tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31190014226824086182024-03-13T20:47:07.487-07:00The Vampirologist"This place where we are now is really a battlefield between the powers of good and the forces of darkness." — †Seán ManchesterB.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-44331982055159439412018-01-20T01:13:00.001-08:002018-01-24T03:05:49.188-08:00Hogg Tied<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/AskTheVampirologist/"><img border="0" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="881" height="296" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--EddoWdbk8g/WmMSUSU6x7I/AAAAAAAACGw/M-q0L1GRgO0gV7s5PmqQ3DrRgROP-iEQgCLcBGAs/s400/AnthonyHogg-Diary-of-an-Amateur-Stalker.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>"I have found that almost everyone who launches personal attacks to my detriment invariably hail from a particular end of the spectrum. I call it the Left-hand Path. Hogg very much falls under that classification, as do many of his cyber-friends."</i> — †Seán Manchester</div>
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Anyone wanting to put a question to Seán Manchester about these matters, the Highgate Vampire case, or the wider topic of vampirology, are most welcome to do so by clicking on any of the images:</div>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/AskTheVampirologist/"><img border="0" data-original-height="1264" data-original-width="1461" height="552" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pmpJDeNXMDE/WmMKHU2fOKI/AAAAAAAACGU/JsPVTll2DtMLg_UJN0thfBa-D_OX2bcQQCLcBGAs/s640/Anthony-Hogg_NON-ENTITY.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r3qV_p03Bsg/WmhLV4rOn_I/AAAAAAAACHA/3Rxx14DIH64EVlEzWPiyOkDbIrzS-ontgCLcBGAs/s1600/BarbaraGreen-mole-at-work.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="704" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r3qV_p03Bsg/WmhLV4rOn_I/AAAAAAAACHA/3Rxx14DIH64EVlEzWPiyOkDbIrzS-ontgCLcBGAs/s1600/BarbaraGreen-mole-at-work.jpg" /></a></div>
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Barabra Green resorts to the skewed "logic" of conflating and confusing faith in a spiritual doctrine where the supernatural abounds, and personal confrontation with supernatural phenomena, as happened in the Highgate Vampire case, about which she falsely claims there are <i>"no photos or evidence."</i> She is wrong. There are photographs provided in <i>The Highgate Vampire</i> book, and much evidence besides, including witnesses and participants in the investigation itself. Green is not impressed by Seán Manchester's Christianity. Unsurprisingly, he is not impressed by hers. She began as a member of the Church of England, converted a little over a decade ago to Roman Catholicism (the modernist version which embraces the reforms of Vatican II), while all along involving herself in what can only be described as diabolical dabbling. In 2005, she participated in a Left-hand Path occult ceremony after dark over a grave on private land with someone convicted of satanic crimes. In August 2016, she openly mocked traditionalist Catholics, whether Anglo-Catholic, Old Catholic or Roman Catholic, who wear cassocks and birettas <i>etc</i>, and has trolled and stalked Bishop Seán Manchester to the extent of sending to his private address a spate of open postcards where he is ridiculed and attacked. She infiltrates groups to report back to the super-troll Anthony Hogg. David Farrant, whom she once appointed as her "patron," is someone she has colluded with to try and harm Seán Manchester. She replaced Farrant as her "patron" with the self-proclaimed <i>"master of the black arts"</i> John Pope-de-Locksley who once stood in the dock alongside Farrant at the Old Bailey. A demon-raising ceremony in a derelict house got out of hand when they started a fire. They were both charged with arson. These are the people Green seeks out. A police injunction against her still exists. </div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ssO4N4dU23Q/WmhTYlzFTvI/AAAAAAAACHQ/b1coruYXDLEDn9zFd1ogGB8iTpjsrTa4gCLcBGAs/s1600/BarbaraGreen-bobblehats-blackcandles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="592" data-original-width="508" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ssO4N4dU23Q/WmhTYlzFTvI/AAAAAAAACHQ/b1coruYXDLEDn9zFd1ogGB8iTpjsrTa4gCLcBGAs/s640/BarbaraGreen-bobblehats-blackcandles.jpg" width="548" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Examples of copyright theft on a website administrated and published by Erin Chapman and Hogg:</span></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-11665090709658179052016-12-31T09:00:00.001-08:002017-08-24T10:30:16.867-07:00White Out<br />
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Phill White of "Thee [<i>sic</i>] Vampire Guild" might have finally succumbed to the fatal forces after a considerable absence from evincing an interest in vampires or the Highgate Vampire case.</div>
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He popped up out of nowhere (well, Brentry, a suburb of north Bristol, actually) threatening to send material to Anthony Hogg's partner in crime Erin Chapman on the condition that she publishes it on <i>YouTube</i>. It transpires that the material in question is a 90 minutes' audio tape made by the Vampire Research Society about the Highgate case in the previous century. Not content with threatening to infringe copyright, White also posted on Hogg's Facebook group what can only be described as extremely defamatory comments. <span style="font-family: inherit;">Seán Manchester</span> has not mentioned this man once on the internet, but he is obviously unhappy with his lot since moving from Portland to Bristol to settle down and raise a family. White tried to enter the "vampire" media exploitation that was occurring just about everywhere a quarter of a century ago when he was less of a sceptic than he is today, but he was unable to make any impact, being too far stage left; (far left on the map of England, and ultra-left politically) to ever get close to the centre stage of London. White discovered the collection of malcontents on Hogg's group and gleefully added himself. His comments have been mostly all aimed at deriding and defaming Seán Manchester, someone he has not had contact with for at least two decades. Something had happened in the interim since a quarter of a century ago to cause him to become bitter, resentful and totally sceptical of anything remotely supernatural. </div>
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When Seán Manchester last heard from Phill White he was exceptionally sympathetic and supportive. In the interim, a complete turn around has manifested. This is what Seán Manchester recorded in <i>The Vampire Hunter's Handbook</i> (Gothic Press,1997):</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5pBGktEsFjw/WMbFzHNiS2I/AAAAAAAAB5s/q3l1PRe8Uo8qKIxuZxasiUseqja3sbpWQCLcB/s1600/PhillWhite-TVHH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #444444; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="419" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5pBGktEsFjw/WMbFzHNiS2I/AAAAAAAAB5s/q3l1PRe8Uo8qKIxuZxasiUseqja3sbpWQCLcB/s640/PhillWhite-TVHH.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></div>
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As <i>Crimson</i>, Phill White's official magazine of "Thee [<i>sic</i>] Vampire Guild," approached a slow but inevitable death, he saw fit to promote between its covers a vampiroid band called <i>Nightcreed</i> whose curious recordings included the track titled "Die, Manchester, Die," sung by someone with the unlikely name of Theos Diamon Kakos. Around the same time White protested in private correspondence to Seán Manchester his Christian credentials, and declared that he saw many <i>"similarities"</i> between himself and the bishop-exorcist.</div>
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White eventually appeared on his local television channel dressed in black apparel and wearing red lipstick. His canines had been fitted with sharp fangs and his normally fair hair was dyed black. A large silver pentagram dangled around his neck, as he grimaced and postured throughout his interview on "True ... But Strange," 17 October 1996. He was shown prancing about in a graveyard with youngsters in kindred attire, and also at his modern terrace home in Portland where he kept a coffin and a pile of bubble-gum picture cards that he had been collecting since he was six-years-old.</div>
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Meridian television journalist, Mike Debens, observed that <i>"his little home in Portland is even more cramped because of the think-tank [coffin] where he reclines in the dead of night."</i></div>
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<i>"It's been used,"</i> boasted White, whose father was in the funeral business, a trade his son quickly took up, much to the horror of anyone who had viewed him dressed as a vampire sleeping in a <i>"used"</i> coffin. Though White has since relocated to Menhyr Grove, Brentry, Bristol BS10, he remains in the business of organising funerals and preparing dead bodies for burial.</div>
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Seán Manchester's advice is quoted briefly in issue fourteen of <i>Crimson</i>. It would be the final time. </div>
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<i>"My advice is that it is better to travel alone than in the company of fools."</i></div>
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The same issue had Seán Manchester described me as <i>"one of the most despised characters"</i> within vampire wannabe circles. This would be for the benefit of White's new friends and acquaintances of dubious status and intent; one of whom, Azz Wood, writing from a prison cell (about Seán Manchester) for <i>Crimson</i>, said: <i>"Someone should rip off his head and piss down his neck and windpipe."</i></div>
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Thus the curtain fell on White whose vampire obsession became a millstone around his neck. He turned against all he had once believed in and admired. Today he represents the opposing forces.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--zvnOAfBDzw/WZ8NAOxncXI/AAAAAAAACF8/mslSousZcrAljDmtQh9FyoAHVMVoTQC6wCLcBGAs/s1600/PhillWhite-ErinChapman-COPYRIGHT-INFRINGEMENT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="506" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--zvnOAfBDzw/WZ8NAOxncXI/AAAAAAAACF8/mslSousZcrAljDmtQh9FyoAHVMVoTQC6wCLcBGAs/s640/PhillWhite-ErinChapman-COPYRIGHT-INFRINGEMENT.jpg" width="496" /></a></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-80032994848872472202016-11-03T23:00:00.000-07:002016-11-03T23:01:34.527-07:00Lore: Variations on the Facts<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-6194926733764867638" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 586px;">
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<a href="http://www.lorepodcast.com/episodes/46" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-moihGW0Hies/WBsMgE7HVeI/AAAAAAAABuI/pDr3Bcvbk2MYuNIV0QozWQKJuMk_bKzVQCLcB/s400/Lore.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Narrated by Chad Lawson, written and researched by Aaron Mahnke.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(<i>To listen to the podcast, click on the above image.</i>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">From 11:15 Highgate Cemetery is discussed and by 12:40 </span><span style="text-align: center;">Aaron Mahnke </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">already has his facts muddled. It is claimed that in 1970 David Farrant was at the centre of the British Occult Society investigatory group. He was not. In fact, the British Occult Society were to publicly warn against Farrant's lone activities in Highgate Cemetery. By 13:10 we have been misinformed that on 21 December 1969 Farrant camped out overnight in the graveyard. Farrant is described as a <i>"paranormal investigator."</i> Neither of those statements are true. Farrant stated originally, as confirmed in his letter to a local newspaper (<i>Hampstead & Highgate Express</i>) on 6 February 1970, that the occasion was on Christmas Eve 1969 while he was walking down Swains Lane past the cemetery's top gate. Far from being a paranormal investigator, Farrant made clear in the same letter that he had <i>"no knowledge in this field."</i> He said he had seen a tall, dark figure, but there was no mention of eyes <i>"glowing brightly"</i> in his letter, or any of the interviews he gave immediately afterwards. When interviewed by Sandra Harris on a television programme the following month he only described the figure as being tall and resembling someone who was dead. He felt it was evil.</span><br />
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<a href="http://britishoccultsociety.blogspot.co.uk/" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WQXvME2uI2s/WBsQFn3mLbI/AAAAAAAABug/Q0kpNZv4oU88RCjMDPaQkW-mCPeCXaXogCLcB/s640/BOSDisclaimers.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="448" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At 13:50, we are told that <i>"Farrant's partner, Seán Manchester, left the group to start his own and made further discoveries."</i> How can such recent history become so distorted in so short a time?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Seán Manchester was President of the British Occult Society from 1967 to 1988 when the BOS was formally dissolved. A specialist research unit within the BOS became autonomous in February 1970 to concentrate on the Highgate Vampire case, and is still extant. It is the Vampire Research Society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At no time were David Farrant and Seán Manchester <i>"partners."</i> They met as a result of Farrant writing a letter to his local newspaper in which he claimed to have sighted an unearthly spectre. Farrant agreed to show Seán Manchester where he thought he had seen the spectre. This incident where they met in the cemetery was covered by the <i>Hampstead & Highgate Express</i>, 6 March 1970.</span><br />
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<a href="http://highgatevampire.blogspot.co.uk/" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_JGZXXoP6Pw/WBsXgtZN9DI/AAAAAAAABu4/lPWyX73hX1YIY5VLW1FPqAqxXCiIlwoVQCLcB/s400/WhyDidTheFoxesDie_6.3.70.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Following his arrest in August 1970, David Farrant became increasingly belligerent toward Seán Manchester who nevertheless agreed to visit Farrant in prison after he had received a written plea from him. By which time the British Occult Society had already condemned Farrant's behaviour.</span><br />
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<a href="http://highgatevampire.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/prison-correspondence-from-lone-vampire.html" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yZxbe56S4ew/WBsb-L5u-CI/AAAAAAAABvI/StNAFyo4LykctC0ADMkW8U3Z6JOtRYXIwCLcB/s200/DFprisonletter1.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="146" /></a> <a href="http://highgatevampire.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/prison-correspondence-from-lone-vampire.html" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jNfcj3LsmDE/WBsb-edMsoI/AAAAAAAABvM/ANX1CVIVfCkzAo7DP4uQP70TXL1svcyowCLcB/s200/DFprisonletter2.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="183" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At 14:25, we hear a repeat of the <i>"King Vampire"</i> attribution which nomenclature Seán Manchester did not utter. He explains in detail how it arose in his concise vampirological guide. It is then claimed that Seán Manchester had already staked two vampires by the time he started investigating Highgate Cemetery case, which is more "creative" writing falsely attributed half a century after the events.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At 16:39, we hear the narrator claim: <i>"They weren't on the same side anymore."</i> They were never on the same side. Only Aaron Mahnke, who wrote the <i>Lore</i> podcast's script, is claiming otherwise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At 18:40, it is absurdly alleged that Seán Manchester <i>"preferred to conduct his exorcisms in broad daylight which allowed him to be safer and, as some critics pointed out, also made it more likely there would be an audience around to watch him." </i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The <i>"critics"</i> being Farrant and his cronies. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Seán Manchester's exorcism at Highgate Cemetery was later described by the <u>uninvited</u> media as "secret," and, as it happened, was the only one he carried out during the daylight hours. All the other exorcisms were held in the dead of night. There were never members of the public or media present. The nocturnal exorcism at the derelict house in 1974 and the final exorcism in the night at the Great Northern London Cemetery only involved Seán Manchester and anyone who was assisting him. Nobody else was aware of them taking place. Compare this with Farrant's arrests at Highgate Cemetery in 1970 and Monken Hadley churchyard two years later in 1972. Not only were journalists and photographers conveniently to hand, but Farrant was accused in Court of having alerted the police himself in order to ensure coverage throughout the media. His appearance on a Hallowe'en afternoon at Highgate Wood, ostensibly to demonstrate his prowess as a sorcerer (in full knowledge that he would be arrested long before his "magic" could be put to the test), resulted in every national and local newspaper in the country being invited by him. There was also a heavy police presence.</span></div>
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<a href="http://vampirologist.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/farrant-facts.html" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2xSQMvERsR4/WBsbPb3IVUI/AAAAAAAABvQ/LpT9u66Td9k_F-4eTThvIW8tM3E1oBUggCEw/s1600/DFarrestMonkenHadley.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At 20:08, we are told that <i>"Manchester found a way to make a career out of his adventures in Highgate."</i> The narrator adds that Seán Manchester has written two books. In fact, Seán Manchester has written seven books with further unpublished manuscripts in abeyance which he has not tendered in favour of a private life out of the spotlight. He ceased giving interviews about the Highgate Vampire case for the same reason, and nowadays avoids any contact with the media. Not so Farrant who remains every bit as desperate for publicity today as he did back in 1970 when he was twenty-four-years old. Indeed, it was Farrant's hunger for attention that led to him receiving a four years and eight months prison sentence in 1974. Nobody ever really believed any of his claims.</span><br />
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<a href="http://the-vampirologist.blogspot.co.uk/" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="335" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fxZhORrcmh8/WBsijRHYREI/AAAAAAAABvg/ZEgn7JtUGjwYnmlwvVI8NjHALZu0T9ZIgCLcB/s400/Bishop_Sean_Manchester_Vampirologist-captioned.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Totally absent from </span>Seán Manchester's career profile is that he is an accomplished photographer, musician and artist who entered the minor order of exorcist in early 1973, and later took holy orders.<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">At 20:50, we are told that after Farrant left prison <i>"he went back to heading up the British Occult Society where he still works today."</i> If Aaron Mahnke has researched this history beyond visiting Farrant's self-published works and online self-pronouncements he would know that David Farrant was at no time ever a member of the British Occult Society which organisation was instrumental in declaring him a lone publicity-seeker and charlatan in search of a bandwagon to jump on. Sadly, the eerie history (often talked about in local pubs in the 1960s) of Highgate Cemetery and its sinister spectral manifestation provided a suitable vehicle for Farrant and some others to ruthlessly exploit.</span></div>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/amahnke" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h_gcJ91gK7g/WBsJwEcCebI/AAAAAAAABt8/UBzYQ8zFfMo7RLOID8UD22q9bQjqtKSLwCLcB/s320/Aaron-Mahnke.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="214" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So who is Aaron Mahnke who managed to get so much wrong, and has obviously not read the two books he identifies in the podcast, <i>ie The Highgate Vampire</i> and <i>The Vampire Hunter's Handbook</i>?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He was born and raised in Illinois, and now lives with his wife and children on the north shore of Boston where he works on <i>Lore</i>, a bi-weekly (twice a month) podcast. He has apparently written three thrillers and one fantasy novel. What a shame he couldn't entirely move away from fiction?</span></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-23643479246879177522016-03-13T00:00:00.000-08:002016-03-17T03:17:35.341-07:00Forbidden History<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/forbidden-history/watch-online/?video=4790321875001"><img border="0" height="467" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gf42VlpQuc8/VuUeCm9K6LI/AAAAAAAACBQ/0-gZMTy610QqG9l9eWmEGqvkk8-iRcXRA/s640/SeanManchester-NorthGate%2528Forbidden-History%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(<i>Click to view the entire programme.</i>)</span></div>
