Vampires:

In 1931 a Hungarian actor named Bela Lugosi took on the lead
role of a movie based on a novel by Bram Stoker. Since then the
vampires have never been the same, as Dracula, Lugosi presented
himself as a sinister but exotic figure, sweeping from the streets
from Victorian London in full evening dress of tails, cape and top
hat. But this is far from the true vampires that exist in the
shadowy, occult world of myth and folklore. Vampires are
predatory entities that exist universally in mythology. Along with
the werewolf they are among the oldest creatures in mythology.
Most commonly vampires are conceived as demonic beings,
having bodies of monsters or half humans, half animals.
Generally they are entities that attack in the night and steal it's
victims vitality. This vitality can be blood; good health; milk, and
sexual fluids. Although most vampire attacks are during the night,
some a quite capable of operating in daylight hours. Vampire lore is
often vague, contradictory and overlapping of the lore of other
supernatural entities. Take for example the incubi and the succubi,
male and female demons, both of which attack people for sex. The
Gypsy vampire is know for it voracious sexual appetite. This is
contradictory to the pop culture vampire that is sexually alluring
but impotent. The Mara, nightmare hag, is an entity that sits on
the chest of its victim at night, paralyzing and suffocating its
victim, leaving him or her exhausted. The vampire is capable of
doing such things. Poltergeists are spirits that harass people by
moving objects, making terrible noises, and biting and pinching.

Vampires are known to do those things as well. In the late
sixteenth century a case happened in Silesia that concerned a
vampire that exhibited characteristics of an incubus and a
poltergeist. A man on his deathbed by the name of Johannes

Cuntius, admitted to making a pact with the devil. When he died a
great tempest arose and didn't subside till he was buried. Three days
after his death rumors began to circulate through his village that
an incubus in his image was forcing itself on women. Even
after his burial he continued to sexually molest women, as well
as to show poltergeist like disturbances. The villagers exhumed the
body of Cuntius, which showed the telltale signs of vampirism (all
signs of vampirism can be scientifically explained). The
villagers then disposed off the body in the appropriate rituals, his
corpse was chopped to bits and burned to ashes. The vampire also
bears a resemblance to birth demons that attack pregnant
women; women who have just give birth and their young
offspring. Birth demons tear out entrails, devour flesh, suck off
milk, and drink blood. In Western lore vampires are associated
with the restless spirits of the dead who as revenants, return to
harass and attack the living. The fear of the dead arising to attack
the living is universal and is the reason why certain practices are
associated with the dead, especially how the body is treated and buried.

