Death Superstitions

There is a funeral going on in your town, do not travel long distances or travel out of your town. You have to stay in your town until the funeral is over, for if you leave during a funeral before it has finished your trip will be full of bad luck.
If you hear 3 knocks and no one is there, it usually means someone close to you has died. The superstitious call this the 3 knocks of death.
If you leave something that belongs to you to the deceased, that means the person will come back to get you.
If a firefly/lightning bug gets into your house someone will soon die.
If you smell roses when none are around someone is going to die.
If you don't hold your breath while going by a graveyard you will not be buried.
If you see yourself in a dream, your death will follow.
It is said that if a dead person appears to you in a dream and asks you to go somewhere with them, don't do it! No matter how much you loved the person in life, if you agree to go somewhere with them you will soon follow them in death.
If someone dies and a child that is too young to understand death was close to that person, you must cross them over the open grave or they will be haunted with memories of the deceased.
If you look at a full moon over 20 times in one night, bad luck will be cast upon your whole family, with a following death not late after.
If you see an owl in the daytime, there will be a death.
If you dream about a birth, someone you know will die.
If it rains in an open grave then someone in the family will die within the year.
If a bird pecks on your window or crashes into one that there has been a death.
If a sparrow lands on a piano, someone in the home will die.
Two deaths in the family means that a third is sure to follow.
You're not supposed to walk among a cemetery with open graves without a veil over your head. Especially children.
If a bird gets into a house there will be a death
When you experience a chill up your spine, someone, somewhere has just walked across your future grave site.
If a picture falls off the wall, there will be a death of someone you know.
If you spill salt, throw a pinch of the spilt salt over your shoulder to prevent death.
·Never speak ill of the dead because they will come back to haunt you or you will suffer misfortune.
If you take pictures of someone while in their casket, you will bring death into your family immediately.
You must always leave the house using the same door as you came in or face a horrific death.
If a clock that's stopped working chimes suddenly then a death will befall the family.
If a mirror is broken and a piece of it lands over the threshhold of your house then the next person to enter your house will die.
If a robin redbreast flies in the window of your house, there will be a death in the house.
Once you have left a cemetery, if you remember something you have left behind (a scissors for cutting flowers, a trowel for planting blooms) you cannot go back for it and must leave it there because you risk bringing death away with you if you do.
If you say the name Mary Worth 100 times into a mirror in a darkened room and she appears in the mirror, you will soon die.
If you look into the eyes of the deceased, they will haunt you forever.
If your dog becomes rabid, it fortells a death in the family.
If you are the last one who talks to someone who dies, they will be with you always.
If you wear a necklace with a cross, and it breaks, your death is near.
If a white dove flies at the windsheild of your car someone in your household will die a natural death soon.
When a loved one dies, pour bourbon around the room in little drops to prevent evil spirits from coming into the house.
If a group of people are near a fireplace on New Year's Eve and one of the people's shadows does not have a head, that person will die within the year.
Look up at the moon and if there is something red passing by it, someone close to you will die very soon.
Leaving shoes on a table for an extended period of time will bring sickness or death.
If you take three steps backwards while walking away from a loved one's grave, you will die within the next three months.
A grain of salt takes a second of life away. if u get covered in salt you will most certainly die soon.
If you see an ant in the winter, it means death for all people living in your house.
If you brush your hair more than 111 times a day, you or somebody very close is sure die.
If your hair begins to turn grey before the age of 30, you will probably die 20 years earlier than expected.
If any animal dies in the household, you must get rid of all memories of him or he will haunt the house.
Water in the grave (when dug out for the coffin) means they will be restless in death
If you see a raven flying toward your house, the woman you love is doomed to die unless you can keep it away from landing on your house.
If you see an ambulance or a hearse you must touch a button or you'll be the next one in it.
The cry of a curlew or the hoot of an owl foretells a death.
A single snowdrop growing in the garden foretells a death.
Having only red and white flowers together in a vase (especially in hospital) means a death will soon follow.
Bringing hawthorn blossom into the house will be followed by the death of the mother of the house.
Sailors believe that a sick man on board ship will not die until land has been sighted.
If a dead person's eyes are left open, he'll find someone to take with him.
Mirrors in a house with a corpse should be covered or the person who sees herself will die next.
Pregnant women should not attend funerals.
Nothing new should be worn to a funeral, especially shoes.
When a good life was lived, flowers will grow on the deceased's grave. But if the deceased was evil, weeds will grow.
It is bad luck to meet a funeral procession head on.
Funerals on Friday portend another death in the family during the year.
If a broom is rested against a bed, the person who sleeps there will die soon.
Taking ashes out of a stove after sundown will bring a death in the family
If you count the cars of a passenger train, you will hear of a death.
When you see large drops of rain, there has been a death.
Seeing a white chicken on your way to a funeral brings bad luck.
If a woman is buried in black, she will return to haunt the family.
If rain falls on a corpse, the deceased will go to heaven.
Thunder following a funeral means that the dead person's soul has reached heaven.
You will have bad luck if you do not stop the clock in the room where someone dies.
If your rose blooms twice in the same year, it brings death.
If a cow moos after midnight, it is an evil omen.
If you prick your finger on the thorn of a red rose that looks black, you will die.
A white moth inside the house or trying to enter means death.
To see a tree blooming out of season means death as does dreaming of a white horse.
Hearing a hen crow means death, unless you kill the hen.
If a hearse stops while passing your house, it will choose its next victim from your house.
If the coffee grounds in the bottom of a cup form a long, straight line, anticipate a funeral.
Dropping an umbrella on the floor means that there will be a murder in the house.
A diamond-shaped fold in clean linen portends death.
A dog howling at night when someone in the house is sick is a bad omen. It can be reversed by reaching under the bed and turning over a shoe.
·If you touch a loved one who has died, you won't have dreams about them.
A hat on the bed means death in the family.
If an owl looks in the window of your home during daylight hours, a death will occur in the family.
Never hand scissors to someone or they will encounter a painful death.
If you hold your breath while you drive by a cemetery, evil spirits can't enter your body.
You should always cover your mouth while yawning so your spirit doesn't leave you and the devil never enters your body.
The soul of a dying person can't escape the body and go to heaven if any locks are locked in the house.
If a cow raises its head and smells the air, someone has died nearby.
Never put your shoes on the table or you will die by hanging.
If rain falls on a funeral procession someone related to the deceased will die in the near future.
Rain falling upon an open grave means bad luck for the family.

