Vampires Aren’t Sexy!! Jacob takes the opportunity to beat his favorite wooden stake and inform anyone he can about the very Christian context of Vampire folk lore. Did you know Vampires and Werewolves don’t hate each other? Did you know that vampires don’t sparkle in the sun? Did you know that 200 years ago an angsty British dude basically invented the sexy vampire stereotype and ruined it for the rest of us? Of course you didn’t! But you will! Jacob insists!!!
Resources
- Voyage Blog Entry – Dracula Doesn’t Suck!
- Voyage Blog Entry – WHETHER IT’S IN A WORD OR IN A LOOK, YOU CAN’T GET RID OF THE BABADOOK’S POSSESSION HOOK!
- Read the latest entry of the Voyage Blog!
Listen to the latest Voyage Podcast
Related Episodes
- Dracula Doesn’t Suck, Jacob is Gunna Tell You Why!
- Save the Whole World and Losing Your Soul – the Last of Us season finale
- Be Willing to Wait a “Long Long Time” – the Last of Us
Transcript
Jacob (00:00.066)
that gold for the banter. Some dream analysis.
mike (00:01.215)
Cause yeah, I was gonna say, nothing says good. Nobody, nobody said nothing says good audio, like listening to somebody else’s dream, right? Aren’t you just like on the edge of your seat? I thought to myself.
Jacob (00:11.63)
That’s weird that you go on. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (00:14.958)
Well, so the reason why it’s actually stuck with me is because when I, I didn’t think about it right when I woke up, but I later on after reflecting, I was like, is this what it means to go past 30? Is this what being in your 30s means? So here’s what you’ll kind of get what I mean. And hopefully maybe you’ll resonate with this a little bit. So I’m in the dream and it’s first person. So it’s just me looking around or whatever. I’m on a basketball court and it’s about to start a pickup game. ruined Christian vampire lore
And you know how in pickup games to determine who gets the ball first is you’ll have like two reps from each team, one from each team shoot and whoever makes the three pointer, that’s whose team gets to start. So we’ve started with the ball and I’m looking around and it occurs to me or somebody says to me in the dream that it’s going to be full court, that it’s not just a half court game that we’re going to be playing full court. And in the dream I drop the ball and I walk away and that’s how I wake up is me saying…
Jacob (00:43.42)
Okay. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (01:10.329)
I don’t know. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (01:13.178)
enough of this. I’m not, I’m not doing any of that. None of that full core. That’s a young man’s game. Yeah. Running back and forth. Yeah. So I said to my, that’s my, yeah, my subconscious is saying, this is what 30 is. This is what 30 is like. So. There you go.
Jacob (01:15.04)
I’m not doing full court nonsense. That’s a young man’s game. I do think that’s your dreams trying to tell you that you’re over the hill, Mike. Yeah.
Jacob (01:30.626)
I had a dream last night that my mom wanted to borrow my car to drive it out of state. And I was like, who’s going to pay for all that gas? And she was like, well, you should just sell your wedding ring. So it’s like, what’s that dream trying to tell me, Mike? That’s what I want to know. What’s the Jungian analysis on that one? But it was my mom. But it was my mom asking me to do it too. Yeah, I don’t know. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (01:46.918)
Yeah, yeah, that seems, that’s a little bit worse than age, yeah, that’s a little bit worse than aging. I think you might be going Freudian. Yeah, that’s Freudian. That’s Freudian right there, yeah. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (01:59.906)
I’ve been having weird dreams lately, man. So, okay. Yeah, vampires, speaking of, you know, there’s a famous, there’s a famous painting called ruined Christian vampire lore The Nightmare that has like this golem looking creature, almost like a gargle, like sitting on top of a woman’s chest. It’s from the 19th century, I think. Yeah, it’s pretty famous. You see that oftentimes in like vampire collections. They’ll use that as like an image of a vampire. So that’s how.
mike (02:03.986)
So vampires, talk about derailing. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (02:18.162)
Okay. ruined Christian vampire lore
Oh yeah, I can picture that. Yeah. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (02:28.774)
Like when somebody’s researching, like when they’re like, oh my gosh, is this a vampire? And that’s part of their research montage is, yeah, it’ll be that page.
