Hola

[MoonChild]

hi guys, am new here, and still a lot confused with the authenticity of the vampire! can someone help?

[Vampirologist]

I am slightly confused by your question. What do you mean by "authenticity of the vampire"?

The existence of vampires, ie nosferatu / the undead, goes back to antiquity. All ancient civilisations knew and feared the vampire. Early scholars recorded its existence. Tertullian in the first century acknowledged the reality of these undead, as did St Augustine etc.

The Slavonic word "vampire" might be a comparatively recent one to enter our vocabularies, but the phenomenon, recognised by any number of names, has always been known and, moreover, has always been with us.

[MoonChild]

all right, mythology apart, then why are these not reported as often? What concrete evidence do we have? IF the vampire bites make a human another vampire, then why dont we have "roaming" vampires? And if at all, why the Cross and Stake alone? Because Christianity is not the base for the entire world.

[Vampirologist]

There are endless published works where innumerable cases of blood-sucking vampires, ie reanimated corpses, are cited, eg the works of William of Newburgh, Leo Allatius, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Joseph Ennemoser, Philip M Rohr, John Heinrich Zopfius and Dom Augustin Calmet. Plus the works of Emily Gerard, Sir John Mandeville, W R S Ralston, Sir James Frazer, Dudley Wright, Montague Summers, Peter Underwood, Devendra P Varma and Seán Manchester. The lists goes on and on. The cases of traditional vampirism also go on and on.


The famous 18th century French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, wrote:

"If ever there was in the world a warranted and proven history, it is that of vampires: nothing is lacking, official reports, testimonials of persons of standing, of surgeons, of clergymen, of judges; the judicial evidence is all-embracing."


Devendra P Varma wrote:

“The dark, blood-curdling vampire superstition is not quaint folklore of eastern Europe alone. The vampire is of dateless antiquity. … The vampire stories have a hideous ring of realism. … Public records reveal that in 1732, in Serbia and Wallachia, vampirism spread like a pestilence causing numerous deaths. There had been a notorious case of vampirism near Belgrade in 1731. As the century drew to its close, reports of dead returning from the grave multiplied alarmingly. … Complex rituals for protection against vampires … were garlic, the Cross and Communion Wafers.”

(Quoted from The Vampire’s Bedside Companion, 1975).


Peter Underwood wrote:

“To many people, perhaps the majority, vampires are creatures of legend and fantasy with no reality, today, or at anytime, outside the covers of books. To others who have studied the folklore of many countries and examined the existing reports of apparent vampirism that have appeared over the years and still occasionally appear (in England and on the continent in particular) there would appear to be a considerable amount of evidence that such creatures not only once existed but may still do so. Belief in vampires is by no means dead.”

(Quoted from The Vampire’s Bedside Companion, 1975).


Seán Manchester wrote:

“Too many people spend too much energy attempting to deny something they claim does not exist in the first place. Most ordinary people in the UK do not believe in the existence of vampires anyway. Why, then, do certain writers, publishers and groups feel threatened by the Vampire Research Society when it uncovers evidence that contradicts this apparent non-belief? It is to do with the identification of the existence of dark forces. These forces are meant to be hidden. Evil exists as an external reality, not merely a lack of something. It is an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted and perverting, mysterious and frightening.”

(Quoted from The Vampire Hunter’s Handbook, 1997).


Vampires of the supernatural kind definitely exist. Some of those who appear to go out of their way to deny the existence of this disturbing phenomenon obviously have an agenda for doing so.

Undoubtedly, the majority of people react with disbelief and scepticism towards the subject of supernatural vampirism. Yet have they not been conditioned to react with scepticism by institutional and media influences? Most people have built in “slides” that short circuit the mind’s critical examination process when it comes to certain sensitive topics. “Slides” is a CIA term for a conditioned type of response which dead ends a person’s thinking and terminates debate or examination of the subject at hand. For example, any mention of the word “vampire” often solicits a “slide” response with many people. Seán Manchester affirms in the introduction to his best selling book, The Highgate Vampire (1991): “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is contempt prior to examination.”

Those who are most vehement in their denial of the existence of vampires are invariably those who have not taken the time to study and investigate this mysterious phenomenon. Ignoring the vampire has nevertheless failed to ensure its departure. Some might want to know why we don't hear more about vampire cases in the modern world?

Montague Summers might have the answer:

“Whether we are justified in supposing that cases of vampirism are less frequent today than in past centuries, I am far from certain. But one thing is plain ~ not that they do not occur, but that they are carefully hushed up and stifled.”

(Quoted from The Vampire in Europe, 1929).


The ancient Egyptians believed the souls of the dead could return as vampires. And a Chaldean epic of the third millennium B.C. portrays the goddess Ishtar, who goes to the underworld to find her son/lover Tammuz, declaring:

"I will cause the dead to arise and devour the living."