Vampires Among Us

Vampires Among Us:

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Vampires Among Us: The Children Of The Night

© 2010 by Gregory Branson-Trent. All rights reserved. No part of this boo k may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written p e r m i s s i o n o f t h e p u b l i s h e r s , e x c e p t b y a r e v i e w e r w h o may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

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N e w I m a g e P r o d u c t i o n s h a s a l l o w e d t h i s w o r k t o r e m a i n exactly as the author intended, verbatim, without editorial input. ISBN 978-0-9844657-2-9 Printed in the United States of America

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Gregory Branson-Tre nt

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Gregory Branson-Trent:

Return To The Cemetery: More Ghosts And Hauntings The Unexplained: Amelia Earhart, Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis, Aliens And Ghosts Aliens Among Us: A History Of Extraterrestrials, Crop Circles, Abductions, And UFO’s Haunted Hollywood: Ghosts Of The Dead Famous Creatures Of Myth And Legend: Fairies, Vampires, Werewolves, Dragons And More Magick: Wicca, Witchcraft And The Book Of Shadows Ghosts, Hauntings, And The Dark Side Of The Cemetery Mysteries of the Unexplained: Ghosts, Atlantis, and Bigfoot

Vampires, Aliens,

The Encyclopedia of Magick and the Occult: Wicc a, Tarot, Chakra, Runes, Crystals and Stones Vampires Among Us: The Children Of The Night The Six Million Dollar Man: Complete Episode Guide The Bionic Woman: Complete Episode Guide Wonder Woman: The Complete Episode Guide The Witch’s Kitchen: Incense, Oils, And Candle Recipes Coming Soon: Grandma Ran A Whore House A Haunting At Borley

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Visit www.GregoryBranson-Trent.com. While there, look for more information about books, p l a c e o r d e r s , a p p e a r a n c e s ( a n d t o s c h e d u l e a n a p p e a r a n c e) , a n d e m a i l i n g .

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This book is dedicated to C.L. Hause who continues to inspire me, and to my Dad Harvey.

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Imagine a world in which it’s possible for the dead to return to life to feed on the living. In that world, soon after burying a love d one who died mysteriously, you must watch as other members of your family begin growing weaker, as if life itself is slowly being drained out of them. One by one, they too begin to die. Finally, when you yourself begin losing your strength, you are forced to face the horrible truth, that your dead loved one may be a vampire. You go the grave and exhume t he body to look for the telltale signs and discover it has hardly decayed, its hair and finger nails have continued to grow, its stomach is swollen, and, the most telling sign of all, a stain of blood surrounds the corpse’s mouth. Upon further examination, you discover the heart itself is filled with blood. With trepidation you must cremate the heart and decapitate the corpse. Soon afterward, however, you and your surviving family members begin feeli ng better and eventually recover fully. The curse of the vampire has been broken. Imagine, on the other hand, that, you have grown too weak to hunt down the unholy creature responsible for your illness. In fact, you’re so ill, you black out. When you finally come to, you’re cold and in utter darkness. Soon you realize you’ve been you’ve been buried alive. You begin kicking and screaming until exhaustion overcomes you. Then, just as you’re about you’re about to gasp your last breath, the top of your coffin breaks open and, to your relief, you see that your family famil y and neighbors have arrived to rescue you in the nick of time. You want to smile and thank them but you’re too busy trying to recover your breath. You can only feel how grateful you are your nightmare is over. Then, just as you attempt to stand, one of your rescuers shoves a wooded stake through your heart, and once again your world falls into blackness, this time forever. Imagine, further, that the city cit y you live in is currently being plagued by vampire attacks and the massive death toll is increasing daily. Everywhere you go you see people sick and dying as their life force is slowly sucked away. Children seem especially susceptible. Infants, particularly, go to sleep healthy, but in the morning are discovered dead. Countless bodies like the one I described a moment ago are exhumed and burned in an attempt to end the vampire epidemic, to no avail. Meanwhile more bodies pile up by the hundreds, the thousands, the hundreds of thousands. The world is a dark and horrible place to live, and the only thing you can do is be terrified. 9