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<i>Forbidden History</i>, now in its third series on the "Yesterday" channel, is one of those programmes that chooses sensationalist subjects but after viewing frequently leaves its audience with a feeling of disappointment. The programme about vampires, transmitted last Friday, had all the ingredients of a topic that would hold the viewer's attention. Inevitably and inexorably, by the time it reached its climax with the Highgate case at the top of the vampire menu, disappointment was all they could evoke. Seán Manchester wrote to the series director and producer. It is now understood that <i>Forbidden History</i> accepts that a mistake was made on their part, and they have agreed to pay an appropriate compensatory sum to Seán Manchester for illicitly using his image in their programme.</div>
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Seán Manchester wrote:</div>
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<i>Re: http://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/forbidden-history/watch-online/?video=4790321875001</i></div>
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<i>Forty-one minutes into the programme, a black and white photograph of me appears for seven seconds.</i></div>
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<i>I am the lawful and exclusive copyright owner of that image which shows me standing by the North Gate in Swains Lane, Highgate.</i></div>
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<i>To add insult to injury, my image has been used in the programme to support the words of a charlatan who has shamelessly exploited my work for his own self-serving ends and voracious appetite for publicity for over four decades.</i></div>
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<i>The photograph has been filched from somewhere I have had it legitimately published. If you intended to airbrush the author of <b>The Highgate Vampire</b> from your coverage of the case you should not have included this photograph.</i></div>
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<i>When Andrew Gough, a personal friend of Farrant for some years, first approached me about this programme last year he assured me that <b>"David [Farrant] would not be interviewed."</b> (See below).</i></div>
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<i>Having been a contributor to television for almost half a century, I naturally take nothing I am told at face value. I feel that my persona has been seriously abused by linking me to anything this Farrant character claims.</i></div>
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<i>Most in the section on Highgate is misleading and factually inaccurate. There is enough evidence on public record, however, to have avoided this occurring, even if you expurgated, as you clearly did, all reference to those who actually investigated the case.</i></div>
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<i>Sincerely,</i></div>
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<i>†Seán Manchester</i></div>
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<a href="http://uktvplay.uktv.co.uk/shows/forbidden-history/watch-online/?video=4790321875001"><img border="0" height="451" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LuqqMrEB6bo/VuU5kKSyFFI/AAAAAAAACBg/yyy0kvRCtPgWEyRaNd-BnHTvXD1VjGVgA/s640/AndrewGough23July2015.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Seán Manchester had fittingly and somewhat ironically written on his website on 13 December 2013:</div>
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<i>"I quickly came to realise many years ago that interviewers, regardless of the subject, simply do not know the right questions and the questions are every bit as important as the answers. Another problem in the new century has been one of trust. Seldom have I encountered an interviewer in recent years who keeps his or her word. Consequently, any condition I might have set for providing a contribution was frequently and almost immediately compromised. Without trust and a sense of honour there is nothing. I cannot interact in that way and would rather stay silent than witness yet another agreement broken. I am still having to regularly turn down television and radio interview requests, along with a plethora of other invitations to partake in projects that would maintain a perception of me remaining a public figure."</i></div>
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Despite Andrew Gough's assurance to Seán Manchester that <i>"David Farrant would not be interviewed,"</i> in actual fact, Farrant was the only contemporary person who was interviewed about the vampiric goings-on at Highgate. Others who offered their opinions throughout the programme, whether about Highgate or not, were hardened sceptics who view everything in purely materialistic terms. They approached the subject of vampires from a scientific point of view. The problem is that the supernatural cannot be approached in that way because it transgresses the laws of science.</div>
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Seán Manchester states in his correspondence to the programme's director that <i>"</i><i>the section on Highgate is misleading and factually inaccurate." </i>Let's examine that section to see what he means.</div>
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Thirty-four minutes into the documentary it finally reaches what a lot of people will have been waiting for when they first began watching: the case of the Highgate Vampire. What the viewer ends up with is a young American woman proclaiming that the Highgate story is <i>"the ultimate British B movie"</i> with <i>"someone running around claiming he's chasing vampires."</i> While this is being stated the viewers are shown Roger Simpson's article about David Farrant's penchant for sacrificing cats in Highgate Woods that appeared in the <i>Hornsey Journal</i>, 13 August 1973, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the case of the Highgate Vampire. <i>Forbidden History</i> is careful not to reveal the article's headline: <i>"Cat's throat slit during witchcraft ritual in woods."</i> Cat's throat slit by Farrant according to Farrant himself!</div>
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<a href="http://vampirologist.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/farrant-facts.html"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9R3ZiFen4_o/VuVB6seCk_I/AAAAAAAACBw/mVu9udpmAeQ-pAVwv0CqY7t5rjhNnuQ7g/s400/HornseyJournal31August73.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Next, while being shown posed images from <i>TitBits</i> magazine of Farrant prancing about in Highgate Cemetery, we are told <i>"a group of ghost hunters in the 1960s, 1970s were ghost hunting in Highgate Cemetery, and one of them spent the night there and believes he saw a ghost, a figure dressed in a cape wandering through Highgate Cemetery."</i> This is clearly a reference to Farrant who did not describe anything <i>"dressed in a cape"</i> and whose wife at the time, Mary, stated under oath at the Old Bailey during his criminal trials in 1974: <i>"We would go in, frighten ourselves to death and come out again. It was just a silly sort of thing that you do after the pubs shut."</i> Mrs Farrant added that her husband’s friends who joined in the late night jaunts were not involved in witchcraft or the occult.</div>
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We are then told about Satanists who broke into Highgate Cemetery, exhumed a corpse and <i>"hammered a metal stake through the coffin lid and through the heart of the person in the grave." </i> None of which happened, needless to say. Yet, as the viewer is told about these Satanists, they are shown simultaneously a 1972 photograph of David Farrant and Victoria Jervis being arrested in Monken Hadley churchyard in High Barnet, which owes no connection to the the Highgate case.</div>
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<a href="http://vampirologist.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/farrant-facts.html"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F3QaLpL2S6c/VuVJsVP41VI/AAAAAAAACCA/HGlrDqc8nHYRuv-iWbMg8U-zV4MlXanVA/s320/DFarrestMonkenHadley.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Viewers are at last treated to something that at least vaguely relates to the cemetery vampire case, albeit in a sensationalist article by Barrie Simmons in the <i>Evening News</i>, 16 October 1970, covering the antics of the publicity-seeker where he is portrayed as a rank amateur with a protective cross comprising of two twigs held together by a shoelace, plus a Sainsbury's carrier bag for his stakes.</div>
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<a href="http://vampirologist.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/farrant-facts.html"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3J8we7EAH1c/VuVK110Z8_I/AAAAAAAACCI/WUNl1hCKM-QxxjIR12-EOLzz8pnD6QOUg/s320/FarrantCross%2526StakeJamesTylerVault.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Presenter Jamie Theakston informs viewers that he has <i>"come to Highgate"</i> to meet David Farrant, but Farrant, who hasn't lived in Highgate for four and a half decades, actually lives in Muswell Hill. Theakston interviews him in his bedsit at the top of a house in Muswell Hill Road. He asks Farrant what it was he saw on that night inside Highgate Cemetery, but Farrant's original letter to the editor of the <i>Hampstead & Highgate Express</i> explicitly states that it was while walking along Swains Lane as he passed the North Gate that he saw something on the other side of the iron railings. A description of something as tall as the iron North Gate is alleged while simultaneously the massive stone arch leading to the Circle of Lebanon, which is at the heart of the graveyard, is shown on screen. While all this is being explained, the above image of Farrant armed with a crude wooden cross and stake emerges on the screen. Farrant has always previously insisted that he doesn't believe in vampires and has never seriously sought them out. This is not a revelation made on <i>Forbidden History</i>! </div>
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As a press cutting of the outcome of his criminal trials at the Old Bailey is shown, Theakston asks Farrant why he was arrested and allows Farrant get away with answering: <i>"I was arrested and charged with indecency in a churchyard."</i> True. He <i>was</i> found guilty of indecency in 1972, but the press cutting related to his trials two years later at which he was found guilty of graveyard desecration and tomb vandalism relating to Highgate Cemetery, threatening witnesses with black magic in an attempt to pervert the course of justice in the trial of a self-proclaimed Satanist who was and still remains his colleague, possession of a firearm and ammunition, plus theft from a hospital.</div>
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None of which is mentioned or alluded to, apart from one press cutting, throughout the documentary.</div>
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At this point, Andrew Gough proclaims that Farrant <i>"headed the British Occult Society and had a really important role in the whole Highgate Vampire story."</i> Nothing could be further from the truth.</div>
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<i>"He's the one going into the tombs and uncovering the fact that satanic rituals were going on there."</i></div>
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<i>"He's the one who identifies this entity, as trying to be manifested, and he's the one who kind of goes on this journey to find the vampire."</i></div>
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<a href="http://andrewgough.co.uk/interviews_manchester/"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1TxypJCcFyQ/VuVVNBdgeaI/AAAAAAAACCY/94LXNUSEwJM49ygLGJaZOWHEdMbYW9LlA/s320/DFAndrewGough.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>
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Or so claims Andrew Gough who is pictured with David Farrant in the latter's Muswell Hill bedsit. The girl at the centre is an acquaintance of Gough's whose curiosity must have got the better of her.</div>
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The fact is that Farrant was exposed by the British Occult Society from very early on. He has had no connection with that organisation beyond pretending to be associated to bolster his own publicity-seeking pranks. Newspapers invariably added to any such claim he made the prefix <i>"self-styled."</i></div>
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<a href="http://britishoccultsociety.blogspot.co.uk/"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CyNX2FurSUg/VuVWtORej_I/AAAAAAAACCk/YOK00zXENZ8kC59rmvstXHVBFOd1-tQCA/s400/BOSDisclaimers.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
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Far from being the one who uncovered satanic rituals in tombs, Farrant was found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey in the summer of 1974 of causing the satanic symbols and thereby rituals in tombs.</div>
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Gough's claim that Farrant went on a journey to find the vampire is perhaps the most absurd statement of all. Farrant has spent most of his life strenuously denying the existence of vampires and all newspaper reports that briefly in August 1970 he adopted the role of a "vampire hunter."</div>
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<i>"Curiously, to this day, there are reports in Swains Lane of civilians reporting to the police of a tall man walking across the street with dark, piercing red eyes; walking across the street and through the wall. This gets reported to the police every two or three years,"</i> claims Andrew Gough near the end.</div>
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This is untrue, as the police themselves will confirm. There have been no credible witnesses since the 1960s and early 1970s. Recent claimants have turned out to be associates of one man: Farrant<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2px;">.</span></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-91116113949053282032015-11-13T00:13:00.000-08:002015-11-20T05:22:13.174-08:00Occult Duel<div>
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<a href="http://seanmanchesterinvites.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/exorcismus.html" style="color: #444444; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2_UruuUJFSc/Vk74cH8k5AI/AAAAAAAAB7M/qLAV2wGNYnQ/s640/JacquelineSimpson-Wiki-quote.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="446" /></a></div>
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Jacqueline Simpson was born in 1930 and is a resident of Worthing, Sussex. She was president of the Folklore Society from 1993 to 1996 and has also been its honorary secretary. She published exceptionally misleading and grossly inaccurate statements in a book she co-wrote called <i>The Lore of the Land</i>, having placed reliance on her American colleague Bill Ellis whose flawed material in<i>Raising the Devil</i> is equally, if not more, unreliable. Some of the press cuttings referred to in Ellis' book are wrongly attributed and his writing is exceptionally biased, as is Simpson's for the same reason, because the supernatural is summarily dismissed. Ellis wrote the following response when Seán Manchester brought to his attention irrefutable evidence - in the form of copies of original reports - of his many erroneous and false attributions: <i>“... we agree that the contemporary press handling was often inaccurate, and that most subsequent discussions were even more distorted. ...”</i></div>
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Jacqueline Simpson’s terse response to Seán Manchester's concern over her damaging mistakes being repeated in a pending second edition of <i>The Lore of the Land</i> were to appear on the internet:</div>
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<i>“Wording changed to 'young people' and 'young man'. Name of organisation dropped, Farrant referred to simply as a 'member' of 'a group of young people interested in the paranormal.' Words 'which the paper called' inserted. No reference now to who did the challenging. Instead, neutral phrasing in allusion to press reports: 'rumours spread that a magical duel ...' The other points are rejected, and no changes will be made there.”</i></div>
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Unlike Bill Ellis, she has always refused to engage in any correspondence with Seán Manchester who kindly sent her copies of newspaper articles and a complimentary CD relevant to the Highgate Vampire case. While she proved most unfriendly towards Seán Manchester, she gladly agreed to speak at Farrant's Symposium held over a Highgate pub in July 2015 in order to dismiss the Highgate case further whilst inserting unprofessional, untrue and snide comments about Seán Manchester.</div>
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This is how some supposed “scholars” apparently operate. Simpson's paperback edition contained an incorrect date for a crucial newspaper article about the mysterious death of foxes even though she had cleared that up to her own satisfaction in advance. All reference to Seán Manchester's episcopal standing, albeit not entirely accurate in the first edition, was completely expurgated. She seems to know next to nothing about the case apart from what other people have published or claimed on the internet. Yet Jacqueline Simpson is entirely responsible for the Wikipedia entry about the Highgate Vampire. What she has written is full of error and totally reliant on her colleague in the United States who opted to interview Farrant in July 1992. It had already been established that he would not be able to interview both David Farrant and Seán Manchester. He had to choose. Farrant obviously provided Bill Ellis with highly prejudiced material and selected press cuttings most favourable to himself.</div>
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Bill Ellis coverage of the so-called occult duel is based on whatever press cuttings he was given by David Farrant. Ellis, therefore, provides only Farrant’s perverse version of what was described in the sensational press as a “magical duel” in 1973. Ellis writes in his book <i>Raising the Devil</i>: <i>“Shortly before the event, a tabloid press article muddied the water by claiming that both Manchester and Farrant intended to slaughter a cat in front of an assembly of naked witches.”</i> Ellis does not identify the newspaper in his text, but this is what the <i>Sunday Mirror</i>, 8 April 1973, actually reported alongside a photograph of Farrant with a naked girl: <i>“The bizarre ceremony will involve naked witches, demon-raisings and the slaughter of a cat.”</i> Seán Manchester is quoted, saying: <i>“My opponent intends to raise a demon to destroy me by killing a cat - I will be relying solely on divine power.”</i> Farrant insisted: <i>“Blood must be spilled, but the cat will be anaesthetised.”</i> <i>The Sun </i>newspaper, 23 November 1972, had earlier quoted Seán Manchester stating that Farrant’s boasts ought to be put to the test: <i>“The quickest way to destroy the credibility of a witch trying to earn a reputation for himself is to challenge his magical ability before objective observers.”</i> Yet unlike the print media, who did invite versions from both sides, no balancing comment was sought from Seán Manchester by Ellis, and certainly not by Simpson. Seán Manchester told what really happened in a work Ellis refers to in passing in his text - <i>From Satan To Christ</i> - which he nonetheless chose to completely ignore. The notorious posters advertising the “duel” were traced at the time to David Farrant who had engaged a small printing company used by him on earlier occasions. Ellis repeats Farrant’s falsehood to imply that Seán Manchester was responsible for these posters. Yet even Brian Netscher, editor of <i>New Witchcraft</i>, revealed in his magazine’s first issue: <i>“As to the ‘test of powers’ challenge, it is a matter of public record that Mr Farrant not only accepted it but publicised it widely in the national press and by means of a rather crudely-made poster.”</i> Seán Manchester wrote in <i>From Satan To Christ</i>: <i>“There was no sign of Farrant. He had been fearlessly called to account and, like so many others who use witchcraft to instil dread, could not fulfill the least of his claims when the day of reckoning arrived. … Farrant’s excuse was that he would have been lynched by the crowd of onlookers whose arrival was entirely due to the publicity he had created in the preceding weeks.”</i></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-38676542631008174212015-08-25T02:00:00.002-07:002015-08-26T01:41:28.942-07:00Highgate's Portal<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="background-color: #141414; color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 22px; font-stretch: normal; margin: 0px; position: relative; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dUAJyteKOXI/Vdl-tO36YXI/AAAAAAAALI4/nKkwSxUK904/s1600/HighgateCemetery-1960s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #444444; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dUAJyteKOXI/Vdl-tO36YXI/AAAAAAAALI4/nKkwSxUK904/s400/HighgateCemetery-1960s.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