Synonyms of Death

Killing, homicide, manslaughter, murder, assassination, trucidation; effusion of blood; blood, blood shed; gore, slaughter, carnage, butchery; battue, massacre; fusillade, noyade; thuggery, thuggism, deathblow, finishing stroke, coup de grace, quietus; execution; judicial murder; martyrdom.
butcher, slayer, murderer, Cain, assassin, terrorist, cutthroat, garroter, bravo, Thug, Moloch, matador, sabreur; guet-a-pens; gallows, executioner; man-eater, apache, hatchet man [U.S.], highbinder [U.S.].
regicide, parricide, matricide, fratricide, infanticide, feticide, foeticide, uxoricide, vaticide, suicide, felo de se, hara-kiri, suttee, Juggernath; immolation, auto da fe, holocaust, suffocation, strangulation, garrote; hanging &c. v.; lapidation.
[Destruction of animals] slaughtering; phthisozoics; sport, sporting; the chase, venery; hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing; pig- sticking; sportsman, huntsman, fisherman; hunter, Nimrod; slaughterhouse, meat packing plant, shambles, abattoir.
V. kill, put to death, slay, shed blood; murder, assassinate, butcher, slaughter, victimize, immolate; massacre; take away life, deprive of life; make away with, put an end to; despatch, dispatch; burke, settle, do for.
strangle, garrote, hang, throttle, choke, stifle, suffocate, stop the breath, smother, asphyxiate, drown, saber; cut down, cut to pieces, cut the throat; jugulate; stab, run through the body, bayonet, eviscerate; put to the sword, put to the edge of the sword, shoot dead; blow one's brains out; brain, knock on the head; stone, lapidate; give a deathblow; deal a deathblow; give a quietus, give a coupe de grace., behead, bowstring, electrocute, gas &c. (execute) , cut off, nip in the bud, launch into eternity, send to one's last account, sign one's death warrant, strike the death knell of, give no quarter, pour out blood like water; decimate; run amuck; wade knee deep in blood, imbrue one's hands in blood, die a violent death, welter in one's blood; dash out one's brains, blow out one's brains; commit suicide; kill oneself, make away with oneself, put an end to oneself, put an end to it all.
Adj. killing &c. v.; murderous, slaughterous; sanguinary, sanguinolent; blood stained, blood thirsty; homicidal, red handed; bloody, bloody minded; ensanguined, gory; thuggish, mortal, fatal, lethal; dead, deadly; mortiferous, lethiferous; unhealthy &c. internecine; suicidal, sporting; piscatorial, piscatory.

