Customer Reviews

Vampires: The Occult Truth (Llewellyn Truth About Series)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have read many non-fiction books about vampires, and this is by far the best. Konstantinos gives you a look back at the history of vampires and gives you an idea of what to believe. The greatest part of this book is in the chapter where the author reveals letters he has received from alleged vampires. According to one anonymous vampire, "We are real, we are many, we are forever....". That is my favorite quote from the book. He also informs you on how to ward off vampire attacks. I have never seen so much thorough and informative information before in a book based on the occult. This book slightly describes, but also eliminates, myth from the vampire legend. This book destroys the typical "Hollywood" vampire. From the moment I received this book, on Christmas, I couldn't put it down, not for a second. He also interviews vampire encounters, and he brings up the important point that since the first city was built, vampire legends have existed. This book was obviously, heavily researched. I have no bad points to emphasize about this book. It is perfectly detailed, discriptive, and informative from start to finish. In conclusion, I doubt you will find a more complete book on the possibility of vampires existing than this. It has already become a favorite book of mine.

As you can tell from the five-star-ranking I gave to this book, I think it's really a remarkably good book. Divided into four parts (Immortal blood-drinkers, mortal blood-drinkers, unconscious psychic vampires and conscious psychic vampires), it shows a rationality and believability you wouldn't normally expect from a "vampire book". However a *little* esoteric and/or occult knowledge is helpful understanding especially the part about defense against attacks from psychic vampires, i. e. you shouldn't be utterly allergic to the concept of aurae, astral travel and such. Therefore, this book is perfect for occultists, people interested in esoterics and goths of the a-little-more-serious kind - of these, everyone should have it! - , though simply "somewhat weird" to the rest. By the way, the style of writing is quite understandable to people not speaking english as a native tongue, too.

Konstantinos' book Vampires is mostly an interesting, easy to read, and well-written introduction to the phenomenon known as vampires; where they're from, what famous individuals from history who have inspired the modern view of vampires, how different the belief in vampires looked in different parts of the world, and so on.

Konstantinos, who for over fifteen years have researched the occult and written several books about most matters concerning the world of goth and the occult, manages to create a (mostly) pleasing mix of scepticism and belief, especially when it comes to historical tales about alleged "real" vampires where he thorough and informative explains how folklore easily can distort stories and how things that back in the days were taken as genuine evidence for the existence of vampires today turn out to be quite invalid.

But this scepticism doesn't last throughout the entire book. As soon as he gets to the section about psychic vampires - that is, vampires that prefer feeding on human energy instead of human blood - the perspective changes in an instant. From being both skeptical and critical in his approach Konstantinos now becomes a complete believer, as he starts talking about nightly attack by psychic vampires, a phenomenon that contains every single element from the phenomenon known as sleep paralysis (being incapable of movement, occurring right before waking up or going to sleep, a feeling of slight pressure on the chest, the notion that someone else is in the room, and so on). Obviously Konstantinos and his readers has every "right" in the world to believe in this, but it's quite surprising that he doesn't even mention the possibility that these nightly attacks are nothing but a very natural phenomenon which most people experience sometime during a lifetime.

This complete lack of scepticism took me by surprise, since he up till then had been critical about everything else he writes about. Yes, it's true that the book is mostly written for people who believe in the existence of magic and the supernatural - which becomes especially apparent at the end of the book - but still, approaching this section, like the rest of the book, with a critical mind wouldn't destroy Konstantinos' "occult reputation" (as far as I'm concerned, anyway), so it puzzles me as to why he writes the way he does.

And also, Konstantinos does have quite annoying tendency to keep telling the reader that future chapters and sections will deal with, and time and again he does this. Sure, this way of writing works excellent and can be very useful, but only to a certain extent, and after a while it usefulness simply transforms into something that you just don't want to be reminded of. Perhaps it's just me, but I couldn't help but to find this method extremely irritating in the long run.

However, Vampires is in the end a book for everyone, skeptics and believers alike, since Konstantinos makes sure to remind the reader that even something as strange as the supernatural deserves to be taken seriously. And this is, of course, very true. You might not agree with some of his ideas, but so what? Many people do, and this alone makes the field a valid one to study. Still, it wouldn't surprise me of he finds his largest audience among the ones inclined to believe in those exact things the established scientific community considers to be pure nonsense.

That didn't matter much to me though, because I still had a good time reading it, and I managed to learn something new in the process.

Konstantinos seems to know a lot about the subject. Maybe too much (chapter 10). This book lays to rest some of the myths created over time and by movies. Konstantinos covers everyting from beliefs to the different types of vampires. The most interesting part of this book may be the stories presented. They keep you on the edge of your seet. You won't want to put the book down. The only negative is the constant referals to other chapters.

I'm not really one who is interested in magick and all of that type of stuff so i kind of skipped over all of those parts of the book, but I found the book very valuable in researching historical vampires: namely Vlad Tepes, Elizabeth Bathory, Gilles de Rais, Fritz Haarmann, and John George Haigh. The book gave good descriptions of the origins of vampire mythologies from across the globe. The only complaint I have was that Konstantinos was not completely meticulous in his research leaving out key figures, such as the serial killer Richard Chase, and several books, namely books about Gilles de Rais.

