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It’s Hard to Keep a Good Vampire Down, by Brian Righi

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

For many of us, the mere mention of the word "vampire" evokes images of pale Romanian counts with thick Eastern accents, slicked back hair, and tuxedo suits complete with opera capes. Younger generations might instead picture handsomely brooding teenage vampires more in keeping with a modern interpretation of the Byronic hero of older literary traditions. In either case, our images of the creature are often culled from the movies with which we grew up and that, for the most part, shaped our understanding of the archetype. Yet, whether we grew up loving or hating them, we often see vampires as either the product of entertaining fantasy or as a part of the colorful yet outdated mythos of our ancestors. We like to think that we've tamed the vampire this way, laid them to rest, if you will, in our modern age of science and reason, and that we can confidently scoff at the idea of a creature that drinks the blood of the living. Given such a view, it might surprise you to learn that in some parts of the world today the belief in real vampires or vampire-like creatures continues as strongly as it ever has.

For instance, in certain regions of the American Southwest, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, local inhabitants believe in a bloodthirsty creature known as el chupacabra, which in Spanish means "the goat sucker." Eyewitness accounts claim that the elusive beast stands approximately four feet tall, with grey, reptile-like skin, glowing red eyes, sharp fangs, and is often accompanied by a foul, sulfuric stench. It's frequently reported in rural areas, where it preys upon livestock during the night, attacking its victims and draining their blood. In most cases little remains as evidence of the attack other than three odd puncture wounds on the chests of the animals and unidentified three toed tracks at the scene of the crime. While its victims are primarily smaller livestock, such as chickens, goats, and sheep, they have been known to prey on cattle and other larger animals, with even a few unconfirmed reports of attacks against humans.

The first recorded sightings occurred in rural areas of Puerto Rico in March of 1995, but rumors of the creature are said to date back to the 1960s. Perhaps the most sensational claims occurred in the fall of 1995, when reports of bizarre attacks began surfacing from the town of Canovanas in northeastern Puerto Rico, where as many as one hundred and fifty animals and pets were said to have been killed by the creature. Over time the bloody slayings continued, spreading to other parts of the world, including the United States (in the spring of 1996 numerous animals were reported drained of blood in a rural area northwest of Miami, Florida). Soon after, sightings flooded in from the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas; Juarez, Mexico; and even as far away as Queensland, Australia. In each case the facts are the same: livestock are found dead with strange wounds and obvious blood loss, area residents are stunned and frightened, and the shadowy creature known as el chupacabra has disappeared back into the night from which it came, leaving in its wake mysterious deaths and puzzling tracks. The prevalence of such sightings has become so widespread, in fact, that renowned writer and cryptozoologist Loren Coleman states that el chupacabra is "the single-most notable cryptozoological phenomenon of the past decade."¹

While early beliefs in vampirism found their most fertile ground in the dark woodlands and bleak mountain villages of eastern Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, vestiges of the age-old superstition still leak out today from remote rural areas barely touched by modern urbanity. In 2004, in the tiny hamlet of Martotinu de Sus, Romania (just one hundred miles southwest of Bucharest) a man named Gheorghe Marinescu was arrested for desecrating the corpse of his brother-in-law Petre Toma, who he believed was a revenant returned from the dead to prey upon the living. According to Dr. Timothy Taylor of the University of Bardford in England, who investigated the case first-hand for an article entitled "The Real Vampire Slayers," Petre Toma died shortly before Christmas 2003 at the age of 76 years old. By most accounts he was thought to be a good man, but like most farmers he was given to strong drink and a hard life. After his death members of the Marinescu family became unexpectedly ill, and Toma's niece Mirela Marinescu claimed that she suffered from nightmares in which her dead uncle visited her at night and fed from her heart.

Determined to save his family from the evil menace, Gheorghe and five relatives, fortified with homemade schnapps, disinterred the body of Petre six weeks postmortem. After finding the traditional signs of vampirism, including fresh blood in the body and around the lips, they cut the chest cavity open with a scythe and removed the heart with a pitchfork. From there Dr. Taylor reports "[t]he men took the heart, spiked aloft, to the crossroads outside the village. There they roasted it over a brazier and, as far as I could understand, stuffed glowing coals into the ventricles. Held up to the night sky, the heart shed charred flakes that were caught in a tea towel."² The ashes were ground up and mixed with water for the niece to drink, after which it is claimed she made a full recovery.