Macabre

Clinical death
Clinical death occurs when a patient's heartbeat and breathing have stopped. Since breathing rarely continues when the heart is stopped, clinical death is synonymous with cardiac arrest or cardiac death. The reversal of clinical death is sometimes possible through CPR, Defibrillation, Epinephrine injection, and other treatments. Resuscitation after more than 4 to 6 minutes of clinical death at normal body temperature is difficult, and can result in brain damage. Longer intervals of clinical death can be survived under conditions of Hypothermia. Hypothermia also improves outcomes after resuscitation from clinical death even if body temperature is not lowered until after resuscitation
Before the discovery that the heart could be resuscitated, people assumed that death came when the heart ceased to function. With resuscitation came the uneasy feeling that what appeared to be death might merely be coma, overdose, or shock. Such fears in the 19th century led to the recently deceased being watched for a period of days, and to crypts and coffins being made 'escapable'.

Brain death
Brain death (irreversible cessation of all function of the brain) means death of both the upper brain and brain stem. A person who is brain dead has lost both the capacity to think and perceive, as well as the control of basic body functions. The term "brain-dead" was coined in 1965 when a renal transplant took place using organs donated from a patient with no recorded brain function. In many countries brain stem death is considered legal death, even if the body is kept alive with artificial means. This opens up for organ transplants of heart, liver and lungs, where the donor has to be dead.
A 1981 President's Commission found that cessation of blood flow, lack of respiration, and loss of full brain function defines death. But because the body can be kept alive by only one primitive part of the brain -- the brainstem -- confusion remains. Cases like anencephalic babies -- born without the more evolved parts of the brain but with beating hearts and functioning organs -- raises the question as to what constitutes life, as well as what defines death.
Some argue that higher brain function command personality, memory, and consciousness which constitutes the personhood," or cognition. Therefore, anencephalic infants and brain-dead patients maybe considered as organ donors.
A first basic test for brain activity was to pour cold water into one ear and watch for any movement of the eyes. In 1963 the electroencephalograph (EEG) was invented which could pick up and amplify the small electrical voltages from the cerebral cortex of the brain. Tests suggested that when there was zero activity (a "flat" EEG) for 36 hours, a patient could be considered dead. Patients in a persistent vegetative state still have an active brain stem sustaining autonomic activity. Some insist that a person is still medically alive until their brain stem dies, although when the cerebral cortex dies, all ability to think has been irretrievably lost.

Biological Death

Physical death is the cessation of normal body functions, the irreversible loss of both components of consciousness, arousal and awareness . In legal terms defined as "brain death", i.e., loss of higher cortical functions.
Death is the irreversable ending of life. Biologically, death can occur to wholes, to parts, or to both. For example, it is possible for individual cells and even organs to die, and yet for the organism as a whole to continue to live; many individual cells live for only a short time, and so most of an organism's cells are continually dying and being replaced by new ones.
When organisms die most of their cells live for some time afterward. Organs can be removed for transplantation.
Irreversibility is often cited as a key criterion of death. By definition, a dead organism cannot be brought back to life; if it were to be, that would indicate that it had never been dead. Biochemically, it is unrealistic to think that death could be reversed. As soon as tissues die, autolysis sets in and enzymes begin to destroy the cells.
A common misconception is that the Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that all complex systems must eventually deteriorate, so it is not likely that any species could ever be immortal. However, this aspect of the Second Law applies only to closed systems, which organisms are not.

