Vampire discovered in mass grave

[Cryozombie]

A SKELETON exhumed from a grave in Venice is being claimed as the first known example of the "vampires" widely referred to in contemporary documents.
Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence in Italy found the skeleton of a woman with a small brick in her mouth (see right) while excavating mass graves of plague victims from the Middle Ages on Lazzaretto Nuovo Island in Venice

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126985.200-vampire-discovered-in-mass-grave.html

I get what they are saying, but I'd hardly call this a "real" Vampire... just a piece of folklore.

Do you guys think supernatural things (i.e. Vampires, Ghosts, Leprechans etc) exist? If so why? If not, why?

 

[tellner]

Do you guys think supernatural things (i.e. Vampires, Ghosts, Leprechans etc) exist? If so why? If not, why?

I'll leave it to a much better writer, the late lamented Roger Zelazny:

"It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy - it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool. I have no use for either."

 

[Bruno@MT]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126985.200-vampire-discovered-in-mass-grave.html

I get what they are saying, but I'd hardly call this a "real" Vampire... just a piece of folklore.

Do you guys think supernatural things (i.e. Vampires, Ghosts, Leprechans etc) exist? If so why? If not, why?

A father of a friend of mine was a landscaper in Ireland.
At one time he was hired to flatten a small hill where a road had to be constructed. It was not his usual work, and he was not even from around the place, but from a different part of Ireland.The problem was that NONE of the locals wanted to have anything to do with smashing that hill because it was a fairy mound.

No matter of arguing would convince the workers, so they hired my friend's dad, whom got cursed for this deed. Not too long afterwards, his business folded and he got a heart attack. Do I believe the fairies had anything to do with it? Probably not. Do I believe in fairies, vampires, ghosts, etc? Not as such, but I don't dare make the claims that there is nothing that we don't yet know of.

In Ireland there are still people who believe in fairies and leprechauns and the other creatures of old. And I don't make fun of that, any more than I would make fun of people believing in God, Allah, or the various other deities that people somewhere or sometime believe(d) in.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Well, back when I still entertained foolish notions of being a screenwriter, I had in mind an awesome vampire story which led to my doing better than a couple years research into them. Every subtype, every culture worldwide.

So if they don't exist nothing changes, if they do, I can put 'em down now. *shrug*.

 

[seasoned]

That is the age old mystery, is there something beyond what we hold as reality. I would like to think there is more to life then what is presented. Hope in something is what drives people daily to function productively. Without hope, old age would hold no rewards for a life well spent. You can't believe in some supernatural things and dismiss others. There is not a whole lot of proof for or against it, but everyone knows at least one person, who has experienced the unexplainable.

 

[tshadowchaser]

All I am going to say is tha I have seen to many things and experenced to many things that I have no rational explanation for.
Do I belive ghosts exsist? I will say I belive there is more to life than meets the eye and more than we can prove

 

[Jenna]

Interesting piece - I guess ignorant superstition had a lot to do with the formation of the whole boogieman mythos (vampyres / ghosts / faeries et al). Though individuals will take their own proof of the existence or not of mythical and folklore creatures, like the existence of God, there can never be universal irrefutable proof one way or the other. Me, I just believe that if our perception was the entirety of our reality then we would be quite a limited little race. I think there is more to humanity than our sensory perception, bag-of-meat corporeality and likewise I imagine we have not witnessed everything there is to witness within the reality of our environs
Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

 

[Xue Sheng]

Do you guys think supernatural things (i.e. Vampires, Ghosts, Leprechans etc) exist? If so why? If not, why?

Separately No...But I do believe in Ghosts of Vampire Leprechauns

They also had confirmed witches in Salem Ma too.

 

[Lynne]

The on-line vampire community (OVC) is huge and has thousands of members. Also, there are thousands of vampire meetups. There are vampires houses and covens throughout the world. Not all members are angst-ridden teenagers looking for a source of empowerment. Quite a few human living vampires (HLV's) are adults in their 30's, 40's, 50's on up. There are several types of vampires: sanguinarians who drink blood (it's not illegal but it can be unsafe - sanguinarians usually have donors that are tested for STD's/hepatitis every few months; psychic vampires who feed on psi; sexual vampires who feed on the energy from sex; vampires who feed on natural phenomena like thunderstorms; and there are the hybrids.

There are a few vampire religions as well, such as the Temple of the Vampire and the Vampire Church.

There is a group alledged to be dangerous that are based in Portugal. They recently released a book, The Asetian Bible, available at Amazon.

Most of the vampires I have met on-line and in real life are people with mental disorders however. Or they have suffered childhood trauma. So, many may be adults looking for empowerment or a new identity.

 

[just2kicku]

Growing up in Hawaii, I heard all the stories of the menehune, gods like Pele, Maui. And abunch of others whose names are too long to type out. Stories of the spirits of chiefs and the night marchers. Do I believe in any of them, not per se, but I'm not really willing to challenge it either.

Personally, if I can't touch it, punch it, kick it or kill it, I don't want to play with it. It seems every culture has their vampires and ghost stories, the stories came from somewhere.

 

[girlbug2]

It seems every culture has their vampires and ghost stories, the stories came from somewhere.

The European vampire has been explained very well in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Buri...=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241532889&sr=1-8

The whole vampire subculture that exists today is a very modern invention, has little to do with the origins of vampire folklore in Europe.

