middle-aged man developed a new-found love for classical music after a heart transplant. It transpired that the 17-year-old donor had loved classical music and played the violin. He had died in a drive-by shooting, clutching a violin to his chest.



Nor are the effects of organ transplants restricted to hearts. Kidneys also seem to carry some of the characteristics of their original owners. Take the case of Lynda Gammons from Weston, Lincolnshire, who donated one of her kidneys to her husband Ian. Since the operation, Ian believes he has taken on aspects of his wife's personality. He has developed a love of baking, shopping, vacuuming and gardening. Prior to the transplant, he loathed all forms of housework with a vengeance. He has also adopted a dog - yet before his operation he was an avowed "cat man", unlike his wife who favoured dogs.



It's easy to dismiss such tales as hokum. But the Chinese authorities are certainly taking them seriously. They have recently taken an interest in Professor Schwartz's ideas and have begun a programme to monitor transplant patients. (As many "donated" organs in China come from executed political prisoners, a cynic might suggest that the authorities are worried about an "epidemic" of political thought spreading via organ transplants.) Many scientists will, of course, point out that tens of thousands of organ transplants have now been carried out worldwide, so you would expect to come across a few bizarre cases like Sonny Graham's.



It is also hardly surprising that after a major life-threatening operation such as a heart transplant, a patient may undergo a profound alteration to their character. Who could remain unchanged after staring death in the face? The powerful drugs required as part of organ transplant procedures can also cause major changes in behaviour. Put all these together and it's no wonder that some patients leave hospital with a drastically different outlook on life. What is most surprising about these cases, though, is not that some transplant patients emerge as different people after an operation, but that the changes are so specific.



"It's a targeted personality change," says Professor Schwartz. "If this is the result of drugs, or stress, or coincidence, none of those would predict the specific patterns of information that would match the donor." If Professor Schwartz and his ilk are right, it would destroy one of the foundation stones of modern biology. But then again, modern biology has a guilty little secret: it has, as yet, no viable theory to explain how we store memories and how we produce consciousness. In fact, scientists haven't even managed to define what exactly consciousness is, let alone managed to pin down where it comes from and where it is to be found within the body.



So maybe, just maybe, the poets, romantics and mystics throughout the ages were right: the heart really is the seat of our emotions and of our souls. And if we can transplant hearts, then perhaps it's not so fanciful to suggest that some part of the spirit goes with them. Who knows - one day doctors may even be able to offer a "character transplant".

The warm Sun of middle-Spring warmed her as she walked down Broad Street in the county town of Ludlow to the entrance of the Feathers Hotel with its early seventeenth century timber façade. The oldness - the dark oak beams, the never-quite-straight walls, the sense of enclosing dimness - still pleased her, although the changes made during the decades of the last century did not, and she resisted the transformation that would have made the young man at Reception, in his shiny ill-fitting inexpensive suit, follow her unbidden to her room.



Instead, she kept her appearance, and the accent, of an attractive - but not too attractive - mature lady of the County set who probably owned a horse, or three, stabled somewhere in the grounds of her large country house, and the registration procedure lasted no more than a dull five minutes. He was too young, anyway, unable to provide the diversion, the passion, and the acausal-energy, she needed, for already the faint trembling in her hands had begun: the first reminder of her enduring timeless need. And even as she walked up the stairs alone, carrying her small travel bag, she began to feel the centuries weighing down upon her, ageing her ever so slowly.



But she had planned well, as she always did, for there would be men, tonight, some eager - as they almost always were - for that thrill of a tryst in the long evenings following their meetings or conference or whatever it was that drew them away from their homes and their wives. A few lies; one betrayal - first, or one among many - it did not matter to them; for there was their pride, their lust, their still living animal nature. No evolution, upwards: except for those few whose wordless perceiving bade them walk away, or those few who though enticed still had strength enough to resist. No, no evolution, upwards - she knew, except for such few. And she smiled, remembering the delightful dreams she gave to those few.



So she prepared herself as she always prepared herself while she sat in her room alone, knowing that her long-serving servant would tidy her room and see to all formalities after her chosen task was complete. Thus did she prepare: her dress suited to the young woman she was, as were the shoes, and the make-up which she, with expert ease, applied to her face and which reflected the times which had changed this particular chosen and familiar Hotel. And when she was ready she descended the stairs to enter the recently refurbished Bar where gathered some of the already alcohol-soaked conference-attendees.



The room - with its low ceiling, its carved oaken-bar, its discreet lighting - did not particularly displease her, and she sat alone, in a plush wooden armchair, at a table in one corner, already noticed by several of the Bar-thronging men. Perhaps it was her esoteric perfume. Perhaps it was her short purple dress, which seemed to scintillate in the light and which clung to the voluptuous contours of her youthful body. Perhaps it was the way she walked in her stiletto shoes. Or the red lipstick upon her lips. Or her long red hair that fell around her shoulders. Whatever it was, it was not long before a man came to greet her.



His suit was not inexpensive, as his blond hair had only just begun to recede and - to any ordinary woman, perhaps - he would have appeared as not unattractive; a fairly prosperous youngish family man, making his way in the Corporate world.



"Hi, I'm James," he said, self-assuredly and by way of introduction as he stood by her table holding a flûte of champagne. "Can I get you something to drink?"



It was not the worst gambit she had heard, and she smiled at him. "Yes. A Tom Collins."



"Certainly!"



So he left to place her order to return to ask,"May I join you?"



"Why yes! Are you here for the conference?"



"Hmm," he muttered.



"You do not seem particularly enthusiastic."



"I'm not. Bloody boring."



"But necessary and required."



"Unfortunately, yes." He drained his glass, and signalled to the barman to bring him more. "May I ask your name?" he enquired as he sat looking at her nipples, which - erect - prominently impinged upon the thin material of her dress.



"Jenyah," she breathed, softly, letting the scented warmth of her breath touch his face as she leaned toward him.



He smiled then, sure of his success, but began fumbling with his wedding ring.



"Perhaps," she said, now knowing and having sensed enough, and as loud laughter from the three men standing at the Bar reached them, "it would be agreeable to you if we went back to my house?"



"Why, yes. Of course. Certainly!"



"My car is outside."



"Splendid!"





So she led him out from the side entrance of that Hotel to where her car was parked among some others - elegant in its refined blackness and whose tall muscular chauffeur - her servant, his eyes hidden behind designer sunglasses - held open the rear door for her and her chosen companion of the evening. Thus were they conveyed in comfort on that long journey through the dark of the country night until they reached that steep hill of the narrow lane and her house above a valley.