Clinical death
Clinical death occurs when a patient's heartbeat and breathing have stopped. Since breathing rarely continues when the heart is stopped, clinical death is synonymous with cardiac arrest or cardiac death. The reversal of clinical death is sometimes possible through CPR, Defibrillation, Epinephrine injection, and other treatments. Resuscitation after more than 4 to 6 minutes of clinical death at normal body temperature is difficult, and can result in brain damage. Longer intervals of clinical death can be survived under conditions of Hypothermia. Hypothermia also improves outcomes after resuscitation from clinical death even if body temperature is not lowered until after resuscitation
Before the discovery that the heart could be resuscitated, people assumed that death came when the heart ceased to function. With resuscitation came the uneasy feeling that what appeared to be death might merely be coma, overdose, or shock. Such fears in the 19th century led to the recently deceased being watched for a period of days, and to crypts and coffins being made 'escapable'.

Brain death
Brain death (irreversible cessation of all function of the brain) means death of both the upper brain and brain stem. A person who is brain dead has lost both the capacity to think and perceive, as well as the control of basic body functions. The term "brain-dead" was coined in 1965 when a renal transplant took place using organs donated from a patient with no recorded brain function. In many countries brain stem death is considered legal death, even if the body is kept alive with artificial means. This opens up for organ transplants of heart, liver and lungs, where the donor has to be dead.
A 1981 President's Commission found that cessation of blood flow, lack of respiration, and loss of full brain function defines death. But because the body can be kept alive by only one primitive part of the brain -- the brainstem -- confusion remains. Cases like anencephalic babies -- born without the more evolved parts of the brain but with beating hearts and functioning organs -- raises the question as to what constitutes life, as well as what defines death.
Some argue that higher brain function command personality, memory, and consciousness which constitutes the personhood," or cognition. Therefore, anencephalic infants and brain-dead patients maybe considered as organ donors.
A first basic test for brain activity was to pour cold water into one ear and watch for any movement of the eyes. In 1963 the electroencephalograph (EEG) was invented which could pick up and amplify the small electrical voltages from the cerebral cortex of the brain. Tests suggested that when there was zero activity (a "flat" EEG) for 36 hours, a patient could be considered dead. Patients in a persistent vegetative state still have an active brain stem sustaining autonomic activity. Some insist that a person is still medically alive until their brain stem dies, although when the cerebral cortex dies, all ability to think has been irretrievably lost.

Spiritual Death

A classical point of departure in defining death, seems to be life itself. Death is perceived either as a cessation of life - or as a passage on the way to a continuation of life by other means. A logically more rigorous approach, would be to ask "who dies" when death occurs. In other words, the identity of the dying is essential in defining death. But how can we establish the dying entity's unambiguous and unequivocal identity?. Death escapes all definitions, it is the great Unknown, the ultimate truth.

Legal death
In western law, a person can be pronounced dead in three different ways. By far the most common is pronouncement by a medical doctor. The second most common is pronouncement by a coroner or a medical examiner. The third way a person can be pronounced legally dead is by the courts; after a person has disappeared for some time, the courts will pronounce them dead so that their property can be distributed appropriately. A death certificate is a legal document which states how and when a person died, and who pronounced them dead.

Social death
A person is not fully dead, Hertz argues, until the proper rituals have been completed.

Religious death
For the Roman Catholic Church death is the "complete and final separation of the soul from the body". However the Vatican has conceded that diagnosing death is a subject for medicine, not the Church. In 1957 Pope Pius XII raised the concerns over whether doctors might be "continuing the resuscitation process, despite the fact that the soul may already have left the body." He even asked one of the central questions confronting modern medicine, namely whether "death had already occurred after grave trauma to the brain, which has provoked deep unconsciousness and central breathing paralysis, the fatal consequences of which have been retarded by artificial respiration." The answer, he said, "did not fall within the competence of the Church."
"It remains for the doctor and especially the anaesthesiologist, to give a clear and precise definition of "death" and the "moment of death" of a patient who passes away in a state of unconsciousness."
Pope Pius XII.
Followers of religions like Zen Buddhism, and Shintoism believe that the mind and body are integrated and have trouble accepting the brain death criteria to determine death. Some Orthodox Jews, Native Americans, Muslims and fundamentalist Christians believe that as long as a heart is beating--even artificially, you are still alive.

