Vampires Through the Ages (16 page)

This consuming need to feed often takes one of two forms: drinking the blood of a willing donor or absorbing some of their very life energy. Those who ingest human blood are often referred to as Sanguinarians and usually do so in very small amounts, because large quantities act as a natural emetic causing nausea and vomiting. They may feed anywhere from once every few months to daily depending on their need, but many real vampyres report that if they abstain for too long they grow physically weak or sick and in some rare cases can die.

Contrary to most movie images, real vampyres do not creep into open windows at night and bite beautiful young women on the neck. In fact, the human bite is one of the most unsanitary methods available and can lead to serious infection. Instead, real vampyres feed on willing donors by making a small incision in the skin with a medical lancet or razor just superficial enough to draw a small amount of blood but not deep enough to scar. There are of course risks involved in the practice, including the transmission of bloodborne pathogens such as hepatitis and HIV. Small groups of trusted vampyres and donors frequently form what are called
feeding circles
to help minimize the spread of such diseases. A portion even choose to feed on the blood of butchered meat when they cannot find a trusted donor or because they disdain human blood altogether, but this too carries its own set of problems. What's important to understand about real vampyres is their belief that blood carries within it a rejuvenating power, and while most find human blood a satisfying source, many believe the blood of another vampyre is more powerful because it carries within it the essences of those whose blood they consumed as well.

Another means of feeding is known as
psychic vampirism
and occurs when the vampyre feeds off the living essence, life force, or energy of another person. Many religious traditions, especially those with Eastern influences, believe that humans, and all living organisms for that matter, are in part comprised of invisible auric and pranic energy that acts as a vital living force running through the world. While psychic vampyres only ethically feed in this manner from willing donors, much as their blood-drinking cousins, some less scrupulous choose to conduct their feedings on people who are unaware that they are the target of a psychic attack.

The notion of psychic vampirism was first developed in the spiritual circles of the nineteenth century by writers such as Violet Mary Firth Evans, who used the pseudonym Dion Fortune from her family's Latin motto
Deo, non fortuna
(“By God, not fate”). In her 1930 work
Psychic Self-Defense
, she laid the groundwork for this form of vampirism, claiming “that psychic attacks are far commoner than generally realized, even by occultists themselves”(p. xiv). Dion Fortune highlighted many cases of psychic vampire attacks and claimed to have been the victim of several herself. More importantly for the vampyre community that followed, she and other writers like her removed the notion that vampires now and in the past subsisted only on human blood.

Psychic vampirism is believed to occur on a number of levels, ranging from non-intrusive surface feedings where the vampyre draws upon the faint cast-off energy of those around them, to deep feedings in which they siphon large amounts of energy from a single person. A few even claim the ability to leave their body in astral form while asleep and seek out victims whom they feed upon remotely in dreams. Finally, some are said to be completely unaware that they even possess the ability and drain those around them unconsciously.

In Konstantinos'
Vampires: The Occult Truth
, the author and occult expert recounts his own brush with a psychic vampyre while at a party. After entering a mildly altered state of consciousness from exhaustion, Konstantinos gazed across the room to an older woman sitting by herself and was horrified to find he could see her dark vampiric emanations, which he described as a “dark purple aura that emanated about two feet from her body. Towards its edges the aura seemed to darken so that it looked almost black, yet the darkened area did not prevent me from seeing through it to the purple area. From the dark edge of the aura, several thin, black tentacles were protruding and moving towards the group of party guests” (Konstantinos 1996, 148).

Some conditions require that all a vampyre has to do is sit in a crowded room and soak up the ambient energy around them, while at other times the vampyre can imagine a tendril of psychic energy extending from their body towards another person, which latches on to their victim's being and drains it of energy. Usually after a vampyre is done feeding, the donor or victim may experience fatigue or exhaustion and on some occasions even illness or worse, while juxtaposed to this the vampyre is left refreshed and rejuvenated. We've all known people who leave us mentally and emotionally drained after spending any length of time with them just as they seem to become more energized by our presence, never realizing that we may have been the victim of a psychic assault.