Macabre scenes such as this were not new to the region, but when the daughter of Petre Toma complained to authorities the police arrested Gheorghe and the other participating relatives and sentenced them to six months in jail for the unlawful exhumation (their sentences were later commuted). The group of "vampire slayers," on the other hand, believed they had committed no crime and claimed instead that they were saving lives and following an ancient tradition handed down to them from their fathers and practiced still in many other villages throughout the region.

Yet, we would be remiss if we thought that tales of vampires only occurred today in rural, faraway places ruled by peasant superstitions. A case in point occurred in late December of 2005 in the Ward End area of Birmingham, England. Rumors began to circulate that a man, later dubbed by the press as the "Birmingham Vampire," was stalking the environs of Glen Park Road biting people. The story goes on to claim that the vampire bit a man walking down the street and then several other pedestrians who came to his aide. One woman was said to have chunks missing from her hand after the attack. Following the incident the vampire was said to have walked down the road knocking on doors and biting anyone who answered.

While no police reports chronicling such an attack were ever filed and no one was ever admitted to the local hospital with the bites described in the alleged attack, the populace nonetheless flew into a panic. The local newspaper, the Birmingham Evening Mail, stated that they were inundated with calls from terrified residents who believed that they had caught a glimpse of the vampire yet none of which provided any solid leads.³ People refused to answer their doors unless they knew the caller, and parents escorted their children to and from school personally. For days the Ward End was ripe with tales of vampires in what today has been dismissed as a classic example of mass hysteria and shelved away by authorities as an urban legend.

This, however, wasn't the first account of vampires roaming modern-day England. On February 6, 1970, a letter to the Hampstead and Highgate Express from a man named David Farrant, who claimed to have seen a grey figure wandering the cemetery of Highgate, London at night, touched off a flood of reports from local residents who believed the burial grounds haunted. Soon after, a second man, Sean Manchester, claimed that the figure was that of a vampire who had been buried in the cemetery long ago and was recently raised by the ceremonies of modern Satanists who had infiltrated Highgate.

The media loved the story, as both men went on to make claims that they would seek out the lair of the vampire and end its evil reign on exactly March (Friday) 13th, 1970. Other vampire hunters, eager to get in on the action, also arrived on the scene and broke into the cemetery, causing a great deal of vandalism despite the best efforts by local police to keep them out. Both David Farrant and Sean Manchester went on to write books emphasizing their role in the macabre affair, and the story is even believed by some to have inspired the Hammer Horror film Dracula A.D. 1972 with Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.

We like to think that vampires are merely the stuff of bedtime boogeymen meant to titillate and entertain on cold, dark nights, but never the real flesh and blood monsters that our pitchfork- and torch-carrying ancestors feared. Yet, as we have seen, the image of the vampire is indeed alive and well, and continues to be feared as a real threat in certain regions of the world today, popping up in some of the most unexpected places. The belief in vampires is as old as humankind itself, and the notion that they can so easily be resigned to the realm of mere entertainment is a foolish one indeed. After all, it's hard to keep a good vampire down.

Source Notes

1. Herman, Marc. "El Chupacabra." The Cryptologist: Accessed November 29, 2011.
2. Taylor, Timothy. "The Real Vampire Slayers." The Independent, October 28, 2007.
3. Jefferies, Stuart. "Reality Bites." The Guardian, January 18, 2005.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2012. All rights reserved.

In 2000, I bought a home that used to be a church. When the pastor died in 1999, the church was converted into a house, and that's when I bought it. The house borders a cemetery that has graves that date back to 1800. Since moving into the house, we find dimes everywhere, and some are in really odd places: the garbage disposal, dishwasher, washer, dryer, bathtub, suitcases, shoes, chairs, beds, etc. We can't figure this out. Where are they coming from, and why only dimes? Also, we tried to sell the house last year in order to buy a larger home, but no one wanted it because everyone was terrified of the cemetery. Our realtor hosted an open house one beautiful spring afternoon. We had flowers, snacks, and one candle lit on our large screened in porch, where we waited to greet guests. Right after the open house started, the entire stack of real estate flyers with our house information on them mysteriously blew into that little pillar candle and went up in flames. Our realtor was pretty shaken, and needless to say, the open house was over. Could these events be messages from the preacher of the church, who was there from the 1940s until he passed away? Is it a bad idea to turn a church into a home for some reason? Any light you can shed on this matter would be appreciated. Thanks!