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<big><span style="color: #006600;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><small>It was a very long time ago that I first came across the sloping field of crumbling masonry. I took the right-hand path. It swept steeply upward - towards, from my perspective, uncharted territory.</small></span></span></big><br />
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<span style="color: #006600;"><br /></span><span style="color: #006600;">What brought me to this eerie landscape still escapes me; other than to say I was drawn for some inexplicable reason. I was struck on that day by the odd fact that no birds sang and there were no other people in the vicinity. Indeed, I met not a solitary soul on that first visit. Continuing along the silent, tree-shrouded route, I slowly stopped, sensing something strange and sinister in my midst.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #006600;">It was the sombre pathway to an iron door, the inner circle and beating heart of the steep hill sewn with corpses that had a mystery and atmosphere like no other. The path led darkly to the portal.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #006600;">This is an artistic impression of my first encounter. It shows me facing away from the portal and yet eerily drawn back to it - as if something unnatural was pulling me into a metaphysical realm.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d4f4OdDzmn4/VdhhSlH_DoI/AAAAAAAALH8/Jd7FDugcIEY/s1600/Portal-complete-canvas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #444444; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d4f4OdDzmn4/VdhhSlH_DoI/AAAAAAAALH8/Jd7FDugcIEY/s400/Portal-complete-canvas.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #006600;">These are my last artistic impressions, showing the figure further along the path, but still facing away from the door; inwardly sensing the untold horrors that lay behind it; yet unable to resist.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0M8_Rn464bw/Vdhvd7JXx0I/AAAAAAAALIY/jKPmTtRZZio/s1600/HighgateCemetery-portal-illustation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #444444; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0M8_Rn464bw/Vdhvd7JXx0I/AAAAAAAALIY/jKPmTtRZZio/s400/HighgateCemetery-portal-illustation.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="356" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aehgtKELJks/Vd167WE2Q1I/AAAAAAAAB1A/E2eSAT-4Le0/s1600/HighgatePortalPathwayEntrance.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="422" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aehgtKELJks/Vd167WE2Q1I/AAAAAAAAB1A/E2eSAT-4Le0/s640/HighgatePortalPathwayEntrance.jpg.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eZGo6PIzJlo/VdhteWkHy5I/AAAAAAAALIQ/f-msPzeVHP8/s1600/HighgateCemetery-path-from-the-tomb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #444444; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eZGo6PIzJlo/VdhteWkHy5I/AAAAAAAALIQ/f-msPzeVHP8/s400/HighgateCemetery-path-from-the-tomb.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #006600;">The view in the opposite direction, </span><i style="color: #006600;">ie</i><span style="color: #006600;"> down the leaf-strewn pathway from the portal's perspective.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eu7tpz_M938/Vdhvu7wrCQI/AAAAAAAALIk/O-1FX71ixF0/s1600/HighgateCemetery-North-Gate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #444444; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eu7tpz_M938/Vdhvu7wrCQI/AAAAAAAALIk/O-1FX71ixF0/s400/HighgateCemetery-North-Gate.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #006600;">Returning for the last time to the lane where the unearthly had been experienced many years prior, I cast a lingering glance through the bars of the now permanently closed cemetery's north gate.</span></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-55363705951074153022015-08-19T06:00:00.000-07:002015-08-19T06:02:03.959-07:00Secret Exorcism at Highgate Tomb<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Tn3g0Mf1CV0/VdR32Gor2PI/AAAAAAAAB0o/C1AowQ5iPOY/s1600/SM4exorcism70.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="459" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Tn3g0Mf1CV0/VdR32Gor2PI/AAAAAAAAB0o/C1AowQ5iPOY/s640/SM4exorcism70.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="background-color: black; line-height: 16.0799999237061px;">In the summer of 1970, both vampiric and satanic outrages were occurring at London's Highgate Cemetery, culminating in the press learning of </span></span>Seán Manchester's secret exorcism of a tomb:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="background-color: black; line-height: 16.0799999237061px;">Such exorcisms were not uncommon and a theory about Satanists summoning an erstwhile dormant vampire had already become established in some quarters. This exorcism was reconstructed two months later by the BBC for their television documentary programme <i>24 Hours</i>, 15 October 1970.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #cccccc; font-family: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qyywhPZnmV4/VHNrZkxzk9I/AAAAAAAABA4/CUJtDfRugMg/s1600/ExorcismHighgateCemetery1970.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cccccc; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="396" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qyywhPZnmV4/VHNrZkxzk9I/AAAAAAAABA4/CUJtDfRugMg/s1600/ExorcismHighgateCemetery1970.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: black;"><i>"The best advice I can give is to avoid involvement in the dark occult, ie Left-hand Path occultism, and do not seek the malign supernatural. Leave well alone. The Devil can tempt us, but he cannot touch us directly unless we open the door and let him in. We should not fear Satan and his demonic horde, but neither should we look for him in the day to day happenings of our life. There are positive aspects of the supernatural such as healing, miracles and visions. Phenomena that once existed with regard to places on any proposed Highgate Vampire tour list no longer afflict those places today, and all one can do is visit areas where something is alleged to have once occurred in the past, and very well might have done so back then. But nothing vampiric or demonic remains today.</i></span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: black;"><i>"This is certainly true of Highgate Cemetery where a demonic contamination was in evidence over forty years ago, but no longer is there evidence of that manifestation at any of the places associated with the case which was finally closed in 1982. The neo-Gothic mansion was demolished back in the 1970s, and Highgate Cemetery has been regularly maintained and patrolled by the Friends of Highgate Cemetery (FoHC) since the graveyard was relinquished by the private owners, the London Cemetery Company, during the time of the terrifying supernatural occurrences. These reached back many years. The eleven acre woodland graveyard that once comprised part of the Great Northern London Cemetery where a secondary contagion occurred, linked to Highgate, was built on by property developers soon after the unearthly incidents and exorcism of same took place. Little remains to visit and certainly nothing directly associated with the infestation itself."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: #0a0a0a; line-height: 28px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">(Seán Manchester, from his writings regarding the occult.)</span></span></span></h3>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Br3qhXYr0PE/VdRtoPjrf-I/AAAAAAAAAn4/e25f8JgiNjg/s1600/SMexorcism70.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #444444; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="281" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Br3qhXYr0PE/VdRtoPjrf-I/AAAAAAAAAn4/e25f8JgiNjg/s400/SMexorcism70.jpg" style="background: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid transparent; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></a></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-45392214082747758062015-07-13T00:00:00.000-07:002015-07-13T10:21:53.222-07:00Highgate 71 Revisited<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A small sample of what is being exhibited. Monochrome images displayed below were first published in their original form in either one or both editions of <i>The Highgate Vampire</i> (1985 & 1991) by †Seán Manchester</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">.</span></div>
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<br />B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-29281655569491687742015-03-13T03:00:00.000-07:002017-09-11T07:36:53.704-07:00The Largest Vampire Hunt of the 20th Century<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It began like most days when the cold winter won't go away. The bitterness of former weeks not only intensified as the unseasonal snow refused to melt away, but somehow seemed to be growing worse.</div>
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Today is the forty-fifth anniversary of a Friday the 13th that would go down in the annals of history as the largest vampire hunt of the twentieth century. How did it arise? What led up to it happening?</div>
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Gerald Isaaman, editor of the <i>Hampstead & Highgate Express</i> in those far off distant days, recently recounted his meeting with Seán Manchester in February 1970: <i>"Manchester arrived at the office wearing a black cloak lined with scarlet silk and carrying a cane."</i> Isaaman forgot to mention the top hat and tails that were included with the opera cloak and cane. There was also an accompanying young lady, also not mentioned, who was equally formally-attired. It was late in the afternoon and Seán Manchester had no idea how long the interview that had been requested of him would take. </div>
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He and his lady friend were dressed ready to go on to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from the Hampstead offices of the <i>Hampstead & Highgate Express</i>. He frequently attended the opera in those days and continued to do so whilst in London, always preferring the correct dress code. </div>
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The elderly and now ex-editor reminisced in Jauary 2009:</div>
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<i>"The story of the Highgate Vampire [in a recently published book about London's folklore] is attributed to 1970 reports in the Ham & High, where I was then the editor. It recalled the fantastic events of a few months that year and the following one, which culminated in a TV programme inviting people to decide for themselves what was going on. That resulted in three hundred people, allegedly armed with home-made stakes and Christian crosses, storming the cemetery that night to kill the demon vampire lurking among the decaying tombs."</i></div>
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In fact, there was considerably more than three hundred people on the hunt that night for Highgate's vampire. They were there because of a broadcast earlier that evening which brought the case to a much wider audience. There was no announcement by the team officially investigating the mysterious happenings at the cemetery that they would be embarking upon a vampire hunt that night even though that was the case. The official hunt had been planned in private for some time.</div>
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Two weeks earlier, on Friday the 27th of February, the <i>Hampstead & Highgate Express</i> had posed the question <i>"Does a wampyr walk in Highgate?"</i> to its readers in the form of a front-page headline. The results of Seán Manchester's conversation with Gerald Isaaman were contained, albeit with considerable journalistic embellishment and misquoting by the newspaper, beneath the headline. This led to wider media interest to the dismay of Seán Manchester who felt pressured to reveal what he and his team of researchers knew about the supernatural and satanic elements present in Highgate.</div>
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Thus the mass vampire hunt at Highgate Cemetery on the night of Friday the 13th of March 1970, followed reports in local and national newspapers, but was mostly triggered by a television interview with various witnesses earlier that evening on British television. It also led to a spate of amateur vampire hunters inflicting themselves on the cemetery with home-made stakes, crosses, garlic, holy water, but very little knowledge about how to deal with any suspected undead if they encountered it. </div>
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The president of the British Occult Society had made an appeal on the <i>Today</i> programme at 6.00pm to request the public not to get involved, nor put into jeopardy the investigation already in progress. Not everyone heeded his words. Over the following months a wide variety of independent vampire hunters descended on the graveyard — only to be frightened off by its eerie atmosphere and what they believed might have been the vampire. Some were quickly arrested by police patrolling the area. The public were advised that a full-scale investigation was taking place. Individual efforts by those merely seeking thrills, however, served only to endanger all concerned and frustrate the official hunt.</div>
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The image above shows a member of the official vampire hunt that was led by Seán Manchester.</div>
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Folk feared encountering the vampire, but nothing dissuaded them on Friday 13 March 1970.<br />
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Many myths and misleading assumptions have clouded the true events surrounding the largest vampire hunt to have taken place in the twentieth century which would later be recorded in <i>The Highgate Vampire</i> book written by Seán Manchester. Such speculation has inevitably been the opinion of those too young to have been properly aware of the event, and those not born at the time.</div>
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It has been erroneously claimed, for example, that the mass vampire hunt on that night caused damage and led to a spate of wanton vandalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. There had certainly been acts of vandalism in the previous decade which were evident to anyone visiting, but no damage occurred on the night of 13 March 1970. With the world's spotlight now focused on Highgate Cemetery in the period following the famous hunt, vandalism significantly decreased. Such rare acts that did occur were invariably carried out by black magicians, as happened in August 1970 when three schoolgirls discovered a hundred-year-old corpse strewn across a cemetery path with evidence of a satanic ceremony having taken place in the immediate vicinity. No investigating vampire hunters were accused, much less found guilty, of causing any damage. The worst that happened to any subsequent visiting would-be amateur vampire hunters was that they were arrested for being in the cemetery during the dark hours with a caution for potential unlawful intent.</div>
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For example, Simon Wiles and John White armed themselves with a crucifix and a sharpened stake, and set off to see if they could locate the vampire’s tomb. Like others who followed in their wake, they were arrested by police who inspected their rucksack and its contents. Inside was an eight inch long wooden stake, sharpened to a point. John White later explained at Clerkenwell Court: <i>“Legend has it that if one meets a vampire, one drives a stake through its heart.”</i> He was wearing a crucifix round his neck and Simon Wiles had one in his pocket. They were eventually discharged.</div>
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Who remembers these amateur thrill-seekers now? Yet the mass vampire hunt, involving hundreds, that took place on the night of 13 March 1970, became quickly etched onto the pages of history.</div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-78502699769069069642015-02-27T01:27:00.000-08:002015-07-27T05:12:09.929-07:00Does A Wampyr Walk In Highgate?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><em>"On Friday, 27 February 1970, the front page headline of the Hampstead and Highgate Express asked does a vampire walk in Highgate? There would be no going back. The die had been cast."</em> - Seán Manchester (<em>The Highgate Vampire</em>, Gothic Press, page 70)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">The banner headline "Does a wampyr walk in Highgate?" appeared across the front page of Hampstead and Highgate's most prestigious newspaper in February 1970. The editor himself had written the piece after meeting privately with the president of the British Occult Society and founder of the then fledgling Vampire Research Society. He allowed himself to get slightly carried away by introducing the journalistic embellishment <em>"King Vampire of the Undead"</em> - a term that Seán Manchester did not employ, as stated by him on page 72 of <em>The Vampire Hunter's Handbook</em>, but what else did the editor get wrong that day? Apparently more than you might imagine!<br /><br />After warning that a vampire might be active in Highgate Cemetery, the article goes on to correctly describe Seán Manchester as a photographer (he had run his own photographic studio throughout the previous decade) and the president of the British Occult Society (a position he held from 21 June 1967 to 8 August 1988 when the B.O.S. was dissolved). He is then quoted accurately enough before reference is made to a King Vampire of the Undead which is not attributed to him in actual quotes but attributed nonetheless.<br /><br />A very important residence in Highgate somehow manages to transform into a different house in London's West End. For house <em>"in the West End"</em> one should actually substitute Ashurst House, which once stood at the western end of the site now occupied by Highgate Cemetery, as would have been explained by Seán Manchester who told the editor at the time that Ashurst House was sold and leased to a succession of tenants of whom one was a mysterious gentleman from the Continent who arrived in the wake of the vampire epidemic that had its origins in south-east Europe. This is not quite the same as what was reported and, of course, does not have anything like the same sensationalist impact as <em>"King Vampire from Wallachia" </em>which Draculesque adornment the newspaper clearly preferred.<br /><br />There then follows reference to a group of Satanists attempting to<em>"resurrect the King Vampire."</em> This time the reference to a King Vampire is included in quotes even though the term was not uttered.<br /><br />Next we are misinformed that the British Occult Society had <em>"no formal membership"</em> but instead corresponded with <em>"50 to 100 interested people. "</em>Completely untrue. The B.O.S. had a formal membership of over three hundred people with at least one hundred actively involved in ongoing research and investigation.<br /><br />Then we learn that the British Occult Society <em>"believes in countering magic by magic"</em> when all that was said is that the supernatural will not submit to scientific methods to measure and prove its existence.<br /><br />The newspaper correctly states that some B.O.S. members had <em>"spent nights in Highgate Cemetery"</em> which was obviously for the purpose of observing the strange nocturnal goings-on in the place as had been reported by people in the previous decade and was still being reported up to the time of the article.<br /><br />Readers are then offered in quotes <em>"the traditional and approved manner" </em>by which folk must rid themselves of this hideous pestilence without it being properly clarified that this is how clergy dealt with the problem in centuries past and was not on the agenda as far as the British Occult Society/Vampire Research Society was concerned with regard to Highgate Cemetery.<br /><br />That Montague Summers' books bore some influence on Seán Manchester's understanding of vampirism is mentioned in tandem with the suggestion that Bram Stoker's novel is based on fact. That Stoker was influenced by genuine cases and read about real vampires before writing <em>Dracula</em> is not in doubt, but the clumsy journalism of the <em>Hampstead and Highgate Express</em> clouds what is trying to be conveyed by the man they are interviewing in the pursuit (presumably) of economising on words for the sake of space.<br /><br />Finally we come to a quote attributed to <em>"one of Britain's busiest exorcists, the Rev John Neil-Smith"</em> (they couldn't even get his name right - it was actually Christopher Neil-Smith) by attributing to him the following: <em>"I believe the whole idea of vampires is probably a novelistic embellishment."</em> He said nothing of the sort.<br /><br />The Reverend Christopher Neil-Smith (1920-1995) was an Anglican priest, originally from Hampstead, most celebrated for his practice of exorcism and his paranormal interests.