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While many argue that the reference to vampirism in history is, in fact, merely the product of inadequate education, overactive imagination, and superstition, it cannot be argued that nearly every culture on the planet harbors some myth of an undead creature who feeds on the blood and/or flesh of the living. In Romania, it is the strigoi, a demon-inhabited human who roams the countryside seeking wayward (and nonreligious) wanderers from whom to feed. In ancient Aztec societies, the Cihuateteo was a vampiric woman, half-god and half-mortal, who wandered the planet feeding on stranded or untended infants. And in Egyptian Wanderer lore (gypsies in slang terminology), the mullo is literally "a dead person" who returns to wreak havoc on its survivors and, of course, to drink the blood of the living.
Since there is no argument that many cultures have a reference to the vampire and that it is, in fact, a Jungian archetype, one must ask the questions: where do these ideas of vampires come from, and, if vampires exist in all cultures, does it not follow logic that there are vampires among us today? To first examine the foundation of the vampire in our present reality, we must look to the myths and lore that surround them. Every myth is rooted in fact, whether that fact has been exploited and manipulated to create a sensationalized version of the truth or not. If we can suss out the myths, we may be able to determine the source of the myths and validate the existence of vampires by today's standards. As this article is being written in a Western country, let us begin our search within the Christian Bible.
One cannot argue that the Christian Bible supports the concept of returning from the dead. The son of God, Christ, is said to have risen after three days confined to his tomb. While it is not argued that Christ was undead, this reference certainly purports the possibility of people rising from the dead. And Christ was not the only one to do so. Myriad individuals seem to rise and fall from death in the Bible. Among them? Lazarus. Lazarus was a poor beggar who dies and is resurrected by Christ to return to life. Another example of the idea that one can die and return from death.
Prior to the advent of the "new testament" version of the Bible, there existed (and exists) a version of the bible specific to orthodox Judaism which purports further validation that vampires may, indeed, exist. First, left out of the traditional version of Genesis, the Hebrew myth of Lilith suggests the possibility of either vampirism's mother, or at least, blatant sexism. Lilith is said to be the first woman made by God, and rather than being made from Adam's rib as was Eve, she is made from the dust, from the same stuff as Adam. When Adam goes to lay with Lilith, she refuses to be "beneath" him, believing that she is equal to Adam. She storms out of Eden and seeks her own way. This legend has been reshaped to suggest that, upon leaving Eden, Lilith becomes disfigured, adopting the lower body of a serpent with the upper body of an ugly female (a side note, and future article will examine the number of serpent myths connected with "evil", mythical women and the suggestion of Goddess-worship therein). Lilith then roamed the world eating infants left unattended in their cribs.
In all versions of the Old Testament, the legend of Cain is made plain. Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, murders his brother Abel and is cast out of Eden. The story indicates that God was angry, and casting Cain out, He: "branded him with a murder's mark. And he bore A race of fiends accursed like their father" (LI 1261-1266). The suggestion in the myth is that Cain could not enter Heaven and thus was cursed to wander Earth without peace, unable to die. In addition, the children he bore were cursed as he was cursed: he propagated more of his "kind". Unable to die and demonic in nature, Cain may be the first reference to vampires as we comprehend them today.
Beyond Christianity, there are further myths around the undead blood-drinkers of mythology. The Greeks have the Lamia, a tale of a woman similar to Lilith (and Cihuateteo), who has a serpent's body and a woman's head. She sustains herself on the blood of children. In addition to Greeks, many Asian cultures have myths of vampires, from Malaysian manaden creatures who live inside plants and, similar to ticks, attach themselves to humans to drink them dry of blood. Or the Japanese kaphas, lived in lakes and ponds (similar to piranha and leeches) and would attack large animals or people, devouring them whole in the water.
Now that we have established the presence of vampires in multi-cultural myth and history, let's examine real people in history who demonstrated vampiric tendencies. Elizabeth Bathory, the "blood countess of Hungary" is said to be the most vicious serial killer in all of human history, having killed 10 times the number of victims murdered by most modern serial killers. Bathory, obsessed with youth and beauty, murdered young women to bathe in their blood - it is estimated that 600 youthful girls met their death at the hands of Bathory's blood lust. Her reason? Legend has it that she believed that she could rejuvenate (or, outwit death) by bathing in the blood of virgins - perhaps where we get the myth that vampires drink only virgin blood?
King George the III of England has been described in history as a possible vampire owing to his rare illness, porphyria, or "the madness of King George". Porphyria is an illness still plaguing people today. Its symptoms include sun-sensitivity, pale and decaying skin (for lack of nutrient absorption), and a pronounced thirst for blood. Blood nourishes the body and allows porphyria victims to seemingly rejuvenate their mental clarity and physical being. George was known to have "lost his mind" on five occasions in British history, craving large quantities of raw, red meat and avoiding sunlight due to a pronounced sun sensitivity.
Now we have established that vampire exist in myth as well as in historical fact. So, what exactly causes vampirism and can it be alive today?
If we examine the myths behind zombies, werewolves, and vampires, we will see that the majority of these "human-flesh-craving" ailments begin with the transference of the disease through the human bite of one thusly infected. Is there anything else in the world that is transferred through the bite of an infected person that might compel an individual to behave irrationally and animalistically as zombies and werewolves do, and also present to early medical examiners as "dead", as vampires do? In fact, there is. Rabies.
Imagine human kinds first encounters with rabies. It must have looked frightening. A person bitten by a wild animal suddenly begins to act like an animal, frothing at the mouth and incapable of verbal communication. At the state of highest infection, human processes begin to slow and people present as nearly "dead", thus anyone rising from the illness appears to have risen from the dead. In addition, victims of rabies, like victims of porphyria, are driven by an urge to eat flesh and often present as enraged, or "demonic". To early civilizations unable to diagnose such illness, this must have looked metaphysical or supernatural and could be the foundation of the vampire myth.
As the existence of rabies and porphyria suggest, vampiric symptoms exist in the human condition under certain and sometimes extreme circumstances. It is logical that people still experience symptoms of these ailments today, and thus present as "vampires" to the common world. This is not to disclude the popular culture of the living vampire cults, or people immortalized by Katherine Ramsland and Rosemary Guiley for their indoctrination in the super-secret cults of blood-drinkers and Gothic "living" vampires as exemplified in their books, "Vampires Among Us" and "Piercing the Darkness". With regard to the undead status of the vampire, being that there are few if any credible accounts of individuals returning from the dead with a thirst from human blood in recent years, it is hard to logically validate the suggestion of the "living dead". At the same time, who are we to say they do not exist? There are 6.5 billion people in the world - anything is possible.
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