Vampires Through the Ages (20 page)

Edwin returned home, but his condition only worsened and neighbors began to suggest that one of the Brown family members had become a vampire after death and was now responsible for the mysterious wasting disease afflicting the family. If George Brown, the patriarch of the family, wanted to save what was left of his family, they warned, he needed to exhume the bodies and examine them for signs of vampirism.

George Brown was horrified by the notion of desecrating their graves but eventually gave in to pressure from the community. Accompanied by the local medical examiner, Dr. Harold Metcalf, Brown disinterred his wife and two daughters. First he exhumed his wife, whose remains were little more than bones and a bit of hair; then his daughter Olive, who while mummified appeared to have no blood left in her body; and finally he dug up young Mercy, who despite having been in the ground three months appeared fresh and with a rosy blush to her cheeks.

Although the doctor cautioned that it was merely a natural part of death's process, George nonetheless ordered her heart removed for further inspection. After finding thick, dark blood still in the heart, witnesses claimed that it was a sign of vampirism, and the organ was burned to ashes on a nearby rock. Afterwards, the ashes were mixed with various medicines and fed to Edwin in the hopes of breaking the vampire's curse, but, alas, he died soon after anyway.

Weird Science

While it's often easy to look back on the beliefs of our forebears and shake our heads in disbelief at the credulousness of their superstitions, in our own time theories surrounding the origin of the vampire continue, with speculations as colorful as anything that came before. Probably one of the most often repeated theories on the genesis of the European vampire is the idea that it stems from the unusual appearance of those suffering from the blood disease porphyria. Also known as King George III's disease, the genetic disorder causes an abnormality in the hemoglobin, sending part of the blood's pigment to the urine rather than the body's cells. Toxic levels accumulate quickly, producing a wide range of symptoms including a reddening of the eyes, skin, and teeth as well as sensitivity to sunlight and necrosis of the skin. Treatment of the disorder involves injections of heme and reducing blood volume to control iron levels.

The theory was first espoused in 1964 by Dr. Lee Illis of Guy's Hospital in London in a paper for the
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine
entitled “On Porphyria and the Aetiology of Werewolves,” and then again by author Nancy Garden in her 1973 book,
Vampires
. It didn't become popular, however, until it was reintroduced to the public during a lecture for the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1985 by Canadian biochemist David Dolphin with his paper “Porphyria, Vampires, and Werewolves: The Aetiology of European Metamorphosis Legends.”

Dolphin's ideas were widely accepted in large part because of the vampire boom in books and movies sweeping the Western Hemisphere and the growing trend among writers and moviemakers to modernize the creature by adding a bit of science to the mix and casting vampirism as a disease. Unfortunately for those suffering from the disorder and who now had to face the added stigma of this new label, Dolphin's knowledge was limited to that of Hollywood vampires, and none of the corpses accused of vampirism in historical texts actually displayed the characteristic of someone with porphyria.

Other theories followed this growing trend, including one proposed by the Spanish neurologist Juan Gomez-Alonso in 1998, published in the journal
Neurology
, that held that the belief in the European vampire was the result of major epidemics of rabies across Europe in the 1700s. The idea for this new theory came to Dr. Gomez-Alonso late one night as he watched the movie
Dracula
and suddenly noticed striking similarities between the vampire and victims of rabies. While researching the matter further, he uncovered a wealth of interesting correlations—including the fact that victims suffering from rabies often have the tendency to bite others and that most of the famous vampire outbreaks in Eastern Europe coincided with rabies epidemics in dogs and wolves, especially in Hungary between 1721 and 1728.

Rabies is a viral disease causing swelling in the brain and is passed through the bite of an infected animal, most commonly dogs, wolves, and bats (animals associated with vampires). Symptoms include anxiety, confusion, agitation, paranoia, hallucinations, hydrophobia, and finally death. Interestingly enough, many of the folkloric aversions attributed to vampires are also found in rabies victims. As Dr. Gomez-Alonso pointed out, “Men with rabies … react to stimuli such as water, light, odors, or mirrors with spasms of the facial and vocal muscles that can cause hoarse sounds, bared teeth, and frothing at the mouth of bloody fluid.” In the past, he continued, “a man was not considered rabid if he was able to stand the sight of his own image in a mirror” (Jenkins 2010, 15–16). The deadly bite of the vampire, which could infect a victim, has its obvious parallels with rabies.