[1] Like Seán Manchester, whom he knew, Reverend Neil-Smith believed that evil is an external reality and should be treated as such rather than as an abstract concept.<br /><br />A vicar at St Saviour's Anglican Church at Eton Road in Hampstead, London, he performed more than three thousand exorcisms in Britain since 1949. In 1972, the Bishop of London authorised him to exorcise demons according to his own judgement.[2] Two years earlier, he was misquoted in the <em>Hampstead and Highgate Express</em>, 27 February 1970, saying that vampires are <em>"probably a novelistic embellishment,"</em> but, as Seán Manchester subsequently pointed out, Reverend Neil-Smith claimed to have actually exorcised vampires, as confirmed in a book written by Daniel Farson and Angus Hall which records:<br /><br /><em>"Yet not far from Highgate Cemetery lives a man who takes reports of vampirism seriously. The Reverend Christopher Neil-Smith is a leading British exorcist and writer on exorcism. He can cite several examples of people who have come to him for help in connection with vampirism. 'The one that particularly strikes me is that of a woman who showed me the marks on her wrists which appeared at night, where blood had definitely been taken. And there was no apparent reason why this should have occurred. They were marks like those of an animal. Something like scratching.' He denies this might have been done by the woman herself. She came to him when she felt her blood was being sucked away, and after he performed an exorcism the marks disappeared. Another person who came from South America 'had a similar phenomenon, as if an animal had sucked away his blood and attacked him at night.' Again, the Reverend Neil-Smith could find no obvious explanation. There is a third case of a man who, after his brother died, had the strange feeling that his lifeblood was being slowly sucked away from him. 'There seems to be evidence this was so,' says Neil-Smith. 'He was a perfectly normal person before, but after the brother's death he felt his life was being sucked away from him as if the spirit of his brother was feeding on him. When the exorcism was performed he felt a release and new life, as if new blood ran in his veins.' Neil-Smith rules out the possibility of a simple psychological explanation for this, such as a feeling of guilt by the survivor toward his brother. 'There was no disharmony between them. In fact he wasn't clear for some time that it (the vampire) was his brother.' The clergyman describes a vampire as 'half animal, half human,' and firmly refutes the suggestion that such things are all in the mind. 'I think that's a very naive interpretation,' he says. 'All the evidence points to the contrary'."</em> [6]<br /><br />The Reverend Christopher Neil-Smith, contrary to editor Gerald Isaaman's false attribution of 27 February 1970 in a local Hampstead newspaper, concluded that there really are such a things as vampires.<br /><br /><em><u>References</u>:</em><br /><br />1. a b Beeson, Trevor (2006). "The Reverend Christopher Neil-Smith". Priests And Prelates: <em>The Daily Telegraph Clerical Obituaries</em>. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0826481000.<br /><br />2. Sands, Kathleen R. <em>Demon possession in Elizabethan England</em>. Praeger Publishers. <em>"At around the same time, Father Christopher Neil-Smith, an Anglican priest, received a standing license from the Bishop of London authorizing him to exorcise freely according to his own judgment." </em><br /><br />3. Neil-Smith, Christopher. <em>Praying for daylight: God through modern eyes.</em> P. Smith.<br /><br />4. Cramer, Marc. <em>The devil within.</em> W.H. Allen. <em>"with the noted exorcist, the Rev. Christopher Neil-Smith, author of an anecdotal book entitled The Exorcist and the Possessed."</em><br /><br />5. Spence, Lewis. <em>Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology.</em>Kessinger Publishing.<br /><br />6. <em>Mysterious Monsters</em> (Aldus Books, 1978) by Daniel Farson and Angus Hall.</span></span></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-79906454166468233242015-02-13T01:00:00.002-08:002015-02-25T04:18:42.638-08:00Metamorphosen<br />
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<br />B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-86305385671313977202015-02-02T02:45:00.000-08:002015-02-02T05:06:17.244-08:00Vampire Research Society<br />
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-80686225049282096042014-12-22T01:00:00.004-08:002014-12-22T01:00:38.255-08:00True Horror - The Highgate Vampire<br />
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<br />B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-87377097770292144292014-12-13T01:00:00.002-08:002014-12-13T01:20:01.434-08:00Can Such Things Be?<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Exvfzreo6Wo/VIwDezAUSiI/AAAAAAAABLc/Br2b7E6aB3g/s1600/Calmet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Exvfzreo6Wo/VIwDezAUSiI/AAAAAAAABLc/Br2b7E6aB3g/s1600/Calmet.jpg" height="640" width="422" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;">French vampirological and biblical scholar, Dom Augustin Calmet, who entered the Benedictine Order in 1688, becoming ordained into the priesthood in 1696, is remembered for his 1746 work on vampires: </span><em style="text-align: justify;">Dissertations sur les Apparitions des Anges des Démons et des Espits, et sur les revenants, et Vampires de Hongrie, de Boheme, et de Silésie</em><span style="text-align: justify;">. Calmet’s attempt to establish the veracity of such predatory demonic entities lacked first-hand evidence and he seemed to concentrate on the collecting of vampire reports, which he certainly did not dismiss out of hand, and then offered his personal reflections on them.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Calmet defined the phenomena as corpses that returned from their graves to disturb the living by sucking their blood and even causing death. The only remedy was to exhume the afflicted body, sever its head, and drive a stake through the heart. Cremation was another effective alternative. Using that definition, he gathered all the accounts he could find, and it is these reports of collected data that take up the majority of space in his volume.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">He justifiably condemned the hysteria which accompanied several of the reported vampire incidents, and also considered all the natural explanations that were offered for the phenomenon. His findings were inconclusive. However, Calmet did not state that the reports could be explained away by natural causes, but he shrank from proposing an alternative answer. In other words, he left the entire matter unresolved. He nevertheless seemed to favour the existence of vampires by noting <i>“that it seems impossible not to subscribe to the belief which prevails in these countries that these apparitions do actually come forth from the graves and that they are able to produce terrible effects which are so widely and so positively attributed to them.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Calmet had posed five possibilities for all the accounts he had considered. Three of these he dismissed. The remaining two consisted of the possibility that vampires are the result of the Devil’s interference, or just superstition. No firm conclusion was apparent until the third and last edition, published in 1751, where in his bestselling work he makes clear that he could conclude naught save that such creatures as vampires really did return from the grave.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">In the <em>Malleus Maleficarum</em> (1486) the Church gives official recognition to the existence of the undead. Pope Innocent III sanctioned the publication of a treatise on the discovery and elimination of vampires. Protestant Reformers likewise made belief in the existence of vampires official. John Calvin explained the phenomenon of vampirism as being a consequence of sorcery. King James I, in his treatise <em>Demonologie</em> (1597), claimed that vampiric spectres were not the souls of the dead, but rather demons masquerading as the deceased. Even Martin Luther entertained vampires when they were related to him by a priest called George Rohrer. Written in 1679 by the theologian Philip Rohr (not to be confused with George Rohrer), <em>De Masticatione Mortuorum</em> translates as <i>"On the Chewing Dead."</i> Rohr was based in the Holy Roman Empire, and his text discussed the common folklore that some corpses returned to life, eating both their funeral shrouds and nearby bodies - a process known as manduction. The chewing dead were part of a larger body of vampire mythology, which Rohr's text contributed to significantly.</span></div>
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<em style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em>De Masticatione Mortuorum</em> (or to use its full title <em>Dissertatio Historico-Philosophica de Masticatione Mortuorum</em>) is referred to on page 14 of <em>The Vampire Hunter's Handbook</em> (1997). Rohr, like many others before and since, attributed the vampire phenomenon to demonic possession.</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">The Eastern Orthdox Churches tend not to doubt the existence of vampires. It is not a top priority for them, but it is an aspect of the realm of demonaltry which all Christians, according to the New Testament (Mark 16: 17), are obliged to oppose and indeed exorcise.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">A vampire is generally described as being exceedingly gaunt and lean with a hideous countenance and eyes wherein are glinting the red fire of perdition. When, however, he has satiated his lust for warm human blood his body becomes horribly puffed and bloated, as though he were some great leech gorged and replete to bursting. Cold as ice, or it may be fevered and burning as a hot coal, the skin is deathly pale, but the lips are very full and rich, blub and red; the teeth white and gleaming, and the canine teeth wherewith he bites deep into the neck of his prey to suck thence the vital streams which re-animate his body and invigorate all his forces appear notably sharp and pointed. Often his mouth curls back in a vulpine snarl which bares these fangs, <i>"a gaping mouth and gleaming teeth,"</i> says Leone Allacci, and so in many districts the hare-lipped are avoided as being certainly vampires. In Bulgaria, it is thought that the vampire who returns from the tomb has only one nostril; and in certain districts of Poland he is supposed to have a sharp point at the end of his tongue, like the sting of a bee. It is said that the palms of a vampire's hands are downy with hair, and the nails are always curved and crooked, often well-nigh the length of a great bird's claw, the quicks dirty and foul with clots and gouts of black blood. His breath is unbearably fetid and rank with corruption, the stench of the charnel. Dr Henry More in his <em>An Antidote against Atheism</em>, III, ix, tells us that when Johannes Cuntius, an alderman of Pentsch in Silesia and a witch returned as a vampire he much tormented the Parson of the Parish. One evening, <i>"when this Theologer was sitting with his wife and Children about him, exercising himself in Musick, according to his usual manner, a most grievous stink arose suddenly, which by degrees spread itself to every corner of the room. Here upon he commends himself and his family to God by Prayer. The smell nevertheless encreased, and became above all measure pestilently noisom, insomuch that he was forced to go up to his chamber. He and his Wife had not been in bed a quarter of an hour, but they find the same stink in the bedchamber; of which, while they are complaining one to another out steps the Spectre from the Wall, and creeping to his bedside, breathes upon him an exceeding cold breath, of so intolerable stinking and malignant a scent, as is beyond all imagination and expression. Here upon the Theologer, good soul, grew very ill, and was fain to keep his bed, his face, belly, and guts swelling as if he had been poysoned; whence he was also troubled with a difficulty of breathing, and with a putrid inflamation of his eyes, so that he could not well use them of a long time after."</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">In the <em>Malleus Maleficarum</em>, Part II, Qn. 1., Ch. 11, the following is related: <i>"In the territory of the Black Forest, a witch was being lifted by a gaoler on to the pile of wood prepared for her burning and said: 'I will pay you,' and blew into his face. And he was at once afflicted with a horrible leprosy all over his body and did not survive many days."</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Boguet, <em>Discours des Sorciers</em>, gives as his rubric to Chapter XXV, Si les Sorciers tuent de leur souffle & haleine. He tells us: <i>"Les Sorciers tuent & endommagent de lour souffle & haleine: en quoy Clauda Gaillard dicte la Fribolette nous seruita de tesmoignage; car ayant soufflé contre Clauda Perrier, qu'elle r'encontra en l'Eglise d'Ebouchoux, tout aussi test ceste femme tomba malade, & fut rendue impotente, & en fin mourut apres auoir trainé par l'espace d'vn an en toute pauurieté, & langueur: de mesme aussi comme Marie Perrier luy eut vne fois refusé l'aumosne, elle luy souffla fort rudement contre, de façon quo Marie tomba par terre, & s'estant releuée ause peine elle demeura malade par quelques iours, & iusques à tant que Pierre Perrier son neueu out menacé la Sorciere."</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Sinistrari in his <em>Demoniality</em> says that if we ask how it is possible that the demon, who has no body, yet can perform actual coitus with man or woman, most authorities answer that the demon assumes or animates the corpse of another human being, male or female, as the case may be, and Delrio (<em>Disquisitiones Magicae</em>, Liber II, Q. xxviii, sec. 1). comments: <i>"Denique multae falsae resurrectiones gentilium huc sunt referendae; & constat cum sagis ut plurimum induto cadauere diabolum sine incubum, sine succubum, rem habere; unde & in hoc genere hominum, cadauerosus quidam faetor graueolentiae, cernitur."</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Some remoter country districts, indeed, are apt to regard any poor wretch who is sadly deformed as a vampire, especially if the distortion be altogether unsightly, prominent, or grotesque. It has even been known that a peasant whose face was deeply marked with wine-coloured pigment, owing it was thought to some accident which befell his mother during her late pregnancy, was shunned and suspected of being a malignant vrykolakas. Chorea, they say, is a certain sign of vampirism, and it may be remarked that in Shoa this disorder is regarded as the result of demoniacal possession, or due to the magic spell of an enemy's shadow having fallen upon the sufferer. An epileptic there is also often considered as being in the power of some devil, and unless proper precautions are taken he will assuredly not rest in his grave. The vampire is endowed with strength and agility more than human, and he can run with excessive speed, outstripping the wind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">The vampire is one who has led a life of more than ordinary immorality and unbridled wickedness; a man of foul, gross and selfish passions, of evil ambitions, delighting in cruelty and blood. Arthur Machen has very shrewdly pointed out that <i>"Sorcery and sanctity are the only realities. Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life."</i> The spiritual world cannot be confined to the supremely good, <i>"but the supremely wicked, necessarily, have their portion in it. The ordinary man can no more be a great sinner than he can be a great saint. Most of us are just indifferent, mixed-up creatures; we muddle through the world without realizing the meaning and the inner sense of things, and, consequently our wickedness and our goodness are alike second-rate unimportant . . . the saint endeavours to recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall . . . it is not the mere liar who is excluded by those words[1]; it is, above all, the "sorcerers" who use the material life, who use the failings incidental to material life as instruments to obtain their infinitely wicked ends. And let me tell you this; our higher senses are so blunted, we are so drenched with materialism, that we should probably fail to recognize real wickedness if we encountered it.)"</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">It has been said that a saint is a person who always chooses the better of the two courses open to him at every step. And so the man who is truly wicked is he who deliberately always chooses the worse of the two courses. Even when he does things which would be considered right he always does them for some bad reason. To identify oneself in this way with any given course requires intense concentration and an iron strength of will, and it is such persons who become vampires.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">The vampire is believed to be one who has devoted himself during his life to the practice of Black Magic, and it is hardly to be supposed that such persons would rest undisturbed, while it is easy to believe that their malevolence had set in action forces which might prove powerful for terror and destruction even when they were in their graves. It was sometimes said, but the belief is rare, that the vampire was the offspring of a witch and the Devil.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Seán Manchester</span></div>
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<em style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em>Memoir [select extracts]</em> (2003)</span></em></div>
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<em style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em>The Vampire Hunter's Handbook</em> (1997)</span></em></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Montague Summers</span></div>
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<em style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em>The Vampire: His Kith & Kin</em> (1928)</span></em></div>
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</em>B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-17658249411146630752014-12-12T00:30:00.001-08:002014-12-12T00:49:46.031-08:00The Vampire<br />
