Original post: AJAtheMetastasis
Origins of vampire beliefs
Main article: Origins of vampire beliefs
Pathology
Belief in vampires has been described as the result of people of
pre-industrial societies attempting to explain the process of death and decomposition.
[94]
People sometimes suspected vampirism when a cadaver did not look as they thought a normal corpse should when disinterred. However, rates of decomposition vary depending on temperature and soil composition, and many of the signs are little known. This has led vampire hunters to mistakenly conclude that a dead body had not decomposed at all, or, ironically, to interpret signs of decomposition as signs of continued life.
[95][96] Corpses swell as gases from decomposition accumulate in the torso and the increased pressure forces blood to ooze from the nose and mouth. This causes the body to look "plump", "well-fed", and "ruddy" â?? changes that are all the more striking if the person was pale or thin in life.
[97] The exuding blood gave the impression that the corpse had recently been engaging in vampiric activity.
[34] Darkening of the skin is also caused by decomposition.
[98] The staking of a swollen, decomposing body could cause the body to bleed and force the accumulated gases to escape the body. This could produce a groan-like sound when the gases moved past the vocal cords, or a sound reminiscent of
flatulence when they passed through the anus.
[99]
After death, the skin and gums lose fluids and contract, exposing the roots of the hair, nails, and teeth, even teeth that were concealed in the jaw. This can produce the illusion that the hair, nails, and teeth have grown. At a certain stage, the nails fall off and the skin peels away, as reported in the Plogojowitz caseâ??the
dermis and
nail beds emerging underneath were interpreted as "new skin" and "new nails".
[99]
In some cases in which people reported sounds emanating from a specific coffin, it was later dug up and fingernail marks were discovered on the inside from the victim trying to escape. In other cases the person would hit their heads, noses or faces and it would appear that they had been "feeding".
[100] A problem with this theory is the question of how people presumably buried alive managed to stay alive for any extended period without food, water or fresh air. An alternate explanation for noise is the bubbling of escaping gases from natural decomposition of bodies.
[101] Another likely cause of disordered tombs is
grave robbing.
[102]
Disease
Folkloric vampirism has been associated with a series of deaths due to unidentifiable or mysterious illnesses, usually within the same family or the same small community.
[74] Tuberculosis and the pneumonic form of
bubonic plague were associated with breakdown of lung tissue which would cause blood to appear at the lips.
[103] Dr Juan Gómez-Alonso, a neurologist at Xeral Hospital in
Vigo, Spain, examined the possibility of a link with
rabies in the journal
Neurology. The susceptibility to garlic and light could be due to rabies-induced hypersensitivity. The disease can also affect portions of the brain that could lead to disturbance of normal sleep patterns (thus becoming nocturnal) and
hypersexuality. Legend once said a man was not rabid if he could look at his own reflection (an allusion to the legend that vampires have no reflection). Wolves and bats, which are often associated with vampires, can be carriers of rabies. The disease can also lead to a drive to bite others and to a bloody frothing at the mouth.
[104][105]
Porphyria
In 1985
biochemist David Dolphin proposed a link between the rare blood disorder
porphyria and vampire folklore. Noting that the condition is treated by intravenous
haem, he suggested that the consumption of large amounts of blood may result in haem being transported somehow across the stomach wall and into the bloodstream. Thus vampires were merely sufferers of porphyria seeking to replace haem and alleviate their symptoms.
[106] The theory has been rebuffed medically, as suggestions that sufferers crave the haem in human blood or that the consumption of blood might ease the symptoms are based on a misunderstanding of the disease. Furthermore, Dolphin was noted to have confused fictional bloodsucking vampires with those of folklore, many of whom were not noted to drink blood.
[107] Similarly, a parallel is made between sensitivity to sunlight by sufferers, yet this was associated with fictional and not folkloric vampires. Dolphin did not publish his work more widely.
[108] Despite being dismissed by experts, the theory gained media attention.
[109] and entered popular modern folklore.
[110]
Psychopathology
See also: Clinical vampirism A number of murderers have performed seemingly vampiric rituals upon their victims.
Serial killers Peter Kurten and
Richard Trenton Chase were both called "vampires" in the
tabloids after they were discovered drinking the blood of the people they murdered. Similarly, in 1932, an unsolved murder case in
Stockholm,
Sweden was nicknamed the "
Vampire murder", due to the circumstances of the victimâ??s death.
[111] The late 16th-century Hungarian countess and mass murderer
Elizabeth Báthory became particularly infamous in later centuries' works, which depicted her bathing in her victims' blood in order to retain beauty or youth.
[112]
Vampire lifestyle is a term for a contemporary
subculture of people, largely within the
Goth subculture, who consume the blood of others as a pastime; drawing from the rich recent history of popular culture related to
cult symbolism,
horror films, the fiction of
Anne Rice, and the styles of Victorian England.
[113] Active vampirism within the vampire subculture includes both blood-related vampirism, commonly referred to as
Sanguine Vampirism, and
Psychic Vampirism, or 'feeding' from
pranic energy. Practitioners may take on a variety of 'roles', including both "vampires" and their sources of blood or pranic energy.
[114]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire
*** Personally I felt this thread needed a dose of good common-sense .... "so here it is!" *** :p
But yes I agree with you. There are for example pepole that have vivid memories of having been animals in former lives. Some of them can be said to have an animal soul, but their body is still human and have human needs. The same one can say to have a vampire soul, but one still have to live in this world with a human body.
Maybe starting with ancient Sumarian texts for starters???? Just a thought mind you ..... "but what do I know!" :rolleyes:
Interesting indeed! I guess I'll throw out all those scholarly history books ..... they were all wrong!