do vampires really exist ?

I never assumed you were having a go Robbie, I afterall did state that I didn't believe in the usual physical vampires bu I am sure stakes made an appearance during the Highgate Vampire case.  Fascinating post by the way Robbie.

Good thanks,

I've enjoyed your posts for a long time too.

Must admit I don't know a lot about the highgate case, I must read up.

When you discuss real vampires you are entering the realm of the supernatural where mainfestations become tangible by facilitating blood/life. It is impossible to apply rational and scientific explanations to the supernatural at the best of times. Vampires, by their very nature, defy all attempts to explain their behaviour, including vulnerability to certain items, unless you are devoutly religious and possibly a demonologist/exorcist.

The Highgate Vampire case ticks all the boxes for a real vampire infestation and is a sceptic's worst nightmare!

Link: http://www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/Highgate%20Vampire%20Book.htm

      Is that necessarily so? Might not there have been a physiological condition or infection in centuries past, especially in eastern Europe, a condition now (thankfully) extinct, which left its victims, for want of a better word, "undead"? And that is precisely the locution the languages of the area came up with to categorize the condition.

      In addition the gradual acceptance of modern embalming techniques must have been a second and final death to vampires.

     Some "psychic vampires" seem almost entirely unconscious of what they are doing.

      For an excellent but fictional treatment of this see "Luella Miller," by Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman.

And yet, albeit ill-defined and virtually unrecognised, they are still with us despite the erosion of belief in such things.

     Are they? We have pretend-vampires and vampiroids today, but "real" vampires seem to have been crawling all over Central and Eastern Europe for the 80 years following 1680.