Today these chilling accounts seem possible only in the dark imaginations of horror novelists like Ann Rice and Stephen King. Vampires, ghouls, ghosts, zombies or any other creatures that return from the dead to terrorize the living are considered purely fictional. The imaginary world I just described makes for frighteningly good entertainment but nobody in their right mind would consider it real. Or would they? I submit to you that until about a hundred and fift y years ago, the world I’ve just described was the reality for most people. Virtually every known culture that has ever existed has believed in some form of vampire, from the ancient Sumerians to the inhabitants of New England just a few generations ago. Today, through the eyes of science and modern medicine, we realize the deadly plagues that swept through the Middle East, Europe and Asia during in the 6th and 14 th centuries, responsible for the deaths of 175 million people, was the bubonic plague, caused by rats, not vampires . We also know the low mortality rate of children, throughout history and today is caused by poverty and poor health conditions, not because vampires like the blood of children more than that of others. And, when an otherwise healthy infant dies suddenly in the night for no apparent reason, we no longer assume a demon of the night is responsible. We simply call it SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which may not be any less mysterious, but somehow sounds better to our modern rational minds. Today our vampires have become our diseases. Return to the world of the undead and read through the following chapters. Learn the history of the Vampire and learn where they came from. Look behind the glamour Hollywood had cast on this dark world. Experience what their world would have have been like. Return to the world of the Vampire.

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1 The History of the Vampire

"...The butcher swore that the body was still warm, from which they concluded that the deceased had the severe defect of not being quite dead, or, to state it better, of letting himself be reanimated by the devil for that is exactly the idea they have of a vrykolakas" - Relation d'un voyage du Levant , Levant , Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Ever wondered how the vampire myth started? When the term "vampire" first came around? How certain beliefs about vampires stemmed from folkloric superstitions? And how the vampire has progressed in legend, lore and reality over the centuries? Here is information gathered from various sources to answer all these questions and more. From the beginning of time legends of vampires have existed on this place we call Earth. The interesting, distinguishing mark of the vampire is that unlike other "monsters", the vampire has its roots in nearly every part of the world. From Ancient Greece to modern Day, the Vampire has been eternally preying on our imagination, forcing us to ask ourselves whether those things we dismiss as myths are just that...or more. Vampire….originally, Vampire….originally, the word was probably used very much like the English word "ghost," to describe a spirit that has returned from the dead to haunt the living. living. Although vampire folklore has been mostly influenced by by the Slavic people from Serbia, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, and, especially Romania it probably imported into Eastern Europe from the Far East. One ancient Indian Indian vampire that’s still worshipped today is Kali, the black goddess, described as the most bloodthirsty of Shiva’s consorts. She consorts. She has fangs, wears earrings made of corpses, a necklace of snakes and a girdle of skulls. The

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people of India also believed in the Bhuta, a spirit that wandered around at night animating dead bodies, and the Brahmaparusha, who drank blood from a skull. Indian immigrants carried their beliefs into Turkey, Turkey, and eventually into the whole of Eastern Europe. They were called Gypsies because they were originally thought to have come from Egypt instead of India. The history of the vampire begins in ancient Persia, where a vase was discovered depicting a man struggling with a huge creature which is trying to suck his blood. Then, in Babylonian myth a deity known for drinking the blood of babies, Lilitu or "Lilith", was discovered. She was reputedly the first wife of Adam according to old Hebrew texts removed from the Old Testament, and left her husband due to his sexual se xual ineptitude, becoming the Queen of Demons and Evil spirits. In China during the 6th century BC, traces of t he "Living Dead", or revenants as they are known, were also found. More legends le gends continued throughout the entire world, including India, Malaysia, Polynesia and the lands of the Aztecs and Eskimos. According to the Aztecs, the offering of a young victims blood to the Gods ensured the fertilization of the earth. But truly, the vampire proper originates from European civilization...ancient Greece to begin with. There were numerous bloodthirsty Goddesses in both Roman and Greek mythology, known as Lamiae, Empusae and Striges. These names eventuall y evolved into the general terms for Witches, Demons and Vampires. But these Vampires, though they do drink blood, were only Goddesses...not "living Dead", but disembodied divinities capable of taking ta king on human appearances so that they might seduce their victims. As time passed on, and Christianity grew in popularity, the redemptive value of blood became apparent. Holy Communion, which includes drinking wine symbolizing Christ's blood and Bread symbolizing his flesh, was at times taken quite literally. Some people, confusing pagan beliefs with transubstantiation (the actual presence of Christ's flesh and blood during Communion) took part in feasting on human flesh and drinking human blood. During the 11th Century, witches and doctors alike prescr ibed virgin blood to cure all illnesses. Also during this time, some corpses found intact all over Europe began a huge vampire scare. The belief bel ief came about that people who died without a chance to receive last rites, or those who had committed suicide or had been excommunicated were destined to return to the earth as revenants. Various accounts of the discovery of Vampires can be read in books such as The Diabolical The Diabolical Dictionary (Dictionnaire Dictionary (Dictionnaire Infernal) by the Bishop of Cahors; the Courtiers Triflings(De Triflings(De Nugis Curialium) by Walter Map, and the History of England (Historia (Historia Rerum Anglicarum) written by William of Newburgh.