In Greece and parts of Eastern Europe the corpse would be exhumed
and examined to find proof of unrest that might lead to the body
becoming vampirised. Both in Chinese and Egyptian folklore
vampiric entities were said to arise from the dead due to the lack
of proper burial procedure. It is also possible to be a vampire and
alive. Such people are generally witches, wizards and sorcerers. In
Africa witches frequently indulge in vampirism, cannibalism
and necrophagy. The witch would leave their body and fly about in
search of victims. Once a suitable victim was found they would
enter through the roof and enter the stomach eating the person
from within. Among the Southern Slavs the term vudkolak
refers to both vampires and werewolf. In parts of Europe folklore
states that after a werewolf dies it becomes a vampire. Vampires
come in a variety of different shapes and guise, with various
patterns of behavior. But all vampires seem to share two things
in common: they exist in myth and folklore to explain the
terrible things that happens to the living and secondly they are
expressions of these fears of these terrible things. The birth demons
that attack pregnant women and their children is an explanation
for miscarriage, childhood related deaths of women and early
infant death. The fear of the dead is the reason why there is a belief
that vampires will arise to take out there grieves on the living.
Vampires of today's time bear little resemblance to those of long
ago. To understand where modern day vampires originated from,
you have to look at the vampire of Eastern Europe, for the Slavic
vampire is the forefather of today's vampire.
The concept of vampirism was aided by religion, chiefly by
an early, Slavic paganism, called Bogomilism and Christianity. It
was founded in the tenth century and its doctrine stated that God
had two sons, Jesus being the good son and Satan being the Evil, thus
leading to a belief that good and evil were equal and acted to
balance one another. The body was believed to be the tomb of the
soul and when a person dies the soul leave to be invaded by a
demon, the Bolgomils had a strict burial procedure to prevent such
things from happening.
The cult grew till it reached it's peak in the fifteenth and
sixteenth century, it's growth was due to Christianity who used
vampires as a threat to the unconverted and unrepentant.
Around that time the Black Plague was raging through Europe and as
a common belief among villagers the first person that died of the
Plague in a community becomes a vampire and infects others
with the Plague. When they die they too will become vampires.
After a person died, the living, usually his family would experience
his presence among them. Quite often the revenant would be
invisible, sometimes it would appear as an apparition, even to
the extent of having a flesh body. The revenant was a menacing
presence attacking the living by making noises, moving objects,
and physically assaulting and sexually molesting. Sometimes the
attacks would eventually stop, but other times they would
escalate to include the distant relatives and the community as a
whole. The only cure was to dig up the body and check for signs of
vampirism. The signs of vampirism would include shifting of
the corpse in the coffin, open eyes, and ruddy complexion,
appearance of new hair and nails, and streams of blood from the
body's offices. Though these occurrences were natural among
decomposition, the peasants at that time knew little about it and
took it as signs of vampirism. Once identified as a vampire the
corpse was mutilated, that meant it was slashed, staked and cut
up, so that the spirit could not wonder the earth. In extreme cases
the corpse was burned, if not burned it would be reburied. This was
risky since it was believed that the vampire might revive itself,
in spite of its damages. Sometimes these measures did not work
the first time and the vampire continued its attacks. There are
reports of vampires being staked to the ground only to return
wielding the stake as its weapon. If vampire attacks persisted,
the bodies where dug up again and mutilated even more. And if
that didn't work a new vampire might be sought out as the cause
of the problem. These practices where kept isolated from the rest
of the world due to geographic remoteness and lack of
communication. But these practices where soon brought to light by
the Austro-Hungarian empire who where campaigning in that part
of Eastern Europe against the Muslim Turks. The soldiers
encountered villagers who feared the walking dead and would dig
up the dead to mutilate them to prevent them from rising. This
both fascinated and horrified the Austro-Hungarian troop prompting
them to bring in researchers to investigate these outrageous
practices.
The 1730's published numerous books and reports on
Vampirism for Western audiences. In 1732 an Austrian surgeon,
Johann Fluckinger, published a report on his observation of a
vampire cult in Serbia. The report was published in German, it
was written up in a French newspaper and then translated in
English and republished, thus bringing the about English term
vampire. In 1749, Westerners were given a huge work on
vampires, authored by Dom Augustin Calmet, a Benedictine abbot,
in 1759 the wok appeared in English. News of the vampire cult
spread from Europe all the way to the New World, soon New
Englander were blaming varying diseases on vampirism. Soon
bodies where being exhumed and mutilated in the same methods
of the Balkans.
People of that time did not know the nature of infectious
disease and vampirism was an easy culprit, especially when it
came to diseases like tuberculosis, a disease that would waste the
body away. In 1990, in Griswall, Connecticut, a mass grave was
excavated to reveal the twenty-nine people. The remains showed
signs of tuberculosis and some of the young children buried in the
grave may have died of measles and small poxes. One of those
that were buried was later dug up ten years later and had his heart
removed, it is believed that his heart was cremated as a possible
cure for the living. In fact in more than one case suspected
vampire corpses were dug up to and burn to help ailing family
members. Both the artist and the populace seized the vampire.
Romantic writers and poets used the vampire as a prop often to be
a metaphor. The vampire became a cheap villain; the writer took
it and molded it to suit there needs as well as that of the audience.
The vampire took on a new life of its own separating from the
folkloric revenant of Eastern Europe. The pop culture took on an
evolution from villain to anti-hero to hero.