The vampires we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film, are largely based on Eastern European myths, especially those of the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.

Our modern concept of the vampire still retains threads, such as blood drinking, return from death, preying on humans at night, etc in common with the Eastern European myths. However many things we are familiar with; the wearing of evening clothes, capes with tall collars, turning into bats, etc are much more recent inventions.

On the other hand, many features of the old myths such as the placing of millet or poppy seeds at the gravesite in order to keep the vampire occupied all night counting seeds rather than preying on relatives, have all but disappeared from modern fiction and film.

The idea of the vampire come from the observations of primitive man that loss of blood causes death. At least as early as 2000 BC they then deduced that the power of life rests in the blood— the life is in the blood Genesis 9:4.

Since death was caused by life leaving the body, and since the life was in the blood, they reasoned that if they could get the blood back into the dead body the person would come alive again. Unfortunately they were not able to pump blood back into the veins and they couldn’t get the corpse to drink any blood.

In Homer’s Odyssey we read (Book 11) where Odyssus sought information from the ghosts in the land of mists, so he poured out blood into a trough which attracted the shades. He kept them from drinking of the blood until they revealed to him the information he sought.

Perhaps if the dead got enough blood they could come back to life entirely or at least enough to be animate.

Here we have the beginnings of the vampire myth—the dead coming back to life after drinking blood.

In the early stories these living-dead were more spirit than matter. Like spirits, they could be invisible, they could fly, they could change form, and of course they needed blood to stay functioning.

Being mostly spirit, they cast no shadow and had no reflection in the mirror. They were obviously evil because they were transgressing the order established by God and they were killing people and drinking their blood.

Since they were evil, they bonded with those things of night—wolves, bats, owls, rats and other animals and forces associated with darkness.

And thus the vampire remained, more a creature of spirit and night until he was given a new life by Bram Stoker in 1897.

"Dracula in the Wallachian language means devil". Not quite accurate, but that is what Stoker saw and copied into his notes. He was originally going to call his vampire "Count Wampyr" but changed it to "Count Dracula." This change is clearly made in Stoker's own notes for Dracula which are located at the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia.

he has the strength of 20 men

he can shape-shift into the form of a wolf or a bat

he can appear as mist or elemental dust

he has no reflection in a mirror

he casts no shadow

he has hypnotic power over his victims

he can turn victims into vampires

But he does have limitations:
he may not enter a household unless he is invited

he must sleep on the soil of his native land

he can cross running water only at the slack or the flood of the tide

he is repelled by garlic and holy symbols (crucifix, holy wafer)

he can be destroyed by driving a stake through his

heart and decapitation

There is nothing in Stoker's novel to indicate that the vampire can be destroyed by sunlight, though daytime, weakens him and reduces his supernatural powers.

Most of us are entertained by the vampires of print and film, but surely no one believes that Dracula is any more real than Cinderella? Yes, many people believe that vampires are real, and even admire them.

Actually there are real vampires.

One type of real vampire is an individual with a blood fetish – i.e. they get off on drinking blood or having someone else drink their blood. You can look on the web and find a website that over 100,000 people have visited that deals with real vampires. Of course, they have no special powers, though they are pale from lack of sunlight. Drinking blood does not make them immortal, in fact, it may shorten their lifespan.

Most of these vampires can be found in various Goth groups. Many Goth women get off on letting a “vampire” drink their blood. It is usually a little licking, never an actual draining.

A third type of real vampire is a psychic vampire. A psychic vampire is an individual with an ability for absorbing the energy of others. They use up more energy than normal people because there are continually in a state of emotional fluctuation: lethargic and almost comatose one minute, hyperactive the next. Most psyic vampires never realize what they are doing, and unconsciously drain from other people.

Like mythical vampirism, no one is born with it. It has to be created in the individual. It's a trait you have to develop, but it does help if you have parents who are psychic vampires. One source says that if you have at least three psychic vampires in your family, chances are about one in four that you are one.

Psychic vampires are present in every race, gender, age group, and religion even Christians. Perhaps you know a psychic vampire.

Is there someone you know who leaves you feeling drained and tired? Does this individual cling to you, demanding your attention? Does this individual seem to always have problems? He or she is probably a psychic vampire.

A psychic vampire does not know that he or she has this problem. If you were to tell them, they would deny it. The only solution to a psychic vampire is a wooden stake through the heart, though simply avoiding them is a better alternative.