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The phenomenon of Vampirism continued through the Renaissance era only sporadically, but again grew to epidemic proportions in the 14th Century, mainly in central European Regions of Prussia, Silesia and Bohemia. The bubonic plague was thought to be the the work of Vampires and panic of infection led people to bury their dead without completely verifying that they were truly deceased. It was then no wonder that so many encounters of Vampires rising ri sing from their graves during this time were noted. A person, buried alive, would try to claw his way out of the t he grave and would be discovered covered in blood from the wounds he had inflicted upon himself by doing so. This, of course, would label him as a vampire. In the mid-15th Century, Vampirism again reared its i ts head, most notably in the trial of Frenchman Gilles de Rais. A former member of Joan of Arc's guard and erstwhile Marshal of France, he retired to his lands in Southwest France, devoted to his quest of finding the secret of the "Philosophers' Stone" in blood. He killed about 200 to 300 children by way of horrifying torture, in order to use their blood in his experiments. Later, in the 19th century, Joris-Karl Huysmans portrayed him as an authentic vampire in his novel La-Bas novel La-Bas.. Also during this time, another historical figure became associated with vampirism. His name was Vlad Tepes Dracula, Prince of Wallachia, an ancient kingdom which is now part of Romania. His double name of Tepes (meaning "Impaler") and Dracula (after his father, Dracul, meaning Devil or Dragon...the 'a' added on to mean 'son of...') suited him quite appropriately. Both a national hero for liberating liberati ng his lands form the Ottoman invaders and a bloodthirsty tyrant who ordered thousands of people impaled for his pleasure, it is no wonder that his name became synonymous with the vampire legend. Four centuries later, Bram Stoker would write the infamous novel Dracula novel Dracula,, which would forever give us the stereotype of the classic vampire.

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Vlad Tepes Dracula (1431-76)

Elizabeth Bathory

Vampirism, though never completely vanished, dwindled slightly from the 15th through 17th centuries. In 1611, however, in the superstitious land of Hungary, Countess Erzsebet Bathory (Elizabeth Bathory or the "Blood Countess") began the legend afresh. She was accused of kidnapping and torturing young girls to death and then bathing in and drinking their blood. She believed that this would preserve her youth and looks. But how did she come to this conclusion? Well, apparently she was the wife of a Count who was always away at war. Becoming bored with her lifestyle, she began b egan to study black magic which led to her horrible endeavors. When a large number of young women became missing, Bathory's cousin led a detachment of soldiers and policemen to capture her. She was spared execution because of

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her royal ties, but was locked up in a tower room for the rest of her life with door and windows shut. Her accomplices though were all executed. This event in history gave rise to numerous rumors of vampirism and inspired many writers unto today. Also, this coupled with poverty and illiterate populations of the time, led to an explosion of vampire and werewolf superstitions in Southern and Eastern Europe. The belief that "Vrykolakas" (Slavic for Werewolves) would die and become vampires in the hereafter tied the two myths together quite conveniently. The word 'Vampire', until now unknown, became used as a term for the very first time in 1726, following thousands of reports of vampirism due to the plague. It was first coined in German as "Vanpir" in a report of one case of vampirism. This evolved into "vampyre" in 1732 (used in French) and fi nally into the English word "Vampire" later that same year. This was the beginning of the end for the vampire as we know it... The 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment as it was also known, set out to destroy superstition. Scholars, doctors, philosophers and members of the church all cast doubt on the accomplishments of the Devil and his minions. A French Benedictine Monk known as Don Calmet published a huge tract which, he claimed, put the controversy of vampires to rest. But the legend of the vampire, true to its nature, refused to die. Categorizing and stereotyping the vampire only provoked superstition. People, especially those of the 'back countries' became weary of those who had bushy eyebrows drawn together, or hair on the back of their palms. To detect vampires, they employed virgins who would ride virgin horses (either completely white or completely black) through the length of a cemetery, and the horse would rear at the tomb of a vampire. The rumor began to spread that some people, born of a union between vampire and mortal could spot vampires. Internment of suspected vampires was done with special precautions, such as driving a nail into the forehead of the corpse, smearing the body with pig's fat, or placing a clove of garlic in its mouth. These were only some of the methods used to prevent the suspected vampire from rising. But such events diminished as the Industrial Revolution began to change European life, and in this age of rationalism, rat ionalism, the legend of vampires and other creatures of the ethereal world began to all but die...Well, that was the theory, in any case. Reality had other plans. The Romanticism at the end of the 18th century tried to recapture emotion and nostalgia, lost in the Enlightment and Industrial Revolution. With this, the gothic novel had its rebirth. Johann von Goethe wrote his novel The Bride of Corinth(Die Corinth(Die Braut von Corinth), preceded by Gottfried August Buerger's Lenore Buerger's Lenore..