He did not see much of its old-fashioned but clean and fastidiously tidy interior, and neither did he desire to, for his already intense sexual desire had been heightened by the luxury of her car and the wealth so obvious from her dwelling, and he willingly let himself be led along a narrow skein of corridors to a panelled room whose only light can from a burning, large, coal-fire. Even the oppressive heat nor her strength did not concern him as she roughly pushed him toward the large Oak bed to salaciously rip away his clothes and remove her own.



Her beauty of body - her voluptuousness, her sexuality - was everything he imagined, everything he desired, and her intoxicating scent seemed to increase until he was wrapped, cocooned, within it. She was upon him, then, holding him down, his arms outstretched and pinned to the silken covering of the bed by her hands wrapped around his wrists while she manoeuvred her body to place his erection inside her where he felt the warmth of her warm sensuous wetness. For what seemed a long long moment he experienced an intensity of joy, of physical pleasure, such as he had never known before, making him close his eyes in exultation as she moved upon him. But then - then as he arched his back again in sheer physical exultation and delight - intense pain followed by agony engulfed him and blood from his severed penis flowed out of her.



But she was laughing, laughing, still holding him down, overpowering him as he writhed in pain, until she moved to lick his bloody wound - cauterizing it with her strange oral fluid - to kiss him, and it was in that briefest of brief moments before he fainted - weak, and overcome with the shock of this, and of his seeing - that he saw not a young sensuous woman but something else, not quite human, draining away the acausal-energy of his life through her blood-soaked kiss.



She, satiated, left him then to the ministrations of her servant who effortlessly carried the limp and bloodied but just-living body down stone steps and along a short brick-lined dimly lit tunnel to an unlit cell whose thick and still sturdy iron door bars were pitted with the seeping rust of age. There was a bed, a bucket, a stained blanket - but nothing else - and it was here, amid the cold dank stifling blackness, that he would hours later awake, shivering, lying on the slimy cobbles of the floor, while she - freshly bathed and dressed - walked outside, smiling, happy, renewed, among the wind-speaking moonlit trees of her dark ancestral hill.



There, in that unlit cell, he would live, for a while, while his usefulness lasted. And it was there in the first of his many many days that he would cry out into the darkness for hours, until exhaustion overcame him. There did he languish, lamenting his stupid choices, his lies, his betrayal of his wife and family. There he would briefly vainly plead to God, to any god, deity, for release, and there he would eat and drink the little that was provided him, pushed through the bars of his door by her servant, as it was there - in that unlit blackness - he would hear, or thought he heard, the weak sighs, the cries, of another, until, one day or one night, the soft sighs, the soft distant muffled cries, came no more to torment him.



There he would he close his eyes, sometimes, in sleep when what little strength remained failed him. And there: there were the nightmares, the pitiless nightmares of how she still enticing and scented would come upon him in the blackness to kiss him to suck from him the remaining drops of the life within. He would sleep then, peacefully - but only for a while, only for a while: longing after that short moment of rest never to awake, again.











The hot Sun of late Summer warmed her while she sat outside the trendy Café, waiting. Her chosen and familiar Hotel was nearby, and she would retire to it soon, as darkness descended upon the city. But, for now, she was content enough to let the warm Sun please her, as if almost always did as its healthy rays reached her youthful face, arms, hands and legs while she sat, fashionably if skimpily dressed, as were the other young women who passed, there on that evening in that city by the river whose water flowed, as her life, from one beginning to another: a precious gift, finding its own level, its own way, while bringing death, to some.

She could smell the rain even though it was still many many miles and hours distant, and - as the Sun descended down to bring the shadows of night upon her chosen town - she carefully left her house in Church Street. It was not that she needed the money, or even, then on that evening, the life-force that she would drain away from him until he almost expired. Rather, she desired - craved - the excitement that another such encounter would most certainly bring.



The streets and paths of Shrewsbury centre were alive, for it was warm and humid: following the end of another bright and sunny Summer's day, and the people she hid from during the daylight hours were taking advantage of their evening. Couples - mostly young - happy in their love; groups of friends, enjoying companionship, life, and the many varied gifts of such a modern town where many Cafés and Inns in the Summer season placed tables outside, such were the hopes for, the memories of, balmy English nights. And she was, there, among them, only one more face, only a beautiful face of curvaceous lips, only a slim - if elegantly dressed - silhouette, there among the throng where the lane from her town centre dwelling took her past Butcher Row toward the steps that led to the medieval and old timber framed houses of Fish Street.



Behind her, as she descended those well-worn stairs, there was laughter from among the people seated on their seats outside the Bear Steps café, and she was about to turn left to walk down the street when a group of five casually dressed young men sauntered toward her as they egressed that narrow shut of overhanging buildings named Grope Lane.



"Give us a kiss, darling!" one of them shouted as he stopped - slightly swaying in his inebriation - before her, blocking her path.



"Does your baby-sitter know you're not in your cot?" she quipped, pushing past him and deliberately walking down Grope Lane while his companions laughed.



"Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to me like that!" he shouted, angry, his pride hurt, as he - turning to follow her - caught her arm.



"I would advise you to let go of my arm," she said, slowly, staring into his eyes.



Instead, he pushed her into a doorway while his still laughing friends gathered round.



"Go on!" one of them said. "Give her one!"



"Show us your tits!" said another.



"Yeah - show us!" laughed another.



"You wanna see 'em?" the insulted man laughingly asked his friends.



"Yeah!"



"Sure!"



"Go for it!"



So he moved to rip away the thin covering of her expensive dress whose upper part barely concealed her fullsome breasts, but she only smiled at him as her slender right hand caught his left wrist to suddenly twist then bend his strong youthful arm back. The crack was audible, and she pushed him away where he fell onto the cobbles of that lane, groaning in his agony.



She stepped forward then, out of the doorway and, instinctively, the young men moved away until - for some dark reason on that warm languid humid night - another primal instinct assailed them to make one of them lunge toward her, wielding a knife, while another went to grasp her by the neck. The knife caught her, plunged into her left side, but she calmly pushed both attackers away with such force that they bounded against the opposite wall before raggedly falling to the ground. Then, just as calmly, she removed the knife from her side. There was no blood.



They knew fear, then. A cold, stark, wordless body-and-mind creasing fear that made those standing back off and those sprawled on cobbles crawl away as fast as they could move using hands, feet, knees. Such fear: to take them then away, running, stumbling, panicking, down Grope Lane toward a bustling High Street where, even then among the crowds and the bright street lights, they - faces the colour of corpses - did not stop.



