The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

n Europe, witchcraft and vampirism have had an intertwining history since ancient times. Many vampires first appeared among the demonic beings of Pagan polytheistic religions. They would include such entities as the Greek lamiai and seven evil spirits of Babylonia / Assyrian mythology. As Christianity arose, it tended to push the Pagan religions aside and to denounce any truth claims made by Pagan believers. As a whole, Christianity assumed that the Pagan deities were unreal, that they did not exist. Typical of the church's stance was the account of Paul's encounter with the Greek philosophers on the Areopagus, recounted in the biblical Book of Acts 17:16-34, in which he contrasted the one true God with the many gods represented in the statutes.
The Pagan religious functionaries went under a variety of names, and terms that in English mean witch and/or sorcerer were common. As Pagan religion was swept aside, so the witches and sorcerers were to some extent pushed from the emerging urban areas into the countryside. The church saw them as worshippers of imaginary deities.
Crucial to the developing attitude concerning the Pagan religions was magic. Magic, the ability to cause changes by calling upon supernatural entities and using supernatural powers, was almost universally accepted as real. People, including church leaders, believed that wondrous feats were possible either by the power of the Holy Spirit or by reference to illegitimate supernatural powers. Witches, the pagan practitioners, had the ability to do magical feats the average person could not. Among these were many things that even in Pagan days were considered evil. It must be remembered that many of the Pagan entities existed as an explanation for the intrusion of evil and injustice in a person's life.