Jacob (02:35.154)
Yeah, exactly. That’s going to show up in that student’s PowerPoint presentation. That image is going to… honestly, it’s a creepy image, so it works. So that’s how we’re tying the dreams to the vampires, Mike. See, I solved the problem.
mike (02:40.854)
Oh, like the foreshadowing, yeah. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (02:50.022)
Sure. Thank goodness. Glad one of us can keep this train rolling. So anyway, since we’re still on Monster Month, since this Monster Month just, it’s like you had to pick the October where there’s five Tuesdays. So since we’re still in Monster Month, let’s, so yeah, we’re going through, and you wanted to be like, oh, it’s so basic, we’re talking about zombies, but it’s like, what could be more basic than vampires? So why don’t you kick us off? Did you want to, we’re going to go through some of our favorites. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (02:54.962)
You know, this will
Jacob (03:03.038)
It’s true, which I am so excited about. Hopefully we don’t just like. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (03:17.482)
You know what? This is my opportunity. The reason why we’re doing this vampire. And you know what? Before all is said and done, I suspect we are going to do a second episode on Dracula. So this is kind of a two-parter, which we’ve been trying to get away from.
mike (03:32.686)
Yeah, you suspect as if the Dracula wasn’t your first idea. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (03:36.434)
The Dracula, I want to talk about Dracula, but there’s this you see, you see, Mike, this is a hobby horse of mine, a blood sucking undead hobby horse of mine, where I am going to bring back the true folklore of vampirism for a world that has turned them into sparkly, you know, sun drenched lovers or something like that.
mike (03:45.512)
Oh, okay. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (04:03.203)
I have no idea what that’s a reference to. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (04:04.902)
Yeah, what reference could I possibly be making? Or, you know, I mean, honestly, we’re gonna go through all of it. But there’s so much to discuss here. And hopefully, it’s not going to turn into just one giant cloud yelling lecture. But this, this is my platform, I have a platform, and I’m going to use it for the things I think are important. And that is demystifying vampirism for a secular culture.
mike (04:20.508)
Yeah. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (04:26.546)
He chooses the day that our producer calls in sick to say, this is where I finally get to say my piece, right? ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (04:34.538)
We’re going to set the record straight on this thoroughly abused folklore, which is way cool, especially for Christians. And it’s going to take two episodes if you combine Dracula as like a second half to this episode.
mike (04:48.846)
Jacob will say that Jacob has that von Helsing complex. He’s got to say. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (04:53.09)
I have a von helsing van helsing complex that’s right. Okay, so, but I also recognize that because this could just turn into me like lecturing the audience. So I thought, ultimately, I was like, you know what, we’re gonna make a little we’re gonna make a little vampire story sandwich mic. And the first piece of bread is going to be just pop culture fun stuff. Let’s just talk about a few vampire movies we like or stories. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (05:06.514)
Uh huh. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (05:15.335)
OK. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (05:20.182)
All right, yeah. That’s accessible. That’s. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (05:22.122)
Then I’m gonna, then I’m gonna, yeah, we’re going to, it’s like a compliment sandwich, only it’s like interesting things for the audience in the front, stuff only Jacob cares about in the middle, interesting things for the audience on the end, and hopefully we just keep them. Hopefully they just persevere through my, you know, ranting. But you know what, I think this is all very interesting stuff. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (05:38.982)
Yep. I’ll be sure to give the timestamps so people know when to, yeah, skip ahead. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (05:50.326)
So hopefully our audience will too. But yeah, let’s start off with some fun ideas. Like, you know, let’s keep it fun. Let’s like lure them in with the fun stuff. So let’s talk about vampire movies or books or whatever.
mike (05:58.574)
Yeah, now I figured, you know, we can’t talk about vampire movies without first talking about the basis, the foundation for vampire movies, which is of course, Twilight. And so I thought that, see, I wanted to go on that. I wanted to go on that angle. Yeah, no. So, of course, referring to the sparkly sexy vampires that you were talking about. But anyway, what are some real ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (06:10.274)
Okay, yes, Twilight’s exact. Nice. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (06:23.846)
Yep, exactly. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (06:25.871)
I can remember some real fun ones. I know they’re going to be the.