Others have surmised that victims of reported nocturnal vampire attacks also show a marked similarity to a condition known as sleep paralysis, which occurs either just before falling asleep or just upon waking, when a person finds himself or herself fully awake yet unable to move. The paralysis can last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes and is thought to be the result of a temporary disconnect between the brain and the body as the person drifts in and out of REM sleep. This often terrifying condition may afflict both normal sleepers and those diagnosed with disorders such as narcolepsy, cataplexy, and during the presence of hypnagogic hallucinations.

Normally those with sleep paralysis awake unable to move, with what they perceive as the sound of someone or something approaching them. Strange forms or even smells manifest along with the feeling that an immense weight is crushing the person's chest. In a few moments the paralysis wears off, and they come fully awake to find that they are completely exhausted as if they had not slept at all. In early European folklore many believed that at night an old hag or witch could leave her physical body and sit upon the chest of a sleeping victim, causing nightmares or even crushing the victim to death. In fact, the original name for the phenomenon was itself
nightmare
, from the combination of the word
night
and the Old English term
maere
, meaning “demon” or “incubus.”

Perhaps the newest take on the old myth is the belief that vampires originated from individuals suffering from what psychiatrists today call
clinical vampirism
. It is also known as
Renfield's syndrome
, a term first coined by psychologist Richard Noll in his book
Bizarre Diseases of the Mind
, which compared the traits of the disorder to those exhibited by the fictional character Renfield in Bram Stoker's
Dracula
, who eats spiders and flies in order to consume their life force. Those diagnosed with this syndrome display a strong obsession for drinking blood and may develop delusions of being a vampire. The act of drinking blood carries with it an intense sexual aspect coupled with the belief that it will convey certain supernatural powers.

The condition usually occurs in males just before they reach the age of puberty when some trauma or event psychically links blood and sexuality together for them, which in turn leads to vampiric fantasies and auto-vampirism (drinking one's own blood). In more extreme examples, such as in the case of convicted serial killer Richard Trenton Chase, whose blood-drinking crimes we examined earlier, it can also intensify into necrophilia, necrophagia, cannibalism, and sadism.

The search for the truth about vampires has been a long and arduous journey through a vast collection of exotic countries, belief systems, and languages. When we first began the hunt we were standing next to an empty grave in a deserted island monastery pondering the mystery of one of history's most notorious blood drinkers, the fifteenth-century Wallachian prince Vlad Dracula Tepes. Through it all we've seen what the vampire meant to each of the cultures we examined, studying its various forms, habits, and how some mortals even took arms against it in a centuries-old struggle of good versus evil.

Yet in the end what matters most is what the vampire means to us here and now in the new age dawning before us. Is it still the thing lurking just beyond the glow of the campfire somewhere out there in the darkness, or is it ultimately the darkness that we find lurking within ourselves? Whether or not you believe in vampires, or in what form you believe they exist, will in the end come to depend on what your answer is to that very question.

In light of where we have traveled and the horrors we have seen, it is important to include a cautionary tale about the dangers of hunting vampires. On July 16, 1996, a young reporter for the New York
Village Voice
named Susan Walsh dropped her son off at her ex-husband's apartment, saying she would be running some quick errands. At the time, Susan was investigating the vampire clubs then springing up in Greenwich Village, as well as sinister reports of kidnappings and murders connected to the modern blood drinkers.

In her search for the truth some believe she may have delved too far by immersing herself in the vampyre subculture and dating a man who believed he was a vampire. That day she told her ex-husband that she would be back in a few minutes, but she was never seen again. A subsequent search of her apartment revealed that she had taken none of her personal belongings nor her pager or wallet. Some say she committed suicide or ran afoul of the Russian mafia, but others claim that she became a victim of the very vampires she was hunting. Regardless of which version you choose to believe, Susan Walsh dropped off the face of the earth, and her case remains open and unsolved to this day.

Today the monastery at Lake Snagov has become something of a tourist shrine for vampire fans the world over, who make pilgrimages to the site to snap photos of the empty grave and leave flowers or other items. Up until World War II the archeological evidence collected from the second grave was housed in the city of Bucharest's History Museum, at which time it was transferred by convicts to the mountains near Valenii de Munte in southern Romania (coincidentally Dracula's former homeland) for safekeeping.