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;">With the following words, Montague Summers' introduced his celebrated book </span><em style="text-align: justify;">The Vampire: His Kith & Kin</em><span style="text-align: justify;"> (1928). It was quickly followed by his equally informative </span><em style="text-align: justify;">The Vampire in Europe</em><span style="text-align: justify;"> (1929). No self-respecting vampirologist can be without either of these fascinating works.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">In all the darkest pages of the malign supernatural there is no more terrible tradition than that of the Vampire, a pariah even among demons. Foul are his ravages; gruesome and seemingly barbaric are the ancient and approved methods by which folk must rid themselves of this hideous pest. Even to-day in certain quarters of the world, in remoter districts of Europe itself, Transylvania, Slavonia, the isles and mountains of Greece, the peasant will take the law into his own bands and utterly destroy the carrion who--as it is yet firmly believed--at night will issue from his unhallowed grave to spread the infection of vampirism throughout the countryside. Assyria knew the vampire long ago, and he lurked amid the primaeval forests of Mexico before Cortes came. He is feared by the Chinese, by the Indian, and the Malay alike; whilst Arabian story tells us again and again of the ghouls who haunt ill-omened sepulchres and lonely cross-ways to attack and devour the unhappy traveller.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The tradition is world wide and of dateless antiquity. Travellers and various writers upon several countries have dealt with these dark and perplexing problems, sometimes cursorily, less frequently with scholarship and perception, but in every case the discussion of the vampire has occupied a few paragraphs, a page or two, or at most a chapter of an extensive and divaricating study, where other circumstances and other legends claimed at least an equal if not a more important and considerable place in the narrative. It maybe argued, indeed, that the writers upon Greece have paid especial attention to this tradition, and that the vampire figures prominently in their works. This is true, but on the other band the treatise of Leone Allacci, <em>De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus</em>, 1645, is of considerable rarity, nor are even such volumes as Father François Richard's <em>Relation de ce qui s'est passé de plus remarquable a Sant-Erini</em>, 1657, the <em>Voyage au Levant</em> (1705) of Paul Lucas, and Tournefort's<em>Relation d'un Voyage du Levant</em> (1717), although perhaps not altogether uncommon and certainly fairly well known by repute, generally to be met with in every library. The study of the Modern Greek Vampire in Mr. J. G. Lawson's <em>Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion</em> has, of course, taken its place as a classic, but save incidentally and in passing Mr. Lawson does not touch upon the tradition in other countries and at other times, for this lies outside his purview.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Towards the end of the seventeenth century, and even more particularly during the first half of the eighteenth century when in Hungary, Moravia, and Galicia, there seemed to be a veritable epidemic of vampirism. the report of which was bruited far and wide engaging the attention of curia and university, ecclesiastic and philosopher, scholar and man of letters, journalist and virtuoso in all lands, there appeared a large number of academic theses and tractates, the majority of which had been prelected at Leipzig, and these formally discussed and debated the question in well-nigh all its aspects, dividing, sub-dividing, inquiring, ratiocinating upon the most approved scholastic lines. Thus we have the monographs of such professors as Philip Rohr, whose <em>Dissertatio Historico-Philosophica De Masticatione Mortuorum</em> was delivered at Leipzig on 16 August, 1679, and issued the same year from the press of Michael Vogt; the <em>Dissertatio de Uampyris Seruiensibus</em> of Zopfius and van Dalen, printed at Duisburg in 1733; and the <em>De absolutione mortuorum excommunicatorum</em> of Heineccius, published at Helmstad in 1709. Of especial value are Michael Ranft's <em>De Masticatione Mortuorum</em> in Tumulis Liber, Leipzig, 1728, and the <em>Dissertatio de Cadaueribus Sanguisugis</em>, Jena, 1732, of John Christian Stock. These dissertations, however, are extremely scarce and hardly to be found, whilst even so encyclopaedic a bibliography as Caillet does not include either Philip Rohr, Michael Ranft, or Stock, all of whom should therein assuredly have found a place. In this connexion must not be omitted the <em>De Miraculis Mortuorum</em>, Leipzig, Kirchner, 1670, and second edition, Weidmann, 1687, a treatise by Christian Frederic Garmann, a noted physician, who was born at Mersebourg about 1640 and who practised with great repute at Chemnitz. Garmann discusses many curious details and continued to amass so vast a collection of notes that after his death there was published in 1709 at Dresden by Zimmerman a very much enlarged edition of his work, <i>"exornatum, diu desideratum et expetitum, beato autoris obitu interueniente."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">During the eighteenth century the tradition of the Vampire was dealt with by two famous authors, of whom both concentrated upon this as their main theme, that is to say by Dom Augustin Calmet, O.S.B., in his <em>Dissertations sur les Apparitions des Anges, des Démons et des Esprits et sur les revenants et vampires de Hongrie, de Bohême, de Moravie, e de Silésie</em>, Paris, 1740, and by Gioseppe Davanzati, Archbishop of Trani and Patriarch of Alexandria, in his <em>Dissertazione sopra I Vampire</em>, Naples, 1774. As I have very fully considered both these important works they require no more than a bare mention here.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Of a later date we find in French a few books such as the <em>Histoire des Vampires</em> (1820) of the enormously prolific Collin de Plancy, the<em>Spectriana</em> (1817) and <em>Les ombres sanglantes</em> (1820) of J. P. R. Cuisin, and Gabrielle de Paban's <em>Histoire des Fantômes et des Demons</em> (1819) and<em>Démoniana</em> (1820), but these with many more of that class and epoch, although they are sometimes written not without elegance and industry and one may here and there meet with a curious anecdote or local legend, will not, I think, long engage the consideration and regard of the more serious student.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">In English there is a little book entitled <em>Vampires and Vampirism</em> by Mr. Dudley Wright, which was first published in 1914; second edition (with additional matter), 1924. It may, of course, be said that this is not intended to be more than a popular and trifling collection and that one must not look for accuracy and research from the author of Roman Catholicism and Freemasonry.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">It may, I think, not unfairly be claimed that the present work is the first serious study in English of the Vampire, and kindred traditions from a general, as well as from a theological and philosophical point of view. I have already pointed out that it were impossible to better such a chapter as Mr. J. C. Lawson has given us in his <em>Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion</em>, a book to which as also to Bernhard Schmidt's <em>Das Volksleben der Neugriechen und das Hellenische Alterthum</em>, I am greatly indebted. But any wider survey of the vampire tradition will soon be found on demand an examination of legend, customs, and history which extend far beyond Greece, although in such an inquiry the beliefs and practice of modern Greece must necessarily assume a prominent and most material significance.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">In the present work I have endeavoured to set forth what might be termed <i>"the philosophy of vampirism,"</i> and however ghastly and macabre they may appear I have felt that here one must not tamely shrink from a careful and detailed consideration of the many cognate passions and congruous circumstances which - there can be no reasonable doubt - have throughout the ages played no impertinent and no trivial but a very vital and very memorable part in consolidating the vampire legend, and in perpetuating the vampire tradition among the darker and more secret mysteries of belief that prevail in the heart of man.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">In many countries there is thought to be a close connexion between the vampire and the werewolf, and I would remark that I have touched upon this but lightly as I am devoting a separate study to the werewolf and lycanthropy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Vampire, his Kith and Kin</i> will be shortly followed by <i>The Vampire in Europe</i>, in which work I have collected and treat of numerous instances of vampirism old and new, concretely illustrating the prevalence and phases of the tradition in England and Ireland, in ancient Greece and Rome as well as in modern Greece, in Hungary and Bohemia, in Jugo-Slavia, Russia, and many other lands. In this volume will be found related in detail such famous cases as that of Arnold Paul, Stanoska Sovitzo, Millo the Hungarian, the vampires of Temeswar, Kisilova, Buckingham, Berwick, Melrose Abbey, Croglin Grange, and many more.</span></span></span></div>
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</em>B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-76200660249385726732014-12-11T02:00:00.003-08:002014-12-11T07:47:00.371-08:00The Undead<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;">Dom Augustin Calmet writes:<br /><br /><i>"How can a corpse which is covered with four or five feet of earth, which has no room even to move or to stretch a limb, which is wrapped in linen cerements, enclosed in a coffin of wood, how can it, I say, seek the upper air and return to the world walking upon the earth so as to cause those extraordinary effects which are attributed to it? And after all that how can it go back again into the grave, when it will be found fresh, incorrupt, full of blood exactly like a living body? Can it be maintained that these corpses pass through the earth without disturbing it, just as water and the damps which penetrate the soil or which exhale therefrom without perceptibly dividing or cleaving the ground? It were indeed to be wished that in the histories of the Return of Vampires which have been related, a certain amount of attention had been given to this point, and that the difficulty had been something elucidated.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><i><br />"Let us suppose that these corpses do not actually stir from their tombs, that only the ghosts or spirits appear to the living, wherefor do these Phantoms present themselves and what is it that energizes them? Is it actually the soul of the dead man which has not yet departed to its final destination, or is it a demon who causes them to be seen in an assumed and phantastical body? And if there bodies are spectral, how do they suck the blood of the living? We are enmeshed in a sad dilemma when we ask if these apparitions are natural or miraculous. ... Supposing, indeed, there were any truth in the accounts of these appearances of Vampires, are they to be attributed to the power of God, to the Angels, to the souls of those who return in this way, or to the Devil? If we adopt the last hypothesis it follows that the Devil can endue these corpses with subtilty and bestow upon them the power of passing through the earth without any disturbances of the ground, of gliding through the cracks and joints of a door, of slipping through a keyhole, of increasing, of diminishing, of becoming rarified as air or water to penetrate the earth; in fine of enjoying the same properties as we believe will be possessed by the Blessed after the Resurrection, and which distinguished the human Body of our Lord after the first Easter Day, inasmuch as He appeared to those to whom He would show Himself for 'Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said: Peace be to you,' Jesus uenit ianuis clausis, St John, xx, 26.<br /><br />"Yet even if it be allowed that the Devil can re-energize dead bodies and give them movement for a certain time can he also bestow these powers of increasing, diminishing, becoming rarified, and so subtle that they can penetrate the earth, doors, windows? We are not told that God allows him the exercise of any such power, and it is hard to believe that a material body, gross and substantial can be endowed with this subtility and spirituality without some destruction or alteration of the general structure and without damage to the configuration of the body. But this would not be in accord with the intention of the Devil, for such a change would prevent this body from appearing, from manifesting itself, from motion and speech, ay, indeed from being eventually cut to pieces and burned as so often happens in the case of Vampires in Moravia, Poland, and Silesia."</i><br /><br />These difficulties which Dom Calmet with little perception has raised can be very briefly answered, and they are not only superficial, but also smack of heterodoxy. In the first place, his example [a story related by Calmet] can hardly brush aside the vast vampire tradition because one instance proves to be overdrawn. In any case, what is certainly significant is that the Vampire was decapitated and that then the hauntings ceased.<br /><br />Dom Calmet asks are the appearances of Vampires to be attributed to God, or to the souls of those who return or to the Devil? I answer that for the hauntings of a Vampire, three things are necessary: the Vampire, the Devil, and the Permission of Almighty God. Just as we know, for we learn this from the <em>Malleus Maleficarum</em>, that there are three necessary concomitants of witchcraft, and these are the Devil, a Witch, and the Permission of Almighty God (Part 1). So are these three necessary concomitants of Vampirism. Whether it be the Demon who is energizing the corpse or whether it be the dead man himself who by some dispensation of Divine Providence has returned is a particular which must be decided severally for each case. So much then for Dom Calmet's question, to whom are the appearances of Vampires to be attributed.<br /><br />Can the Devil endow a body with these qualities of subtilty, rarification, increase, and diminishing, so that it may pass through doors and windows? I answer that there is no doubt the Demon can do this, and to deny the proposition is hardly orthodox. For St Thomas says of the Devil that <i>"just as he can from the air compose a body of any form and shape, and assume it so as to appear in it visibly, so, in the same way, he can clothe any corporeal thing with any corporeal form, so as to appear therein."</i> Moreover almost any séance will be sufficient reply to Dom Calmet's question. In his <em>Modern Spiritism</em> (1904), Mr T Godfrey Raupert says: <i>"Photographs, or small drawing-room ornaments have thus been seen to change their places, and articles kept in a room other than that occupied by the sensitive, have been brought through closed doors and deposited at a spot previously indicated -in some instances placed into the hands of the person requesting the apport of the article. Many such remarkable instances of apport and of matter passing through matter have been observed under the strictest possible test conditions, and will be found recorded in the late Leipzig Professor Zoellner's deeply interesting work Transcendental Physics. The writer has himself observed one instance of this kind in a private house, and in circumstances entirely precluding the possibility of deception. There is, perhaps, no phenomenon which so distinctly exhibits the action of extraneous and independent intelligence as this one."</i> (pp. 35-36.) Matter, then, can pass through matter, and the séance answers Dom Calmet. We may, if we will, adopt the ectoplasmic theory to explain the mode whereby the Vampire issues from his grave, but although this is very probably true (in some instances at all events) it is not necessarily the only solution of the problem. According to Catholic theologians evil spirits, if permitted to materialize their invisible presence, to build up a tangible and active body, do not absolutely require the ectoplasm of some medium.<br /><br />Not very dissimilar to the dilemma of Dom Calmet are the views hold by an eminent authority, Dr Herbert Mayo, who was sometime Senior Surgeon of Middlesex Hospital, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in King's College, Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the Royal College of Surgeons, London. In his well-known work, On the Truths contained in Popular Superstitions, he devotes his second Letter, or rather Chapter, to "Vampyrism," concerning which he says <i>"The proper place of this subject falls in the midst of a philosophical disquisition," but he adds for the benefit of the inquirer that it is "a point on which, in my time, school-boys much your juniors entertained decided opinions."</i> He continues to inform us that during the middle of the eighteenth century: <i>"Vampyrism spread like a pestilence through Servia and Wallachia, causing numerous deaths, and disturbing all the land with fear of the mysterious visitation, against which no one felt himself secure. Here is something like a good solid practical popular delusion. Do I believe it? To be sure I do. The facts are matter of history: the people died like rotten sheep; and the cause and method of their dying was, in their belief, what has just been stated. You suppose, then, they died frightened out of their lives, as men have died whose pardon has been proclaimed when their necks were already on the block, of the belief that they were going to die? Well, if that were all, the subject would still be worth examining. But there is more in it than that."</i><br /><br />He then gives an account in very full detail of a Vampire at Belgrade in the year 1732, he describes the circumstances in which the body was disinterred, It leaned to one side, the skin was fresh and ruddy, the nails grown long and evilly crooked, the mouth slobbered with blood from its last night's repast. Accordingly a stake was driven through the chest of the Vampire who uttered a terrible screech whilst blood poured in quantities from the wound. Then it was burned to ashes. Moreover, a number of other persons throughout the district had been infected with vampirism. Of the facts there can be no question whatsoever. The documents are above suspicion, and in particular the most important of these which was signed by three regimental surgeons, and formally counter-signed by a lieutenant-colonel and sub-lieutenant. Even Dr Mayo is obliged to allow: <i>"No doubt can be entertained of its authenticity, or of its general fidelity; the less that it does not stand alone, but is supported by a mass of evidence to the same effect. It appears to establish beyond question, that where the fear of Vampyrism prevails, and there occur several deaths, in the popular belief connected with it, the bodies, when disinterred weeks after burial, present the appearance of corpses from which life has only recently departed."</i> It is very instructive to note how the writer proceeds with the greatest subtility and no little cleverness to extract himself from logical consequences it might have seemed impossible to avoid, and how he explains an exceptional circumstance by circumstances which are far more amazing and difficult to believe. With the utmost suavity and breadth of mind he continues: <i>"What inference shall we draw from this fact? - that Vampyrism is true in the popular sense? - and that these fresh-looking and well-conditioned corpses had some mysterious source of preternatural nourishment? That would be to adopt, not to solve the superstition. Let us content ourselves with a notion not so monstrous, but still startling enough: that the bodies, which were found in the so-called Vampyr state, instead of being in a new or mystical condition, were simply alive in the common way or had been so for some time subsequently to their interment that, in short, they were the bodies of persons who had been buried alive, and whose life, where it yet lingered, was finally extinguished through the ignorance and barbarity of those who disinterred them. . . . We have thus succeeded in interpreting one of the unknown terms in the Vampyr-theorem. The suspicious character, who had some dark way of nourishing himself in the grave, turns out to be an unfortunate gentleman (or lady) whom his friends had buried under a mistake while he was still alive, and who, if they afterwards mercifully let him alone, died sooner or later either naturally or of the premature interment--in either case, it is to be hoped, with no interval of restored consciousness."</i><br /><br />I submit that Dr Mayo has not succeeded in solving any difficulty at all connected with vampirism. No doubt, as we have already considered in some detail, cases of premature burial, which were far more common than was generally supposed, would have helped to swell the tradition, but that they can have originated it is impossible, and it is absurd to put forward the terrible accident of premature burial as an explanation to cover all the facts. It is quite impossible that a person who had been interred when in a coma or trance should have survived in the grave.<br /><br />Before we deal with the signs by which it is reputed a vampire may be recognized; the method in which a vampire presumably leaves his grave; and the way by which a vampire may be released or destroyed, we will briefly inquire into Dr Mayo's explanation of the actual visit of the vampire to a victim and the subsequent consequences, the terrible anæmia and hæmoplegia which may result in death followed by the vampire infection. And here we find that Dr Mayo quite honestly and frankly confesses that he is completely at a loss to give any solution of the difficulty. It is most instructive to read those inconclusive pleas which he is driven to put forward but which his own good sense cannot accept. He writes: <i>"The second element which we have yet to explain is the Vampyr visit and its consequences, - the lapse of the party visited into death-trance. There are two ways of dealing with this knot; one is to cut it, the other to untie it. It may be cut, by denying the supposed connexion between the Vampyr visit and the supervention of death-trance in the second party. Nor is the explanation thus obtained devoid of plausibility. There is no reason why death-trance should not, in certain persons and places, be epidemic. Then the persons most liable to it would be those of weak and irritable nervous systems. Again, a first effect of the epidemic might be further to shake the nerves of weaker subjects. These are exactly the persons who are likely to be infected with imaginary terrors, and to dream, or even to fancy, they have seen Mr or Mrs such a one, the last victim of the epidemic. The dream or impression upon the senses might again recur, and the sickening patient have already talked of it to his neighbours, before he himself was seized with death-trance. On this supposition the Vampyr visit would sink into the subordinate rank of a mere premonitory symptom. To myself, I must confess, this explanation, the best I am yet in a position to offer, appears barren and jejune; and not at all to do justice to the force and frequency, or, as tradition represents the matter, the universality of the Vampyr visit as a precursor of the victim's fate. Imagine how strong must have been the conviction of the reality of the apparition, how common a feature it must have been, to have led to the laying down of the unnatural and repulsive process customarily followed at the Vampyr's grave, as the regular and proper preventive of ulterior consequences."</i><br /><br />Dr Mayo proposes therefore <i>"to try and untie this knot"</i> a result which he singularly fails to achieve. He quite erroneously states <i>"in popular language, it was the ghost of the Vampyr that haunted its future victim."</i> This is exactly what the Vampire is not. As we have seen there is some divergence of view whether the Vampire is the actual person. energized with some horrible mystical life in death who visits his victims, and there can be no doubt at all that this is the true and proper Vampire, or whether it is a demon who animates and informs the body. But in no circumstances whatsoever is the Vampire a phantom or ghost, save by a quite inadmissible extension of the term, which then may practically be regarded (as indeed it is often most mistakenly and reprehensibly regarded) as covering almost any malignant supernatural phenomenon. So an explanation which confuses a Vampire with a ghost is entirely impertinent.<br /><br />Source:<br /><br />Montague Summers<br /><br /><em>The Vampire: His Kith & Kin</em> (1928)</span></div>