Jacob (06:27.666)
Yeah, well, here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. I’m super horror movie guru vampire guru. I’m curious, like, what’s your background? I mean, like, do you have I mean, do you care about this topic at all? Are there any movies that you actually like that are about vampires, blah, I should have said blah, but ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (06:38.611)
So. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (06:43.022)
Yeah. Well, speaking as… So I can… I probably the first… You know, I can remember probably too young, but have seen from Dusk Till Dawn, the Quentin Tarantino, George Clooney, Robert Rodriguez, is that? Yeah. But yeah. And then… ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (06:59.286)
That is truly a classic vampire movie. That’s right. Robert Rodriguez. Quentin Tarantino helped write it and it was directed by Robert Rodriguez though. Though I do believe. Well, all right. So it’s an interesting case because it’s almost, there’s two different movies that are slapped together. Do you remember how there was that grind house thing that happened in the early two thousands?
mike (07:10.63)
which I mean, it definitely has that feel to it. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (07:23.902)
where it was Tarantino and Rodriguez and they both directed a film based upon old cheesy, crazy movies from the 70s and they showed back to back in theaters. From Dusk Till Dawn is actually kind of like a prototype of that and if you watch that movie, the first half of it is Quentin Tarantino’s movie and it’s got a very different vibe. It’s they the bad guys they capture yeah they take a hostage yeah they take a hostage
mike (07:24.202)
Yeah. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (07:39.227)
Okay. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (07:45.981)
Which I was gonna say, it’s got a very like, it’s like a reservoir dog’s almost kind of vibe to it.
Jacob (07:53.142)
about two brothers, one’s played by Quentin Tarantino. He’s crazy. The other one’s played by George Clooney. And he’s like the straight laced one. ruined Christian vampire lore Yeah, it’s what a wild thing that this movie exists. But like that one’s really Tarantino esque. And it’s them talking the witty dialogue and it gets kind of crazy and sadistic. It’s it’s very Tarantino. That is ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (07:59.402)
And early, yeah, really clean. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (08:04.178)
Mmm. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (08:13.662)
Talking about burgers from McDonald’s, I think, something like that, or no, that’s pulp fiction, yeah. It is that sort of mundane conversation, like you were saying, mundane in the face of this sometimes grisly situation. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (08:24.354)
Yeah, it’s very the second half though is when they get to a vampire infested. Actually, it’s a it’s an adult strip club on the border Mexican border. Yeah, well, not for the kids, right? But it’s infested vampires. And that’s and that’s like a really loony, goofy second half of a movie. And it’s that’s Robert Rodriguez’s.
mike (08:33.534)
strip clubs. Yeah. Oh, thanks for saying an adult strip club and not a, yeah, thanks for giving that qualifier. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (08:51.352)
Mm-hmm. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (08:53.934)
for half of the movie. And so it’s almost like they did the greenhouse thing like 10 years in just like one film though. Anyway, that’s a great pick. That’s a great pick. It’s not for the kids. But they get they get holy water and super soakers. This is a movie where you have a family there’s not a good themes in that movie too. It’s about like family and redemption and all that. The father it’s a father. Yeah, the father is a he is a
mike (09:03.215)
Yeah. Nope. And I was too young, but yeah. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (09:16.058)
Sacrifice for sure. A lot of sacrifice. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (09:20.814)
pastor, I’m pretty sure he’s a pastor, not a priest, but he is a church leader who has lost his faith. Yeah, he’s lost his faith. And so now he’s just taking his kids across country on a road trip. And that’s how they get stuck in this whole thing, because Clooney and Tarantino, they’re bank robbers on the run, and they hostage situation the family and they end up at a vampire club. And but it’s all about the father regaining his faith, like he has to like find his faith in Christ again. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (09:24.678)
Definitely not, yeah. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (09:49.79)
in order to like bless holy water basically becomes like a utilitarian.
mike (09:49.866)
Mm. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (09:53.298)
Well, it kind of ties into, and I can’t remember where this episode is going to fall in relationship to our Babadook episode, but it’s very much a, you know, the purpose of exorcism is ultimately to bring about conversion and faith. And so you kind of see that theme, you know, it’s obviously not the same in terms of like exorcism here, but it’s bringing out the evil, seeing the evil for what it is. And that’s actually what spurs a person’s deeper faith, deeper trust in Christ ultimately.