During transport the artifacts thought to belong to Dracula disappeared, removing any hope of solving the riddle of the empty grave and ensuring for generations to come that the hunt for the truth about Dracula and the legend of the vampire will go on.

[contents]

Bibliography

Barber, Paul.
Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality
. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.

Bartlett, W. B., and Flavia Idriceanu.
Legends of Blood: The Vampire in History and Myth
. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006.

Bataille, Georges.
The Trial of Gilles de Rais
. Translated by Richard Robinson. Los Angeles: Amok, 1991. (Originally published in French in 1965.)

Belanger, Michelle A.
The Psychic Vampire Codex: A Manual of Magick and Energy Work
. Boston: Weiser Books, 2004.

The Bhagavad Gita
. Translated by W. J. Johnson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Blackstone, William, John Hovenden, and Archer Ryland.
Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books, 19th edition
. London: S. Sweet, 1836.

Brown, David E.
Vampiro: The Vampire Bat in Fact and Fantasy
. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1999.

Byron, George Gordon Byron.
Byron: Poetical Works
. Edited by Frederick Page. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Calmet, Augustin, and Gillian Bennett.
The Phantom World
:
Myth, Legend and Folklore
. Ware, UK: Wordsworth Editions in Association with the Folklore Society, 2001. (Originally published in 1746.)

Ciuncanu, Gigi. “O gorjeanca a infipt un cui in inima concubinului mort” (A Gorjean Stuck a Nail through the Heart of Her Dead Lover),
Ziua
(Bucharest, Romania), November 24, 1998.

Craft, Kimberly L.
Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory
. Lexington, KY: Kimberly L. Craft, 2009.

Curtis, Dan, Robert Costello, Jonathan Frid, Grayson Hall, Joan Bennett, Louis Edmonds, Nancy Barrett, Dana Elcar, and John Karlen. Dan Curtis Productions.
Dark Shadows. DVD Collection 1
. Orland Park, IL: MPI Home Video, 2002.

Deane, Hamilton, John L. Bladerston, and Bram Stoker.
Dracula: The Vampire Play in Three Acts
. New York: S. French, 1960.

Dunn-Mascetti, Manuela.
Vampire: The Complete Guide to the World of the Undead
. New York: Viking Studio Books, 1992.

Florescu, Radu R., and
Raymond T
McNally.
Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times
. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.

Fortune, Dion.
Psychic Self-Defense
. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 2001. (Originally published in 1930 by Rider & Company, London.)

Frazer, James George.
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Volume 1
. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1923.

Garden, Nancy.
Vampires
. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1973.

Gardner, John, John Maier, and Richard A. Henshaw.
Gilgamesh: Translated from the Sîn-leqi-unninni Version
. New York: Knopf, 1984.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von.
The Bride of Corinth
.
Translated by Charles Tomlinson.
London: Nutt, 1890.

Gomez-Alonso, Juan. “Rabies: A Possible Explanation for the Vampire Legend.”
Neurology
, 51:3 (September 1998), 856–59.

González-Wippler, Migene.
The Complete Book of Spells, Ceremonies & Magic
, 2nd edition. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1988. (Originally published in 1978 by Crown Publishers, New York.)

Guiley, Rosemary Ellen.
The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters
. New York: Facts on File, 2005.

Hacker, Joseph, and Abraham M. Habermann.
The Alphabet of Ben Sira: Facsimile of the Constantinople 1519 Edition
. Verona, Italy: Valmadonna Trust Library, 1997.

Hanson, Victor Davis.
Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power
. New York: Doubleday, 2001.

Hesiod.
Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica
. Translated by
Hugh G. Evelyn-White.
London: W. Heinemann, 1914.

Homer.
The Odyssey
. Translated by Samuel Butler. London: A. C. Fifield, 1900.

“Immigrant's Fears of Vampires Led to Death,”
The Times
. (London), January 9, 1973.

Institoris, Heinrich, and Jakob Sprenger.
Malleus Maleficarum
. Edited and translated by Christopher S. Mackay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Jenkins, Mark Collins.
Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend
. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2010.

Jones, Aphrodite.
The Embrace: A True Vampire Story
. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.

Karg, Barbara, Arjean Spaite, and Rick Sutherland.
The Everything Vampire Book: From Vlad the Impaler to the Vampire Lestat—A History of Vampires in Literature, Film, and Legend
. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2009.