As strange as many of these practices may seem to some, it's important to note that although lifestyle vampyres and real vampyres represent the vast majority of the vampyre subculture, there are other variations or hybrid groups mixing at various levels with everything from gothic to punk to sadomasochistic eroticism. Even within the major groups that represent the modern vampyre there is much overlap, and distinguishing between a real fang and a fake fang can be difficult at times. While interest in vampires will always cycle between periods of dormancy and sheer mania, it's exciting to watch the new face of the vampire being applied by modern enthusiasts, adding yet another chapter to the creature's legend.

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Hence as long as one believes that the evil man wears horns, one will not discover an evil man.

—Erich Fromm,
The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness

8

The Blood Drinker Next Door

Sitting like a pale specter in the dark sky, the gibbous moon wanes high overhead as you make your way through the twisting streets of the neighborhood. In another twenty minutes you'll be back at home sitting in front of the television watching your favorite sitcom and thinking about work tomorrow. For now the crisp air muffles the sounds of your cadence, and the occasional noise of a distant dog barking is the only thing that seems to break the silence. Rounding Elm Street you quicken the pace, knowing that you're about to enter a section that most other residents shy away from even during the daylight. Weed-choked lots spring up where houses once stood, and the few that do remain sit like quiet sleepers with their shades tightly drawn.

A twisted wrought-iron fence begins on your left, and although you would rather not look, you still glimpse the forms of the fading tombstones and moldering crypts beyond that make up Oakwood Cemetery. Of course as an adult you don't believe in ghosts or other such nonsense, but the place does have its share of creepy tales, and walking past it at night alone does nothing to keep the hairs on the back of your neck from standing up. Moving your legs faster, you break into a nervous run past the massive gates that mark its entrance until you round another corner, losing it from sight. With aching lungs and burning muscles you eventually slow to a walk again, giving yourself time to get your heart back under control. Now that the fear is gone, you cannot help but smile at the thought of how childish it all seems. You blame your grandmother for filling your head with all those stories about vampires lurking around cemeteries just waiting to pounce on naughty little children.

Lost in your thoughts, you hardly notice the car coming up from behind until it pulls to a stop next to you. Its murky interior seems impenetrable in the darkness, and just as your brain begins to flash its warning signals the window rolls down and out pops the smiling face of your next-door neighbor, Mr. Johnson.

“Out for an evening stroll, I see,” he beams at you.

“Ye … yes,” you stutter in obvious relief. “But I'm a little winded right now.”

“Well, by all means, then, hop in, and I'll give you a ride home,” he offers.

You hesitate at first, looking back to the bend that leads past the cemetery once more. After all, he is your next-door neighbor, right? You've seen him going to church on Sundays; he always keeps his yard nice; and he has a wife and kids. Bending low to enter the dark car, you think how lucky you are not to have to run past that creepy cemetery again, never realizing that the real monster is sitting in the seat next to you, smiling and adjusting the mirror as he pulls away from the curb and drives off into the night.

Days later the authorities will find your lifeless body, drained of all its blood, in a ditch not far from the cemetery, and although they have no suspects the local paper will run sinister headlines such as “Vampire Killer on the Loose,” or “Body Found Drained of Blood.” Not long afterwards, Mr. Johnson will be out in his yard pruning his rose bushes, and a neighbor will stroll by and make small talk before commenting on what a tragedy it is that someone from the block was murdered. Then Mr. Johnson will pause, smile his toothy grin, and say, “Why, yes, whoever did such a thing must be a real monster indeed.”

Throughout our ghoulish examination of the vampire, we've traveled to many exotic lands and delved deep into the past to hunt down some of the world's most notorious blood drinkers. During this journey we've encountered some of the creature's most frightening incarnations, but as impossible as it seems, we have yet to examine one of its most insidious— and therefore most dangerous—forms.

The worst of these infernal monsters do not have fangs, rest in graves during the day, or run screaming from crucifixes; nor do they have Hollywood movies made about them. Instead, they hold normal jobs, live in quiet neighborhoods, pay their taxes, and drive fuel-efficient cars. They live not on the fringe of society creeping around graveyards at night, but rather they hide in broad daylight, making themselves indistinguishable from the rest of us. The most diabolical vampires are not those whispered about in the superstitions of Eastern European peasantry, but rather the ones who live right next door to you.