Jacob (10:05.816)
Mm-hmm. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (10:16.735)
It is. ruined Christian vampire lore
specifically is what happens in that movie because the Dad he’s like well obviously evil exists Obviously these creatures are demonic and so if Satan’s real then God must be real too And that’s kind of like where he’s like you know yeah, okay. I’m back. I’m back. Let’s do this Let’s fight evil with God and so like that’s like in the script of the movie You know it’s kind of like where he goes to so we’re not even like really like stretching it there anyway
mike (10:30.772)
Mm.
mike (10:34.17)
Mm.
Jacob (10:46.262)
He gets a bunch of super soakers and they fill it with holy water and the rest of that movie. One of the kids has a jackhammer that has like a wooden stake in it. One of the kids has the super soaker and like water balloons too. What are some of the other wacky weapons they…
mike (10:56.04)
Yep.
mike (10:59.878)
Mm-hmm. Didn’t they carve a cross into the bullets? They carved a cross into the bullets, I thought. Wasn’t that one of them, too?
Jacob (11:05.99)
Yeah, they were carved into shotgun shells. And so like the dad, he gets a shotgun, but like the pump action has like a means to put another stick through it. So his shotgun is shaped like a cross. Like when he’s like, yeah, like he has like, he holds a cross up and then he like puts it down and like shoots with it with a shotgun. Anyway, this is all very silly, but, uh, Hey, you know what? Like it’s a good movie. I appreciate you bringing it up.
mike (11:17.682)
Oh, so like a shield sort of thing too, yeah.
mike (11:28.958)
haha
mike (11:33.934)
It has a actually, it has kind of a sort of cabin in the woods ending where, you know how it pans out and you see like the ravine kind of underneath behind the club.
Jacob (11:41.354)
Yeah, all the well it’s because you know all those vampires they live off of eating truckers. So the truckers show up to you know this adult entertainment location get lured in the honey trap a gentleman’s club right a blue collar gentleman’s club and they get lured in but those vampires that’s why they have super soakers by the way because there’s all these like shipments the vampires like have all these like trucker shipments.
mike (11:49.904)
Mm.
mike (11:55.258)
Gentleman’s Club, Gentleman’s Club, yeah.
mike (12:02.084)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (12:09.43)
But they gotta do something with all those trucks. And so they’re like, they just like drive them off the ravine behind it. And so you pan out and it’s just this like valley of trucks. Anyway.
mike (12:10.095)
Mm.
mike (12:19.134)
Mm-hmm. Another one I remember is, and again, also pretty violent. I don’t know if it’s really salacious, but the Blade movie, I remember seeing, especially the first one. I don’t know if I even saw two or three, but the first Blade movie I saw a few times. That’s got a comic book connection, too.
Jacob (12:34.59)
Yeah, that is. Yeah, that’s based on a Marvel comic book back in the 70s. They were into the black exploitation thing trying to capitalize on that. And so a black vampire hunter, half vampire. A daywalker. Yes, indeed.
mike (12:48.37)
Gray Walker. Gray Walker, I think, is a… That’s got a very mythical kind of sound to it, doesn’t it?
Jacob (12:56.05)
It does. It does. It actually, so one of my personal favorites kind of stories is called Vampire Hunter D. This is a Japanese creation. It was a series of novels and he had like 20 novels. They’ve started to be made into English. I’ve only read one of them, but they got turned into an anime too, like a couple anime movies. But Vampire Hunter D is the son of Dracula and he is a half, he is a daywalker like Blade. He’s half…
mike (13:17.13)
Mm.
mike (13:23.023)
Okay.
Jacob (13:24.25)
half vampire half human. But he has also turned his back. What’s cool about vampire hunter D though is it takes place like 10,000 years in the future. And it’s this really, really weird world that is like a mixture of like medieval reality. But it’s also got like derelict old technology in it. But it’s fundamentally like a European villager type. But there’s also like Western elements. So that’s what’s so cool about it is like the world itself.
mike (13:33.221)
Okay.
