Rabbit Hole Express
Episode 2, ‘Changing direction’
Topic: Vampires, wonderful fantasy or real secret?
I once heard some one say that the reason that the reason they believe in the supernatural is because of the Catholic Church.
The church, they spent all that time all those years ago hunting for witchcraft. They burned countless witches and destroyed so many writings. They hunted every last wise woman and suspicious black cat. Once every trace of the old teachings was eradicated they stood tall and proud and announced that there’s no need to worry because there’s no such things as witchcraft so we cal all stop panicking.
This is the foundation of my interest in the supernatural. It is also the foundation of my ‘angle’ on this topic. You see, the way is see it is that the facts that are at hand are tainted, any evidence of supernatural ‘goings on’ is answered with a barrage of disbelief and much like people find reasons to doubt that man went to the moon because they find problems with the evidence, problems that for the most part are created with a point of view (see last Episode/Blog, I’m not taking sides here)
Much like with the moon landing, people who disbelieve the official story (the minority) have found evidence to prove it a lie (the majority) when it comes to the supernatural the same is true.
My perspective on this is different; let’s tackle this with an open mind. Let’s look at some ‘evidence’ and ignore the preconditioning that other people find, lets use our minds and try to think about something with a truly open mind.
Before we get into the main topic:
I think it is important that we look at some ideas and concepts before we get into the main topic, I am aware that a lot of my point here maybe initially random, but me in the end it will all come together.
Holographic Reality.
The book covers an idea put forwards by a minority of quantum physicists, it’s a rather complicated idea that I can’t really summarise in a single chapter but at its most basic level it puts forward the concept that everything we understand to be ‘reality’ is energy. Our brains then decode this energy in a way that allows us to understand it.
Yes, I understand that if you have never come across this idea then it will strike you as a bit strange. I wont try and go any deeper into the idea but I assure you the book has all its sources listed at the end and for the most part the ideas it pus forwards have a grounding in reputable (if fringe) science.
The information inside the book offers up some interesting concepts that become plausible once you take into account the main topic.
For instance, most people believe that the supernatural does not happen because they do not ‘see it’ but once you take into consideration that all things are made of energy that is decoded by your mind you must then accept that all things you ‘see’ are dependent on how good your decoder is.
There was a point there somewhere.
History is a liar.
Time after time history ill record an event in an incorrect way, some times due to genuine errors and a lot of the time because as I stated above those keeping the records had a set of beliefs to defend.
There is of course the old line first penned by the author Alex Haley, “History is written by the survivors.”
Remember, even though he is credited with this quote the chances are that he was not the one who said it first, he was the first well documented person to say it.
So as I delve deeper into the topic at hand I ask you as usual to keep an open mind and never trust any fact or record just because you’re supposed to.
Vampires:
Here we go, I have dodged the topic for far too long already. But where to start?
As usual, I think Wikipedia has a pretty good overview.
Vampires http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampires
Vampire folklore by region http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region
Vampire Literature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_literature
Fictional vampires http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_vampires
As you read the above links please remember that they are written by people who consider the whole thing to be a work of fiction.
If you decide to Google the words ‘real vampires’ your not going to get many results that are of a good quality. Its worth reading anything you can get hold of for research purpose but a lot of people writing things titled ‘real vampires’ are just satisfying a fantasy, a gothic rambling.
In many ways I can see the appeal of the vampire myths, the literature makes them appear sexy, powerful and most appealing of all, immortal.
I enjoy those fictional works but I was forced to wonder where these ideas came from, why certain things are more prominent than others in the literature and most importantly, where is the real world inspiration?
As I researched the history I could not help but become fascinated with the sheer volume of fiction that surrounds all vampire mythology, from Bram Stocker to Bela Lugosi with cartoons and Halloween plays filling in the gaps we are surrounded with vampire story's.
In order to get a better understanding of all this i thought it was best to get a firm grip of the fiction fist, with a little help from the 1931 Bela Lugosi Dracula film and a thumb through the cliff notes of Bram Stockers defining work. all the fiction shares a gothic styling, even the vampires in the well known Buffy TV show have this gothic sexy aura.
while reading through the 'factual' history of the 'real' Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler as he was more formally known (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_impaler) it became apparent that the real man was nothing more than an inspiration for the more recent incarnation of the myth.
What we know for sure?
As I said earlier in this article, I am a very open minded individual, however I am not naive or stupid, so with my open mind in its most heavy effort to 'reach' for an answer I decided to break down the things we know about Vampires.
Sunlight causes pain: it seams that this portion of the myth comes from a rare disorder that seams to have quite a few names including photosensitivity. this results in rashes from being exposed to sunlight called photodermatosis. this can be a simple way to explain away how less educated people can mistake an unfortunate illness for a symptom of vampirism. Its also worth mentioning that there is a documented fear of sunlight called Heliophobia.
Vampires live for a long time and have super human abilities: I really tried on this one but there are no real links between the consumption of blood and enhanced life. if anything drinking the blood of people regularly would make you more prone to illness and all sorts of 'other' things. if its a more supernatural concept than I am able to understand and you add in the possibility that god created vampires to eternally walk the earth for their sins then i suppose it does fit with the myth.
Afraid of Garlic: it has been claimed over the years that Garlic is something that either causes pain to Vampires of the yare simply afraid of it, this seams to come from Rumanian folk lore about garlic keeping evil away, its also interesting that blood sucking parasites such as lice or ticks are less partial to hosts who ear allot of garlic, maybe that's the link.
Crosses and holly water are damaging: some myths claim that vampires where born from human sin, and that it is a curse given to men from god, so depending upon your point of view vampires are damaged by anything that is a tool of faith from any religion I assume. also, maybe its not even religion that's the issue, maybe its the power of faith in the person using the 'stuff'
Different types of Vampires: assuming you ignore the known fiction the topic of vampires is very diverse, different areas of the world have very different myths, everything from the Chupacabra in Mexico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chupacabra) to the overly emotional Psychic vampires of modern culture.
Succubus.
once you think that there is a possibility that vampires and succubus are the same thing (both feed from human energy in one form or another) then the whole thing becomes even deeper. the succubus myth can be found in just as many cultures as the vampire myth and in many cultures (Islamic for example) its taken relatively seriously in comparison.
with a succubus being something that is not human and has never been human then those superhuman abilities that I discounted earlier are possible. if its not human then it maybe faster or stronger and may live longer naturally.
imagine an 'animal' you can not see that sucks your energy while you sleep, its scary and is the topic of a documentary called 'your worse nightmare' where they do a wonderful job of explaining everything from magical creatures to inter-dimensional beings.
Conclusion:
In my opinion it is unlikely that vampires are a fully recognised 'race' of people who live along side humans, assuming every vampire has to feed just once a week and there are a couple of hundred in every major city then there would be far too much evidence to conceal for any length of time.
That's not to say its impossible, it is in my opinion phenomenally unlikely but possible if they where all 'careful' and where assisted my government agencies then it is possible, but its a stretch even for me to believe it.
The other possibility I considered is that there are literally only one or two alive, and there has only ever been one ore two, why its this way I don't know, but its far easier for a smaller number to conceal themselves than a larger ever growing number.
I find it far more likely that the myth of Vampires comes from the Succubus legends, this explains why it appears in every culture, given how we as humans see reality then its completely possible that there are inter-dimensional beings in operation, after all a plant produces the Oxygen that we require to live, is it not likely that out existence sustains another creature? as for why we don't know about it, you have to wonder how aware of us those plants are.
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