This book clearly explains and gives detailed information about the Occult truth of vampires. He begins the book by separating fact from fiction, and tells a little bit about folklore. When I think of vampires, my mind might take me to the movie Interview with the Vampire. The movie makes immortals look like exotic creatures that lead a pleasant life. But according to Konstantinos, immortal vampires were not (maybe still are not) like this at all. His version of immortals were ones that were animated by demons and ones that were humans back from the dead. His stories of them are quite convincing. He gives his opinion from both sides. The book itself is divided into four parts, Immortal Blood Drinkers, Mortal Blood Drinkers, Intentional Psychic Vampires, and Unintentional Psychic Vampires. When you start reading about the mortal vampires, you will come across interesting letters written from vampires around the country. You will see that average Americans lead a normal, everyday life only with a desire to drink blood. Making them harmless, just with a desire to drink blood. There's also a letter from someone who claims he's immortal, the letter is more than enough to convince me that immortals may still live today. The accounts and cases of psychic vampirism are also attention-keepers. I recommend this book to anyone who feels like they want to expand their knowledge about vampires and life itself.

This book by Konstantinos contains some of the most original ideas on vampirism I've seen in a long time. This was one of his first books in print, but certainly not his least. His descriptions and ideas on the subject of vampirism is one of the things which led me to believe that some of our modern illnesses like Chronic Fatigue might in some way be connected to cases of psychic vampirism as illnesses like consumption (tuberculosis) were linked to vampirism in the 18th and 19th centuries.

His book is an invaluable resource for those interested in the various kinds of vampirism (and defense against them). Unlike other resources, his words are couched in a conversational tone and he does not fall into the trap of relying too heavily on outdated folklore. Some of the letters from the "real" vampires are a bit far-fetched, but it should be easy for any discerning reader to pick out the truth from the hockum.

Most of the content of this book has been printed elsewhere:
Anyone familiar with Montague Summers' "The Vampire in Europe" will recognize stories that this scholar set down, almost word for word, reprinted in this book.
And anyone familiar with Dion Fortune's "Psychic Self-Defense" will recognize that esteemed occult scholar's theories on psychic vampirism lifted out of her works wholesale, without much elaboration on the part of the author.

For example, why is Konstantinos so prejudiced against psychic vampires? (He even says at the start of Chaptre 9, "These are the darkest of creatures." Well, thanks for that value judgement there, buddy. What, did a psivamp run over your dog or something?) Because Dion Fortune is, in her defense theory. She came from a less tolerant time period, when psychic vampires hadn't come out of the closet yet and were a poorly understood phenomenon. Even Fortune's original descriptions were mainly of unconscious temporary energy drainers or of non-vampiric occultists stealing energy from others on purpose. Had Dion Fortune gotten the chance to meet one of our century's modern, self-aware and well-adjusted psychic vampires, she may have changed her analysis. So what's Konstantinos' excuse? Where's this hate coming from? Does he even know what modern psychic vampires are up to these days? The phrase "armchair anthropologist" comes to mind.

"Vampies: The Occult Truth" fails to deliver on any of its promises: "many" never-before published case histories? Not many, really. Letters by modern-day vampires? If you believe in Real Vampires (tm) you won't recognize any of the key giveaways here. However, if you're familiar with real-life role-players, you'll recognize Konstantinos' "vampires" immediately. And there is no fail-safe way to protect yourself from a psychic vampire. Give that up right now, Kon.

Nearly everything in this volume was published before, and the author does nothing to bring the varying sources together, or update them - it's more the Cliff's Notes or Bathroom Book version of works which happen to be foundation material for what we know about vampire folklore and occult practice. Go back to the originals; it will serve you better. Get the roots FIRST, and then start exploring the less well-known corners of vampirism.

The book Vampires--the occult truth is a very intresting piece. The discusses that facts and the falsidies of the common blood-sucker. The book also includes a look at the diffrent types of vampires.It also gives true on hand accounts of diffrent vampires. In my opionon it is a very good book. Check it out.

I am not a fan of Vampires, I'm more partial towards Werewolves and other Shape Shifters.

And just because I don't like them, doesn't mean I'm going to belittle or diminish them... look down my nose or ignore them.

I got this book to add to my library and to try to add what I thought would be a more informative view of Vampires.

There are far better books out there on the subject of Vampires.

He does list out different main types and categories of Vampires from Immortal to Psychic to Mortal. He talks about powers.

He does a quick glossing over of Vampire-like creatures from around the world, brief mention of Vampire Gods without being specific on names that can be looked up and verified. He goes into some historical or documented cases of vampires, the vampire sub-culture... but it all has a very strong sense of lacking depth.

He does alright on the chapters for dealing with Protection from Vampires. The chapters for Psychic Vampires and protection from them, read like simplified, abridged notes from Dion Fortune's Psychic Self-Defense book. That's okay for a start, for those who truely believe. And when he's describing Psychic Vampire attacks, he seems obsessed with the color purple for descriptions.

There's some okay and good tidbits, but nothing that you can't get better and more indepth information from with other Vampire Books.