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These stories, as well as several poems of vampires of the 19th century by Keats, Coleridge and Baudelaire, included an element previously unknown to the vampire lore in traditional sense. This was the element of seduction, the bringing of pleasure in death. Then came the infamous The Vampyre by Vampyre by John William Polidori (well, he actuall y took over the story from Lord Byron) and Carmilla by Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu. Varney the Vampyre, Vampyre, written in 1847 by Prest and Rymer, became the longest novel ever written on the subject of vampires. Fantasy and horror were in great demand, but during the mid-19th century the popularity dwindled once again, due to its repetitive nature. But this did no last long, reappearing again in the Victorian era. It is truly ironic that in a century where all things decadent and a nd unsavory were supposed to be repressed, the legend of the vampire reached a peak. Perhaps viewed as an escape by many, the vampire appeared onstage, in novel, in poetry and in prose. The hypocrisy of society was in such a state that writing horrific stories was quite permissible so long as morality triumphed in the end. It was in this time that Bram Stoker wrote his legendary novel Dracula novel Dracula.. Though he had never himself been to Transylvania, the setting of the story, nor truly studied as a professional writer, the success of his novel was phenomenal, and it would forever define our views of the vampire... With the 20th century came a wonderful invention called the motion picture. It was with this that vampires and other movie monsters showed their faces on the big screen. The first vampire movie ever made was 1922's Nosfertau: 1922's Nosfertau: Eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu: A symphony of horrors). This German movie, directed by F.W. Murnau, starred Max Schreck in the title role. The vampire in this case took on the semblance of the creature in folklore...hairy palms, large bat-like ears, and so on. Then came a series of vampire movies from the US with Bela Lugosi as the t he notorious Dracula. The vampire was given fangs to bite with and an air of seduction. Afterwards, Christopher Lee joined England's Hammer productions in comprising the next image of Dracula...he was given dark hair, a long black opera cloak and glowing red eyes. From here on, numerous other vampire movies wer e made, some based on original screenplays, some on historical novels, some even comedies. As technology evolved in the film industry and special effects developed more and more, so did the horrific looks of the vampire.

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In 1987's The lost Boys, Boys , the vampires have realistic fangs, greenish red eyes and wear leather jackets to complete the look. That same year, Near year, Near Dark followed suit in the 'tough' image of modern vampires . In 1992, Francis Ford Copolla made a beautiful remake of Dracula, starring Gary Oldman in the title role. And then we cannot forget 1994's Interview 1994's Interview with the Vampire, Vampire, based on Anne Rices' novel, which created an explosion of popularity in the vampire genre. This author, named Anne Rice, revolutionized the image of the vampire. In her Vampire Chronicles she Chronicles she portrayed her title character of Lestat as having a human, almost tragic side to him as well as a savage nature. In her series of 5 novels, Anne Rice gave us a dark world, peopled with vampires everywhere, not entirely unlike our own, with the anti-hero Lestat in its center. She is creating a series of new vampire novels currently, based in the same world, evolving around the same characters, who in the Vampire Chronicles played Chronicles played minor roles. In addition to her, the 80's and 90's included several notable names of authors who shaped the vampire genre. These include Poppy Z. Brite, P.N. Elrod, and Tanith Lee. Music also gave the vampire publicity, especially in the late 1980's...bands like Concrete Blonde, the Cure, Type O negative and so on all wrote several songs about vampires and most had a general gothic or dark sound to their style in general. From the big screen the vampire made its way to television...first in the popular soap-opera series of Dark of Dark Shadows, Shadows, then to Kolchak:The to Kolchak:The night Stalker and onwards to modern day shows such as Forever Knight , Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Kindred: and Kindred: The Embraced . The latter series was based on a role-playing game called "Vampire: the Masquerade" which came out in 1992 and has been quite popular ever since. At the dawn of the 21st century, the occult genre has grown to immense proportions. Everywhere you turn, a vampire vampire seems to hide in the shadows. There are gothic nightclubs, vampire organizations such as the ARVLFC the ARVLFC and and the Transylvanian Society of Dracula, Dracula , role-playing groups in practically every town on the face of the earth, ea rth, and even on the internet, vampires live. l ive. There is no escaping the seduction and charm cha rm of the vampire, both in folklore and reality. It is everywhere we look...there are more vampires out there than one might imagine. The vampire truly is immortal. Perhaps not in the traditional sense of the word, but it has never been completely banished from the moment it reared its not-so-ugly head. From Ancient Greece to modern day, the vampire continues to bleed our imaginations imaginati ons dry...