Types of vampires

There are many types of vampire according to the acceptance of the term and if the existence of the historical vampire has never been proven, those who inspire from him are legions and would die to become one.
Mythical vampires

Psychotic vampires

Animal vampires

Human Living Vampires

Psychic vampires

Sanguinarians

Blood Fetishists

Vampire gamers

Vampire hunters

Vampyres

Vampiric community

Medical vampires

Mythical Vampire

According to the classical definition that reigned in the middle-age, a vampire is an animated corpse that survives by drinking the blood of the living. It also has a demonic nature and is a servant of Satan, dedicated to spreading its evil throughout the world. Bram Stocker added many desirable traits to the vampire, and the myth was later explored and refined by numerous artists and philosophers.
The body of a vampire is technically dead by human standards. It can be said that a vampire’s body is in a state of arrested decay, animated by a supernatural force or spirit residing in its corporeal form, and kept vital by some magical energy that some refer as ichor.
Vampires usually appear as "normal" humans do, unless they are aroused by bloodlust or enraged. In such cases, the appearance of two, reticulating canine-like fangs may be seen; accompanied by red eyes and a rather predacious countenance.Vampires to do not cast their reflections on mirrored surfaces (although they do cast shadows).
Their images cannot be captured on film, videotape, or digital video. Likewise, the sound they make (vocal or otherwise) cannot be captured on either digital or analog recording devices.
The vampire requires fresh human blood for sustenance. Human blood is the preference of all vampires, although they can sate themselves on lower mammalian forms of life for short periods of time. New or "young" vampires need to feed once every two nights in order to sustain their existence.
The necessary amount of human blood consumed during feeding varies between one-half and one full quart. Some "older" vampires and Vampire Regents can resist their bloodlust and survive for longer periods without feeding; sometimes over a span of several weeks to a whole month.
However, a vampire deprived of viable sustenance for protracted amounts of time will rapidly "age" until it reaches its actual age - ordinarily proving to be fatal, as most vampires are older than the average human lifespan. In theory then, it is possible to "starve" a vampire into destruction. The inherent flaw in this method of destroying a vampire is that the vampire hunter may have to endure while waiting for what could be days or weeks.

Psychoctic Vampires

psychotic vampire is a person who has a sociopath mental illness that leads him (an exclusive male trait) to behave like a vampire, and sometimes to actually self-identify as one.
In most cases, this identification is with folkloric/fictional vampires such as Dracula, Anne Rice's characters or the vampires in role-playing games. But more usually, psychotic vampires are simply obsessed with blood and will commit brutal crimes without remorse in order to see, taste, and feel it.
Some may also take on the travesty-go of vampyre lifestylers by wearing capes, sleeping in coffins, filling their homes with skulls, bones, and souvenirs stolen from cemeteries through they should not be confused with true lifestylers.
Reported in the medical literature for more than a century and also named Renfield’s syndrome after Stocker’s character, clinical vampirism is a recognizable, although rare, clinical entity characterized by periodic compulsive blood drinking and an affinity with death. The cases documented in the medical literature only refer to those cases in which there is obvious psychosis.
In those cases in which there is psychosis, the patients have an irresistible urge for blood ingestion, which is a ritual that brings them relief. They believe that by drinking blood they will have an increase in strength and immunity prolonging their life.
In many cases the individual enjoyed drinking their own blood, known as "auto vampirism." Some patients would deliberately wound themselves at the base of the tongue in order to suck at these wounds and swallow the blood.
Clinical vampirism groups some of the most shocking pathological behaviors observed. It is one of the few pathological manifestations that blends myth and reality in dramatic fashion and contains many possible elements including schizophrenia, psychopathic and perverse features.
Several notorious criminals in history re considered by scholars and psychologists to have been psychotic vampires, including Fritz Haarman, Gilles de Rais, the Marquis de Sade, John Haigh, and Elizabeth Bathory. These individuals appear over and over in non-fiction books about vampires.

Animal Vampires

Why should vampirism be a disease limited to only human corpses ?
Bats and the vampire fish are the surviving species of another age but the case of Chupacabra s more troublesome ...