Karma-glin-pa, Francesca Fremantle, and Chögyam Trungpa.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo
. Berkeley, CA: Shambhala, 1975.

Konstantinos.
Vampires: The Occult Truth
. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1996.

Laycock, Joseph.
Vampires Today: The Truth about Modern Vampirism
. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009.

Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan, and Robert Tracy.
In a Glass Darkly
. (The World's Classics.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Leeming, David A.
Creation Myths of the World: An Encyclopedia
. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010.

Malham, John and William Oldys, eds.
The Harleian Miscellany: Or, a Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, as Well in Manuscript as in Print, Found in the Late Earl of Oxford's Library, Interspersed with Historical, Political, and Critical Notes, Vol. XI
. London: Printed for R. Dutton, 1808–11.

More, Henry.
An Antidote Against Atheism, or, An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Minde of Man
. Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press, 1997. (Originally published in 1653.)

Murnau, F. W., Henrik Galeen, Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Alexander Granach, Greta Schroeder-
Matrey, and Bram Stoker.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
. Blackhawk Films Collection. Chatsworth, CA: Image Entertainment, 2000.

Noll, Richard.
Bizarre Diseases of the Mind
. New York: Berkley Books, 1990.

O'Donnell, Elliott.
Strange Cults and Secret Societies of Modern London
. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1935.

Philostratus.
The Life of Appollonius of Tyana: The Epistles of Appollonius and the Treatise of Eusebius, Vol. 1
. (Loeb Classical Library Series.)
Translated by F. C. Conybeare.
London: Heinemann, 1950. Translation first published in 1912.

Polidori, John William.
The Vampyre and Other Writings
. Edited by Franklin Charles Bishop. Manchester, UK: Carcanet, 2005.

Ralston, William Ralston Shedden.
The Songs of the Russian People
. London: Ellis & Green, 1872.

Ramsland, Katherine M.
The Forensic Psychology of Criminal Minds
. New York: Berkley Boulevard, 2010.

———.
The Science of Vampires
. New York: Berkley Boulevard, 2002.

Reid, Patrick V., ed.
Readings in Western Religious Thought: The Ancient World
. New York: Paulist Press, 1987.

Rice, Anne.
Interview with the Vampire: A Novel
. New York: Knopf, 1976.

Robertson, John. “Man with Vampire Fantasy Killed Friend to Drink Blood, Court Told,”
The Scotsman
(Edinburgh, Scotland), September 30, 2003.

Rowlatt, Justin. “Vampire Couple Jailed for Satanic Murder,”
The Independent
(London),
February 1, 2002.

Rymer, James Malcolm, and Thomas Peckett Prest.
Varney, the Vampire: or, The Feast of Blood
. Crestline, CA: Zittaw Press, 2007. (Originally published in 1847.)

Scoffern, John.
Stray Leaves of Science and Folk-lore
. London: Tinsley Bros., 1870.

Southey, Robert.
Thalaba the Destroyer: 1801
. (Revolution and Romanticism, 1789–1834 series.) Oxford: Woodstock Books, 1991. (Originally published in 1801.)

Stoker, Bram.
Dracula
. London: Penguin, 2003. (Originally published in 1897.)

Summers, Montague.
The Vampire in Europe
. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publications, 2003.

———.
The Vampire in Lore and Legend
. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2001.

———.
Vampires and Vampirism.
Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005.

Thompson, Reginald Campbell, trans.
The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, Being Babylonian and Assyrian Incantations against the Demons … and Kindred Evil Spirits, Which Attack Mankind
. (Luzac's Semitic Text and Translation series.) London: Luzac and Co., 1903.

———
.
Semitic Magic: Its Origins and Development
. (Luzac's Oriental Religious series, vol. 3.) London: Luzac and Co., 1908
.

Tylor, Edward Burnett.
Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom. (
The Collected Works of Edward Burnett Tylor, vol. 2.) London: Routledge/Thoemmes, 1994. (Originally published in 1871.)

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet).
A Philosophical Dictionary: From the French of M. de Voltaire with Additional Notes, Both Critical and Argumentative, Part 2
. Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1856.

William, of Newburgh, P. G. Walsh, and M. J. Kennedy.
The History of English Affairs
. (Aris & Phillips Classical Texts.) Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 1988.

Wright, Dudley.
The Book of Vampires
. New York: Dorset Press, 1987.

[contents]