Thus did she throw the knife away, before continuing, alone, on her journey.





2







She was pleased when he, her tryst for that night, quickly opened the door in answer to her ringing of the bell. It was a small house, terraced, in a lane above Town Walls and he - in his late twenties, unmarried - was smartly dressed, as she had asked. A lock of her strawberry-blonde hair had fallen across her face - the only sign of her previous encounter - and she, smiling, swept it aside, saying, "Are you going to let me in, then?"



"Yes. Yes, of course."



"I thought we might have a drink here, before we went on to the restaurant."



"What?" Then - "Yes, yes, of course."



She had made him uneasy - as was her intent - and she, rather amused, watched as he, trying to find glasses, a suitable bottle of wine, bumbled rather nervously about the small sitting-room and kitchen of his house, furnished according to his modern minimalist taste.



She had been sitting, the previous night - as she often did - in a dim corner of an Inn in Butcher's Row, waiting. Waiting, dressed as she almost always was on such nights: exotic perfume; jewelled necklace; red lipstick upon her lips; a dress contouring her body, revealing of both breasts and thighs. He had arrived straight from the Solicitor's office where he worked and saw her almost immediately. She did not smile, then, as his senses drunk-in the sight of her body, but instead she turned away. So he - and she - waited, as a few more people arrived, conversations were begun, continued; alcoholic beverages were consumed. And it was as her own, before her, was finished, that he made his expected move.



"Would you like another drink?" he asked, after he in his working but still expensive suit, sauntered, casually, over to her table.



"Yes," she smiled.



"G and T?"



"Rum. Oh, and make sure it is Pusser's. They have some."



He looked - momentarily - surprised, which pleased her, and on his return she surprised him further by saying, "Would you like to take me out to a restaurant for a meal, tomorrow evening?"



"Yes," he said, hesitatingly.



"You seem surprised," she said.



"Well. No - not really."



So she had named a restaurant, and a time, asked for his address, and spent one half of one hour asking about his life, his career, his aims, while he sipped his large glass of White wine and she drank three tots of neat Rum. "I shall call for you, tomorrow, then," she had said, kissing him briefly on his cheek, before leaving him seated, and not a little bewildered, in that Shrewsbury town centre Inn.



The memory pleased her as she sat on his sofa waiting for him to do his duty and provide her with a glass of fine wine, and - when he finally did - she took it gracefully and indicated that he should sit beside her. He - normally so arrogant, so determined, so full of pride - silently did as commanded, and it was not long before she put down her own glass and his and drew him to her to kiss him, her tongue seeking his. So his unaccustomed nervousness gave way to an intense sexual arousal, and it was then that she, gently, pushed him away, saying, "Shall we go and eat, now, and - afterwards - I would like you to spend the night with me at my house."



He was hers, then, and they spent a pleasant enough evening eating fine food and drinking fine wine in a fine and elegant restaurant, while he talked about his life, his dreams, his hopes, and she listened as she listened, until the time came for them to leave when a taxi conveyed them to her own town house where darkness awaited. There were only candles, which she lit to light their way as she led him, not - as he expected - to her bed upstairs but down into the warm clean brick-vaulted cellars that fanned out from beneath her dwelling to stretch beneath the road above, and it was there, upon an antique chaise-longue, that she possessed him after stripping away his clothes.



He was very willingly possessed, for he ardently desired her body and let himself be held down, naked, while she removed her silky thong and lifted up her dress to sit upon him after easing his penis inside her. Thus did she and gently - and, he felt, lovingly - drain from him one bodily fluid to then lie beside him and kiss him for a long time, sucking from him his breath of life until there remained only a little of the vital energy keeping his body, his mind, alive. She left him then deeply deeply exhausted to sleep in the darkness while in a niche a large quartz crystal slowly began to glow. Thus did she satisfied venture forth upstairs to bathe so that when the time for the Sun's rising arrived again she was alone, replenished, ready to dream as she dreamed in her darkned room of those alternate realms of her birth, her alternate existence, knowing that he, her opfer below, would provide for her in the days, the weeks, to follow while his own weak life-force lasted. And then, his purpose fulfilled, her crystal charged, his money, property, gone, he would be cast off to return to what remained of his Earthly life, where he - as others before him - would in the following weeks languish for months, alone, tormented by nightly sleeping travels into dimensions, places, where no unprepared human should ever go, until - at last, as an almost welcome release - he would die, all alone in the night. There would be no questions; no crime; only one more man, dead, alone.



Thus would she, and only then, return, in the dark of her night, to some Inn - some enclosing warm dim place where young and middle aged men went or gathered - to sit, to preen, to wait. And when she decided her chosen town or city was denuded enough, she would move on, through the years, the decades, centuries, living as she lived, one being of pleasure, of darkness, death, love and night, awaiting he who might - who could, who would - freely, willingly, travel with her to that acausal place of her birth.



She would be free then, returned, at last - as he, her chosen, would be, become, a new eternal being, birthed.

One winter's evening, towards the close of the year 1800, or within a year or two of that time, a young medical practitioner, recently established in business, was seated by a cheerful fire in his little parlour, listening to the wind which was beating the rain in pattering drops against the window, or rumbling dismally in the chimney. The night was wet and cold; he had been walking through mud and water the whole day, and was now comfortably reposing in his dressing-gown and slippers, more than half asleep and less than half awake, revolving a thousand matters in his wandering imagination. First, he thought how hard the wind was blowing, and how the cold, sharp rain would be at that moment beating in his face, if he were not comfortably housed at home. Then, his mind reverted to his annual Christmas visit to his native place and dearest friends; he thought how glad they would all be to see him, and how happy it would make Rose if he could only tell her that he had found a patient at last, and hoped to have more, and to come down again, in a few months' time, and marry her, and take her home to gladden his lonely fireside, and stimulate him to fresh exertions. Then, he began to wonder when his first patient would appear, or whether he was destined, by a special dispensation of Providence, never to have any patients at all; and then, he thought about Rose again, and dropped to sleep and dreamed about her, till the tones of her sweet merry voice sounded in his ears, and her soft tiny hand rested on his shoulder.



There WAS a hand upon his shoulder, but it was neither soft nor tiny; its owner being a corpulent round-headed boy, who, in consideration of the sum of one shilling per week and his food, was let out by the parish to carry medicine and messages. As there was no demand for the medicine, however, and no necessity for the messages, he usually occupied his unemployed hours--averaging fourteen a day--in abstracting peppermint drops, taking animal nourishment, and going to sleep.



