Fiction drives the concept of 'vampire hunter.' There are some people out there who claim to carry out such a profession. I do not take these people seriously. I have attempted to converse with them, and they fail to answer some simple questions. They live in a fantasy world, that I know is a fantasy world, because they cannot answer some simple reasonable questions about vampires which exist, as well as ignore certain information because it is convenient for them.
The vampire-hunters of fiction, however, offer us much to look at in understanding something about vampires.
Essentially, these warriors play out the scenarios of 'good vs. evil.'
Many aspects of this struggle are simplified in many stories about vampire-hunters. "Slayers" who become vampires in the process of doing battle with evil, is a familiar one. Dragonslayers who become dragons they hunt.
One feature of the vampire-hunters is 'the arsenal.' This is attractive to many people. To have a specific set of tools that will effectively work as they are cataloged and described to work.
You have a stake or silver, garlic or a cross, and each one performs the task they are said to perform, usually however, it takes 'faith' in order to even realize that they work.
The set-up for most vampire stories, in which vampires are antagonists, is the main character does not 'believe in vampires.' He must face these doubts, and learn that certain objects or substances will actually help him in his quest or conflict with the vampire.
One he discovers the truth that these things work, there is a kind of exhileration.
Having the right tools is quite relieving, once you accept the facts that supposedly point to these things working. Before, garlic is just a spice, after, it is a powerful weapon.
It is a transition, from the mundane, to a totally new perspective.
There are some unusual implements used against vampires, and many movies and novels have explored their applications.
In one respect, many of these tools of the vampire-hunter are symbolic.
Whether they be religious or psychological, they take on symbolic meaning on many different levels. If only it were so simple to defeat evil with salt, silver or a crucifix.
In a literal sense, these objects that vampire-hunters use operate in a literal dimension of physical vampires attacking the living, and it is almost ridiculous to believe that silver or garlic will harm what outwardly appears to be human in form. Because of some supernatural element, these things work, but how they work is usually never explained.
In modern tales, they are pretentiously explained as some previously unknown element in them works in some as yet undiscovered way, and the folklore preserved the knowledge but not the science of their use.
In these cases only a few of these implements can be used and explained in this way, as certain elements don't fit the dimension of the tale they are used in.
If some substance in garlic is found to be scientifically active against vampires, no possible use for a cross can be understood, therefore in this reality, the cross won't work.
It depends sometimes on the effect of brutality as well. All sorts of variations on effectiveness of these weapons are played out. Often depending on the pseudoscience invented to explain the vampires.
One thing that is interesting however, is the idea of 'learning the unknown application' of something previously thought of as useless. All of these weapons of course are used to defend human beings against an 'ultimate adversary.' Different applications come about depending on what dimension the vampires take on. Different symbolic applications occur as well.
Some are invented for the sake of the story's reality, but most come from folklore which developed hundreds of years ago. For the most part, these 'superstitions' about these weapons have existed and many are still accepted to this day by those who believe in vampires.
There is an irony though, that is most often ignored. Beyond the usual stakes, crossbows, spears or bullets made of silver, (and ironically including them as well), are substances which have these properties, all having to do with protection and prevention against parasites and predators of human beings.
It isn't just 'magic' that these things work, although it seems like it at first. Even "Holy Water" has its ironic symbolism.
What these things tell us when fully examined is that they aren't simply 'weapons' even though in a literal dimension of physical vampires, they are.
A human being is a world unto itself. A body which can be attacked, from the microscopic to the macroscopic, and can also unwittingly destroy itself. WE are multidimensional. We can get viruses, we can be manipulated through words, we can believe in lies, we can commit suicide, we can go insane, and we can be stabbed, bled to death, and breath toxic things, and all these things can destroy us. There are so many ways we can be destroyed, its amazing that we still live!
We may take for granted, our 'normal' state of existence, that we live, that we may have our health, and our current condition may be normal, but this state can change at any moment.
Our 'state' can change quickly if some part of us is take away.
The vampire is, and represents this threat. Something can come and alter us, change us for the worse, by taking something from us that we need. While we unconsciously live protecting ourselves, we cook food, drink heated beverages, and take medicines, eat certain foods, etc, we have more dimensions to ourselves than just physical. A television or microwave oven can effect us invisibly. We can drink water with invisible pathogens. People tell us lies and mislead us. Many things can occur which can threaten us that are not entirely physical, or as concrete as a thief wielding a knife.
The ultimate terror is a threat that can happen to us after we die.
The vampire slayer is not just a 'blood cop.' The vampire slayer is not just a vigilante searching for thugs. The vampire-hunter is not just a religious figure who confronts supernatural threats, ultimately the vampire-hunter is a multidimensional hero who can grasp many dimensions at once.
Each separate reality of each separate and individual vampire tale is a slice of these dimensions. The difficulty is putting together a fully dimensional story which serves symbolic or allegorical means, but is able to explain these things in some integral way. Because of the various motivations of the writers of these stories, the vast array of vampire-slayer characteristics are not always explored.
To say, "there is truth in these myths" and offer up a couple that work is as far as most people are willing to go. Take a religious, or a scientific perspective, and select a few bits of folklore, integrate it with whatever themes you like, and your tale is told.
When you try to imagine the multidimensionality of all these things working together, it fails because nobody has ever discovered a 'unified theory' of anything.
And, things are not always what we think they are.
The mysteries of folklore continue because sometimes we discover that some superstition has actually worked.
We usually fail to contemplate that there may be other reasons for their effectiveness, and like the vampire-hunter who finally finds the faith, and tests the application of garlic against his vampire, this is all that matters at the time...he succeeded.
If we were to have a real vampire, and understand its reality, how it has come be the state it is in, and why, we should also have the question, why does the garlic work, and how.
If a vampire was once a human being, we know garlic only works after he has transformed into a vampire. A vampire transformation may or may not be completely due to supernatural causes, but how does the garlic take on a supernatural effect when used on a supernatural vampire?
While garlic is only used as an example here, because we may discover that the reason for the development of garlic in folklore may be due to simple reasons like its application against the Plague, how do our other apotropaics function in this regard?
Perhaps once the transformation is complete, some of these things function because while the transformation may be due to supernatural causes, our post-human being, while having somehow returned to life, or transformed completely while alive, into something that no longer functions in the same manner as a human body, if it is still physical it may have completely different physical reactions to things that normally would not have those same effects.
While many of these statements may seem obvious, the devil may be in the details.
In articles to come, I will explain that there are 'conditions' which human beings pursue which fit these descriptions. The horrific irony is that somehow, as unimaginable as it is, that many, if not all of these supposed 'vampire-hunter apotropaics' have been discovered to be detrimental to this condition. I will argue that there are variations of these 'conditions' or 'states' and also ironically, explain that many of these apotropaics are strangely as variant in their effects, and yet horrifically, actually have these same effects.
I will distinguish such conditions from proposed theories such as certain blood diseases or genetic or hereditary diseases, like porphyria, etc, and shockingly we will find out, that while the label of vampirism is apparently appropriate, it is not essentially what people will call this 'state.'
The reality of the 'state' has been debated for thousands of years, and is mythological in our perceptions, but once we discover the irony of how particular apotropaics have become known to effect this 'state' we will be left with a serious dilemma regarding how we view it.
The ideal of 'vampire hunter' will continue on this blog, not as in the movies, in reality, as some sort of vigilante swordsmen or warrior, but as the hunter of truth, with an added dimension of self-protection. Psychological vampirism will become more and more relevent as we go along, and more specific details of folklore will also be examined.