- Dawn

Dreamchaser:

Let's take this in the same order you presented it.

The dimes are from Spirit. Spiritual beings will often leave us money to show us that they are there, want us to be prosperous, and are helping us with our earthly ventures. They leave the same type of coin over and over so that we will KNOW it is not "coincidence." I personally find pennies everywhere.

The beings that are dropping these dimes are a hodge-podge group, so to speak. You have some spirit guides following you, and you have loved ones from both sides of the family in heaven who want to say hello. You also have the pastor and the souls that are in the cemetery.

Speaking of the souls in the cemetery, you have always respected them and not feared them, and thus, some of them will choose to come around your house and family to visit and basically just hang out. None of these beings thinks that you should sell it and move, because you are the perfect caretaker for your property.

For example, you "just know" if something is wrong and exactly who to call or what to do to fix it. You take pride in its history, and you keep the property up nice. I cannot stress enough how appreciative and protective those souls are of you and yours.

Personally, I do not feel it is a bad idea to turn a church into a home, though I imagine that each person has his or her own view on this issue. If the church has served its purpose to the community, I think it would actually make a fantastic home, because it would hold many years' worth of good energy for the family that moves in.

That truly is "hallowed ground." Because it is such a blessed, spiritually pure environment, the beings that enter into that space are also of a high spiritual nature. As I'm sure you can imagine, no dark being would be drawn to a place that has so much positive, loving energy flowing from it. Those sort of spirits would just move on down the street to another house.

Also, it's because of this strong spiritual energy that the beings that do come around you can so readily interact with you and affect the environment of your home. I think some places on earth are more prone to being "haunted."

My kids and I stayed at a bed and breakfast in upstate New York one summer evening. My son was around 10 years old at the time, and he got scared and ran and jumped in my bed. My daughter jumped in my son's empty bed because she felt someone stroking her head as she lay on her side. Then my bed started to vibrate at a high rate of speed.

So as you can see, these sorts of things can happen to any of us and in all sorts of places. I hope you can find a way to embrace the spirit friends in your home, and be grateful for their presence.

*****

Astrea:

It's not a bad idea to turn a church into a home, as long as it isn't being occupied by some mischievous or jealous spirit. That pastor has latched on to your family, however, and has no intention of letting go of you OR leaving.

This pastor chose you and your family as "replacements" for his congregation. He LOVES you and doesn't want you to move out; that's why he's pulling so many stunts to keep y'all there.

He purely ADORES your energy and that of the rest of the family. I honestly don't know how you will EVER get rid of that place unless he can find someone he likes as much as you to live there.

He has chosen to stay earthbound with you because he's tickled PINK with what you're doing to the place. He even wishes HE had thought of some of your ideas.

The dimes are so interesting to me. "Silver" is one of the oldest ways to ward off evil. I'm SURE that over the years, that pastor left hundreds of dimes all over that property. There are dimes there for every grave you can see in the cemetery. There are dimes there for every person he counseled during his forty-year service. You could find a dime a day for the rest of your life.

Now dimes have become his sign to let you know he's still around and "looking after" the place. It never occurs to him that he might frighten anyone. You could TRY a ritual to "send him into the Light," but he doesn't want to leave.

Your only hope is to find a similar family to take over for you. Even then, your pastor is going to be somewhat disgruntled. He is going to give ANYONE a hard time about moving in, and your family a hard time about moving out.

Try not to get too attached to your breakables, and don't buy anything expensive until after you move. Once he knows you're totally serious about leaving, he'll start pitching fits again like he did at your open house. Until he finds people he likes as much as he does you, you won't be able to sell the place.

I do have some good news for you: The right family is nearly there. Sometime before August, someone from that family will approach you with stars in his eyes and fall in love with the place, cemetery and all. The pastor will be suspicious at first, but he'll be drawn to this family as he was to yours. By September, you should be able to leave the new people there in relative "peace."

All my life I've wanted to do what you're doing: find a school or a church and turn it into my home, but I've never figured out how I would afford the utility bills. The cemetery would be a bonus to me - all those interesting dead people to "talk" to if I was bored! Your place even has a built-in spiritual mentor.

Hey - your church home isn't in Texas, is it? 🙂

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.