OR, "VAMPIRE SOJOURNERS in a Hostile World." We speak once again of Vampires. The subject is far broader than supposed by those who tend to give it less than cursory attention. Because Legendry is consonant with a long history of revenants, or walking corpses, accompanied by tales of "bloodsucking" Ghoules (or Eaters of the Dead), precision requires that we pin down a distinct set of characteristics consistently attributed only to Vampires. Central to Vampire myth, however, is the consumption of human blood or other essence (such as bodily fluids or Psychic energy), usually performed by those with the diagnostic feature of sharp teeth or "fangs" with which to facilitate this transfer, depending, as always, on individual cases and allowing for regional variations. In most depictions, the former human canines in the dentary may indeed be employed, but according to Natvilcius (1692) it is the incisor array, adapted to the task post-mortem, which most commonly comes into use by the Undead-— that is to say, those said to have been somehow revived after death, as in the instance of Yeshua Ben-David, called by the Roman authorities Jesus (of Nazareth). Many are said to rise nightly from their sepulchers or coffins with some regularity, provided that those oblong receptacles have been maintained to include enough of their native soil (a must) to make a diurnal bed. A Vampire, though, it must be remembered begins its post-human existence as a charged (ecto-)plasma, a contained body of mephitic activity seeking a foothold in the former mortal world. Many disembodied spirits take up this quest, but only Vampiric entities are usually permitted, by the Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything, to find it-- typically via the ingestion of freshly drawn human blood or Elan Vital. This needed transfer, once achieved, permits a realistic simulacrum of a human body to be formed, accepted from perceptual resonance by chosen receptive human subjects. Such Vampires may, as in the accounts, cast no shadow or produce a mirror reflection-- unless they attend to this detail, as a superior Vampire easily does under ordinary circumstances. [European, Slavonic and Mediterranean] Vampires are typically said to be of pale skin, and range in appearance from grotesque to preternaturally beautiful, depending on the tale-teller. For these, the modern era points up an inability to be photographed or recorded on film or digital media. The assertion that Vampires "suck blood" is a locution which many Vampires have found irritating when encountered, since basically a mere thinning or whittling away of the outer epidermis with the incisors permits, while the "patient" or prey is immobilized by spell or hypnotic trance, a gentle, sanguine upwelling as a result of ordinary circulatory activity which may be easily and neatly lapped up, with no messy, vulgar suction ever employed. And some prefer to deal not with the physical blood at all, preferring an osmotic transfer of vital energy from patient to recipient.

We touch on the manner in which a mortal person may develop into a Vampire in a variety of ways, the most common of which is, obviously, to be bitten-- in which case the contagion is most probable as a result. Other methods include sorcery, committing suicide or (it is said) having a black cat jump over a recently deceased person’s corpse. Some have believed that (unwanted) babies born with a full set of teeth, or on Christmas or between Christmas and Epiphany, may be predisposed to becoming Vampires or related Were-wolves. Diagnostically, the water in the Baptismal font may boil when such an infant is presented. While Vampires usually do not die of disease or other normal human afflictions, and are indeed often said to have faster-than-normal "healing" capabilities, there is no oddity in a non-living body's immunity to sickness, nor can it truly heal in the commonly understood sense. The restoration of body mass is best accomplished simply by further transfer of living blood or energy. Animal blood may sometimes interchangeably be used, which, however, disadvantageously facilitates the transposition of the soma into quasi-animal form, and is in fact one avenue toward true Lycanthropy.

As is widely known in many cultures, there are various traditional methods for their defeat and destruction. The most popular of those include a wooden stake through the heart, fire, decapitation, and exposure to sunlight. Vampires are often depicted as being repelled, like all blood-drinking entities, by garlic. In some instances running water, or Christian implements such as crucifixes and holy water have had some effect. In related stories Vampires may enter a home only if they have been invited, and in others they may be said to be distracted by the scattering of objects such as seeds or grains that they are compelled to count, thereby enabling potential victims to escape. This task of counting appears as one of the penitential labors of Psyche in the Metamorphosis of Late-Roman writer Lucius Apulieus, also called the Golden Ass. That book also contains a Vampire account, at one point; we mention it during the Podcast.

Creatures with Vampiric characteristics have appeared at least as far back as ancient Greece, where stories were told of fell liches that attacked people in their sleep and, in passing, significantly drained their bodily fluids. Tales of walking corpses that tippled on the blood of the living and spread Pestilence flourished in Medieval Europe in times of Plague and infirmity, and those unfortunates lacking a modern understanding of infectious disease came to believe that those who became Vampires preyed first upon their own families, a relatively infrequent case. Research has posited that characteristics associated with Vampires can be traced back to such certain known maladies as Porphyria, which makes the presence of light painful and distracting; Tuberculosis or Consumption, which causes wasting; Pellagra, a disease that thins the skin and dreaded Rabies, which causes biting and general sensitivities that could lead to repulsion by light or garlic. By trial and error, many Vampires active at the present time may overcome either, by the expedient of wearing specially crafted shoes containing the native grave earth in a layer beneath the inner soles. Whatever works, eh? In addition to various spells, chants and exorcisms we also perform the poetry of Blake, (Clark Ashton) Smith, Lewis Carroll and others. Three hours.