The first mentions of vampires were found in early Greek myths, where creepy creatures sucking blood from people enjoyed the patronage of the goddess Hecate. Favor for the night evil was passed on to her from the ancient deities of the underworld - the habitat of the most mysterious forces of nature and human imagination.
In the beliefs of the peoples of Southern Europe, unrepentant sinners, suicides, and also those who perished without having had time to accept repentance became vampires. A man bitten by a vampire, after a while entered the gloomy community of "unclean". Having lost control of himself, he wandered along the night roads and drank blood from random passers-by.
The Eastern Slavs called the underground creature a ghoul or vovkulak, denoting with these words a dead man who rose from the grave, pounced on sleeping people, but preferred to torment his relatives. The Great Russians believed that the ghouls did not touch those who wandered against their will. In the lower mythology of European peoples, a corpse sucking blood from living people appeared in the guise of a bat, and sometimes other animals, certainly a disgusting look.
The autopsy of the grave - the alleged habitat of the vampire - was carried out with the permission of the authorities in order to officially certify "the fact of the discovery of the desired creature." Upon opening the coffin, people saw the corpse without the slightest sign of decomposition. A "living corpse" with soft, fresh skin of a pinkish tint, which, moreover, had not lost its fatty deposits, appeared. His nails and hair had grown considerably since his burial, and blood filled his veins and oozed through his pores.
This was followed by the inevitable reprisal against the bloodsucker. One of the ways to destroy a vampire involved a certain sequence of actions. First, his head was cut off, then, laying it at the feet of the corpse, they pierced his heart with a sharp aspen stake. From the moment when the last drop of blood poured out of his veins, the "living dead" ceased to be a ghoul.
Alternatively, a vampire can be killed by firing a charmed silver bullet at him. Bell ringing, fresh garlic, iron, and pre-consecrated cemetery ground were also considered effective. To avoid the possibility of resurrecting a vampire, in order to finally destroy the mention of him, the corpse was burned.
Anti-Vampire set - cross, holy water, garlic and aspen stake
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A person capable of turning into a ghoul had the appropriate signs while still a human. Children born with a double row of teeth - the main sign of a vampire, most often died in infancy. In Poland they were called "strigs". After death, newborns flew, terrifying passers-by.
Ancient Slavic legends manifested themselves with special force in Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. Here, bloodsuckers, afraid of the light, were endowed with huge fangs and even identified with specific people. Suffice it to recall the legendary Count Dracula, a mysterious person who made himself a vampire due to his outward resemblance and the presence of some habits inherent in fantastic ghouls.
With the advent of B. Stoker's mystical drama Dracula, narratives about vampires became the most popular motif in the 18th century romantic story. V. Pollidori's story "The Vampire" is especially famous.
Fear of vampires was intensified by ignorance of the nature of this phenomenon and the crimes of genuine historical figures. Thus, Countess Bathory, who lived in the 17th century, killed peasant girls and drank their blood in order to regain her youth. For many centuries, people have fought mercilessly against vampires. In the 16th-17th centuries, more than 30 thousand people were executed in France alone, declaring them vampires, otherwise - werewolves-bloodsuckers.
The secret of the terrible phenomenon called "vampirism" was revealed only in the middle of the XX century, when it was possible to find the reasons and describe the symptoms of a unique disease called Porphyria - "porphyria". One of the most mysterious diseases in human history is a hereditary blood disorder.
The patient has an increased content of porphyrins - pigments that make up the hemoglobin of blood and tissues. The disease is characterized by the inability of the body to independently produce the main component of blood - red cells, which causes a deficiency of oxygen and iron in the blood.
At first, official medicine did not dare to associate legends with porphyria, until a brave physician, Dr. Lee Illis from Hampshire, was found, who published the results of his many years of observations. In 1963, he spoke at the Royal Society of Medicine, confirming the report with the monograph On Porphyria and the Etiology of Werewolves.
The work of the English researcher contained an analysis of historical descriptions of bloodsucking werewolves in comparison with the clinic of porphyria. It is believed that one person in 200 thousand suffers from this pathology, and the probability of its transmission by inheritance is extremely high. Incest is a potential cause of the disease.
Patient with porphyria
Doctors know more than 80 cases of congenital porphyria, when in the blood and tissues under the influence of ultraviolet radiation, the breakdown of hemoglobin begins, which is converted into toxins that corrode the subcutaneous tissue. The skin darkens, acquiring a reddish tint, becomes thinner, then bursts under the influence of sunlight, covering the outside with scars and ulcers.
Over time, inflammation affects the cartilage of the nose and ears, as well as bone tissue and tendons, severely deforming the limbs. The skin around the lips and gums dries and hardens: the incisors are exposed to the gums, creating a grin effect. Due to the deposition of porphyrin on the teeth, they become reddish brown. As a result, the patient acquires a repulsive appearance, causing fear in the surrounding festering eyelids and twisted fingers.
The patient cannot be in the sunlight, experiencing unbearable suffering, both physical and mental. During the day, the unfortunate person feels a loss of strength and apathy, which is replaced by a more mobile lifestyle with the onset of darkness. All these symptoms are characteristic only of the advanced stages of the disease, but there are many other, less terrible forms.
Porphyria manifests itself in the form of bouts of intestinal disorder, muscle paralysis; the patient suffers from mental disorders or epileptic seizures. Cutaneous porphyria, marked by an increased content of iron in the blood, is inherited, mainly in cases where a person has abused alcohol, has had hepatitis or malaria.
The disease can be triggered by the presence of a large number of chemicals in the body, as happened in Turkey, where about 4,000 patients who ate food made from poisoned flour became "vampires" at once.