B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-17838775114832797932014-12-10T01:00:00.000-08:002014-12-10T01:05:10.161-08:00Petre Toma<br />
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The body of Petre Toma had been unearthed six weeks later by his brother-in-law in the presence of several other members of the family, including his widow and her grand-daughter. According to several testimonies, they made an incision in the chest of Toma to extract his heart before burning it. One report states that, in accordance with a local custom to protect against vampires, they dissolved the ashes in water and drank it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">An autopsy carried out by the authorities in Craiova confirmed that "the heart was indeed taken."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The six people explained that after the death of Toma they had felt "weakened," as if they did not have "any more blood."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">"One night I saw it in my room, and in the morning I could not arise; so much was I weakened", said the grand-daughter of Toma, Mirela Marinescu. According to her, as soon as the exorcism ritual was performed the dead body "did not come any more to haunt" its family.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The <em>Sunday Times</em> reported that several villagers affirmed that this exorcism ritual was known and practiced for a long time in the area, and that it each time had appeared "effective against vampires."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><i>“For centuries we have had to protect ourselves against these creatures by finding the graves of the undead and risking our lives by ripping out their hearts,”</i> said sixty-eight-year-old Tita Musca, a local farmer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The village of the vampire slayers has become the focus of a police investigation that has highlighted not only local fears of the undead but a startling willingness to act on them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The saga began when Petre Toma, seventy-six, was buried at new year. His nephew’s family fell ill with an unexplained sickness and a few days later a witness claimed to have seen Toma leaving their house before sunrise as a flock of crows flew portentously overhead.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><i>“He sucked the life from us so that he could live,”</i> said Mirela Marinescu. <i>“We were all dying, my husband and my child, and we all saw him come to us in the same dream.”</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Armed with hammers and chisels and fortified with home-made schnapps, four men led by Gheorghe Marinescu, the supposed vampire’s brother-in-law, set out for the cemetery.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><i>“When we lifted the coffin lid his arms were not on his chest as we had left them but at his sides,”</i> said Marinescu. “His head was turned to the side and his lips were stained with dried blood.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">After the corpse’s chest had been opened with a wooden stake the heart was removed. “It was full of fresh blood,” said Marinescu. <i>“His body relaxed and we heard him sigh.”</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The heart was burnt over the embers of a fire and the ashes stirred into a bottle of water from the village well to make a potion. The vampire’s “victims” recovered after drinking it but Toma’s daughter called the police.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Investigators soon discovered evidence of up to twenty vampire slayings in the past few years. At the regional police station the commissioner, Gheorghe Sandu, said: “I’d like to be able to say this village is unique, but unfortunately I can’t because I know just how strong belief in vampires is here.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The <em>Daily Telegraph</em> reported that six men were jailed for ripping out the heart of a corpse they believed was undead. As Monica Petrescu in Bucharest writes, to many Romanians, vampires are not legend but terrifying reality.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">It was just before midnight as Gheorghe Marinescu and five of his relatives crept into the graveyard in the small Romanian village of Marotinul de Sus. They knew which plot they were looking for – a simple earth grave with a wooden cross bearing the name Petre Toma – and quickly, but quietly, set about digging.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">When they had dragged the body out, they waited. Then, at the stroke of midnight, Marinescu began the ritual that they had been planning for weeks, one that had passed from generation to generation in their family. They drove a pitchfork through Petre Toma's chest, opened it, drew out his heart and then put stakes through the rest of his body. They sprinkled garlic over the mutilated corpse and then, carefully, laid it back in its grave.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">They left the cemetery with the heart impaled on the end of the pitchfork and went to a crossroads where Marinescu's wife, son and daughter-in-law were waiting. There the group burnt it, dissolved the ashes and then drank the solution.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The scene would fit readily into any number of films about vampires and the Dracula legend but Gheorghe Marinescu is real. He and his five relatives – Mitrica Mircea, Popa Stelica, Constantin Florea, Ionescu Ion and Pascu Oprea – were sentenced to six months in jail for the unlawful exhumation of the body of Toma, a former teacher and a man they believed had risen from the dead to drink their blood while they slept.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">News of what the Marinescu family did made headlines in Romania, but in a country where a large minority of the population admit to openly believing in the undead, football bosses employ witches to cast spells on foreign teams and a couple recently named their newborn son <em>Dracula</em> after premonitions of impending danger to him, many were unsurprised by what they read.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Mihai Fifor, an ethnologist at the Centre for Studies in Traditional Cultures and Societies in Craiova, said, "This particular ritual is quite unique but there have been many cases of people claiming that they are being hunted by the dead and vampires. There are a number of other rituals that exist for this type of situation where people believe they need to kill vampires."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Romania has been associated with vampires in the minds of many Westerners ever since Bram Stoker wrote his classic horror story, <em>Dracula</em>, in 1897. But in Romania the belief in vampires and the threat of the undead stretches as far back as the fifteenth century leader of Wallachia – modern-day Transylvania and other parts of Romania – Vlad Tepes (Dracula), who was the inspiration for Stoker's novel. Stoker merged the Middle Ages belief in vampires, which had become entrenched in Romania and many other parts of central and eastern Europe at the time, with the historically documented bloodthirstiness of Tepes's rule. In doing so, he created the story of Count Dracula who rose from the dead to haunt the deep, dark forests and castles of Transylvania, preying on young victims and drinking their blood.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">But while Dracula and vampires are just a fascinating legend to most people outside the country, to many Romanians, mostly in rural areas, they are a terrifying reality. After his arrest, Marinescu said: </span></span></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">"If we hadn't done anything, my wife, my son and my daughter-in-law would have died. That is when I decided to 'unbury' him. I've seen these kinds of things before.</span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><i>"When we took him out of the grave, he had blood around his mouth. We took his heart and he sighed when we stabbed him. We burned it, dissolved the ash into water and the people who had fallen sick drank it. They got better immediately. It was like someone took away all their pain and sickness.</i></span></span></i></div>
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<i>"We performed a ritual that is hundreds of years old. We had no idea we were committing a crime. On the contrary, we believed that we were doing a good thing because the spirit of Petre was haunting us all and was very close to killing some of us. He came back from the dead and was after us."</i></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Marinescu explained to police when he was arrested that Toma, who he said had been a respected and well-liked teacher in the village for years, had been buried on Christmas Day in 2003. But soon afterwards he had begun to appear to members of Marinescu's family in dreams as a vampire. Although he did not see the man himself, he saw his family become sick and they told him that Toma was not just a dream but a vampire whose spirit had come back from the dead.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">He, like the rest of his family, had been told how to recognise vampires and how to deal with them by his parents who had been taught that knowledge from their own parents and they from theirs. He said he had had to act quickly to save his family.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Paula Diaconu, who has lived in Marotinul de Sus for decades, praised the ritual carried out by Marinescu and his relatives. <i>"It was all a good thing to take his heart out because people were in danger. Villagers in Romania know about rituals for driving away the evil spirits of the dead,"</i> he said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Another man from the village, Dumitru Moineasa, once drank a solution containing the ashes of his uncle's heart. <i>"An uncle of mine died in 1992 and a few days after we buried him I started to feel very sick,"</i> he said. <i>"The doctor had no idea what was wrong with me. One day, an aunt brought me a glass of water. I drank it all. I got well almost immediately. I only found out later that it was my dead uncle's ashes."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">His friend, Domnica Brancusi, said that hearts had been taken out of dead men's chests many times before. <i>"There have been dozens of dead men who turned into vampires and were haunting us,"</i> he said. <i>"But usually the family of the dead man who was haunting people made a pact with those people and agreed not to say anything about the rituals. Until this case, no fuss was ever made about it."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Local police laid charges against the six men after Toma's daughter, Floarea Cotoran, who has since left Marotinul de Sus, complained about what happened to her father's body. They admitted that they were aware of similar rituals having been performed in the region. A policeman in nearby Celaru, which has jurisdiction over Marotinul de Sus, and who asked not to be named, said: <i>"We've known about it for years. There's never been anything we could do about it as no one ever complained."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Marotinul de Sus, in the south-west, is far from the only village in Romania to take the threat of vampires seriously. In many rural communities like it across the country, belief in vampires is pervasive and superstition often governs people's lives. <i>"Fear and great challenges in life are sometimes met by people with rituals and superstitions, a set of rules built over generations which has been verified over time,"</i> said Sabina Ispas, an ethnologist at the Institute for Ethnology and Folklore in Bucharest. <i>"Rural Romania has conserved excellently this system of rituals and beliefs."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Deep superstition and belief in the paranormal permeates all levels of society in urban Romania as well. Maria Tedescu, a twenty-one-year-old law student in Bucharest, said: <i>"We all have our little superstitions, like taking three steps back if a black cat crosses your path to stop something bad happening. But vampires are different. It's not something to be taken lightly. I know it may sound silly and I can't totally explain it, but I think they exist. I always wear a crucifix … just in case."</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Sources:</span></div>
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<em style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em>Sunday Times</em> (11 April 2004)</span></em></div>
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<em style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em>Daily Telegraph</em> (6 February 2005)</span></em></div>
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<em style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><em>Is It Real?: Vampires</em> (National Geographic, 2006)</span></em></div>
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</em>B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-60817382888516637032014-12-09T00:55:00.000-08:002014-12-09T00:55:14.660-08:00Elizabeth Wojdyla<br />
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Elizabeth Wojdyla and Barbara Moriarty, two sixteen-year-old students of La Sainte Union Convent (near Highgate, London), were walking home late at night after visiting friends in Highgate Village. Their journey took them down Swains Lane which intersects Highgate Cemetery, a Victorian graveyard in two halves on a steep hill. These intelligent students could not believe their eyes as they passed the cemetery's north gate at the beginning of their downward path between the two graveyards. For there before them, amongst the jutting tombstones and stone vaults, the dead seemed to be emerging from their graves.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The two schoolgirls walked in eerie silence until they reached the bottom of the lane. Here they spoke for the first time, having finally found their voice, and confirmed they had both experienced the same terrifying scene. So frightening was it that Barbara Moriarty would not talk about it again.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Elizabeth Wojdyla, however, gave Seán Manchester an account of her experience some months later. It was tape-recorded by him and was heard during a televised film documentary about the Highgate Vampire case (<em>True Horror: Vampires</em>).</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Elizabeth recounted: <i>"We both saw this scene of graves directly in front of us. And the graves were opening up; and the people were rising. We were not conscious of walking down the lane. We were only conscious of this graveyard scene."</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">A series of nightmares then began to plague Elizabeth; all with one thing in common: something was trying to enter her bedroom window at night. A deathly-pale face identical to the corpses leaving their graves appeared behind the glass pane on some occasions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">During the summer of 1969, Seán Manchester had a chance meeting with Elizabeth Wojdyla who now appeared anaemic and listless. She was nevertheless anxious to get something off her chest. Now resident in an area not too far from the cemetery, she told Seán Manchester that her nightmares had returned with a vengeance. This time she was able to give a better description of the unwelcome spectre that haunted her nights, and, once again, Seán Manchester tape-recorded her words:</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">"[It has] the face of a wild animal with glaring eyes and sharp teeth, but it is a man with the expression of an animal. The face is gaunt and grey."</span></i></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Two weeks later, Elizabeth's boyfriend, Keith, contacted Seán Manchester and reported on further deterioration:</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">"[Her] condition has grown worse. ... She is withering away at such a rate that she is only just barely alive. ... She is being overcome by something."</span></i></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">This time Seán Manchester noted the discovery on Elizabeth's neck marks which Keith had already mentioned in his preamble:</span></div>
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<i><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">"I noticed for the first time the marks on the side of her neck. ... They were two inflamed mounds on the skin, the centre of each bearing a tiny hole."</span></i></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">On another occasion it was found that specks of blood had appeared on Elizabeth's pillow. Seán Manchester at this point began to apply traditional vampire antidotes and repellents; especially when it was confirmed that she was more and more attracted to Highgate Cemetery and that her anaemic condition was worsening. The small cross she had always worn as a schoolgirl had been absent for some time. Seán Manchester provided a larger crucifix made of silver and sprinkled her environment liberally with holy water. He repeated the Creed in a loud voice, applied salt, garlic and more crosses; during which procedure prayers were recited to shield Elizabeth from the innumerable crafts of Satan and all pestilence.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Elizabeth attempted to remove the impediments and further demonic assaults occurred as nightmare incidents multiplied before this feverish struggle against the predatory vampire ceased altogether.</span></div>
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Her appetite restored and the unhealthy, anaemic condition vanished. The punctures on her neck, bathed with holy water throughout the conflict, eventually faded. By Christmas all was well and the hideous manifestation of the Highgate Cemetery vampire did not return to haunt Elizabeth again. Soon afterwards she relocated elsewhere.</div>