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A Drawing from Vampire: The Masquerade's Book Masquerade's Book of Nod

There are many unique ways of defeating defeatin g a vampire, beyond just a stake through the heart, which seems to be Hollywood’s favor ite favor ite means. One idea was to keep vampire in the grave by whatever means possible. Wooden stakes could be driven into the ground to keep the creature pinned down. Sometimes heavy stones were placed on the grave, which may be the origin of the tombstone, or headstone. In fact, it was believed, by b y placing a stone above the head of the corpse, it would be unable to sit up should it rise from the dead. You could also bury the corpse face down so it digs down instead of up, wrap it in a carpet, or bind its hands and legs.

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If a horse with a naked virgin on its back refuses to step on a certain grave, you can assume it’s a vampire’s grave. The reason garlic is thought to work against vampires is that it overcomes the smell of death. And my favorite means of defeating a vampire is with poppy seeds. It seems vampires are terribly obsessive compulsive, and if you scatter poppy seeds by its grave, it can’t resist counting them. Given enough poppy seeds a vampir e can spend the entire night counting at its grave rather than causing mischief elsewhere. Perhaps this is the origin of "The Count," who loves to count on Sesame Street.

I could take up all my time talking about the vampire myth as it has developed in the West. Although, as I’ve said, its real home is in the Far East and Eastern Europe, the West, like all cultures, has always had some belief of its own about the undead returning to haunt the living. The Greeks, Western culture’s great grandparents, for example, have a vampire belief as long standing and persistent as any other. Empusa, for instance, a servant of the witch like goddess Hecate, enjoyed feeding on young and beautiful bodies because t heir blood is pure and strong. Empusa is a precursor of the devouring witch in the story of Hansel and Gretel. Another child killing demon was Mormo, who stole children in the night, or killed them in their sleep. He is probably the origin of our more modern idea of the bogeyman. It was easy for the foreign vampire traditions to influence the ancient Greeks, since they already believed in supernatural creatures and gods that drank blood. They also believed it was possible for a dead body to return to life, and that life is in the blood, so blood itself, if ingested, can revive the dead. The Greeks also believed the dead must be properly mourned and buried before they can rest. If not, the person’s per son’s soul might become trapped inside its it s body, unable to free itself from the earth, and become doomed to eternally drink the blood of the living. This kind of belief belief was so prevalent, the Greeks were even diligent about burying their worst enemies. And, in ancient times, there were actually professional mourners assigned to mourn for the dead. These traditions likely have a lot to t o do with our own funeral services and the way we view death to this day. So, as you can see, the roots of vampire folklore run long and deep in Western culture. However, as I mentioned earlier, the word "vampire" itself did not not enter the English language until the vampire scare s care of the 18th Century. Centur y. This was due to reports from East Prussia in 1721, that after a man named Peter Plogojowitz died he was seen by his son asking fo r him for food. His son refused and was found dead the next day. da y. Soon after, several of his neighbors nei ghbors also died, reportedly, from the blood loss. A couple years later, in 1925 1925 England heard reports from Hungary that many mysterious deaths began

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occurring after the death of Arnold Paole, who claimed to have been attacked attack ed by a vampire himself years earlier. While, by by today’s standards these reports seem silly, back then they were taken seriously enough that for the first time ever Western scholars began looking into the possibility of vampires, many claiming to believe they were real. Vampire hunting and staking became a part of life for many government government and law enforcement officials.