Jacob (13:52.478)
is this crazy mix of like medieval Europe, the Wild West, and like derelict space technology. And then you have the vampires and the human. It is, yeah, it’s, it’s very, yeah, absolutely. That’s a good connection. It’s very canticle lube loads. And that whole the whole shtick there was the vampires actually rose up and took over humanity. And the apocalypse was like a vampire apocalypse.
mike (14:00.69)
So it’s kind of got that whole like, canicle for Leibowitz feel, where it’s like we’re in the future, but it also is kind of bringing to the past too. So.
mike (14:15.846)
Mm.
Jacob (14:17.75)
but then the vampires like fell into disrepair and like their culture died out. They like, I don’t know, I forget. Ran out of people to eat or something, who knows? But like, so you have the humans trying to like recreate society in the aftermath of the vampires and the vampires are still around, but they’re far fewer in number. And that’s kind of the context there. It’s a fascinating mythology that he’s made.
mike (14:18.532)
Okay.
mike (14:44.774)
That’s not the one. No, because there was the other one, wasn’t it called something like Daybreak or Day something? Where they make the, it’s like Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawke, I think, where it’s like, there’s like, vampires are running on blood, the blood, the humans, like they haven’t, you know what I’m saying? You remember that one?
Jacob (14:51.798)
Yeah, there’s, what is that? Daybreakers or something like that? And Ethan Hawke, yeah. Well that one’s.
Jacob (15:04.134)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I do. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s also got dude. It’s got the dude from Jurassic Park in it Why can’t I think of his name? I love that guy Sam Neil Sam Neil. Yes, absolutely. Yeah
mike (15:10.15)
Sam Neal or Jeff Goldblum? Sam Neal. That’s actually, that wasn’t on our list, because I didn’t think of that one until just now when you were, but that’s another, it’s a cool twist.
Jacob (15:19.39)
I mean, I thought about, I thought about like 20 more movies I could have put on this list, but I can’t. I mean, what am I going to do? I just, so I tried to put representative movies from there’s a, there’s a million vampire movies out there, you know, that could have made this list. You know, some, one of my more favorite ones from the recent years is what we do in the shadows, which got turned into a TV show, but that’s Ty, Ty T. Wakiki. Is that, did I say his name right? He did the, he’s done the last couple of Thor movies. He’s yeah.
mike (15:26.458)
Yeah.
mike (15:30.811)
Yeah, exactly.
mike (15:39.566)
Oh yeah, I saw the movie, I haven’t seen the show.
Close enough, yeah.
Jacob (15:48.258)
but he kind of made a splash with this pseudo documentary about vampires called What We Do in the Shadows. And he’s a New Zealand filmmaker. It takes place in New Zealand and it’s hilarious. It is a hilarious and loving send up of like vampire tropes. And the TV show is hilarious too, but I feel like the first season was like the best by far. And the second season’s like, you really only just like keep going so long with the shtick.
mike (15:55.186)
Mm-hmm.
mike (16:04.889)
See.
Yeah.
OK.
Jacob (16:16.33)
But they still do an admirable job. It’s just the first season’s by far the best season.
mike (16:17.063)
Mm-hmm.
mike (16:20.582)
Well, and the movie, I remember the draw for me was actually a Jermaine Clement from Flight of the Concords was in that. And so that was before I’d even heard of, yeah, the director. So no, I thought the movie was, like you said, it takes a lot of those tropes and kind of makes fun of them or looks at them in a funny way. And the whole mockumentary style, I mean, not only did it become super prominent after The Office, but who was the, it’s like the waiting for Guffman, the…
Jacob (16:27.356)
Mm, okay. Yeah.
mike (16:49.79)
Who was that director? This is Spinal Tap. You know what I’m talking about?
Jacob (16:54.75)
Oh, well, that would have been it was that some mecus or who did that?
mike (17:01.486)
No, I, yeah, anyway, it’s been around for a while, but he does it with this really interesting set of characters, you know, the vampire thing. And so it’s like they become somewhat lovable, but they still kind of show their fangs, so to speak, at various points too, and that’s.
