Despite the mystique associated with vampires, it apparently doesn't take much to become one or be the victim of one. Many illnesses, which are now cured or at least understood, were mistaken for vampire attacks. Coughing blood, like in Tuberculosis (called consumption at that time) and overall great fatigue and languor were the most common symptoms. Seeking a culprit outside of the diseased body gave way to extreme measures, as grave profanators and witches hunts.

The idea of vampirism derives not only from folklore and superstition, but also from secular sources. The word "vampire" has also come to refer to sadistic tyrants throughout History who have lusted for blood and power.

Contrary to popular belief, Bathory was the inventor of the iron maiden, a device looking like a sarcophagus with sharp metal spikes on the inside of the slowly closing lid. She had it made in German where she was traveling -- to recruit new servant girls. She was arrested on December 29, 1610, by her own uncle, Count Thurzo. The trial took a whole year to process, with 350 witnesses. Vanishing noble girls, who went the same way as peasants, caused her downfall, for more questions are asked about the whereabouts of a rich girl than the fate of a poor one.

Sarah Tillinghast, the eldest daughter of a prosperous Rhodes Island farmer, sickened and died around 1776 and was buried. Soon after, one of her thirteen siblings got sick, and complained that Sarah was visiting her, sitting on her chest and making her suffocate.

This daughter finally died as well. Eventually, four more children died, all having complained of nocturnal visits by their sister Sarah during their sickness. When finally another child and the wife began to complain of nightly visitations by Sarah and grew sick, the farmer exhumed the corpses of his dead children. All the bodies were decayed but that of Sarah whose eyes were open and whose hair and fingernails had grown. Her heart and arteries were filled with liquid blood. Her heart was then removed and burned on a rock. The sick child, already in an advanced stage of the disease at the time of the exhumation, died afterwards, but the mother recovered. The remaining seven children were spared of the disease.

Again in Rhodes Island, Mercy Brown's mother had died of consumption (tuberculosis) in 1883, and so had an older sister six months later. After several years following, Mercy's older brother Edwin caught the disease, and then finally Mercy herself died in January, 1892 at the age of 19. Two months after she died, her body and those of her mother and sister were exhumed. There was nothing left of the mother and sister but skeletons. But Mercy's body was relatively intact and blood was found to be dripping from her heart and liver. Consequently, both of these organs were cremated. However, this did not cure Edwin of his consumption and he very soon died from the disease.

Nothing points to her being a vampire, either in life or in death. As the wife and daughter of important mens of that Era, her name is mentionned. Nothing else.

Of course there's that book about her "possible" resurrection, called "La Magie Sacrée - ou - Livre d'Abramelin Le Mage". The complete title is : "La Magie Sacrée que Dieu donna à Moyse, Aaron, David, Salomon, et à d'autres Prophètes, et qui enseigne la Vraie Sapience Divine, laissée par Abraham fils de Simon, à son fils Lamech, traduite de l'hébreu à Venise, en 1458".

A rough translation would give : "The Sacred Magic that God gave to Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon and to other prophets, which teached the Real Divine Science, given from Abraham, son of Simon, to his son Lamech, translated from hebrew in Venice, in 1458".

Around 1900, Samuel Liddell Mathers = one of the founding fathers of the Golden Dawn, during a visit at the Arsenal Library in Paris, came upon the French manuscript of this magical ritual by Abramelin the Mage, which purported to be of Hebrew origin, but betrayed itself on every leaf. The attribution was, however, accepted by Mathers, who was of an utterly uncritical mind. He translated it into English and it appeared in a sumptuous form. (the text in italics has been taken directly from the Golden Dawn website). His version is now easily available under the name :

Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage
Translated by S.L. MacGregor Mathers

In a footnote the editor of the book, Robert Ambelain, promises us: "We shall get into this in a future book about the mysteries of Vampires." The passage near which he wrote this only said that Abramelin described a magical ceremony by which it is said to be possible to force the soul of a dying person to reenter the body. He also note he did it twice, once for a lady who was much beloved by the emperor Sigismund. No name mentioned. It could have been his first wife or his second, or a concubine.

Robert Ambelain later did a book about vampires, and chose Barbara de Cillei as Sheridan LeFanu's inspiration to write Carmilla.

As for historians, Abramelin never existed and neither does the original Hebrew book. The bibliothèque de l'Arsenal doesn't keep fakes, but they do get them. Mathers found a French manuscript and translated it before it was destroyed as a fake. That's why Robert Ambelin had to translate it back to French from Mathers version.

Well, there are many fakes going around, with much more success, like the Necronomicon, who should in fact be the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" (a prayer book) and not sorcery or magic or satanism. If you want a real very old book on magic, try "la Poule Noire" or "Le Grand et Petit Albert" (I have this one), They have no recipe to make vampires, but many of their rituals are still performed in this 21st Century, and sometimes, by people who don't even know it's magic, but have learn those from their elders.

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