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Ethymology
The word 'vampire' derives from the Slavic word 'vampir' or 'vampyr', first appearing in the 1600s in the Eastern European region in the Balkans.
'vampir' is derived from 'upir', which first appeared in print in an Old Russian manuscript from 1047 AC in which a Novgorodian prince is referred to as 'Upir Lichyj' (Wicked Vampire).
But the origin of 'upir' is even more controversial. Franz Miklosich suggested that 'upir' is derived from 'uber', a Turkish word for 'witch' whereas Andre Vaillant suggests just the opposite. Kazimierz Moszynski suggests that 'u-pir' is from a Serbo-Croatian word 'pirati' (to blow). Aleksandr Afanasev points to the Slavic 'pij' (to drink), which may have entered the Slavic language from the Greek, via Old Church Slavonic. A. Bruckner proposes Russian 'netopyr' (bat).
Diseases linked to Vampirism
Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), meaning pigmented dry skin is a rare, often fatal genetic disorder that leaves its victims acutely vulnerable to skin and eye cancers if they are even briefly exposed to sun or any ultraviolet rays. The body fails to produce one of the enzymes necessary to make heme, the red pigment in hemeglobin. Strangely, Garlic stimulates heme production (a reason for its inclusion in many herbal blood tonics) and can turn a mild case of porphryia into a severe and painful one. There is less than 100,000 identified cases of XP nowadays but inbreeding could have stimulated the disease in the middle ages, creating pockets of it in isolated areas. Drinking blood could have been considered as a remedy in the dark ages but the human body is not made to assimilate heme directly from blood so it cannot be a cause of vampirism.
Mythology
The first Vampire was Lilith, also the first wife of Adam that she eventually left for Lucifer. In short, the bone of the quarrel was that Lilith would prefer to stand over Adam but God wanted the man to rule. Lilith is also the Queen of Death and Demons. She was and is still adored in almost all religions by magicians, sorcecers and witches.
Anne Rice is a famous author that wrote many books about modern vampires.
All Ricean vampires are related through their blood to Those Who Must Be Kept. These are their original 'parents,' Enkil and Akasha of Egypt, who were attacked by traitors who unwittingly gave a demon entrance into their victims' bodies. This turned these mortals into creatures who could no longer procreate, nor tolerate daylight, and who must take mortal blood to survive. In the course of the Vampire Chronicles, it becomes plain that all vampires are thus interrelated, because when Those Who Must Be Kept are left out in the sunlight by an elder weary of caring for them, all other vampires are burned or destroyed by the transmitted effects of the sunlight upon their parents. And at the end of 'Queen of the Damned' only a cannibalistic ritual act performed by Maharet and Mekare, an echo of the loving ritual they had once set out to perform upon their mother's body, can save the entire population of vampires from death as Akasha herself dies.
The Vampire as a negative double
The european vampire who appeared in Europe during the Dark Ages was an explanation for Death. A village suffered from a disease or death or, as is more often the case, a series of deaths. These events were mysterious, in the sense that there were no physical causes known to the villagers that could be offered to account for them.
Often times such deaths were attributed to vampires, which were corpses that came to the victims at night, attacking them, often times sucking their blood to the point of death. The way to stop the vampire was to either use various precautions to prevent it from entering the home, or to actually destroy the vampire itself. This was usually done by digging up graves, searching for corpses that showed signs of being a vampire. Although these signs varied, they usually included characteristics indicating consumption of blood and/or lack of decay (i.e. red lips, flushed cheeks, bloated figures, etc.).
A vampire corpse, once identified was disposed of in a certain prescribed way. Frequent methods used were decapitation of the corpse, removal of its heart, impaling of the heart with a special sharp object, cremation, or some combination of these acts. By these methods, the vampire was found and eliminated. Attributing the deaths to a vampire is the only thing explaining the fatalities, since there was no known physical cause at the time. By doing this, the villagers could take a course of action to stop the deaths.