'A lady, sir--a lady!' whispered the boy, rousing his master with a shake.



'What lady?' cried our friend, starting up, not quite certain that his dream was an illusion, and half expecting that it might be Rose herself.--'What lady? Where?'



'THERE, sir!' replied the boy, pointing to the glass door leading into the surgery, with an expression of alarm which the very unusual apparition of a customer might have tended to excite.



The surgeon looked towards the door, and started himself, for an instant, on beholding the appearance of his unlooked-for visitor.



It was a singularly tall woman, dressed in deep mourning, and standing so close to the door that her face almost touched the glass. The upper part of her figure was carefully muffled in a black shawl, as if for the purpose of concealment; and her face was shrouded by a thick black veil. She stood perfectly erect, her figure was drawn up to its full height, and though the surgeon felt that the eyes beneath the veil were fixed on him, she stood perfectly motionless, and evinced, by no gesture whatever, the slightest consciousness of his having turned towards her.



'Do you wish to consult me?' he inquired, with some hesitation, holding open the door. It opened inwards, and therefore the action did not alter the position of the figure, which still remained motionless on the same spot.



She slightly inclined her head, in token of acquiescence.



'Pray walk in,' said the surgeon.



The figure moved a step forward; and then, turning its head in the direction of the boy--to his infinite horror--appeared to hesitate.



'Leave the room, Tom,' said the young man, addressing the boy, whose large round eyes had been extended to their utmost width during this brief interview. 'Draw the curtain, and shut the door.'



The boy drew a green curtain across the glass part of the door, retired into the surgery, closed the door after him, and immediately applied one of his large eyes to the keyhole on the other side.



The surgeon drew a chair to the fire, and motioned the visitor to a seat. The mysterious figure slowly moved towards it. As the blaze shone upon the black dress, the surgeon observed that the bottom of it was saturated with mud and rain.



'You are very wet,' be said.



'I am,' said the stranger, in a low deep voice.



'And you are ill?' added the surgeon, compassionately, for the tone was that of a person in pain.



'I am,' was the reply--'very ill; not bodily, but mentally. It is not for myself, or on my own behalf,' continued the stranger, 'that I come to you. If I laboured under bodily disease, I should not be out, alone, at such an hour, or on such a night as this; and if I were afflicted with it, twenty-four hours hence, God knows how gladly I would lie down and pray to die. It is for another that I beseech your aid, sir. I may be mad to ask it for him--I think I am; but, night after night, through the long dreary hours of watching and weeping, the thought has been ever present to my mind; and though even _I_ see the hopelessness of human assistance availing him, the bare thought of laying him in his grave without it makes my blood run cold!' And a shudder, such as the surgeon well knew art could not produce, trembled through the speaker's frame.



There was a desperate earnestness in this woman's manner, that went to the young man's heart. He was young in his profession, and had not yet witnessed enough of the miseries which are daily presented before the eyes of its members, to have grown comparatively callous to human suffering.



'If,' he said, rising hastily, 'the person of whom you speak, be in so hopeless a condition as you describe, not a moment is to be lost. I will go with you instantly. Why did you not obtain medical advice before?'



'Because it would have been useless before--because it is useless even now,' replied the woman, clasping her hands passionately.



The surgeon gazed, for a moment, on the black veil, as if to ascertain the expression of the features beneath it: its thickness, however, rendered such a result impossible.



'You ARE ill,' he said, gently, 'although you do not know it. The fever which has enabled you to bear, without feeling it, the fatigue you have evidently undergone, is burning within you now. Put that to your lips,' he continued, pouring out a glass of water- -'compose yourself for a few moments, and then tell me, as calmly as you can, what the disease of the patient is, and how long he has been ill. When I know what it is necessary I should know, to render my visit serviceable to him, I am ready to accompany you.'



The stranger lifted the glass of water to her mouth, without raising the veil; put it down again untasted; and burst into tears.



'I know,' she said, sobbing aloud, 'that what I say to you now, seems like the ravings of fever. I have been told so before, less kindly than by you. I am not a young woman; and they do say, that as life steals on towards its final close, the last short remnant, worthless as it may seem to all beside, is dearer to its possessor than all the years that have gone before, connected though they be with the recollection of old friends long since dead, and young ones--children perhaps--who have fallen off from, and forgotten one as completely as if they had died too. My natural term of life cannot be many years longer, and should be dear on that account; but I would lay it down without a sigh--with cheerfulness--with joy--if what I tell you now, were only false, or imaginary. To- morrow morning he of whom I speak will be, I KNOW, though I would fain think otherwise, beyond the reach of human aid; and yet, to- night, though he is in deadly peril, you must not see, and could not serve, him.'



'I am unwilling to increase your distress,' said the surgeon, after a short pause, 'by making any comment on what you have just said, or appearing desirous to investigate a subject you are so anxious to conceal; but there is an inconsistency in your statement which I cannot reconcile with probability. This person is dying to-night, and I cannot see him when my assistance might possibly avail; you apprehend it will be useless to-morrow, and yet you would have me see him then! If he be, indeed, as dear to you, as your words and manner would imply, why not try to save his life before delay and the progress of his disease render it impracticable?'



'God help me!' exclaimed the woman, weeping bitterly, 'how can I hope strangers will believe what appears incredible, even to myself? You will NOT see him then, sir?' she added, rising suddenly.



'I did not say that I declined to see him,' replied the surgeon; 'but I warn you, that if you persist in this extraordinary procrastination, and the individual dies, a fearful responsibility rests with you.'



'The responsibility will rest heavily somewhere,' replied the stranger bitterly. 'Whatever responsibility rests with me, I am content to bear, and ready to answer.'



'As I incur none,' continued the surgeon, 'by acceding to your request, I will see him in the morning, if you leave me the address. At what hour can he be seen?'



'NINE,' replied the stranger.



'You must excuse my pressing these inquiries,' said the surgeon. 'But is he in your charge now?'



'He is not,' was the rejoinder.



'Then, if I gave you instructions for his treatment through the night, you could not assist him?'



The woman wept bitterly, as she replied, 'I could not.'



Finding that there was but little prospect of obtaining more information by prolonging the interview; and anxious to spare the woman's feelings, which, subdued at first by a violent effort, were now irrepressible and most painful to witness; the surgeon repeated his promise of calling in the morning at the appointed hour. His visitor, after giving him a direction to an obscure part of Walworth, left the house in the same mysterious manner in which she had entered it.