None of this should seem surprising to us if we stop and think about the very foundation of Western Culture — Christianity. Christianity. Christianity, especially to outsiders, is one big vampire cult that connotes the idea of its followers drinking the blood of a god that has returned from the dead. And, among its followers who believe strongly in the resurrection of the dead, Christianity is prime soil for sowing the seeds of vampire folklore. During the Middle Ages the Church recognized the existence of vampires and changed it from pagan folklore to the work of the Devil. In this way it was presumed the Church alone had the power to stop vampires. This is the reason the vampire is suppose to fear the cross. In addition, the cross symbolizes the antitheses to vampire resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus. Those who drink the blood of Christ have the blood of eternal life in their veins. Vampires, on the other hand, are eternally eter nally hungry, and can only drink the blood of sin and death, which never satisfies. The Church used this sort of belief to its advantage. For example, in the 17th Century, theologian Leo Allatius concluded vampires were often the result of excommunication. This was one way to keep membership up. The church also taught that the only way to assure that your loved one’s didn’t return as vampires was to make certain they were buried on consecrated ground. This was a real concern because it was believed vampires usually came back to feed on their own relatives. In reality, it was because the diseases, attributed to vampire attacks, were often contagious and spread most easily among family members. Consecrated ground simply means ground owned by the church. So, if you wanted your loved ones buried on consecrated ground you had to give your land to the Church. And, although it was never as horrible as the so called "witch hunts," hunts ," many a perceived "enemy" of the Church was accused of being a vampire and executed.

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Perhaps surprisingly, serious belief in vampires lasted well into the 19th Century and rooted itself well into New England. At that time the spread of tuberculosis, then called consumption, was blamed on vampires. Consumption, like the name implies, resulted in its victims wasting away even though they remained active and hungry. It was believed after one family member died from the illness; he or she would return and begin feeding upon other family members, which explained why they were slowly wasting away. The cure was to exhume the body and, if it hadn’t decomposed, burn the heart and severe the head. There are many medical explanations expla nations why a body doesn’t appear to decompose as fast as others, natural preservatives in the ground, bloating due to gases, the fact that hair and fingernails continue to grow even after death. The blood sometimes seen around the mouth of a corpse can also be attributed att ributed to the decaying process, or to the disease itself. But to the New Englander at the time, the only reasonable explanation involved the belief in vampires. Often, proper disposal of the vampire did seem to cure the ailing family members. Whether this is a result of the, so called, placebo effect or not, I’ll leave up to you to decide. Just a decade ago, in 1990, a famil y burial ground was accidentally discovered in Griswold, Connecticut; leading to the discovery of twenty-nine members of the Walton family, who had immigrated to Griswold Gris wold in 1690. In one of the graves, the bones of a man in his fifties were found to have been rearranged postmortem. His skull and femora were found in a skull and crossbones position. Lesions were also discovered on his bones proving he had died as a result of tuberculosis. It’s believed several years after his death, his death, after other family members had contracted TB, the man who has come to be known as JB JB by anthropologists, was exhumed and treated as a vampire. Since, by the time he was exhumed, his heart had long decomposed, he bones were rearranged instead. There are at least a dozen official vampire accounts recorded in the History of New England. The last known case attributed to vampirism is that of Mercy Brown who died of a lingering illness in 1892, little more than a hundred years ago. Later, after several of her family members became sick, Mercy was exhumed by the town folk and dealt with as if she were a vampire. Several newspaper articles were written about it and the spread of TB was reported to have been halted. You can still visit her grave today the cemetery next to the Chestnut Hill Baptist Church in Exeter, Rhode Isl and.

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I believe the reason people throughout history have been fascinated and frightened by the vampire myth, is that we have always tried to bury something within ourselves that refuses to remain buried. We bury it because we are frightened of it, frightened of that part of us that is earthbound and ravenous. I especially like that the modern vampire, thanks again to Hollywood, has become quite sexy. se xy. Throughout history we have been taught that our cravings and our desire s are evil and must by shut away in darkness. Then we can only let them out in darkness, when nobody is watching. The vampire, thought to be a source of evil and the spread of evil, is merely that misunderstood part of us that has been outcast and longs to enter the world of light and life. Today the trend is that vampires are less frightened by the cross. Perhaps this represents as change in our psyche towards greater self acceptance and awareness, uninhibited by the religious fears and superstitions of our past. This much I know, there is a vampire in i n each one of us, a ghost haunting our lives because it experienced and untimely death and was buried prematurely. It looks human because it is human. It looks like a family member because it belongs to us, we are related to it. Let go of the superstition. Let go of your fear. Embrace your vampire. Embrace yourself. God has enough love for the vampires too.

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Vampires Among Us

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