Human Living Vampires

Human Living Vampires (HLV's) are individuals who, while they firmly assert that they are essentially human beings, and to all external appearances are exactly that, nevertheless have pronounced vampiric characteristics having a need, compulsion, or involuntary tendency to "feed" upon some substance or some kind of energy produced by other living things, primarily other people.
HLV's fall into two main classes: sanguinarians who experience blood-lust or blood-craving, and "psychic vampires" or "psi-vampires". Boundaries among categories can be hazy and overlap considerably, and there is no rule that says a bona fide HLV might not also be interested in lifestyle vamping or be a blood fetishist.
Within these two larger categories, there are several subdivisions among self-defined HLV's. There are also a number of different "theories" proposed by HLV's to explain their own origin, or the cause(s) of their conditions.
Human Living Vampires are human beings who are born, grow up, age, and fully expect to die at the end of a conventional lifespan. No HLV claims to be immortal, invincible, or possessed of supernatural abilities.
However, many members of these groups believe themselves to have some form of sensory amplification or extrasensory perception, such as:
Improved night-vision, sometimes to the point of being able to see without even moonlight
Stinging of the skin when exposed to sunlight
An ability to sense other vampires
Broader range of senses
Prescience, or the capacity to instinctively predict the immediate future
Perception of auras
Although some report enhanced strength, stamina, resistance to disease, and so forth, in no case do these traits exceed the limits of human norms. They are prone to any illness or injury that afflicts human beings. They can and do have children. They have normal nutritional requirements (although some HLV's report unusual food cravings, allergies or aversions) and in all other ways are bound by natural law.

I will tell u more about the Human living Vampire in another blogs

Sanguinarians

Within the vampire community, blood-drinkers are commonly known as sanguines or sanguinarians. The word is taken from the Latin sanguis, which means literally, “blood.”
A sanguine vampire – “sang vamp” for short – drinks blood from willing human donors on a semi-regular basis. Amy Krieytaz has coined the term "sanguinarians" for blood vampires whose main vampiric tendency is a compulsion, or need, to consume blood for reasons that are not primarily related to eroticism or emotional satisfaction.

Blood cannot be digested by humans for energy, and is no different in these sangs, which pass the blood out in their dung, urine, and sweat gland excretions. Sanguinarians can contract AIDS, or any other communicable disease via the blood they ingest or manipulate.
Most desire human blood, and many blood vampires have arranged for "donors" to supply them with fresh blood. Some blood vampires describe a life-long fascination with blood and blood-drinking, while others experienced an abrupt awakening of blood-craving which they may or may not be able to trace to a certain event.
The amount of blood consumed, and the frequency of consumption, varies highly among blood vampires, but few consume more than tiny amounts at a time, usually obtained through slight cuts or punctures made by lancets or razor blades on willing human "donors". See Bloodletting
Often, the "donors" themselves undertake the making of all cuts or wounds. Many blood vampires insist that "donors" undergo testing for blood-borne diseases, including HIV and hepatitis. Some blood vampires consume animal blood, but this is unpopular and usually considered an inferior substitute for human blood.
Because of the obvious difficulties in finding trustworthy or consistent "donors", or other sources of fresh blood, many blood vampires are highly concerned with the problem of "blood famine" or blood deprivation. More material substitutes for blood that are reported include "blood" drained from raw meat, rare meat itself, milk and dairy products, and even chocolate.
Blood-drinking HLV's believe strongly that their need to consume human blood is not merely psychosomatic, but none of them has been able to present any workable theory as to just why they require blood.
Blood vampires are divided into two primary categories, by intensity of their need for regular blood consumption.
Severe or "bloodlusting" blood vampires experience the most critical and physical blood cravings. They report a need for larger amounts of blood than most blood vampires or psi-blood feeders consume at one time, and require it more often.
Moderate or "blood-craving" blood vampires are satisfied with smaller amounts of blood from "donors" and do not experience the same intensity of withdrawal symptoms, or inner compulsion as severe blood vampires. They may be satisfied for far longer periods of time with various substitutes, and their need for blood may be more intertwined with complex emotional and sexual feelings.
In this age of Hepatitis C and HIV, this is admittedly a risky practice, and while there are several resources online that offer tips for making blood-drinking as safe as possible (such as Sanguinarius.org), a lot of the safety procedures rely heavily upon each individual's personal habits.