It will be readily believed that so extraordinary a visit produced a considerable impression on the mind of the young surgeon; and that he speculated a great deal and to very little purpose on the possible circumstances of the case. In common with the generality of people, he had often heard and read of singular instances, in which a presentiment of death, at a particular day, or even minute, had been entertained and realised. At one moment he was inclined to think that the present might be such a case; but, then, it occurred to him that all the anecdotes of the kind he had ever heard, were of persons who had been troubled with a foreboding of their own death. This woman, however, spoke of another person--a man; and it was impossible to suppose that a mere dream or delusion of fancy would induce her to speak of his approaching dissolution with such terrible certainty as she had spoken. It could not be that the man was to be murdered in the morning, and that the woman, originally a consenting party, and bound to secrecy by an oath, had relented, and, though unable to prevent the commission of some outrage on the victim, had determined to prevent his death if possible, by the timely interposition of medical aid? The idea of such things happening within two miles of the metropolis appeared too wild and preposterous to be entertained beyond the instant. Then, his original impression that the woman's intellects were disordered, recurred; and, as it was the only mode of solving the difficulty with any degree of satisfaction, he obstinately made up his mind to believe that she was mad. Certain misgivings upon this point, however, stole upon his thoughts at the time, and presented themselves again and again through the long dull course of a sleepless night; during which, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, he was unable to banish the black veil from his disturbed imagination.



The back part of Walworth, at its greatest distance from town, is a straggling miserable place enough, even in these days; but, five- and-thirty years ago, the greater portion of it was little better than a dreary waste, inhabited by a few scattered people of questionable character, whose poverty prevented their living in any better neighbourhood, or whose pursuits and mode of life rendered its solitude desirable. Very many of the houses which have since sprung up on all sides, were not built until some years afterwards; and the great majority even of those which were sprinkled about, at irregular intervals, were of the rudest and most miserable description.



The appearance of the place through which he walked in the morning, was not calculated to raise the spirits of the young surgeon, or to dispel any feeling of anxiety or depression which the singular kind of visit he was about to make, had awakened. Striking off from the high road, his way lay across a marshy common, through irregular lanes, with here and there a ruinous and dismantled cottage fast falling to pieces with decay and neglect. A stunted tree, or pool of stagnant water, roused into a sluggish action by the heavy rain of the preceding night, skirted the path occasionally; and, now and then, a miserable patch of garden-ground, with a few old boards knocked together for a summer-house, and old palings imperfectly mended with stakes pilfered from the neighbouring hedges, bore testimony, at once to the poverty of the inhabitants, and the little scruple they entertained in appropriating the property of other people to their own use. Occasionally, a filthy-looking woman would make her appearance from the door of a dirty house, to empty the contents of some cooking utensil into the gutter in front, or to scream after a little slip-shod girl, who had contrived to stagger a few yards from the door under the weight of a sallow infant almost as big as herself; but, scarcely anything was stirring around: and so much of the prospect as could be faintly traced through the cold damp mist which hung heavily over it, presented a lonely and dreary appearance perfectly in keeping with the objects we have described.



After plodding wearily through the mud and mire; making many inquiries for the place to which he had been directed; and receiving as many contradictory and unsatisfactory replies in return; the young man at length arrived before the house which had been pointed out to him as the object of his destination. It was a small low building, one story above the ground, with even a more desolate and unpromising exterior than any he had yet passed. An old yellow curtain was closely drawn across the window up-stairs, and the parlour shutters were closed, but not fastened. The house was detached from any other, and, as it stood at an angle of a narrow lane, there was no other habitation in sight.



When we say that the surgeon hesitated, and walked a few paces beyond the house, before he could prevail upon himself to lift the knocker, we say nothing that need raise a smile upon the face of the boldest reader. The police of London were a very different body in that day; the isolated position of the suburbs, when the rage for building and the progress of improvement had not yet begun to connect them with the main body of the city and its environs, rendered many of them (and this in particular) a place of resort for the worst and most depraved characters. Even the streets in the gayest parts of London were imperfectly lighted, at that time; and such places as these, were left entirely to the mercy of the moon and stars. The chances of detecting desperate characters, or of tracing them to their haunts, were thus rendered very few, and their offences naturally increased in boldness, as the consciousness of comparative security became the more impressed upon them by daily experience. Added to these considerations, it must be remembered that the young man had spent some time in the public hospitals of the metropolis; and, although neither Burke nor Bishop had then gained a horrible notoriety, his own observation might have suggested to him how easily the atrocities to which the former has since given his name, might be committed. Be this as it may, whatever reflection made him hesitate, he DID hesitate: but, being a young man of strong mind and great personal courage, it was only for an instant;--he stepped briskly back and knocked gently at the door.



A low whispering was audible, immediately afterwards, as if some person at the end of the passage were conversing stealthily with another on the landing above. It was succeeded by the noise of a pair of heavy boots upon the bare floor. The door-chain was softly unfastened; the door opened; and a tall, ill-favoured man, with black hair, and a face, as the surgeon often declared afterwards, as pale and haggard, as the countenance of any dead man he ever saw, presented himself.



'Walk in, sir,' he said in a low tone.



The surgeon did so, and the man having secured the door again, by the chain, led the way to a small back parlour at the extremity of the passage.



'Am I in time?'



'Too soon!' replied the man. The surgeon turned hastily round, with a gesture of astonishment not unmixed with alarm, which he found it impossible to repress.



'If you'll step in here, sir,' said the man, who had evidently noticed the action--'if you'll step in here, sir, you won't be detained five minutes, I assure you.'



The surgeon at once walked into the room. The man closed the door, and left him alone.



It was a little cold room, with no other furniture than two deal chairs, and a table of the same material. A handful of fire, unguarded by any fender, was burning in the grate, which brought out the damp if it served no more comfortable purpose, for the unwholesome moisture was stealing down the walls, in long slug-like tracks. The window, which was broken and patched in many places, looked into a small enclosed piece of ground, almost covered with water. Not a sound was to be heard, either within the house, or without. The young surgeon sat down by the fireplace, to await the result of his first professional visit.



He had not remained in this position many minutes, when the noise of some approaching vehicle struck his ear. It stopped; the street-door was opened; a low talking succeeded, accompanied with a shuffling noise of footsteps, along the passage and on the stairs, as if two or three men were engaged in carrying some heavy body to the room above. The creaking of the stairs, a few seconds afterwards, announced that the new-comers having completed their task, whatever it was, were leaving the house. The door was again closed, and the former silence was restored.



