The Vampire, His Kith and Kin: A Critical Edition (Apocryphile Press, 2011) [uncorrected proof excerpt] (original) (raw)
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Vampires and vampirism: pathological roots of a myth
Many cultures have developed myths and legends about vampires and hematofages with different features and behaviours. These tales have many common elements, as the dualism between "life" and "death". According to some anthropogical currents, these symbols don't come up from nothing, but follow a process of transformation drawing elements from real experience, which are intersected in the cultural tissue and are transformed depending on the message they are meant to spread. Vampires include several characteristics referable to those illnesses and diseases which have mostly marked human history, both from the psychological and the physical point of view.
The theme/folklore related to vampires has a lengthy historical timeline, and remains one of great fascination which continues today. This paper is a brief study of Vampires from a Folkloric Perspective.
The magical power of blood: the curse of the vampire from an anthropological point of wiev
Ehquidad Revista Internacional de Políticas de Bienestar y Trabajo Social
We all have heard about vampires. Many cultures have developed myths and legends about vampires with different features. These tales have several common elements, as the dualism between life and death. Vampirism is one of the most enduring, universal, popular myths of all times, being one of the most archaic images that society has feared. Popular tales, folk legends and mythological stories about beings that prey upon others to drink their blood have been told for centuries across myriad peoples all over the world. Over the past few centuries, modern vampire myths emerging out of Europe have outlined the bloodsucking monsters as those who have risen from the dead to feed on human blood by night, sleeping in coffins by day to avoid the effects of the sun. Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula provided us with the now iconic archetype. Vampires are deeply associated to blood, the vital fluid whose consumption has been a curse both for such a being and for the peoples. According to social, anthropological conceptions, these symbols do not come from nothing, but follow a process of transformation, emerging from real experience, intertwined with the cultural tradition. We intend to show and analyze the reason for such a linking.
The magical power of blood: the curse of the vampire from an anthropological point of view
Ehquidad. International Welfare Policies and Social Work Journal, 2020
We all have heard about vampires. Many cultures have developed myths and legends about vampires with different features. These tales have several common elements, as the dualism between life and death. Vampirism is one of the most enduring, universal, popular myths of all times, being one of the most archaic images that society has feared. Popular tales, folk legends and mythological stories about beings that prey upon others to drink their blood have been told for centuries across myriad peoples all over the world. Over the past few centuries, modern vampire myths emerging out of Europe have outlined the bloodsucking monsters as those who have risen from the dead to feed on human blood by night, sleeping in coffins by day to avoid the effects of the sun. Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula provided us with the now iconic archetype. Vampires are deeply associated to blood, the vital fluid whose consumption has been a curse both for such a being and for the peoples. According to social, anthropological conceptions, these symbols do not come from nothing, but follow a process of transformation, emerging from real experience, intertwined with the cultural tradition. We intend to show and analyze the reason for such a linking.
The Vampire in Europe: A Critical Edition (Apocryphile Press, 2014)
2014
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD Katherine Ramsland EDITOR’S PREFACE NEW INTRODUCTION Rosemary Ellen Guiley PROLOGUE: MONTAGE SUMMERS AND THE VAMPIRE CASEBOOK Gerard P. O’Sullivan THE VAMPIRE IN EUROPE (1929): THE UNABRIDGED TEXT IN FACSIMILE Montague Summers AFTERWORD Carol A. Senf APPENDIX A. GREEK AND LATIN TRANSLATIONS Grace de Majewski APPENDIX B. REVIEWS, REACTIONS, ADS, AND NOTICES APPENDIX C. THE REAL VAMPIRE COMMUNITY: A CONCISE HISTORY APPENDIX D. ON VAMPIRISM AND ENERGY WORK APPENDIX E. VAMPIRES OF THE CRESCENT CITY: A CASE STUDY ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
'For the Blood is the Life: Blood, Disease and the Vampire Myth in the Early Modern period
Throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries reports of strange East European practices were brought back to England from returning soldiers and travelers. These reports told of the macabre practice of exhuming dead corpses and driving wooden stakes through their body in order to prevent the dead returning to consume the blood of the living. These ‘undead’ beings came to be known in the West as vampires. Folkloric accounts bear witness to these ‘vampires’ being discovered gorged and bloated, with dried blood encrusted around the mouth, having drained the life force from the living. And yet, advances in medical science showed that it was the body’s natural decomposition process that caused this appearance, as the body swelled through internal gases caused by the decaying process. One contemporary autopsy account from 1717 by the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort describes a suspected vampire from the Greek island of Mykonos being cut open and the make-shift surgeon searching through the entrails whilst looking for the heart. This vampire had, allegedly, been haunting the local people and existing in a state of suspended life by consuming their blood. Another such report comes from 1727 when Johann Flückinger, an Austrian army surgeon, wrote of a Serbian case where ‘the body had moved to one side in its grave, its jaws were open, and blood was trickling from its mouth’. The use of blood as a life-bringer was nothing new, and throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the use of ‘corpse medicine’, that is mixing human remains, mummia and human blood, was prevalent in combating diseases such as epilepsy. This blood was most prominent if it were from ‘the cadaver of a reddish man…whole, fresh without blemish, of around 24 years of age…dead of a violent death’. Queen Elizabeth’s surgeon John Banister and the chemist Robert Boyle were but two high profile advocates of the use of corpse medicine. Men such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Dom Augustine Calmet all had something to say on the subject, and several treatises were compiled on the topic. In 1765, the Gazzette des Gazettes, issued a public challenge to the scientific world to prove conclusively one way or the other as to whether vampires actually existed, such was the fascination at the time. This paper explores that fascination, and how the role of blood played such an integral role in Early Modern perceptions of the vampire-being, and questions why some parts of society chose to believe the superstitious reasons, even in the wake of advancing medical explanations.
Journal of Geek Studies, 2022
Vampires are mythological and folkloric creatures that have been catching people’s attention for centuries. They (fortunately or unfortunately) do not exist in the real world, but our intention in this article is to conduct a scientific interpretation of vampires as if they were real. Here, we examine some possible scientific explanations for vampirism, if it existed, particularly by looking at the biology of these fascinating creatures and proposing explanations based on real-world scientific knowledge. In the first section, we discuss what could be the cause and origin of vampirism in humans. In the second section, we analyze different aspects of the vampire phenotype, such as aversion to garlic, sensitivity to sunlight, anticoagulant and anesthetic production, aversion to religious symbols, and others. In the third section, we look at how the fear of vampires and other imaginary creatures might be related to the evolutionary history of our species. Finally, in the fourth section, we approach vampirism from the perspective of criminal psychology, briefly discussing the biography of three real-life murderers who have their atrocities related to vampirism: The Impaler, The Blood Countess, and The Vampire of Sacramento.