The History of Vampires

[Dark Saint Alaick]

What makes a hopping ghost hop?


Many things, but mostly when a homesick corpse, not wanting to be buried in an unfamiliar village, hops home, po and all. In documented cases, the hopping corpse is often accompanied by an entourage of monks, Taoist priests, and mourners. Yin shock makes ghosts hop, too. The yin, as opposed to the yang, is dark, mysterious, and usually out to make trouble. (Cats and the moon are characteristically yin.) Should a fresh corpse somehow come into direct contact with a yin sort of energy, then it reacts, often becoming charged with superhuman powers. And it hops.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

How do you know when you’ve chanced upon a hopping ghost?


It’s not terribly difficult to tell. Despite the corpse’s superhuman energy, rigor mortis does set in, and the joints get stiff enough that it is forced to hop stiffly. According to some reports they have resorted to flying. As for appearances, a hopping corpse usually wears Qing Dynasty burial clothes. As these went out of fashion a hundred or so years ago, the corpses stick out like a sore thumb. And they don’t worry too much about personal hygiene either. One hopping ghost stunk so badly that one whiff killed a relative and knocked another out cold. Some hopping ghosts are uglier than others. Some have tounges that hang down to their chest or eyeballs that aren’t too firmly attached to their sockets. But all hopping ghosts have unusually long fingernails that are their most lethal weapon (especially being on the end of stiff outstretched arms). Hopping ghosts keep best in coffins or caves. They’re not much for sunbathing. In fact, the sun’s first rays are enough to stop a hopping ghost dead in its tracks.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

What should I do if I run into a hopping ghost?


Don’t breathe. Hopping ghosts detect humans by smelling their breath. The old clove-of-garlic-keeps-the-ghost-away trick will not work here. You could try pasting a yellow and red Chinese death blessing on its forehead. This will quiet many unsettled souls. In the event that you don’t have the above handy, just whip out any eight-sided Taoist mirror, a straw broom, long-grained rice, or just a few drops of fresh chicken blood. In a few seconds the corpse will be hopping scared.

Just how dangerous are hopping ghosts?

Well, lethal. Normally the hopping ghosts hops forward until it has gouged the victim’s neck and choked him/her to death. This is not a pleasant way to go. In one other case, the hopping corpse preferred to plop down on sleeping people’s heads thereby smothering an entire hotel full of guests.

What can I do to get rid of pesky hopping ghosts?

There’s only one way to do it, and that is to burn them, coffin and all.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Ghost Festival in China


In Chinese tradition, the fourteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month, in which the gates of Hades are opened to free the hungry ghosts who then wander to seek food on Earth. Some even think that the ghosts would seek revenge on those who had wronged them in their lives.

On the fourteenth day the three realms of Heaven, Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mache form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The reason why the Chinese celebrate this festival is to remember their dead family members and pay tribute to them. They also feel that offering food to the deceased appeases them and wards off bad luck.

Most Chinese would be going out less during the Ghost Month particularly the fourteenth day. Many people have seen spirits during the month. An interesting superstition that the Chinese have about the festival is that it is bad to go swimming during the 7th month. They think that an evil ghost might cause you to drown in the swimming pool. In addition to this, children are also advised to return home early and not to wander around alone at night. This belief is due to the reason that the wandering ghosts might possess children.

Once the festival is over, as the Chinese believe that the ghosts return back to where they come from.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Do Vampires Really Exist?


People are constantly asking me - "do vampires really exist?" It seems that no matter how much evidence there is to suggest they either do or don't, most people are not satisfied without a conclusive answer. I suppose it's human nature to want to know definitively, but without hard scientific evidence in hand, how do we determine if vampires really exist or not? While we may not have an airtight case to prove that vampires are real, there is evidence to suggest that this may indeed be the case.

It's the classic problem with myths and legends in general, but especially with cryptids and legendary monsters - we can't prove that they are real, but we also can't prove that they are not. There are plenty of examples from the past where scientists believed a creature to be extinct only to find it alive and well in a remote part of the world. The legendary sea monster the Kraken was thought to have been pure fantasy until giant squids matching the Kraken's description were finally discovered.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Throughout this site, I've tried to explain exactly what the modern vampire is (and what it isn't), but remember that there are largely different descriptions of various "vampiric" or vampire-like creatures throughout mythologies around the world. While we struggle to come up with a fixed definition of what a vampire is, we may be leaving out various mysterious and unexplainable creatures around the world that have fed into vampire mythology. At the same time, it is exactly the fact that nearly every culture around the world has independently identified vampiric creatures that makes us ask the question - do vampires really exist?

If we had hard evidence, we wouldn't even be asking the question. It would like be asking "do zebras exist?" If we could prove it, there would be no question. At the same time, just because we can't prove it doesn't mean it isn't true. Plenty of people believe in a God that rules from a place called Heaven even though they don't have any hard proof of his or her existence either. So why not believe in vampires?

So, do vampires really exist? There's no way to be sure. There have been reports from around the world over thousands of years of creatures like these. If vampires don't exist, then how do you explain all of these sightings and encounters?

[Dark Saint Alaick]

A hoax is one thing, but the same hoax being played over and over again for thousands of years across independent cultures is entirely different. We have reason to believe they might exist because of these reports, but we have reason to be skeptical because we don't have the proof we so badly desire.

Keep in mind too that if you were to encounter a vampire, you probably would not live to tell about it. Not only are vampires insatiably hungry for human blood, but they live by a code that requires their existence to remain secret - only making detection that much more difficult.

In my opinion, the only way to answer this question is to give the only honest answer anyone can. Do vampires really exist? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I, for one, treat vampires like I treat demons - if they do exist, I really don't want to run into one. Therefore, I choose to be cautious about my actions and activities, and limit my exposure to any of these kinds of beings to a purely inquisitive one.

Better safe than sorry. Or dead.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The Scriptures of Delphi

or

The Vampire Bible



The story behind these writings are almost as mysterious as the writings themselves. It's been a difficult but intriguing journey into the Scriptures and their history, and one that only recently have I come to finally understand. So if you are curious about what they are or where to find a copy, and have time a little time, read on.


What Are the Scriptures of Delphi?


I first came into contact with the writings via an acquaintance of mine from back in my early 20's. This person (who doesn't want me to use his real name, so we'll call him "Dan") knew about my interest in mythology for some time before he finally told me about a connection that he had to the subject.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

It turns out that Dan comes from a family whose lineage goes back thousands of years to the area around the Mediterranean Sea. When Dan was a child his grandfather, an immigrant from Greece, would tell him stories about ancient Greek mythology because he wanted the old traditions to continue on in America. Many of these stories apparently involved prophecies and visions from the Oracles of Delphi. Dan's grandfather insisted that their ancestors had lived in the city of Delphi and that some had even worked at Apollo's Temple where the Oracles did their readings.

I guess Dan's grandfather really wanted him to carry on the stories, but Dan was, and still is, far from interested in mythology. In his later years, Dan's grandfather wrote down all of the stories he could remember, with the apparent goal of passing them down to Dan, who he still hoped would carry on the stories.

Though his grandfather has since passed away, Dan still has his grandfather's writings (as well as some small memory of some of the stories). Even though there is no formal order to these pages, this collection of stories and notes is what I refer to as "The Scriptures of Delphi" for two reasons. First, because that term is used occasionally in the notes that accompany the stories, and secondly because it needed a name and that one sounded good.