Another five minutes had elapsed, and the surgeon had resolved to explore the house, in search of some one to whom he might make his errand known, when the room-door opened, and his last night's visitor, dressed in exactly the same manner, with the veil lowered as before, motioned him to advance. The singular height of her form, coupled with the circumstance of her not speaking, caused the idea to pass across his brain for an instant, that it might be a man disguised in woman's attire. The hysteric sobs which issued from beneath the veil, and the convulsive attitude of grief of the whole figure, however, at once exposed the absurdity of the suspicion; and he hastily followed.



The woman led the way up-stairs to the front room, and paused at the door, to let him enter first. It was scantily furnished with an old deal box, a few chairs, and a tent bedstead, without hangings or cross-rails, which was covered with a patchwork counterpane. The dim light admitted through the curtain which he had noticed from the outside, rendered the objects in the room so indistinct, and communicated to all of them so uniform a hue, that he did not, at first, perceive the object on which his eye at once rested when the woman rushed frantically past him, and flung herself on her knees by the bedside.



Stretched upon the bed, closely enveloped in a linen wrapper, and covered with blankets, lay a human form, stiff and motionless. The head and face, which were those of a man, were uncovered, save by a bandage which passed over the head and under the chin. The eyes were closed. The left arm lay heavily across the bed, and the woman held the passive hand.



The surgeon gently pushed the woman aside, and took the hand in his.



'My God!' he exclaimed, letting it fall involuntarily--'the man is dead!'



The woman started to her feet and beat her hands together.



'Oh! don't say so, sir,' she exclaimed, with a burst of passion, amounting almost to frenzy. 'Oh! don't say so, sir! I can't bear it! Men have been brought to life, before, when unskilful people have given them up for lost; and men have died, who might have been restored, if proper means had been resorted to. Don't let him lie here, sir, without one effort to save him! This very moment life may be passing away. Do try, sir,--do, for Heaven's sake!'--And while speaking, she hurriedly chafed, first the forehead, and then the breast, of the senseless form before her; and then, wildly beat the cold hands, which, when she ceased to hold them, fell listlessly and heavily back on the coverlet.



'It is of no use, my good woman,' said the surgeon, soothingly, as he withdrew his hand from the man's breast. 'Stay--undraw that curtain!'



'Why?' said the woman, starting up.



'Undraw that curtain!' repeated the surgeon in an agitated tone.



'I darkened the room on purpose,' said the woman, throwing herself before him as he rose to undraw it.--'Oh! sir, have pity on me! If it can be of no use, and he is really dead, do not expose that form to other eyes than mine!'



'This man died no natural or easy death,' said the surgeon. 'I MUST see the body!' With a motion so sudden, that the woman hardly knew that he had slipped from beside her, he tore open the curtain, admitted the full light of day, and returned to the bedside.



'There has been violence here,' he said, pointing towards the body, and gazing intently on the face, from which the black veil was now, for the first time, removed. In the excitement of a minute before, the female had thrown off the bonnet and veil, and now stood with her eyes fixed upon him. Her features were those of a woman about fifty, who had once been handsome. Sorrow and weeping had left traces upon them which not time itself would ever have produced without their aid; her face was deadly pale; and there was a nervous contortion of the lip, and an unnatural fire in her eye, which showed too plainly that her bodily and mental powers had nearly sunk, beneath an accumulation of misery.



'There has been violence here,' said the surgeon, preserving his searching glance.



'There has!' replied the woman.



'This man has been murdered.'



'That I call God to witness he has,' said the woman, passionately; 'pitilessly, inhumanly murdered!'



'By whom?' said the surgeon, seizing the woman by the arm.



'Look at the butchers' marks, and then ask me!' she replied.



The surgeon turned his face towards the bed, and bent over the body which now lay full in the light of the window. The throat was swollen, and a livid mark encircled it. The truth flashed suddenly upon him.



'This is one of the men who were hanged this morning!' he exclaimed, turning away with a shudder.



'It is,' replied the woman, with a cold, unmeaning stare.



'Who was he?' inquired the surgeon.



'MY SON,' rejoined the woman; and fell senseless at his feet.



It was true. A companion, equally guilty with himself, had been acquitted for want of evidence; and this man had been left for death, and executed. To recount the circumstances of the case, at this distant period, must be unnecessary, and might give pain to some persons still alive. The history was an every-day one. The mother was a widow without friends or money, and had denied herself necessaries to bestow them on her orphan boy. That boy, unmindful of her prayers, and forgetful of the sufferings she had endured for him--incessant anxiety of mind, and voluntary starvation of body-- had plunged into a career of dissipation and crime. And this was the result; his own death by the hangman's hands, and his mother's shame, and incurable insanity.



For many years after this occurrence, and when profitable and arduous avocations would have led many men to forget that such a miserable being existed, the young surgeon was a daily visitor at the side of the harmless mad woman; not only soothing her by his presence and kindness, but alleviating the rigour of her condition by pecuniary donations for her comfort and support, bestowed with no sparing hand. In the transient gleam of recollection and consciousness which preceded her death, a prayer for his welfare and protection, as fervent as mortal ever breathed, rose from the lips of this poor friendless creature. That prayer flew to Heaven, and was heard. The blessings he was instrumental in conferring, have been repaid to him a thousand-fold; but, amid all the honours of rank and station which have since been heaped upon him, and which he has so well earned, he can have no reminiscence more gratifying to his heart than that connected with The Black Veil.





[The end]

Charles Dickens's short story: Black Veil

The vampire has long been established as a powerful icon of our culture. Many are tempted to believe that the power and popularity of the fanged beast are simply explained by our collective love for danger.



Yes, the vampire is dangerous. There is no question that he (or she!) has taken his position among horror monsters that will survive the ages. However, few creatures inspire the kind of devotion you find in followers of the vampire. Few people are as fascinated with the mummy or Frankenstein's monster as they are with the creatures of the night.



I agree with the "danger theory" wholeheartedly as an explanation for the pervasive nature of horror in general, but I tend to think the reasoning behind the vampire's vast history has more to do with the most universal and powerful of human fears: the fear of death.



From a folkloric standpoint, the vampire may have served as mythic explanation for a process that few cultures understood historically. Death has always been a mystery, but never more so than prior to the developments of science and medicine that have evolved in this century.



Humans have always tried to understand the world around them; our thirst and capacity for learning are unlimited. Historically, however, something that cannot be understood or explained is relegated to the breeding ground from which springs myth and superstition. How many things are "known" to cause bad luck, for example? Spilled salt, walking underneath a ladder, a black cat crossing our path... the list goes on and on. The vampire's presence in folklore indicates that its purpose may well have been to explain through superstition what could not be understood through any other means: the mystery of death.