</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="text-align: justify;">Source:</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="text-align: justify;">Seán Manchester</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><em style="text-align: justify;">The Vampire's Bedside Companion</em><span style="text-align: justify;"> (1975, 1976)</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><em style="text-align: justify;">The Highgate Vampire</em><span style="text-align: justify;"> (1985, 1991)</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><em style="text-align: justify;">True Horror: Vampires</em><span style="text-align: justify;"> (Discovery Channel, 2004)</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></span>B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-78694687546400631062014-12-08T01:30:00.000-08:002014-12-08T01:32:32.338-08:00Ghosts that Bite<br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Andrew Lang in his </span><em style="color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Dreams and Ghosts</em><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"> (1897), relates the story of "The Ghost that Bit," which might seem to have been a vampire, but which actually cannot be so classed since vampires have a body and their craving for blood is to obtain sustenance for their body.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Seán Manchester argues that vampires possess the power of metamorphosis, </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">ie</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> shapeshifting; therefore no dichotomy exists in their apparent ability to manifest from corporeal to non-corporeal and back again.]</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The narrative is originally to be found in Notes and Queries, 3rd September 1864, and the correspondent asserts that he took it "almost verbatim from the lips of the lady" concerned, a person of tried veracity. Emma S------ was asleep one morning in her room at a large house near Cannock Chase. It was a fine August day in 1840, but although she had bidden her maid call her at an early hour she was surprised to hear a sharp knocking upon her door about 3.30. In spite of her answer the taps continued, and suddenly the curtains of her bed were slightly drawn, when to her amazement she saw the face of an aunt by marriage looking through upon her. Half unconsciously she threw out her hand, and immediately one of her thumbs was sensibly pressed by the teeth of the apparition. Forthwith she arose, dressed, and went downstairs, where not a creature was stirring. Her father upon coming down rallied her a little upon being about at cockcrow and inquired the cause. When she informed him he determined that later in the day he would pay a visit to his sister-in-law who dwelt at no great distance. This he did, only to discover that she had unexpectedly died at about 3.30 that morning. She had not been in any way ailing, and the shook was fearfully sudden. On one of the thumbs of the corpse was found a mark as if it had been bitten in the last agony.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In The Proceedings of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, Vol. I., 1927, will be found an account of the phenomena connected with Eleonore Zügun, a young Rumanian peasant girl, who in the autumn of 1926, when only thirteen years old was brought to London by the Countess Wassilko-Serecki, in order that the manifestations might be investigated at "The National Laboratory of Psychical Research," Queensberry Place, South Kensington. The child was said to be persecuted by some invisible force or agent, which she knew as Dracu, Anglice the Devil. There were many extraordinary happenings and she was continually being scratched and bitten by this unseen intelligence. It must suffice to give but two or three instances of the very many "biting phenomena." On the afternoon of Monday, 4 October 1926, Captain Neil Gow an investigator in his report, notes:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"3.20. Eleonore cried out. Showed marks on back of left hand like teeth-marks which afterwards developed into deep weals. . . . 4.12. Eleonore was just raising a cup of tea to her lips, but suddenly gave a cry and put the cup down hastily: there was a mark on her right hand similar to that caused by a bite. Both rows of teeth were indicated."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of the same incident, Mr. Clapham Palmer, an investigator who was also present writes:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"Eleonore was in the act of raising the cup to her lips when she suddenly gave a little cry of pain, put down her cup and rolled up her sleeve. On her forearm I then saw what appeared to be the marks of teeth indented deeply in the flesh, as if she or someone had fiercely bitten her arm. The marks turned from red to white and finally took the form of white raised weals. They gradually faded but were still noticeable after an hour or so."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Such bitings not infrequent occurred, and photographs have been taken of the marks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was an interesting question to discuss the cause of these indentations and no doubt it is sufficiently remarkable, but however that may be such inquiry were impertinent here, for it is clearly not vampirism, nor indeed cognate thereto. The object of the vampire is to suck blood, and in these cases if blood was ever drawn it was more in the nature of a scratch or slight dental puncture, there was no effusion. Again the agent who inflicted these bites was not sufficiently material to be visible, at any rate he was able to remain unseen. The true vampire is corporeal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The vampire has a body, and it is his own body. He is neither dead nor alive; but living in death. He is an abnormality; the androgyne in the phantom world; a pariah among the fiends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Source:</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Montague Summers</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><em style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">The Vampire: His Kith & Kin</em><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"> (1928)</span></span>B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-77706112985724170362014-12-07T02:29:00.000-08:002014-12-07T02:29:58.104-08:00Peter Plogojowitz<br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Peter Plogojowitz (Serbian form: Petar Blagojević/Петар Благојевић) was a Serbian peasant believed to have become a vampire after his death and to have killed nine of his fellow villagers. The case was described in the report of Imperial Provisor Frombald, an official of the Austrian administration, who witnessed the exorcism </span><em style="color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">via</em><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"> impalation by stake of Plogojowitz.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Peter Plogojowitz lived in a village named Kisilova (Kisiljevo) in the part of Serbia that temporarily passed from Ottoman into Austrian hands after the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718) and was ceded back to the Ottomans with the Treaty of Belgrade (1739).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Plogojowitz died in 1725. His death was followed by a spate of other sudden deaths (after very short maladies of about twenty-four hours each). Within eight days, nine persons perished. On their death-beds the victims allegedly claimed to have been throttled by Plogojowitz at night. Plogojowitz's wife stated that he had visited her and asked her for his opanci (shoes). She then proceeded to move to another village. In other accounts it is said that Plogojowitz came back to his house demanding food from his son, and when the son refused Plogojowitz brutally murdered his own son.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The villagers decided to disinter the body and examine it for signs of vampirism; such as growing hair, beard, and nails and absence of decomposition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The inhabitants of Kisilova demanded that Kameralprovisor Frombald, along with the local priest, should be present at the procedure as a representative of the administration. Frombald tried to convince them that consent from the Austrian authorities in Belgrade should be sought first. The locals declined because they feared that by the time the permission arrived the whole community could be exterminated by the vampire, which they claimed had already happened "in Turkish times," </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">ie</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> when the village was still in the Ottoman-controlled part of Serbia. They demanded that Frombald himself should immediately permit the procedure or else they would abandon the village to save their lives. Frombald was obliged to consent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Together with the Gradiška priest, he viewed the already exhumed body and was astonished to find that the characteristics associated with vampires were indeed present. The body was undecomposed, the hair and beard were grown, there were "new skin and nails" (while the old ones had peeled away), and blood could be seen in the mouth. After that, the people, who "grew more outraged than distressed," proceeded to stake the body through the heart, which caused a great amount of "completely fresh" blood to flow through the ears and mouth of the corpse. Finally, the body was burned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Frombald concludes his report on the case with the request that, in case these actions were found to be wrong, he should not be blamed for them, as the villagers were "beside themselves with fear." The authorities apparently did not consider it necessary to take any measures regarding the incident.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The report on this event was among the earliest documented testimonies concerning vampirism in Eastern Europe. It was published by</span><em style="font-family: inherit;">Wienerisches Diarium</em><span style="font-family: inherit;">, a Viennese newspaper, today known as </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">Die Wiener Zeitung</em><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Along with the report of the very similar Arnold Paole case of 1726-1732, it was widely translated West and North, contributing to the vampire panic of the eighteenth century in Germany, France and England.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (1725), Michaël Ranft attempted to explain folk beliefs in vampires. He writes that, in the event of the death of every villager, some other person or people—most likely a person related to the first dead—who saw or touched the corpse, would eventually die either of some disease related to exposure to the corpse or of a frenetic delirium caused by the panic of merely seeing the corpse. These dying people would say that the dead man had appeared to them and tortured them in many ways. The other people in the village would exhume the corpse to see what it had been doing. He gives the following explanation when talking about the case of Peter Plogojowitz:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"This brave man perished by a sudden or violent death. This death, whatever it is, can provoke in the survivors the visions they had after his death. Sudden death gives rise to inquietude in the familiar circle. Inquietude has sorrow as a companion. Sorrow brings melancholy. Melancholy engenders restless nights and tormenting dreams. These dreams enfeeble body and spirit until illness overcomes and, eventually, death."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently, the story has sparked some interest in the village of Kisiljevo among some Serbian journalists. According to Belgrade newspaper Glas javnosti, which cites local official Bogičić, the villagers are unable to identify Plogojovitz's (Blagojević's) grave and don't know whether the local family that bears that surname is related to him. One local does recall stories of a certain female vampire by the name of Ruža Vlajna, who was believed to haunt the village in more recent times, in the lifetime of her grandfather. She would make her presence felt by hitting pots hanging from roofs and was seen walking on the surface of the Danube, but it is unknown whether she was ever staked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Source:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Frombald (1725). </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">Copia eines Schreibens aus dem Gradisker District in Ungarn</em><span style="font-family: inherit;">. (the original report in German), Kayserliche Hof-Buchdruckerey (a private english translation of the report).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ranft, Michael (1728). </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (</span><em style="font-family: inherit;">aka De la mastication des morts dans leurs tombeaux or Tractat von dem Kauen und Schmatzen der Todten in Gräbern</em><span style="font-family: inherit;">), Leipzig: Teubners' Buchladen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Summers, Montague (2003). </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">The Vampire in Europe</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> 1929. Kessinger Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-7661-3576-4.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Nowosadtko, Jutta (2004). Der </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">Vampyrus Serviensis</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> und sein Habitat: Impressionen von der österreichischen Militärgränze. In: Militär und Gesellschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit. 8 (2004). Heft 2. Universitätsverlag Potsdam.</span></div>
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<em style="font-family: inherit;">Pera svrgnuo Savu Savanovića</em><span style="font-family: inherit;">. By Dušanka Novković Glas javnosti 26-04-2006.</span></div>
</em></span>B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-36780219002141642072014-12-06T01:40:00.001-08:002014-12-06T01:44:28.407-08:00Arnold Paole<br />
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<span style="color: white;">Arnold Paole died circa 1726. (Arnont Paule in the original documents; an early German rendition of a Serbian name or nickname, perhaps Арнаут Павле, Arnaut Pavle) was a Serbian hajduk who was believed to have become a vampire after his death, initiating an epidemic of supposed vampirism that killed at least sixteen persons in his native village of Medwegya (also rendered as Metwett; likely a German rendition of Serbian Medveđa, not to be confused with the modern Southern Serbian town of Medveđa), located at the Morava river near the town of Paraćin. His case, like the similar case of Peter Plogojowitz, became famous because of the direct involvement of the Austrian authorities and the documentation by Austrian physicians and officers, who confirmed the reality of vampires. Their report of the case was distributed in Western Europe and contributed to the spread of vampire belief among educated Europeans. Knowledge of the case is based mostly on the reports of two Austrian military doctors, Glaser and Flückinger, who were successively sent to investigate the case<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">With the Treaty of Passarowitz (Požarevac, 1718), the Habsburg Monarchy annexed most of Serbia and the northern part of Bosnia, territories which had been part of the Ottoman Empire. These remained in Austrian control until the Treaty of Belgrade (1739), when the Austrians were forced to cede them back to the Turks. During this twenty-year period, these newly conquered boundary districts were subject to direct military rule from Vienna for strategical, as well as fiscal and other reasons. As a result of the devastation brought about by previous Austrian-Ottoman wars, these areas were in a poor condition, with scarce and partly nomadic population, little agriculture and an emphasis on cattle-breeding. The Austrian authorities sought to further economic development and attract German-speaking as well as Serbian and Bulgarian settlers to the new territories. Many of the Serbs, especially those who had immigrated from Ottoman-held areas, were recruited as militiamen (hajduks) for the protection of the boundaries in peace-time as well as regular military service at war in exchange for unalienable lots of land. It was in these communities that the earliest well-documented vampire attacks were attested.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">This outbreak is only known from Flückinger's report about the second epidemic and its prehistory. According to the account of the Medveđa locals as retold there, Arnold Paole was a hajduk who had moved to the village from the Turkish-controlled part of Serbia. He reportedly mentioned often that he had been plagued by a vampire at a location named Gossowa (perhaps Kosovo) but that he had cured himself by eating soil from the vampire's grave and smearing himself with his blood. About 1725, he broke his neck in a fall from a haywagon. Within twenty or thirty days after Paole's death, four persons complained that they had been plagued by him. These people died shortly after. Still ten days later villagers, advised by their hadnack (a military/administrative title) who had witnessed such events before, opened his grave. They saw that the corpse was undecomposed "and that fresh blood had flowed from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears; that the shirt, the covering, and the coffin were completely bloody; that the old nails on his hands and feet, along with the skin, had fallen off, and that new ones had grown". Concluding that Paole was indeed a vampire, they drove a stake through his heart, to which he reacted by groaning and bleeding, and burned the body. They then disinterred Paole's four victims and performed the same procedure, to prevent them from becoming vampires.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">About five years later, in the winter of 1731, a new epidemic occurred, with more than ten people dying within several weeks, some of them in just two or three days without any previous illness. The numbers and the age of the deceased vary somewhat between the two main sources.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Glaser's report on the case states that by the twelfth of December, thirteen people had died in the course of six weeks. Glaser names the following victims (here rearranged chronologically): Miliza (Serbian Milica, a fifty-year-old woman); Milloi (Serbian Miloje, a fourteen-year-old boy); Joachim (a fifteen-year-old boy); Petter (Serbian Petar, a fifteen-day-old boy); Stanno (Serbian Stana, a twenty-year-old woman) as well as her newborn child, which Glaser notes was buried "behind a fence, where the mother had lived" due to not having lived long enough to be baptized; Wutschiza (Serbian Vučica, a nine-year-old boy), Milosova (Serbian Milošova, actually "Miloš's /wife/", a thirty-year-old wife of a hajduk), Radi (Serbian Rade, a twenty-four-year-old man), and Ruschiza (Serbian Ružica, a forty-year-old woman). The sick had complained of stabs in the sides and pain in the chest, prolonged fever and jerks of the limbs. Glaser reports that the locals considered Milica and Stana to have started the vampirism epidemic. According to his retelling, Milica had come to the village from Ottoman-controlled territories six years ago. The locals' testimony indicated that she had always been a good neighbour and that to the best of their knowledge, she had never "believed or practiced something diabolic". However, she had once mentioned to them that, while still in Ottoman lands, she had eaten two sheep that had been killed by vampires. Stana, on the other hand, had admitted that when she was in Ottoman-controlled lands, she had smeared herself with vampire blood as a protection against vampires (as these had been very active there). According to local belief, both things would cause the women to become vampires after death.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">According to Flückinger's report, by the seventh of January, seventeen people had died within a period of three months (the last two of these apparently after Glaser's visit). He names Miliza (Milica, a sixty-nine-year-old woman, died after a three-month illness); an unnamed eight-year-old child; Milloe (Miloje, a sixteen-year-old-boy, died after a three-day illness); Stana (a twenty-year-old woman, died at childbirth after a three-day illness, reportedly said herself that she had smeared herself with vampire blood) as well as her newborn child (dead right immediately after birth, and, as Flückinger observes, "half-eaten by the dogs due to a slovenly burial"); an unnamed ten-year-old girl; Joachim (a seventeen-year-old, died after a three-day illness); the hadnack 's unnamed wife; Ruscha (Ruža - variant of Ružica - a woman, died after a ten-day illness); Staniko (Stanjko, a sixty-year-old man); Miloe (Miloje, the second victim of that name; a twenty-five-year-old man); Ruža's child (eighteen days old); Rhade (Rade, a twenty-one-year-old servant of the local hajduk corporal, died after a three-month long illness); the local standard-bearer's (bajraktar's) unnamed wife, apparently identical to Milošova in the other report along with her child; the eight-week-old child of the hadnack; Stanoicka (Stanojka, a twenty-year-old woman, the wife of a hajduk, died after a three-day illness). According to her father-in-law Joviza (Jovica), Stanojka had gone to bed healthy fifteen days ago, but had woken up at midnight in terrible fear and cried that she had been throttled by the late Miloje. Flückinger states that the locals explain the new epidemic with the fact that Milica, the first to die, had eaten the meat of sheep that the "previous vampires" (<em>ie</em> Paole and his victims five years ago) killed. He also mentions, in passing, the claims that Stana had, before her death, admitted having smeared herself with blood to protect herself from vampires and would hence become a vampire herself, as would her child.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The villagers complained of the new deaths to oberstleutnant Schnezzer, the Austrian military commander in charge of the administration. The latter, fearing an epidemic of pestilence, sent for Imperial Contagions-Medicus (roughly, Infectious Disease Specialist) Glaser stationed in the nearby town of Paraćin. On the twelfth of December 1731, Glaser examined the villagers and their houses. He failed to find any signs of a contagious malady and blamed the deaths on the malnutrition common in the region as well as the unhealthy effects of the severe Eastern Orthodox fasting. However, the villagers insisted that the illnesses were caused by vampires. At the moment, two or three households were gathering together at night, with some asleep and other on the watch. They were convinced that the deaths wouldn't stop unless the vampires were executed by the authorities, and threatened to abandon the village in order to save their lives if that wasn't done. Failing to "get this out of their heads", Glaser consented to the exhumation of some of the deceased. To his surprise, he found that most of them were not decomposed and many were swollen and had blood in their mouths, while several others who had died more recently (namely Vučica, Milošova, and Rade) were rather decomposed. Glaser outlined his findings in a report to the Jagodina commandant's office, recommending that the authorities should pacify the population by fulfilling its request to "execute" the vampires. Schnezzer furthered Glaser's report to the Supreme Command in Belgrade (the city was then held by Austrian forces). The vice-commandant, Botta d'Adorno, sent a second commission to investigate the case.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The new commission included a military surgeon, Johann Flückinger, two officers, lieutenant colonel Büttner and J.H. von Lindenfels, along with two other military surgeons, Siegele and Johann Friedrich Baumgarten. On the seventh of January, together with the village elders and some local Gypsies, they opened the graves of the deceased. Their findings were similar to Glaser's, although their report contains much more anatomical detail. The commission established that, while five of the corpses (the hadnack's wife and child, Rade, and the standard-bearer's wife and child) were decomposed, the remaining twelve were "quite complete and undecayed" and exhibited the traits that were commonly associated with vampirism. Their chests and in some cases other organs were filled with fresh (rather than coagulated) blood; the viscera were estimated to be "in good condition"; various corpses looked plump and their skin had a "red and vivid" (rather than pale) colour; and in several cases, "the skin on ... hands and feet, along with the old nails, fell away on their own, but on the other hand completely new nails were evident, along with a fresh and vivid skin". In the case of Milica, the hajduks who witnessed the dissection were very surprised at her plumpness, stating that they had known her well, from her youth, and that she had always been very "lean and dried-up"; it was only in the grave she had attained this plumpness. The surgeons summarized all these phenomena by stating that the bodies were in "the vampiric condition" (das Vampyrenstand). After the examination had been completed, the Gypsies cut off the heads of the vampires and burned both their heads and their bodies, the ashes being thrown in the Morava river. The decomposed bodies were laid back into their graves. The report is dated 26 January 1732, Belgrade, and bears the signatures of the five officers involved.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: justify;">On the thirteenth of February, Glaser's father, Viennese doctor Johann Friedrich Glaser, who was also a correspondent of the Nuremberg journal Commercium Litterarium, sent its editors a letter describing the entire case as his son had written to him about it already on the eighteenth of January. The story aroused great interest. After that, both reports (especially Flückinger's more detailed version) and the letter were reprinted in a number of articles and treatises.</span></span></span></div>