Psychic Vampire

Psychic vampires are living people who have the ability, consciously or unconsciously of draining life-energy (prana, chi, life-force …) rather than blood from others.
Whether this ability was developed through meditation, mentally altering drug usage, or inherited, it can be used by the Psychic Vampire to drain energy for its own use. In the words of Anton LaVey, the famous Satanist, "psychic vampires are individuals who drain others of vital energy". As consumers of energy rather than blood, psychic vampires, like their folklore counterparts, can be men or women, young or old.
Although psychic vampirism seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon, legends about vampire like beings that drain the body of its energy or 'life-force, soul or vitality, who use humans as a means of procreation, predate blood-drinking revenants by thousands of years.
The term 'psychic vampire' was popularized in the mid-1800s when members of The Theosophical Society turned their attention to researching the human psyche, described as the mind, soul, emotions, and all the other mental processes which take place within an individual and which are not visible or measurable in the physical world.
Members of The Theosophical Society theorized two types of psychic vampires.
One was the 'astral vampire', described by Henry Steele Olcott as undead but able to separate his astral body from his material body and leave the grave in search of blood or energy from the living, which he would gobble up and send directly to the buried body in order to sustain its hold on life.
The other was the 'magnetic vampire', described by Franz Hartmann as a living 'psychic sponge' who absorbed the energy of those around her.

Vampyres

Vampyre Lifestylers or "Vampyres" (as opposed to "Vampires") are individuals who are attracted to the contemporary vampire lore and who seek to emulate it by dressing in exotic vampire-like costumery, decorating their homes in dark Victorian (or funeral parlor) gloom, assuming prosthetic fangs and colored contact lenses. It is partly outgrown but distinct from the Gothic subculture.
The term is borrowed from "lifestyler Goth", which denotes people who are so serious about being Goth that they dress and act the part at all times and in all areas of life, as well as for clubbing or concerts. Although aesthetic styles are similar and they tend to attend the same clubs, Goths do not become members of clans or adopt the vampyre ideology.
The Vampire subculture* (or Vampyre Scene) like other system of beliefs consists of people who have committed themselves to an ideology, maintain ethical tenets within a hierarchical system, participate in rituals specific to their clans and in which aesthetics holds a significant, often magical place of significance within the group; aesthetic being broadly defined as symbolism, style, language, religion, art, presentation of self, appearance, and other cultural expressions.
* From a sociological perspective, when a group of people participate in a shared aesthetic in which identity and status are organized around a style that is distinguishable from the dominant culture it is referred to as a subculture.

The vampire subculture is largely a social creation within Western popular culture, seemingly drawing from the rich recent history of popular culture related to cult symbolism, horror films, the fiction of Anne Rice, and the styles of Victorian England. The Vampire subculture seems to exist in opposition to the Judeo-Christian principles of mainstream Western Society. Vampyres pride themselves on practicing the antithesis of Christian ethics and this is apparent in the sexual and violent activities that permeate their interactions and rituals.
Many people are introduced to the Vampyre scene through the role-playing game "Vampire: the Masquerade," others through the erotic nature of the lifestyle and many more through popular literature such as Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles. The subculture is typically delineated by a particular style of dress, referred to as "garb" and decor that combines elements of the Victorian, Punk, Glam, and Gothic fashions with styles featured in vampire films and fiction.
The general lay-out including but not limited to a very pale complexion, a wardrobe made up predominantly of dark clothing, a Victorian, or Renaissance fashion style of dress and hairs, black or blood-red lipstick, macabre silver jewelry, assortment of fetish, corset, bondage, sunglasses, long and sharp fingernails fangs, FX contacts, and a generally melancholy or lugubrious air to go with it. Preferred colors are usually red, black, and purple.
Music is dominated by Gothic; other genres include Industrial, Death Metal, Classical, Techno and a variety of other forms. Some of the more popular Vampyre bands include Inkubus Sukkubus, Type O Negative, Nosferatu and Malkador. Wine is the drink of choice and some members will also drink absinthe although it is illegal in the United States and most European countries.
Vampyres frequently attend Fetish Scene and Body Scene Clubs, which involve public sadomasochistic activities. It is at the numerous "Scene" clubs where the worlds of body mutilation, piercing, performance art, blood rituals, tattooing, and all forms of bondage and violent sexual activity converge.

Lifestylers often form alternative extended families and social structures modeled on the "covens", “sires” or "clans" of vampire fiction and role-playing games. Many also utilize lingo and terminology taken from vampire fiction and RPGs. Some are real vampires in the sense of craving blood, while others are blood fetishists, and still others are just drawn to the "Vampyre aesthetic".
The subculture is most apparent in North America and Europe, and to a lesser extent in certain parts of South America and Asia. There are active groups, dedicated bars and night-clubs in New York, London, Paris, Montreal, Tokyo and Melbourne.