In modern times, death is better understood, but not fully; old superstitions are always just beneath the surface. Death still frightens people more than anything else. We're still not sure as a culture what happens after death - which is why we have everything from cryogenic corpse preservation to elaborate Roman Catholic funerals. Stephen King once said, "Burial is a mystery, but death is a secret." Media today (from film to fiction and beyond) is a reflection of these beliefs and fears - which is why the vampire continues to hold us in thrall.



The vampire, to some, is still a representation of a frightening truth in our lives - every living thing must die. The vampire fascinates us because his very nature is the antithesis of that truth. He died in order to have existence, and his existence is fed by the death of others.



To others, the vampire of today represents the ability we all wish we had - the ability to cheat death, to overcome it and continue to exist. It can be a romantic vision - this creature is immortal, and yet no other creature on earth knows death as intimately as he. What a delicious dichotomy.

Witchcraft, practice of magic or sorcery by those outside the religious mainstream of a society; the term is used in different ways in various historical and social contexts.



Many people participating in the contemporary revival of witchcraft, known as the neopagan revival, identify themselves as benign witches. Therefore, the practice of witchcraft should not be associated with evil or the infliction of harm, nor with diabolism (the invocation of Devils).



In addition, many accusations of malicious witchcraft-especially in some primal societies and in early modern Europe and North America-have been unfounded and have sprung from irrational fears and social anxieties.



This article discusses witchcraft under three main headings: sorcery, with reference primarily to witchcraft in primal and ancient societies; diabolical witchcraft, with a focus on the persecution of alleged witches in Europe and the United States and on the social pathologies that accompanied this persecution; and modern witchcraft, dealing with contemporary witchcraft in the neopagan revival.



These are different phenomena, and perceptions of witchcraft drawn from one arena cannot be applied indiscriminately to another.

II. Sorcery



Simple sorcery, or the use of magic accessible to ordinary people, such as setting out offerings to helpful spirits or using charms, can be found in almost all traditional societies. Although the distinctions are often blurred, practices such as these differ both from religion, in which gods are worshipped in awe or implored through prayer to help, and from the sophisticated arts of alchemists and ceremonial magicians.



Sorcery is intended to force results rather than achieve them through entreaty, and it is worked by simple and ordinary means.



From a sociological point of view, the widespread practice of sorcery within a tribe or peasant community serves to reinforce and consolidate beliefs about the supernatural world and the relation of humans to that world.



Psychologically, sorcery provides a means of establishing a sense of control over nature and thus mitigates the anxieties caused by disease, uncertain seasons, and natural disasters. When such eventualities occur despite preventive measures, they can be interpreted as the result of malicious witchcraft, and the alleged perpetrators may then be sought out and driven from the community.



The function of the so-called witch doctor or medicine man in many societies is to counter the power of evil witchcraft through good magic. Shamans may also heal through comparable means by performing rites that expel pestilential spirits or by retrieving lost and stolen souls. Characteristically, they do this with the aid of helping spirits or gods invoked through incantations and rites.



Practices such as these were known to the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. In the Old Testament, the apocryphal book of Tobit contains an account in which, at the instruction of an angel, an evil spirit is expelled from a bridal chamber by the odor of a smoldering fish heart and liver (Tobit 6:14-18).



Nevertheless, the Bible also contains injunctions against witchcraft, such as "You shall not permit a witch to live" (Exodus 22:18), a command that was used to justify the persecution of witches in medieval Europe.



The Greco-Roman world was permeated by belief in witchcraft. Roman poet Horace refers to hags who clawed the earth to invoke spirits of the underworld, and philosopher and novelist Apuleius mentions the practice of nailing owls over doors with wings outspread to deflect storms.



After the Christianization of the Mediterranean world in the 4th century, countless customs like these-as well as comparable practices in northern Europe-were perpetuated as folk magic or were superficially Christianized in such practices as inscribing the Lord's Prayer on a piece of paper and keeping it in one's shoe as an amulet against bewitchment.



Certain local sages or "wise women" were experts in popular witchcraft or sorcery, which often represented remnants of pre-Christian religion.

III. Diabolical Witchcraft



In the early Christian centuries, the church was relatively tolerant of magical practices. Those who were proved to have engaged in witchcraft were required only to do penance. But in the late Middle Ages (13th century to 14th century) opposition to alleged witchcraft hardened as a result of the growing belief that all magic and miracles that did not come unambiguously from God came from the Devil and were therefore manifestations of evil.



Those who practiced simple sorcery, such as village wise women, were increasingly regarded as practitioners of diabolical witchcraft. They came to be viewed as individuals in league with Satan. Nearly all those who fell under suspicion of witchcraft were women, evidently regarded by witch-hunters as especially susceptible to the Devil's blandishments.



A lurid picture of the activities of witches emerged in the popular mind, including covens, or gatherings over which Satan presided; pacts with the Devil; flying broomsticks; and animal accomplices, or familiars.



Although a few of these elements may represent vestiges of pre-Christian religion, the old religion probably did not persist in any organized form beyond the 14th century.



The popular image of witchcraft, perhaps inspired by features of occultism or ceremonial magic as well as by theology concerning the Devil and his works of darkness, was given shape by the inflamed imagination of inquisitors and was confirmed by statements obtained under torture.



The late medieval and early modern picture of diabolical witchcraft can be attributed to several causes.



First, the church's experience with such dissident religious movements as the Albigenses and Cathari, who believed in a radical dualism of good and evil, led to the belief that certain people had allied themselves with Satan. As a result of confrontations with such heresy, the Inquisition was established by a series of papal decrees between 1227 and 1235. Pope Innocent IV authorized the use of torture in 1252, and Pope Alexander IV gave the Inquisition authority over all cases of sorcery involving heresy, although most actual prosecution of witches was carried out by local courts.



At the same time, other developments created a climate in which alleged witches were stigmatized as representatives of evil.



Since the middle of the 11th century, the theological and philosophical work of scholasticism had been refining the Christian concepts of Satan and evil. Theologians, influenced by Aristotelian rationalism, increasingly denied that "natural" miracles could take place and therefore alleged that anything supernatural and not of God must be due to commerce with Satan or his minions.



Later, the Reformation, the rise of science, and the emerging modern world-all challenges to traditional religion-created deep anxieties in the orthodox population.



