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Subterranean civilizations, Tesla, Marconi and cities of Atlantis ..
Lost in the Jungle
 
 

Abductions, fairies and sexy aliens... 
Fear of Flying
 
 

Sixth senses, 
MC terrorism and 
voices in the mind...
Zapped
 

 Inside out, or flat out?? Nazis and creationists...
Flat as a Pancake??
Nah its Hollowed out!!

According to Bob Marley and Peter Tosh they are the “Babylon System” whatever it is supposed to mean (well by now I have learned), so..ocking the blood of the sufferers !! For Barm Stoker, they proved to be money spinners, placing him in a different tax bracket altogether by the mega-sucess of his novel.  But going by Dr.Juan Gomez-Alonso’s thesis, recently printed in the Journal of Neurology, vampires are just rabid. 

A Neurologist of the Xeral Hospital in Vigo, he was struck by the obvious similarities between vampires and what happened to a victim of rabies while watching an old vampire flick. Starting a comparative study Gomez-Alonso found that 25 per cent of rabid men have a tendency to bite others, often passing on the virus in saliva  just as vampires propagate their breed by biting the living. He also maintains the Vampire hysteria of the middle ages in eastern Europe coincided with widespread epidemic of rabies in dogs, wolves and other animals in Hungary in 1721-28, approximately the same region and time when vampire first started making headlines. Thus exuding a possibility that the frightening symptoms of rabies victims had been incorporated into existing folklore in the guise of blood sucking living dead.

According to the doctor, Vampires in stories generally tend to be over sexed males and in real life ( who says vampire are unreal??) rabies is seven times more frequent in men than in women. Similarly, rabid men develop insomnia, tend to wander at night and become hyper sexual, sometimes suffering painful erections lasting days. Gomez-Alonso also contents that tales of vampires transforming into animals may stem from the similarity in how the disease affects both men and animals. Especially, when muscle spasms in the face and neck make human victims look like agressive predators. He also claims that the storybook Vampires' aversion to garlic and mirrors could be ascribed to rabid hypersensitivity as "Men with rabies, react to stimuli such as water, light, odours or mirrors with spasms of the facial and vocal muscles that can cause hoarse sounds, bared teeth and saliva frothing at the mouth." In the past, he contended, "a man was not considered rabid if he was able to stand the sight of his own image in a mirror."
With due respect to the doctor’s opinion, but the belief of vampires being unable to face a mirror, lies not in folklore but was an invention of Barm Stoker in “Dracula” and has been subsequently integrated as one of their principle characteristics in films and literary fiction. Similarly, it was only after the Roman Catholic church, which previously denied its existence, conceded that Vampirism could be a mischief of Satan, that crosses and holy water became effective weapons against them. Earlier it was only garlic and a stake through the heart that worked.

Efforts to explain the Vampire phenomenon toyed with many varied causes, from sufferers of rare blood deficiencies, to Satanist cults, work of Satan himself and even them being aliens from another world. Nevertheless, one thing is clear, Vampires are essentially pre-Christian and ancient magico-religious practices provide an astonishing insight into the genesis of the myth. 
From the earliest shamanist cultures, blood was always believed to contain the soul and the blood of a brave enemy or admired animal was drunk to bestow upon the drinker the positive attributes of the vanquished man or creature. 
Similarly the blood of a sacrificed animal was drunk in order to produce inspirational effects, or a communion with the gods. From drinking a lamb's blood at the temple of ancient Apollo at Argos, to the present-day zealous devotees of goddess Kali in India, the connection is undeniable. Even in Christianity, wine feigned as the blood of Christ is drunk every Sunday in churches around the world.

Another popular theory regarding Vampires is that they are actually beings who "feed" on another human-beings energy, or life force, instead of their blood.
Unlike the traditional debonair, fanged and blood thirsty fiend, the psychic vampires are usually mortal and often unaware of their powers, but all the same manifewesting inexplicable phenomena by being very magnetic, others causing extreme physical tiredness when coming nearby. Such, theorists have even branded Hitler  a Psychic vampire.

Taking about neo-vampirism, the Temple of the Vampire,  Lacey, Washington State, USA, claims not only to be the sole “authentic international church in the world devoted to and authorised by the Vampire religion”, but legally registered with the U.S. federal government as well.  Claiming to have a world-wide membership and a dedicated Priesthood, they profess to be a secret but uncriminal society, practicing techniques of tapping psychic energy from other. The moral justifying the action is that man is a born predator. But, how to they do it, well to learn you have to buy The Vampire Bible (Copyright © 1989 Temple of the Vampire) for $25. The book also includes the Shurpu Kishpu (The Book of Dreaming) with modern commentary on the attainment of the full Vampiric Condition !!

With such a shadowy image one can’t help wonder if selling books is their sole activity ??

* The column is meant for entertainment only and the author does not stand by the authenticity of any of the facts  and episodes mentioned.