Fritz Haarmann

Take, for example, the infamous Fritz Heinrich Karl Haarmann, whom the German press came in the 1920s to dub the “Vampire of Hannover.” Born in the city of Hannover in Lower Saxony on October 25, 1879, Haarmann was the unassuming sixth child of a stern and impoverished German family. In fact, there is little to say at all about his early life until 1898, when he came to the attention of authorities after he was arrested on the charge of child molestation. In lieu of prison, however, doctors found him mentally unfit to stand trial and transferred him to a psychiatric intuition, where he stayed a few brief months before escaping and fleeing across the border into Switzerland.

After several years on the run, Haarmann returned to Germany and enlisted in the army under an alias; yet despite being listed as a good soldier, he was discharged in 1903 with neurasthenia, an early medical term for mental exhaustion. Haarmann returned to Hannover, where the authorities incredulously seemed to have forgotten all about his past, and for the next decade he found himself in and out of jail for petty crimes ranging from theft to fraud. During this period his run-ins with the police allowed him the advantage of becoming a low-level informant, which he later used to deflect their attention away from his own activities. In addition to his criminal activities, he also learned a trade as a butcher and opened a shop in the seamy underbelly of the city's Old Quarter, where few questions were ever asked and even fewer answers given.

It wasn't until September of 1918, however, during a time when Germany languished under a harsh economic depression just weeks before its conclusive defeat in World War I, that he committed the first of a long string of murders by taking the life of a seventeen-year-old boy named Friedel Rothe. At the time police knew only that the boy had gone missing and was last seen in Haarmann's company, but when Friedel's family began clamoring for answers, officials raided Haarmann's apartment, where they found Haarmann with a semi-naked, underage boy. Although no evidence surfaced as to Friedel's whereabouts, Haarmann was charged with the sexual assault of the young boy found in his apartment and sentenced to nine months in prison.

A year later and back on the streets of Hannover, Haarmann met a young runaway named Hans Grans, who was working as a male prostitute. The two became lovers and moved into Haarmann's old apartment together, where Haarmann hatched the deadly scheme of luring runaways back to their quarters to be stripped of their belongings and murdered. He put the plan into action by prowling the railway stations at night looking for destitute boys sleeping on the platforms. After finding one he was attracted to, he would awaken him with a forceful nudge of his boot, and under the guise of being a station manager or rail detective demand to see his ticket.

If the boy was unable to produce a ticket (which was usually the case), Haarmann feigned sympathy for his plight and invited the boy back to his apartment, where Haarmann filled him with food, wine, and the promise of a warm bed. Once the boy's head was swimming with too much alcohol, Haarmann sprang his trap, and with a sudden leap he would grab the boy from behind, tearing open the boy's throat with his teeth, then raping him and drinking his blood.

Haarmann would later clean up the evidence, pawn the victim's belongings, and butcher the body to be sold as salted pork on the black market, in what can only be compared in gruesomeness to something from
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
. What portions proved not to be disposable Haarmann weighed down with rocks and dumped into the nearby Leine River, which in June of 1924 led to his undoing after a bag of human remains washed ashore. After dragging the river for days, the police discovered nearly five hundred human bones belonging to what they believed were twenty-two separate victims.

Given Haarmann's history as a sexual predator in the community and his questionable involvement in the disappearance of Friedel Rothe, he became number one on their list of suspects and was placed under constant surveillance. Authorities would not have to wait long, though. True to his nature, he was soon arrested for trying to lure yet another teenaged boy back to his apartment. In a search of his residence, police were horrified to find its walls splattered with blood and items belonging to his victims neatly kept as souvenirs.

Under interrogation, Haarmann estimated he had murdered as many as fifty to seventy young boys (he would be convicted of murdering twenty-four), referring to them in his shocking confession as “game,” and went on to implicate his accomplice Hans Grans in the crimes as well. The trial that followed became a sensation across Germany, and on December 19, 1924, Fritz Haarmann was convicted of twenty-four separate counts of murder and sentenced to death. While he oddly pleaded to be decapitated with a long sword in the town market, his life was instead ended four months later under a guillotine's blade behind the walls of Hannover prison. His brain was removed and shipped to the Göttingen Medical Hospital for study, where it rests to this day in a jar of formaldehyde. Initially Hans Grans was also sentenced to death, but after a second trial his penalty was reduced to twelve years, and he died in Hannover in 1975.