As for other cultures, maybe the research hasn't been done in earnest yet.

 

[Jenna]

The on-line vampire community (OVC) is huge and has thousands of members. Also, there are thousands of vampire meetups. There are vampires houses and covens throughout the world. Not all members are angst-ridden teenagers looking for a source of empowerment. Quite a few human living vampires (HLV's) are adults in their 30's, 40's, 50's on up. There are several types of vampires: sanguinarians who drink blood (it's not illegal but it can be unsafe - sanguinarians usually have donors that are tested for STD's/hepatitis every few months; psychic vampires who feed on psi; sexual vampires who feed on the energy from sex; vampires who feed on natural phenomena like thunderstorms; and there are the hybrids.

There are a few vampire religions as well, such as the Temple of the Vampire and the Vampire Church.

There is a group alledged to be dangerous that are based in Portugal. They recently released a book, The Asetian Bible, available at Amazon.

Most of the vampires I have met on-line and in real life are people with mental disorders however. Or they have suffered childhood trauma. So, many may be adults looking for empowerment or a new identity.

Yes, and but most of those are simply modern social affectations based around a certain sartorial styling or otherworldly sychophants. One must surely regard these scenesters as a pale reflection of the vampyres in the generally accepted (Abraham Stoker) sense, no?

I could tell you things that my great-nan shared of her childhood in the foothills of Cluj where the tall trees whistled the melody of the bloodletting. And but that is for another day I think
Yr most obdt hmble srvt,
Jenna

 

[yorkshirelad]

When I was living in Dublin, I saw many strange apparitions, especially on Saturday night, on Leeson Street, after 20 pints of lager.

Seriously though, all my family members still tell of the banshee that arrived at my Grandfather's wake. Even the grounded, logical, people among them swear the thing was wailing in the Garden. Maybe their expectation of it led to some mass illusion. I don't know if it was real, but it was real to them.

 

[theletch1]

That something exists is easy to prove. That something does not exist is impossible to prove. While modern science can dispel many myths and legends by shining the light of logic on them there are many that science has yet to make mundane. Many of those things are ones that are faith based beliefs. Not necessarily religious beliefs but simply ones that don't need physical proof of existence. I, for one, certainly hope that things supernatural do, indeed, exist. What a boring, scientifically sterile world it would be if every thing had a rational explanation.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

I have met people who claim to be Vampires both Psychic and Blood drinkers. I have met people who were so bizzare who drank dog urine who I thought were demonic. I have met people who swear they have seen ghosts. People do not believe usually until they experience things themselves the truth is stranger than fiction.

 

[jim777]

Do you guys think supernatural things (i.e. Vampires, Ghosts, Leprechauns etc) exist? If so why? If not, why?

No. I don't believe in the supernatural, so that precludes my believing in supernatural things.

 

[grydth]

This "evidence" in reality proves nothing.... except that the same wacky beliefs and prejudices that thrive now also afflicted that society.

 

[Stac3y]

What a boring, scientifically sterile world it would be if every thing had a rational explanation.

I know this is going off on a tangent, but science--the search for those rational explanations--requires a childlike curiousity and an endless desire to search and learn. There's nothing boring about it, IMO. And how can a wondrous thing be made less wondrous by a rational explanation? If someone discovers just exactly how a spider knows how to build a complex, beautiful web, why would that explanation make it less miraculous that spiders can do that?

Knowing the why of things just leads to more questioning, more learning, and more wonder. The natural world holds enough wonder to make the supernatural superfluous. Just one woman's opinion.

 

[blindsage]

There are things we understand and things we don't. A lack of understanding does not make something inherently irrational, nor does it make it super- or unnatural. If it exists, then it must have an explanation for its existence that is rational. Whether we have the tools or the capacity for that understanding are not requirements for something's existence. That being said, I thank God for the gains in knowledge that science and a rational approach to analysis have added to our awareness.

 

[Thems Fighting Words]

I grew up with superstition and still believe in ghosts. Even leave room open for anything else that may go bump in the night. Though it doesn't really affect my actions. So if you want to believe in vampires and what not, go ahead, as long as it doens't take over your life. Oh and as long as they're no the glitter-vampires found in that bloody Twilight film (no fanged, sparkling in Sun light vampires, my ****).

A father of a friend of mine was a landscaper in Ireland.
At one time he was hired to flatten a small hill where a road had to be constructed. It was not his usual work, and he was not even from around the place, but from a different part of Ireland.The problem was that NONE of the locals wanted to have anything to do with smashing that hill because it was a fairy mound.

No matter of arguing would convince the workers, so they hired my friend's dad, whom got cursed for this deed. Not too long afterwards, his business folded and he got a heart attack. Do I believe the fairies had anything to do with it? Probably not. Do I believe in fairies, vampires, ghosts, etc? Not as such, but I don't dare make the claims that there is nothing that we don't yet know of.

In Ireland there are still people who believe in fairies and leprechauns and the other creatures of old. And I don't make fun of that, any more than I would make fun of people believing in God, Allah, or the various other deities that people somewhere or sometime believe(d) in.

That reminds me of stories I heard about the modernization of Japan from a uni lecturer. When they started to introduce telephone poles and lines in the countryside, many villagers ended up cutting down the poles. They said the wires interfered with and angered the wind kami / spirits and pointed to the terrible noise made when strong winds blew through the telephone lines.