Jacob (17:03.842)
Why can’t I think of that? Hmm.
Jacob (17:16.098)
Oh, that’s just really funny too. And honestly, especially the TV show, it starts to bring in other mythology, like other folklore, like ghosts or werewolves or whatever, and just like has commentary on them through the eyes of the vampires. Go check out both if you guys want to laugh at some vampire stuff. Again, they’re definitely not Christian TV shows, but they’re quite funny, quite humorous.
mike (17:24.956)
Yeah.
mike (17:28.658)
Mm.
mike (17:38.65)
Another one actually that I just thought of that wasn’t on your representative list, not that you didn’t think of it, but the Underworld series. Two.
Jacob (17:45.55)
That’s well, I was actually, I wasn’t sure I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up because like, there’s other stuff to get into. But yeah, this whole idea of like vampires fighting werewolves and things like that. Hey, okay. So a fun, that’s fun. I like that. That’s like a lot of fun. This idea that there’s like vampires and werewolves and they hate each other and things like that. We’re going to find out that is not historically based. We’ll just say that. Yep. I’m afraid the folklore, this is not reflected in the folklore.
mike (17:51.296)
Okay.
Yeah.
mike (18:09.307)
What?
Jacob (18:13.89)
But it sure is fun. Yes. I have a chess set. I have a chess set that’s vampires and werewolves. That’s how much I think this is a fun idea. I actually, yeah, I was like, I want that for Christmas, babe. And so she got me like a really nice chess set that like they’re all like carved, you know? Like I’m really nerdy like that. But no, and then what we do with the shadows.
mike (18:14.214)
I don’t know which came first, Underworld or Twilight, but they lied to me. They both have that, you know.
mike (18:34.93)
Hmm.
Jacob (18:41.75)
there’s the werewolves keep peeing on their front lawn. And they do it intentionally because the werewolves hate the vampires and vice versa. And so like the beginning of is like, get off my lawn, you know, quit doing that. They keep catching them peeing on their lawn and things like that. And then they get into, it’s like, there’s gonna be a duel. There’s gonna be a duel between their toughest werewolf and the toughest vampire. And like the toughest vampire, he’s like coded as like a warrior type from like the Ottoman Empire.
mike (18:49.393)
Yeah.
Jacob (19:11.498)
And so like, he’s, he’s like, I’m not worried about this. But then when the werewolf shows up, he’s like a Hulk sized werewolf. He’s huge. And you know, he’s like, Oh no, he’s like, I’m in trouble here. I’m in trouble. He keeps trying to get out of the fight. The other vampires won’t let him out of the fight, but then, um, they’re on top of a building though, and one vampire is like, I’ll stop with this. And he goes and he picks up like a stick or a bone or something like that. He’s like, here boy, here boy. You know, I can’t, I can’t whistle. Actually the audience just found that out.
mike (19:18.715)
Yeah.
mike (19:38.576)
And you can’t.
Jacob (19:40.13)
But so I can’t make the whistle noise, but he’s like here boy here boy and the werewolves like oh gets all excited about he chucks it off the roof and the werewolf And the werewolf jumps off the roof after him and that’s how the vampires win the fight Funny stuff man That’s right, yeah, so
mike (19:48.062)
I can’t resist that dog nature.
mike (19:55.294)
Hmm.
mike (19:58.686)
You can’t take the dog out of the werewolf. Is that kind of the lesson there? Well, maybe we’ve indulged the audience long enough. You want to nerd out a little bit, Jacob? Yeah.
Jacob (20:08.658)
Now I get to slow this conversation way down, get real academic with it. And, you know, I think, all right, I think, can we just, yeah, we’re just gonna, we’re gonna, you know what, I’m, I think this stuff’s interest. I think, I think the audience, I think the audience is gonna find this stuff interesting. Here’s the thing that really surprised me. And I’ll start with this.
mike (20:15.206)
Oh boy. All right. Let’s see if I have any other errands I can. Yeah, go ahead.
mike (20:25.998)
I’m looking forward to it. I am looking forward to it.