Béla Kiss

While Fritz Haarmann was still alive and stalking the cobblestone streets of Hannover, another monster was plying his bloody trade in a land not far to the east. For all intents and purposes, Béla Kiss appeared on the surface to be nothing more than a simple tinsmith. Although few facts are known about his early life, we do know that he was born in 1877, and in 1900 he moved into a rented cottage in Cinkota, just outside of Budapest, Hungary, where he set up shop as a tradesman.

Well liked by everyone in the town, Béla Kiss was a self-taught man who spent large amounts of time reading anything he could get his hands on. He also had quite the reputation as a ladies' man, and a number of attractive women were seen in his company from time to time. While the envy of most men, married or not, it was equally noticeable that his female companions didn't seem to last long, and before anyone knew it, they were gone.

In 1914 war broke out, and at the age of thirty-seven Béla Kiss joined the Hungarian army and marched off to the battlefields of Europe along with most of the other men from the town. As the news from the front remained grim, many in town guessed that he, like countless others, must have ended up either dead in a muddy trench somewhere or a prisoner of war. His landlord, reasoning he would surely never return, remembered that Béla Kiss had kept a number of large drums behind his house that he claimed were for storing petrol.

Hoping to profit from the abandoned cache, the landlord punctured one of the drums, but instead of the smell of gasoline he was greeted with the overpowering odor of rotting flesh. Fearing the worst he called in the local police, who led by Detective Chief Charles Nagy removed the drum's lid and found the naked body of a young woman preserved in wood alcohol. Six more drums were opened, and in each the same gruesome sight awaited. Later autopsies revealed that each of the women had been strangled to death with a rope, but lending an even more macabre element to the case was that they all had two small puncture marks on their necks and were completely drained of blood.

With this discovery Detective Nagy and his men combed the rest of the house and property, finding an additional seventeen bodies, all of which bore the same causes of death and evidence of exsanguination. Some were buried about the yard while others were simply stacked like cord wood in a nearby tool shed. In one part of the house, officials even found a secret room containing countless letters between Béla Kiss and numerous women. By the looks of it, Detective Nagy surmised, the silver-tongued Kiss had been enticing women to his home for years with promises of marriage and then murdering them.

Catching such a clever killer proved harder than police could ever have imagined, however, since Béla Kiss was presumed killed or captured on the front. Nagy alerted the military nonetheless and ordered the arrest of Kiss, but on October 4, 1916, he received a letter from the commandant of a Serbian hospital with the news that his fugitive had died of typhoid. Initially it seemed that the “Monster of Cinkota” had escaped justice, but soon after the first letter a second correspondence arrived from the hospital stating that a mistake had been made and that he was alive after all and recuperating. With the news in hand, military officials rushed to the infirmary ward only to find that the body in his bed was not that of Béla Kiss, but rather a soldier who had died shortly before. It appeared that Kiss was tipped off somehow and substituted a dead body for his own before disappearing.

For years the Hungarian police continued to receive sightings of Béla Kiss from around Europe and even from as far away as America. Some claimed that he had been jailed in Romania for theft, others that he died of yellow fever in Turkey. In the 1920s he was said to be a soldier in the French Foreign Legion, and in 1932 he was even reportedly spotted in Times Square, New York, working as a janitor. In each of these cases the reports were either untrue or the suspect vanished prior to questioning, and the trail went cold. Who exactly Béla Kiss was, where he went, and why he drained his victims of their blood in such a peculiar manner are answers that are forever lost to us.

Richard Chase

If one were to assume that such vile acts were only committed by people who lived long ago, one would be dangerously wrong. A more modern case is that of Richard Trenton Chase, the “Vampire of Sacramento,” who in late 1977 and early 1978 murdered six innocent people and drank their blood. While Chase's life started off as normally as any other, he began showing signs of mental illness in early adolescence, including a bizarre hypochondria concerned with the functioning of his internal organs. By adulthood he was abusing drugs and alcohol frequently and had developed a curious obsession for consuming blood, based on the delusion that if he did not, his body would disintegrate.