Patients with porphyria cutaneous tarda often have a condition characterized by increased physical and mental activity. There is an increase in the growth of eyelashes and eyebrows, darkening of the hair, and a sharp deformation of the nails. On the patient's face, in particular on the forehead and ears, as well as on the back of the hands, spots, bubbles, bleeding wounds appear, accompanied by tingling or itching.
Due to senile degeneration, the skin takes on a shade ranging from dirty gray to reddish brown or bronze. In rare cases, spots may be the only manifestations of the disease. Abrasions and erosion occur after the most minor phenomena, for example, when using a hard towel, when exposed to sunlight, when trying to remove jewelry. Diseases of the congenital form may worsen depending on the season, on the intensity of solar radiation.
Lee Illis has spent several years categorizing all symptoms, linking them to geography, vampire myths, and actual cases. Porphyria was incurable until the second half of the 20th century, but in the Middle Ages patients were healed with fresh blood to no avail in order to change its composition. The degree of ruthlessness in relation to the sick previously depended on the level of development of Christianity.
The doctor put forward an interesting idea about the transformation of people with porphyria into vicious vampires due to a mental disorder. Illis analyzed individual cases in various traditions and concluded that the creation of a unified world view of vampires and werewolves was a result of cultural exchange. Moreover, rumors came from Sweden or Switzerland, where porphyria was more common than in other regions, although the disease is also widespread in Norway and South Africa. In search of facts, the doctor reached Ceylon, but here no one knew the werewolf myth.
The scientific world as a whole accepted Lee Illis' main idea while simultaneously asking him many counter questions. For example, why do legendary vampires drink blood? How could individual references to the disease have spread so far? Why does rumor attribute to "bloodsuckers" aggression that is inexplicable from a scientific point of view?
Although porphyria is a purely physiological disease, it still has an extremely negative effect on the psyche. There are cases when a primitive allergy to light drove a person to suicide. Hannelore, the wife of Helmut Kohl, who suffered from an unexplored form of allergy, decided to commit suicide, being depressed from constant pain that tormented her throughout her life.
If we take into account the possibilities of the German Chancellor's wife, who was not helped in the best clinics, we can draw a conclusion about the feelings of poor "vampires". Illis believed that porphyria patients suffered from various forms of mental disorders - from hysteria to manic-depressive psychosis. The frantic delirium of desperate people could not help but plunge those around them into awe and sow panic among the witnesses of their tragedy.
From the point of view of occultism, vampirism as a cosmic phenomenon is explained by the desire to prolong the life and youthfulness of one's body through the transfer of the vital force stolen from living people. The latter, having experienced the influence of a dead creature, die of exhaustion, for no apparent reason. However, vampirism from the dead is very rare, in contrast to living influence. In this case, one person absorbs the life force of another.
The Bible tells of David surrounding himself with young and healthy slave women in order to prolong his youth. According to the occultist Durville, animal magnetism, representing the life force of a person, always strives for balance, therefore, with close communication between a healthy and a sick person, the vital forces pass, respectively, from the first to the last. The presence of healthy people with a strong aura becomes a necessity for all porphyria sufferers.
Regardless of the desire for balance in nature, some people are able to absorb the life force of others, especially relatives and close friends, bringing them to complete exhaustion. From an astral point of view, they are energy vampires. This effect is especially noticeable in intimate relationships. One famous astrologer warned against such individuals, declaring: "Break with them immediately, do not yield to their requests and remember that the vampire continues his life at the expense of yours."
When a person dies, then his spirit and soul finally leave the physical body and enter the astral world. If death occurs from the destruction of the physical shell and damage to internal organs, then the soul leaves the perishable skeleton due to its unsuitability for the further existence of such a subtle matter as spirit. Without a soul, a person cannot be resurrected, he will perish, just as water will surely flow out of a vessel with a crack.
Sometimes death occurs despite the vitality of the physical body, only because the organs cannot function, for example in the case of exhaustion or anemia. The ability to revive a person is preserved when a person's soul seeks to leave the body under the influence of a strong spiritual blow.
Thus, in the first hours after death, the body is in a state of prolonged sleep, and its connection with the spirit has not yet been completely lost. For the awakening of the physical body, it is necessary, by an effort of will, to induce the human soul to re-enter the abandoned shell. This is how the miracle of resurrection from the dead takes place.
The famous astrological treatise notes the case of the victorious action of the power of love, faith and will, capable of reviving the dead. By the method of magnetism, that is, treatment without the use of drugs, but only by laying on of hands, rubbing and breathing, a little girl lying dead, as well as a young child dying of typhoid fever, were healed. The child looked like a corpse with pale skin, with a body that had already begun to numb.
His heart almost stopped, there was no breathing, even his lower jaw fell off, and the doctors dropped their hands. The astrologer worked on the dead body for more than three hours, trying to infuse his "animal magnetism" into it - a nervous force capable of bringing an immobile corpse back to life. By an effort of the doctor's will, the boy returned to life.
Merciless reproaches of conscience and hallucinations of murderers can be explained by the fact that the spirit of the murdered person often pursues the murderer. In the history of jurisprudence, there have been cases when inveterate repeat offenders volunteered for the police, submitting themselves to justice, unable to endure moral suffering.
Nowadays, "vampire disease", although difficult, is being cured. With the completion of a series of experiments with the DNA of some species of fish and rodents, congenital porphyria can be corrected, and acquired porphyria can be blocked in the early stages, when it is no different from similar blood pathologies. Treatment of porphyria cutaneous tarda should begin with the complete elimination of all types of alcoholic beverages, and also protect the skin from the sun's rays.
