Werewolves n vampires?

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There was the case of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian noblewoman of the 16th century, who drank the blood of young women and bathed in it as well, I understand, until she was exposed and imprisoned. her story is here.

She may have been an inspiration for the story of Dracula, as was the historical Prince Vlad the Implaler who was known by that name.
 
BrooklynBoy200 said:
can’t a demon posses someone and make them drink another person’s blood?
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With regards to the “make them” comment…here is my comment.
You mentioned Fr. Amorth’s book An Exorcist Tells His Story. If I recall correctly, in it he explains that a person must be willing to accept possession, and not be “made” to do so. So if a person does drink blood for devilish purposes, I would think that person would have to first freely cooperate with the demonic influence. He cannot be made to do so.
 
For werewolves, I’m allergic to silver, it makes my skin break out in a painful rash, and silver earrings cause the holes in my ears to swell, bleed, and puss. So I imagine that the first “werewolves” probably had the same skin allergy I do, and since people at that time had limited understanding of the human body, they probably mistook the allergy for a curse.
 
I have experienced things that make me believe in some sort of werewolves or werebeasts and vampires as well as many other strange phenomena. I still don’t know or really need to know just what they are. I know they can hurt people.
 
DanteAlighieri said:
Here’s the cool thing: even if they do, the Church still contains the fullness of truth. 🙂

Peace,
Dante
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Thing is, I don’t know. I’d be surprised but not shocked if they were real. I believe in enough funky supernatural stuff as is (I’m Catholic, lol).
 
Funny thing too, people in pre-modern times lived closer to nature, with minds uncluttered by modern claptrap like television, infotainment, and internet forums. I would actually expect people from the middle ages to have a much easier time sorting out fiction from fact. We like to think of ourselves as quite enlightened relative to our ancestors, but lots of people believe in modern myths such as space aliens, kidney thieves, and the $250 cookie recipe. Who really is naive, us or them?
 
Bobby_Jim said:
Funny thing too, people in pre-modern times lived closer to nature, with minds uncluttered by modern claptrap like television, infotainment, and internet forums. I would actually expect people from the middle ages to have a much easier time sorting out fiction from fact. We like to think of ourselves as quite enlightened relative to our ancestors, but lots of people believe in modern myths such as space aliens, kidney thieves, and the $250 cookie recipe. Who really is naive, us or them?
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Except that there’s a bit of evidence for the space aliens (although I doubt they’re really aliens, unless they’ve got Alcubierre warp down). There really are organ smugglers in Asia (the Triads do it all the time).

But then, a real skeptic knows that the first thing to doubt, is doubt. There’s documentary evidence for some werewolves and vampires, for some skinwalkers, for a whole plethora of hauntings. Unless you’re a materialist (who disbelieves on the basis of irrational dogma), you have to at least concede the possibility these things really happened.

They affect the infallibility of the Church, however, not one whit, since her infallibility is limited to faith and morals.
 
I read a book some years ago, I think by John Douglas, but it could have been another FBI profiler…Anyhow, the author said something that made sense to me…
He said, today we know a lot about abnormal psychology, we know about serial killers, & some of these horrible things that people do. But what if you lived 500 or 1000 years ago?? And someone was killing people in some peculiarly horrible way, over & over? Wouldn’t you say,( just as we do today, with all our science) “What kind of an **animal **could do this?”
We mean, animal=evil human acting worse than an animal; back then, people thought that animal=vampire/werewolf/[insert monster of your choice].
And I thought, that’s true! I’ve said it myself: “What kind of a monster would do a thing like that!” I knew that it was a human “monster”. Years ago, most folks thought it was an actual being (other than human).

I doubt that there would ever have been an official position on the subject. But a pope (even several) could, IMO, have said, “A monster had to do that!”, and all it would have meant was an exclamation of horror.
It wouldn’t, in other words, make it a doctrine of the Catholic Church. It would be like you or me saying it…
 
Out on a limb here, but humor me.