If vampires did not exist, nothing would explain these deaths and people would feel helpless, since they would not have known what to do. In other words, by attributing a cause to the terrible event, a course of action could be taken to make things better. In this case, the vampire is that cause, or a scapegoat for the deaths. It is feared because of this, yet steps can be taken to destroy the vampire, and stop the deaths. Thus, in the minds of the Slavs, the vampire was an anxiety reliever since it was a scapegoat for a fearful event, which could be destroyed. Today, we have medical science to explain diseases and epidemics, and this function of the vampire is gone. We may still be afraid of having a disease, but now we turn to a doctor, not a vampire, to explain. Thus, although the image of the vampire among the Slavs remains with us, there is no room for its previous social role in our society.
With its original association with evil, disease, and death, it is surprising that this creature of the dark has garnered the appeal it has in American culture today. Indeed, our fascination with something that was once feared seems to indicate that the vampire's function in today's society is fundamentally different from that which it was originally.
Many scholars have attempted to explain the vampire's appeal in psychological terms literary scholar James Twitchell claims that psychoanalytically speaking, the vampire image is so popular because it represents a "complete condensation of problems and resolutions of preadolescence." He claims that children must deal with first time feelings of sexual energy and hostility, and that the vampire image acts out these situations, through its blood sucking and preying on the living.
Kirk J. Schneider, a faculty member of the California School of Professional Psychology, offers a vastly different explanation. He maintains that the vampire figure, specifically Dracula, is appealing because it is horrifying. Schneider states that true horror is when we are unexpectedly immersed in the infinite. Seeing this boundlessness is analogous to the boundlessness of that which is sacred, and thus dealing with the horror allows us to get a feel of what it would be like to deal with the holy. Dracula seems infinite is his power -- and the characters in the story as well as the audience must deal with that endless power. In regards to Dracula, Schneider states that "Dracula is not simply about a monster, it is about the mysterious force which permits monstrosities."
Perkowski claims that the figure of Dracula the Vampire functions as a symbol of evil. He states the Vampire "is a focus of fascination for forbidden, proscribed feelings and acts rife with guilt and fear, a focus for venting one's secret desires to surfeit." To support his claim, he contrasts Dracula's role with that of Santa Claus, claiming that they embody elements that make them polar opposites.
There are many reasons that vampires are so popular. The vampire has the appeal of immortality, which has been a goal of man for ages. Men built the pyramids in an attempt to gain immortality, yet it comes naturally to vampires. Vampires have the appeal of power over others, which is very alluring to someone who feels that they have no power of their own. Finally and most importantly, vampires have a sexual appeal. This sexual appeal ranges from the more normal (dominance, charming, and innuendo of oral sex) to the strange (blood fetishes, sadomasochism, and necrophilia). All claims can be justified in some way or another.
As part of Dresser's research, she asked people what they found so appealing about the vampire. The answers she reports reveal incredible diversity. Qualities mentioned include: eroticism, immortality, power, victimization, beauty, elegance, romanticism, the supernatural, mystery, and the unknown. Of these, three were mentioned most often, the first of which was sexual attraction. People found the biting and blood-sucking element of the vampire extremely sexual. They also found the fact that vampires are immortal quite appealing. This should come as no surprise, given that we live in an age where science strives to prolong lives as our population continues to age. The third major appeal of the vampire is power. The vampire's dominance in the biting of its victim was especially highlighted in this category. All three of these appeals are supported with extensive testimony by vampire fans.
With all of these interpretations of the vampire, it is clear that the image is much less threatening today than it was in Slavic society. As a result, associations are freely made with it and are much more diverse, and leave us hanging with the question of what its social role is. Many explanations have been offered, and these are well supported under the context in which they are presented. Some are scholarly and deal with it at a subliminal level, while others are openly acknowledged by vampire fans themselves. But to take any one of these and assign it as the unifying social function of the vampire, which is often done or implied, would be a mistake. Although their validity may have been proven in certain contexts, it must be remembered that these contexts are not shared by all, or even a majority of the population. Since the image, and not its associations, is what we receive today through television and the rest of the media, the context of the vampire is determined by the psyche it enters, and thus varies from individual to individual. This accounts for its diversity of interpretation that we witness today.