Jacob (20:36.37)
There was a guy named Montague Summers. Have you ever heard of Montague Summers, Mike? Montague Summers was a guy who lived in the early 20th century and he was supposedly a Catholic priest. But what’s funny about it is there’s no records. You know how like the churches they keep like the roles of people who have been, you know, turning a priest or yeah, you know.
mike (20:41.058)
No, I have not.
mike (20:58.71)
If you’ve received a sacrament, yeah, they keep track of it, sure. Yeah.
Jacob (21:04.57)
there’s no record of him actually being ordained a priest, but he rolled around in like a Monseigneur’s hat and garb. And so to this day, people aren’t sure if he was just like LARPing as a priest, or if he actually was a priest, because I guess in theory you could go, he could have been ordained by a bishop, but it would have been like an illegal ordination, like…
mike (21:18.736)
Yeah.
mike (21:27.27)
I mean, in this time period, so it could have been valid but not licit. It could have been valid but not licit, yeah.
Jacob (21:31.53)
He wouldn’t have been allowed to administer the sacrament. Yes, yes, some people think, some people think he was valid but not listed. That’s the Catholic terminology I was looking for.
mike (21:40.314)
Which, and especially during this time period, it would have, pretty much everything post-Reformation is when a lot of that stuff became more formalized in terms of, not just the sac, but especially the sacrament of holy orders. That’s when you start to see what we now think of as the modern or formal seminary setting. Whereas, yeah, historically, it could have been a lot more informal before that. But anyway, as you were saying.
Jacob (22:00.322)
Hmm.
Jacob (22:05.246)
Right. Well, so Montague Summers, he takes witchcraft and folklore super serious, though, and he writes a series of books that are downright impressive. Even people who think this is like just super silly stuff can’t ignore how seriously he took this subject matter. And when he writes about it, it is chock full of like, and he was a very intelligent man, he could speak like many languages.
So it’s one of those books where he’s like all this like Latin or French or German in it and I can’t read it because he doesn’t bother translating it. He’s one of those like, he’s one of those guys who like doesn’t translate it for the audience because like if you’re not smart enough to read this, then you’re not at my level kind of thing. That’s who Montague Summers was. But, but he wrote he wrote all kinds of stuff about like the lore of vampires. And that’s where I was first introduced to like the actual historic
mike (22:49.063)
Yeah.
Jacob (23:02.35)
kind of precedence of like, what vampire ism is. And it turns out that it is a fundamentally Christian folklore. Now I know people say that vampire stuff is all over the world and like China has its own vampire type creatures and you know, everywhere has their own vampire type creatures right? Like chupacabra or something like that, you know, down South America. It’s like
mike (23:24.562)
So maybe that’s what you’ll draw out too, is the difference between the vampirism or vampire-like.
Jacob (23:32.327)
Well, I don’t know.
mike (23:33.95)
versus like the formal like the kind of the vampire as such is that
Jacob (23:39.138)
Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to I probably not. I mean, I don’t know. We’ll see where the conversation goes. The thing is, is that like, I don’t much care for this idea that oh, vampires exist all over the world. I mean, that’s true. But like all those different creatures that like, suck blood. They’re not the vampire that we think of in modern culture, the vampire that we think of in modern culture is this. It’s a it’s because these ideas of like blood sucking, they do exist all over the world. We are going to get into that for sure.
mike (23:54.128)
Okay.
mike (23:58.055)
Yeah.
Jacob (24:07.318)
this idea of bloodsucking, what’s up with that? But the idea that like an undead thing that comes back from the grave to prey upon other humans and is repelled by holy water and garlic and crosses. These are all Christian themes. And the reason why all those things exist is because of Christian roots and things like that. And so it’s almost like the vampire is just this like super Christian soaked folklore. And for someone who kind of likes horror stuff,
mike (24:20.689)
Yeah.
mike (24:27.343)
Mm.
mike (24:33.576)
Okay.
Jacob (24:35.926)
That just makes it really fun for me, right? So, uh, to get into the specifics of it, most of this stuff also as an Eastern Orthodox Christian, this is all coming from Eastern Europe. It all, it all it’s Greece specifically, and then also like the Baltic countries up above it and like the Russian, the Slavic countries. So not only is it like super Christian folklore, it’s actually super Eastern Orthodox Christian folklore. So even more fun for me, right?