Perhaps such things are tools of the devil and his minions, and he just changes his tactics over the years. Terrorize one generation with “werewolves”, terrorize another generation with “alien abductions”, etc. You get my point.

I don’t know whether all these things ever existed or not, if it was just human imagination, or evil spirit meddling. The only thing I know for sure is that God is in charge, and if I ever meet a werewolf **or ** a rabid dog, I will pray with all my might!
 
Lycanthropy (werewolfism) is a known, but rare, mental illness which has been studied quite extensively. There are lots of resources available for anyone who wishes to know more. Porphyria cutanea tarda is a blood disorder which causes an extreme sensitivity to light. Areas of skin exposed to the sun develop severe blistering, scarring, changes in pigmentation, and increased hair growth. Some sufferers have been known to believe they had become vampires and that the missing heme could be absorbed through the stomach, ie They drank blood.
 
Ok, here’s one of my grandmother’s old stories:

She was born in 1890, and lived to be nearly 94, so she had seen a lot of changes in the world.
When she was a young woman, before she met my grandfather, she worked in Rochester, NY. There was another young woman who lived in the same boarding house as she did…
This other girl (teenager!) had very severe anemia. She had to keep her strength up, in order to work to support herself, but she would still pass out frequently…Her doctor had no way to treat her, really. (Rememeber, how little medical knowledge & ability to act on what knowledge they did have). When she was especially weak, he would take her , or send her, to the slaughterhouse…to drink glasses of the:eek: fresh blood that drained from the veins of the animals that were hanging there after death but before being cut up for the markets…

If someone had seen that, in say, 1406, instead of 1906, what do you think they would have thought? What might they have imagined??
She was just trying to survive under medically primitive circumstances. Today, she would get supplements, she would have transfusions. Then??
There were such people then, too. They may have been considered vampiric. Perhaps their doctors were thought to be the same…🤷

I don’t know. But I do know, that there are many things that we take for granted today, which were unheard of, perhaps undreamed of, a few centuries ago…
 
There is another thread *Vampires and Werewolves *which gives the medical explanation.
 
I used to be very into learning about this kind of folklore and superstition and still on occasion enjoy a good old fashioned Gothic horror novel or movie. As I’ve said on other threads, I was a fan of shows like Dark Shadows and authors like Anne Rice (although her brand of vampire was a little different), also Brian Lumley spins a good yarn with his Necroscope saga.

Anyway, I wanted to mention that I read about a priest who studied and wrote about vampires back in the early 1900s, his name was *Rev. Montague Summers *who claimed to be an authority on such things. he wrote a couple of such books, I have one called “The Vampire” which is a detailed study of the subject. I’m sure he was not speaking officially for the Church but on his own opinion based on his research.
 
I just did a search on Summers and discovered he was not a validly ordained Catholic priest but may have been a member of a schismatic group called the Old Catholic Church in England. Here is a link to more information.
 
Well anyone can drink another blood, if they’ve the stomache for it. And there are some very hair people out there. So, couple that with a palid complection, and canabalistic tendancies, and the things you’ve spoken of exist.

Of course, a vampire is in fact a corpse re-animated by an evil spirit…Which eats live-flesh. And I think is the quantity of bullets, not the quality, that kills.
 
Porphyria victims rarely crave blood and many aren’t at all sensitive to light. Heme cannot survive digestion. Drinking blood can provide iron and B vitamins, but in porphyria these aren’t enough to build hemoglobin. Porphyria victims have voiced great pain at being associated with vampirism and lycanthropy.
Many people consider themselves vampires and werebeasts. They have fora and chatrooms in which they discuss what they have in common. It seems there are many kinds of such individuals. Most say they would never take the blood of the unwilling but instead use donors chosen among friends and people they advertise for who enjoy donating. I can’t imagine why anyone would enjoy that. My skin is crawling right now.:eek:
Cultures have many forms of vampire beliefs around the world. Not all are pale. Actually, most are deeply colored or dark. Some fly. some are part animal and some change from animal to human shapes and back. It was a belief in Europe at one time that a witch could shapeshift and become a werebeast, and then die, and return as a vampire.
 
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