Vampire Gamers

The popularity of the role-playing game Vampire:the Masquerade has created an entire subculture of people devoted to the game, its universe, and the personae they create in order to "live" the game. These individuals have their own network of interconnected websites, chatrooms and messageboards, and enjoy posting to these "in persona" as their gaming characters. As such, they maintain the illusion that they are "real vampires" as defined by the rules of the game and the fictional qualities, history and supernatural abilities accruing to their game persona.
It has been suggested that some gamers may actually be HLV's or vampiric people who have not yet confronted their nature, and are using the game to "try out" the idea of being a vampire and see how it feels. Other gamers are also Vampyre Lifestylers who take the ideals of the vampiric universe in the game seriously and attempt to manifest them in real life.
Unfortunately, many of those in the vampiric community feel that some gamers deliberately mislead and deceive HLV's, and true seekers of vampiric reality, by pretending to be what they are not. Some HLV's fear that by presenting themselves online as "real vampires" who claim to be centuries old predators, the gamers make living vampires look like mere role-players themselves, or create the impression that HLV's also claim, or believe themselves to be, bloodthirsty hunters of humankind or world-weary immortals with supernatural powers.
For HLV's, the gamers not only confuse the issue of what true living vampires are, but also makes it more difficult for them to find each other via such media as vampersonal ad listings or messageboards. This is the reason that the majority of ads listed by HLV's or seekers looking for living vampires strictly specify that role-playing gamers not reply to the ad in persona.

Vampire hunters

Vampire hunters are professionals whose job it to clean an area from vampires that may affect it. In the ancient time, especially in Greece and Serbia it was a recognized profession. Today, a few people still pretend to hunt vampires as Manchester from the Highgate Vampire story.
In fiction, a vampire hunter or vampire slayer is someone who specializes in finding and destroying vampires and sometimes other creatures of dark fantasy as well.


The organizational strength of depicted vampire hunters can vary wildly. Most hunter characters are in small groups working alone and in secret. Sometimes the hunting is a family tradition handed down to future generations of a bloodline.
While predominantly depicted as human, examples of other types of vampire hunters also exist. Dhampiric figures, having a mix of human and vampire blood, are a popular form (such as Alucard from the Castlevania series; D of Vampire Hunter D and Blade of the Blade series of comic books, movies, and television episodes).
The image of the vampire hunter is often a mysterious and dramatic avenging hero, an eccentric extremist, or sometimes a bit of both. A hunter may be a heroic figure, a lonesome avenger, or sometimes, although not usually, a bounty hunter-style character, hunting Vampires for profit. Vampire hunters have also popularly been depicted as hunting various creatures such as werewolves, demons, and other forms of undead as well.
Most hunters are Christian, but there have been Jewish hunters and Moslem hunters. They are usually convinced that the vampire is a servant of the Devil and feel it is their duty to destroy vampires.

As they are people who believe they are real vampires, other considers their life as a holy crusade. In modern lore, HLVs define them as people who hunts, stalks, threatens, or does harm to someone because he or she is a vampire, or because the hunter believes them to be so; or which gathers information to report those who are vampires. Conspiracy theories are popular among those hunters who believe there is a plot afoot by Vampires and by the Goth movement through out the world especially in America, Germany and some other countries.

Vampirism

Vampirism is the practice of drinking blood from a person/animal. In folklore and popular culture, the term generally refers to a belief that one can gain supernatural powers by drinking human blood.
The historical practice of vampirism can generally be considered a more specific and less commonly occurring form of cannibalism. The consumption of another's blood (and/or flesh) can be used to reflect various spiritual beliefs such as gaining the strengh or abilities of the defunct. It may be also used as a tactic of psychological warfare intended to terrorize the enemy.
In zoology and botany, the term vampirism is used to refer to leeches, mosquitos, mistletoe, vampire bats, and other organisms that prey upon the bodily fluids of other creatures. This term also applies to legendary animals of the same nature, including the chupacabra.
When vampirism is embedded in a psychopathic personality disorder the potential for extremely dangerous behavior is compounded as seen in the notorious criminal cases. Many of theses cases involve obvious psychosis, however there is a subculture of individuals who practice vampirism out of choice and preference.