Question about vampires

[3DOCTORS]

Some folklore and superstitious primitive rituals are incredibly bizarre - here’s another Live Science article livescience.com/4072-search-real-dracula.html that tells about people in Romania and what they do when they suspect someone is a vampire. (It’s pretty gross to say the least.)

In these times we have movies and books; in centuries past there were storytellers. The stories that got told were carrying on the culture of the people who told them, undoubtedly. But perhaps just like now, there were storytellers way back when who liked to embellish their stories!

I admit to liking the Twilight series and some other teen vampire series. Not all of them, though. If they have too much violence, sexual talk or scenes, cussing, etc. then no. What I’ve noticed in those series is that each author makes the rules for her vampires a little different. Not all literary vampires’ victims become a vampire immediately. Some die, though (as in Twilight - those who aren’t changed into vampires but are just “food” for the vampires not willing to drink animal blood as a substitute). In Vampire Diaries, the vampire and victim have to exchange blood, and the transition is reversible if it hasn’t gone too far.

As for sparkling, well . . .

 

[GEddie]

God created angels (or fallen angels known as demons) and humans.
There is no such thing as vampires, the bogey-man or the toothfairy etc.

The vampire myth started when, in 1987, Bram Stoker Dracula released the gothic horror novel Dracula. Interestingly, Bram Stoker based his vampire character Count Dracula on a real life historical person known as Vlad the Impaler, who is one of the most evil person in the history of mankind.

1987 has to be a typo, as I know I was hearing about vampires long before high school!!!

Methinks you meant “1897” or “1789”.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Paddy_Walker]

1987 has to be a typo, as I know I was hearing about vampires long before high school!!!

Methinks you meant “1897” or “1789”.

ICXC NIKA

1. the year Bram Stoker published Dracula. the first vampire of popular fiction.

 

[Paddy_Walker]

ohh… very interesting… i’m obviously following popular ideas. thanks!

…vampires were still irish, right! right.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

You also had “Varney the Vampire, or: The Feast of Blood” by James Rymer that was serialized beginning in 1845. It probably influenced Stoker a bit. Varney, who may have actually been the aristocrat Marmaduke Bannerworth (surely the worst name for a vampire evah) but became a vampire as a result of the Catholic/Protestant split - well, sort of, as he betrayed a Catholic royalist to Oliver Cromwell.

Varney apparently had the first use in literature of things that would become popular after Dracula - two long fangs, puncture marks in the victim’s neck, hypnotic powers, superhuman strength.

 

[Dolezal]

Okay, since there seems to be a growing of vampire-based literature around, I just have to ask a few questions:
One: Do vampires really exist- Is there any historical support for actual vampirical existence, or are they just mythical creatures?
Two: If vampires do exist, are they a ‘race’, or persons associated with a demonic cult or possessed by demons?
Three: Has the Church, at any time, persecuted ‘vampires’? It seems to be a common idea when vampires in literature cross paths with the Church.

Vampires are mythical and fictional creatures. Fictional creatures cannot be persecuted.

The Slavic word for vampire was first used in an Old Russian text from the 11th century. The English term was derived from German Vampir, from Serbo-Croatian vàmpīr, and ultimately probably from a Turkish language. Vampires were originally (in Southeastern European folklore) human corpses, animated by demons, who rose at night from their graves and killed cattle and people by sucking out their blood. They looked like rotting corpses, bloated and dark purple (nothing like vampires in modern fiction).

Check out The Vampire, His Kith and Kin by Montague Summers. Montague Summers was an Anglican priest who pretended to be a Catholic priest. He claimed that vampires and werewolves were real and wrote a number of books about them and the occult. It is unclear whether he actually believed in the subjects he wrote about.

 

[pollynova]

I forget where I saw it, but 2 people were having a conversation. One of the asks, “How do you kill a vampire?”

The second person says, “Well, a stake through the heart, holy water, garlic and sunlight.”

The first person says, “You can kill a vampire anyway you want because they don’t exist!”

 

[Sonic]

Okay, since there seems to be a growing of vampire-based literature around, I just have to ask a few questions:
One: Do vampires really exist- Is there any historical support for actual vampirical existence, or are they just mythical creatures?
Two: If vampires do exist, are they a ‘race’, or persons associated with a demonic cult or possessed by demons?
Three: Has the Church, at any time, persecuted ‘vampires’? It seems to be a common idea when vampires in literature cross paths with the Church.

To answer your questions… no to all three.

Fr. Augustine Calmet’s book The Phantom World (available online) gives an extensive investigation into the supernatural, and gives quite a bit of information about the Vampire myth. Vampires are discussed in Vol. 2.

 

[mikekle]

Okay, since there seems to be a growing of vampire-based literature around, I just have to ask a few questions:
One: Do vampires really exist- Is there any historical support for actual vampirical existence, or are they just mythical creatures?
Two: If vampires do exist, are they a ‘race’, or persons associated with a demonic cult or possessed by demons?
Three: Has the Church, at any time, persecuted ‘vampires’? It seems to be a common idea when vampires in literature cross paths with the Church.

You are correct, vampires do exist, but they are not exactly as the movies portray them to be. The are not immortal, but do live longer than humans, they do have re-tractable fangs, operate in the same manner as when a man becomes sexually excited and his penis grows, their fangs operate in this way. They are very much alive, but have a different body chemistry than humans.

Their existence is kept well hidden though. I learned about them over a year ago though, they claim to originate from either Cain or Judas Iscariot. Their condition is actually a curse, passed on thru the centuries. New Orleans, LA is home to many though, although it is difficult to find the real ones verses the fake ‘goths’ who like to claim they are vampires. True vampires will not be seductive or even interested in sex though, another misconception by hollywood.

They claim they are not demonic, and not human, but are ‘something else’ that God knows about.

 

[mikekle]

Mathematical fact as to why vampires cannot be real:

Assume that a vampire can go only 1 week without feeding off human blood. Suppose each victim too becomes a vampire. If we start off with 1 vampire, after 1 week we will have a second. The next week goes by, we now have 4. Another week, another 4 to make 8 total. Keep on going until you hit the 33rd week and every single person on the planet is a vampire.

Even if you said a 25% infection rate was a more accurate figure than the 100% infection rate I give, you still have to deal with the dead victims (rather than the undead victims), which does not actually change the figures–that is, vampires cannot drink blood of vampires or of the dead.

You are assuming everyone that is bitten by a vampire is either killed or suddenly turned into one…this is very wrong, they do not give the ‘dark gift’ to many people, it is rare, the people they get their blood from many times do not even know they are victims.

 

[GEddie]

You are assuming everyone that is bitten by a vampire is either killed or suddenly turned into one…this is very wrong, they do not give the ‘dark gift’ to many people, it is rare, the people they get their blood from many times do not even know they are victims.

If this really happened…wouldn’t the victim go into hypovolemic shock; or at least, become aware of bleeding from the neck???

ICXC NIKA