At the dawn of the Renaissance (15th century to 16th century) some of these developments began to coalesce into the "witch craze" that possessed Europe from about 1450 to 1700. During this period, thousands of people, mostly innocent women, were executed on the basis of "proofs" or "confessions" of diabolical witchcraft-that is, of sorcery practiced through allegiance to Satan-obtained by means of cruel tortures.



A major impetus for the hysteria was the papal bull Summis Desiderantes issued by Pope Innocent VIII in 1484. It was included as a preface in the book Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), published by two Dominican inquisitors in 1486. This work, characterized by a distinct antifeminine tenor, vividly describes the satanic and sexual abominations of witches. The book was translated into many languages and went through many editions in both Catholic and Protestant countries, outselling all other books except the Bible.



In the years of the witch-hunting mania, people were encouraged to inform against one another. Professional witch finders identified and tested suspects for evidence of witchcraft and were paid a fee for each conviction.



The most common test was pricking: All witches were supposed to have somewhere on their bodies a mark, made by the Devil, that was insensitive to pain; if such a spot was found, it was regarded as proof of witchcraft.



Other proofs included additional breasts (supposedly used to suckle familiars), the inability to weep, and failure in the water test. In the latter, a woman was thrown into a body of water; if she sank, she was considered innocent, but if she stayed afloat, she was found guilty.



The persecution of witches declined about 1700, banished by the Age of Enlightenment, which subjected such beliefs to a skeptical eye. One of the last outbreaks of witch-hunting took place in colonial Massachusetts in 1692, when belief in diabolical witchcraft was already declining in Europe.



Twenty people were executed in the wake of the Salem witch trials, which took place after a group of young girls became hysterical while playing at magic and it was proposed that they were bewitched. The subsequent witch hunt took place in the context of deep divisions between the church and a controversial minister. Personal differences were exacerbated in a small, isolated community in which religious beliefs-including belief in the reality of diabolical witchcraft-were deeply held. By the time the hysteria had run its course, little enthusiasm for the persecution of witches remained in Massachusetts or elsewhere.



Belief in traditional witchcraft, in the sense of sorcery, remains alive in India, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. A belief in the possibility of something akin to diabolical witchcraft can still be found among some conservative Christians.

IV. Modern Witchcraft



In the second half of the 20th century, a self-conscious revival of pre-Christian paganism occurred in the United States and Europe.



The foundation of this revival was witchcraft, or wicca (said to be an early Anglo-Saxon word for witchcraft). Wicca is interpreted simply as the nature and fertility religion of pre-Christian Europe, which has been explored in books such as Charles Leland's Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches (1899), Margaret Murray's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921), and Robert Graves's The White Goddess (1948).



Although they are now considered unreliable by scholars, such books gave inspiration to some people seeking spiritual alternatives. The writings of Englishman Gerald Gardner, who in his book Witchcraft Today (1954) claimed that he was a witch initiated by a surviving coven, imparted much of the alleged lore and rituals of English witches. Although his claims have been questioned, covens of modern witches sprang up under Gardner's inspiration and spread to the United States in the 1960s.



This form of witchcraft-with its feeling for nature, its colorful rituals, and its challenge of conventional religion and society-harmonized well with the countercultural mood of the 1960s and grew rapidly during that decade. Modern witchcraft continued to prosper during the subsequent decades.



Many followers of the ecological and feminist movements found in wicca a religion with congenial themes. Wiccans emphasized the sacred meaning of nature and its cycles and the coequal role of gods and goddesses and of priests and priestesses. Some wiccan groups, called Dianic (after the goddess Diana), include only women and worship the goddess exclusively.



Closely related "neopagan" religions have also appeared in revivals of ancient Egyptian, Celtic, Greek, and Nordic religions. Wicca perceives itself as a religion based on the broad themes of ancient pre-Christian paganism, although it is not drawn directly from paganism-for example, wicca shuns some features of the old paganism, such as animal sacrifice. Increasingly, wicca draws from many pagan traditions, with the result that the distinctions between witchcraft, occultism, neopaganism, and various strands thereof have become blurred.



Modern witchcraft is entirely different from Satanism or the diabolical witchcraft imagined by the persecutors of past centuries. Major wiccan themes include love of nature, equality of male and female, appreciation of the ceremonial, a sense of wonder and belief in magic, and appreciation of the symbolism and psychological realities behind the gods and goddesses of antiquity.

Book of the Dead, name generally given to a large collection of funerary texts of various dates, containing magical formulas, hymns, and prayers believed by the ancient Egyptians to guide and protect the soul (Ka) in its journey into the region of the dead (Amenti).



Egyptians believed that the knowledge of these texts enabled the soul to ward off demons attempting to impede its progress, and to pass the tests set by the 42 judges in the hall of Osiris, god of the underworld. These texts also indicated that happiness in the afterlife was dependent on the deceased's having led a virtuous life on earth. The earliest religious (funerary) texts known were found cut in hieroglyphs on the walls inside the pyramids of the kings of the 5th and 6th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom; these became known as the Pyramid Texts.



A famous example is found in the pyramid of Unas (reigned about 2356-2323 BC), the last king of the 5th Dynasty. In the first Intermediate Period and in the Middle Kingdom private individuals had these texts painted on coffins, from which the alternate name Coffin Texts is derived. By the 18th Dynasty the texts were inscribed on papyri placed in the mummy case; these papyri were frequently from 15 to 30 m (50 to 100 ft) long and illustrated in color.



The Egyptian Book of the Dead was a text containing prayers, spells, and hymns, the knowledge of which was to be used by the dead to guide and protect the soul on the hazardous journey through the afterlife. Beginning in the 18th Dynasty, the Book of the Dead was inscribed on papyrus. This section of one such book, from the early 19th Dynasty, shows the final judgment of the deceased (in this case Hu-Nefer, the royal scribe) before Osiris, god of the dead. Hieroglyphs as well as illustrations portray the ritual of weighing the deceased's heart to determine whether he can be awarded eternal life.





This vast collection of mortuary texts has survived in three critical revisions, or recensions: the Heliopolitan Recension, edited by the priests of the College of Anu (Heliopolis), and containing texts in use between the 5th and the 12th Dynasties; the Theban Recension, used from the 18th to the 22nd Dynasties; and the Saite Recension, used from the 26th Dynasty, about 600 BC probably to the end of the Ptolemies, 31 BC.



The title “Book of the Dead” is misleading; the texts do not form a single connected work and do not belong to one period. Egyptologists have usually given this title to the last two Recensions. Translations of some sections (chapters) were made under various titles; one celebrated English translation of the Book of the Dead was made by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge in 1895.