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</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="text-align: justify;">Source:</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="text-align: justify;">Glaser's report in the original German.</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="text-align: justify;">Johann Friedrich Glaser's letter to the editors of Commercium Litterarium (also in German).</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="text-align: justify;">Flückinger's report in the original German.</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="text-align: justify;">An English translation of Flückinger's report.</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="text-align: justify;">Nowosadtko, Jutta. 2004. Der </span><em style="text-align: justify;">Vampyrus Serviensis</em><span style="text-align: justify;"> und sein Habitat: Impressionen von der österreichischen Militärgränze. In: Militär und Gesellschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit. 8 (2004). Heft 2. Universitätsverlag Potsdam.</span></span></span>B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-45728162422150509552014-12-05T00:30:00.001-08:002014-12-05T00:43:16.009-08:00Vampirism Defined<br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">John Heinrich Zopfius in his </span><em style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Dissertation on Serbian Vampires</em><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"> (1733) says: <i>"Vampires issue forth from their graves in the night, attack people sleeping quietly in their beds, suck out all the blood from their bodies and destroy them. They beset men, women and children alike, sparing neither age nor sex. Those who are under the fatal malignity of their influence complain of suffocation and a total deficiency of spirits, after which they soon expire. Some who, when at the point of death, have been asked if they can tell what is causing their decease, reply that such and such persons, lately dead, have risen from the tomb to torment and torture them."</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scoffern in his </span><em style="font-family: inherit;">Stray Leaves of Science and Folk Lore</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> writes: <i>"The best definition I can give of a vampire is a living, mischievous and murderous dead body. A living dead body! The words are idle, contradictory, incomprehensible, but so are vampires."</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Horst defines a vampire as </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">"a dead body which continues to live in the grave, which it leaves, however, by night for the purpose of sucking the blood of the living, whereby it is nourished and preserved in good condition, instead of becoming decomposed like other dead bodies."</i></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;">A demon has no body, although for purposes of his own he may energize, assume, or seem to assume one, but it is not his real and proper body. So the vampire is not strictly a demon, although his foul lust and horrid propensities be truly demonic and of hell. Neither may the vampire be called a ghost or phantom, strictly speaking, for an apparition is intangible. The vampire has a body and his craving for blood is to obtain sustenance for that body. He is neither dead nor alive; but living in death. He is an abnormality; the androgyne of the phantom world; a pariah among the fiends. How fearful a destiny is that of the vampire who has no rest in the grave but whose doom it is to come forth and prey upon the living.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;">In the first place it may briefly be inquired how the belief in vampirism originated. The origins, although of course very shadowy, may probably be said to go back to the earliest times when primitive man observed the mysterious relations between soul and body. The division of an individual into these two parts must have been suggested by his observation, however crude and rough, of the phenomenon of unconsciousness as exhibited in sleep, and more particularly in death. He cannot but have speculated concerning that something, the loss of which withdraws man forever from the living and waking world. He was bound to ask himself if there was any continuance, in any circumstances at present veiled from him, of that life and personality which had obviously passed elsewhere. The question was an eternal one. It was, moreover, a personal one which concerned him most intimately since it related to an experience he could not hope to escape.</span></div>
</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Source:</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">Montague Summers</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><br style="text-align: justify;" /><em style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;">The Vampire: His Kith & Kin</em><span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"> (1928)</span></span><br />
<br />B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-23151940975792045032014-12-04T02:30:00.000-08:002014-12-04T02:31:31.911-08:00Vampire Antidotes and Exorcism<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;">Upon discovery, a vampire can be destroyed by cremation, decapitation, exposure to sunlight and impalation with a stake through its heart. The vampire’s powers are many and varied. They can remain undead indefinitely unless exorcised in a specific manner. They can assume animal shapes and some have been thought to control the elements locally. Metamorphosis into mist is not unknown either. They can intrude upon sleeping persons’ dreams and mesmerise their prey. Their infectious bite may eventually result in the death of their victims, some of whom will likewise become undead upon expiry. Vampires, despite their manifold supernatural abilities, are nevertheless not invulnerable. They leave the confines of where the corporeal shell resides only between sunset and sunrise. They cannot cross running water save at the slack or the flood of the tide. They fear and shrink from the sign of the cross, the crucifix and, above all, from the Host, the Body of God. Holy water will burn them as some scorching acid and they flee from the fragrance of most incense, particularly frankincense. Certain trees and herbs are hateful to them, especially whitethorn, or buckthorn. They are also curiously allergic to garlic. The pungent herb Allium Sativum (wild variety: Allium Vineal) is deemed by many to be effective as a vampire repellent. In 450 BC, Herodotus, the Greek historian, in Euterpe: Concerning the History of Europe, remarks about an inscription inside the Cheops pyramid at Gisa, built circa 2900 BC, that attests to the value of garlic’s arcane properties. It was invariably employed to ward off evil spirits, and still is.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;">Exorcism does not "kill" the demonic agent. It rids the supernatural predatory wraith from our sphere or dimension. The corporeal host obviously returns to its true state and is no longer plagued by the apparent supernatural ability to manifest as though it were living. During the exorcism the material shell returns to earthly time as the demonic entity is expelled.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;">Evil tends to need to be invited when it enters a portal into our hemisphere. This does not necessarily require a full-blown evocation, or the raising of demons per se. It is relatively easy to release evil into the world for evil is not merely a lack of something, but an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted and perverting; a terrible reality: mysterious and frightening. The problem arises when attempting to cast such evil out of our world. This is significantly more difficult than inviting it in.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: white;">When disinterred the abnormal condition of the corpse will be a sure mark of whether it is a vampire or not. Such bodies do not suffer decomposition after burial. They do not fall to dust. Generally described as being exceedingly gaunt and lean with a hideous countenance, the vampire, when he has satiated his lust for warm human blood, will appear horribly puffed and bloated, as though he were some filthy leech, gorged and replete to bursting. The lips are often markedly full and drawn back to reveal sharp teeth, gleaming white against a frame stained with slab gouts of blood. The foul offal from the previous night's feast. The gaping mouth, stained and foul with blood, might reveal glutinous trickles that have spilled on to the lawn shrouding and linen cerements. The form is therefore discovered gorged and stinking with the life-force blood of others. The eyes are sometimes closed; more frequently open, glazed, fixed, and glaring fiercely. The corpse will nevertheless seem composed as if in a profound sleep. The stench of the charnel where these undead repose is oftentimes so terrible and fetid that the sickening odour can effect the senses of an observer for possibly months afterwards. Epidemics of this unspeakable evil have resulted in entire graves being discovered soaked and saturated with squelching blood. Such an epidemic plagued south east Europe and reached England's shores in the early part of the 18th century. It is believed that the Highgate contamination had its origins in this particular plague.</span></span></span></div>
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<em style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;"><em style="font-family: inherit;">The Highgate Vampire</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (1985, 1991)</span></span></em></div>
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<em style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;"><em style="font-family: inherit;">The Vampire Hunter's Handbook</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> (1997)</span></span></em></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-65387908552424810092014-12-03T09:00:00.002-08:002016-01-27T02:23:50.006-08:00Present-Day Vampire Belief<br />
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Today the majority of folk not only dismiss the existence of vampires, but also most anything else remotely belonging to the supernatural. Montague Summers and Seán Manchester, however, tend to subscribe to the view that cases of vampirism have been stifled and covered up by those in authority. So has much else, of course, and the recent inaccurate portrayals of the vampire and vampirism in films and literature only serve to assist this endeavour of disinformation. Furthermore, most people have built in “slides” that short circuit the mind’s critical examination process when it comes to certain sensitive topics. “Slides” is a CIA term for a condition type of response which dead ends a person’s thinking and terminates debate or examination of the topic at hand. Any mention of the word “vampire,” for example, often solicits a “slide” response with most people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Owing to the incredible bombardment of information (and thereby also misinformation) <em>via</em> the media, television, radio and, not least, the new information technology, people are probably far less open-minded than they were hitherto. Hence they dismiss the existence of the vampire phenomenon without prior examination. This principle of prior contempt cannot fail to keep people in everlasting ignorance of the undead. Notwithstanding the natural predilection nowadays to dismiss any notion of vampires, when a BBC poll was conducted to coincide with an online discussion with Seán Manchester on the subject the result was interesting. The question put to those who visited the BBC website was: <i>“Do you believe in vampires?”</i> 47.4% said they did not believe, but an encouraging 52.6% said that they did believe in the existence of vampires.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">The vampire is a predatory entity that feeds on the life-force, <em>ie</em> blood, of others. It is but one of many types of demon. However, in all the darkest pages of the malign supernatural there is no more terrible tradition than that of the vampire, a pariah even among demons. When the undead is exorcised using impalement the corporeal shell returns to earthly time with a bang and the demonic presence is expelled as the accompanying rite of exorcism is uttered and a prayer for the dead follows.</span></span></div>
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</span></span>B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119001422682408618.post-20027685733266560242014-12-02T03:39:00.002-08:002017-06-10T01:17:22.266-07:00What is a Vampire?<br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;">The vampire has been defined down the ages as an accursed body which cannot rest in the kindly earth, but nightly leaves its grave to prey on sleeping men and women through whom they are believed to maintain a semblance of life by sucking thence the warm blood of such victims while they sleep. Webster’s International Dictionary confirms that the vampire is a “re-animated body of a dead person … believed to come from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep causing death.” The <em>Oxford Dictionary</em> agrees with all the above, describing a vampire as “a ghost that leaves his grave at night and sucks the blood of sleeping persons.” Sir James Frazer in the second volume of his work <em>The Fear of the Dead in Primitive Religions</em> (1934) is in no doubt that vampires are “malicious ghosts who issue from their graves to suck the blood of the living, and stringent measures are deemed necessary to hinder or arrest this horrible proceeding.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;">They are, of course, quintessentially demonic. In certain circumstances (though these are few and far between) those who appear to expire from the parasitic undead's visitations and quaffing of their life-blood will themselves be at risk of becoming undead in their turn. This does not occur where the person is in a state of grace; where any mortal sin that stains their soul has been absolved. And by no means are the great majority of victims destined to be afflicted. It would seem that those who become undead in this way are fewer than might be imagined. This nonetheless presents an enigma where probable candidates are those who have led a life of more than ordinary immorality and unbridled wickedness; where the individual has possessed a surfeit of selfish passions, evil ambitions and cruelty. Such undead are thought to be those who have delighted in blood and devoted themselves during their life to the practice of diabolism and the black arts. Thus an undead is more likely to result from exceedingly base and cruel actions; especially where devil worship and devotion to the black arts has occurred.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;">The supernatural agency is demonic and, whilst human beings cannot actually transform into demons themselves, they may be possessed by them, and thus appear transformed. In the case of contamination followed by apparent expiry of a candidate there exists the possibility that their malevolence sets in action forces which might prove powerful for terror and destruction beyond the grave; though it should be emphasised that in all such cases they are not God's true dead. It is hardly to be supposed that such persons would rest undisturbed while it is less difficult to contemplate the existence of this hideous life in death where the demonic is extant and seemingly manifests itself as a corporeal form. The smallest drop of blood can be employed by a demonic entity, enabling the wraith to form in a tangible manner. Revenants are attracted to blood which allows them to effect their purpose. The ancient Israelites would not eat the blood of any flesh at all, because the life of the flesh is in the blood. The Hebrew word that translates as “life” in Deuteronomy 12: 23 (“Only be sure not to eat the blood, for the blood is the life”) also signifies “soul.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;">The undead partakes of the dark nature and mysterious qualities of both revenant and demon. The exorcist must always be mindful of these alarming characteristics - not least the undead's terrible blood lust - and must never go unprotected when putting himself at risk during operative field work. Manifestation <em>via</em> the blood is the undead’s means of metamorphosis into a form often indistiguishable from a corpse. Since the undead do not exist in time - they dwell in what is described as "anti-time" - they will cast no shadow, nor will their reflection be seen in a mirror or water’s surface. The crucifix symbol itself is utterly abhorred by them, and indeed all forms of evil. The object and what it is made of does not possess any power, yet it is so strongly symbolic of the triumph of good over evil that it alone repels evil and whatever is an emissary of evil. However, when employed by a person the intent and faith of the person employing it is paramount. This might seem like a paradox. Christian items and holy places utterly repel evil people who oftentimes delight in their sacrilege. Likewise supernatural evil shuns these holy things and Christian images.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;">It is indubitably unwise for these sacred symbols to be adopted as mere fashion items. Similarly, of course, it is unwise in the extreme for diabolical symbols to be adopted and worn. So the power of the crucifix exists, but will be magnified one thousandfold when supported by a strong faith. Exorcism does not "kill" the demonic agent. It rids our sphere (or dimension) of the supernatural predatory wraith. The seemingly corporeal host once exorcised obviously returns to its true state and is no longer plagued by its supernatural ability to manifest as though it were living. All along it was neither living, nor dead. Only when properly exorcised does the unquiet soul find the peace of death.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;"><i>“Whether we are justified in supposing that cases of vampirism are less frequent today than in past centuries, I am far from certain. But one thing is plain ~ not that they do not occur, but that they are carefully hushed up and stifled.”</i> - Montague Summers (<em>The Vampire in Europe</em>, 1929)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;">Sources:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;">Seán Manchester</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: inherit;">Montague Summers</span></div>
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B.O.S.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01469872145833772529noreply@blogger.com0