Um, but you know, it’s not that the themes of it are regulated to the Eastern side of Europe or Eastern side of the faith or anything like that. The themes they’re, they’re pretty universal. So for the medieval mind, this is where I have to get all intellectual nerdy academic is we got to talk about how medieval’s viewed reality and why this thing called the vampire makes sense and develops and forms as a folklore.
in the context of the medieval mind. Okay. So, step one, evil, like we have this like super modern, like zoological method of categorizing creatures. So like there’s zebras, and there’s elephants, and there’s humans, and blah, and like, everything has a category, right? Honestly, I think the Catholic Church helped perpetuate this type of thing. So thanks, Catholics. But medieval people.
mike (25:35.524)
Okay.
mike (25:58.714)
Well, it’s science, okay?
Jacob (26:04.178)
That’s fine. There’s good reasons to categorize things. But to the more woo folk in the East, or the medieval peasant for that matter, right? West or East or whatever. Evil is just evil. There’s not this kind of deep breakdown of categorization. It’s just like, there’s Satan. And Satan is trying to hurt you. And Satan has all kinds of different ways to try to hurt you.
mike (26:05.212)
It’s.
mike (26:16.434)
OK.
Jacob (26:29.802)
And sometimes those ways are like physical oppression, like, you know, sometimes it’s like demonic possession or whatever. Sometimes it’s being attacked. Sometimes it’s being raided by Vikings. Sometimes it’s a werewolf. Sometimes it’s a vampire. Right. I mean, like, and there’s always some kind of witch involved, you know? So like, and all of that is just one big lump of evil. That is the opposite of Christ in his church and the kingdom of God. And there’s no.
real and this is why when you get into like the folklore of this stuff, it’s all kind of like nonsensical in the sense that there doesn’t you know vampires and werewolves are the same thing. And you know your modern mind is going to be like, wait a second vampires and werewolves aren’t the same thing, you know, but you do see like so like for example
mike (27:12.222)
Um.
mike (27:21.653)
There’s carryover, yeah.
Jacob (27:23.146)
Well, there’s definitely carryover. That’s true. But there’s even there’s even like literal examples like one of the Dracula turns into different creatures, he can turn into a bat, he can turn into a wolf, he can turn into, because he’s a werewolf. vampires are werewolves, right? And vice versa. That’s why this idea that like vampires and werewolves hate each other and you know, they’re, you know, fighting each other across millennia, while fun is not from the folklore. In the folklore.
mike (27:38.226)
Okay.
mike (27:50.29)
It’s just a sibling story, is really what you’re telling me. It’s a, is that, that’s all it is.
Jacob (27:52.598)
Yeah. Well, well, and the other thing that has to get brought into it is like the occult practice stuff, right? So it’s all witchcraft. It’s all like a relationship with Satan, right? And so when we’re talking about like where these things come from, it always has to do with satanic corruption. And so what will happen is that you will have a human and he will sell his soul to the devil in some way.
mike (28:01.286)
Mm-hmm.
mike (28:11.592)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (28:20.55)
or she will become a witch or he will become a wizard or whatever, and they will seek worldly power through satanic trials or you know, satanic means or whatever. And they will become like in league with Satan, right? Like a Dr. Faustus type character, right? When they die, yeah. When they die, because they have given themselves over entirely to Satan in that way.
mike (28:24.806)
Mm-hmm.
mike (28:38.498)
Oh yeah. Oh, that’s another. Yeah.
mike (28:49.35)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (28:49.514)
the result will be and we’ll get into it a little bit but the result will be that they’re going to turn into a pestilence for humanity, right? And they’re going to plague their loved ones, they’re going to plague their community. And oftentimes when they were alive, they would have done this by werewolfism, right? Lycanthropy. They would have been like, because when you lose the image of God, when you are no longer seeking the image and likeness of God.
mike (29:09.406)
Mm.
Jacob (29:18.154)
then you revert back to your base animal instincts, right? And so you’re a wolf, you’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you’re what you’re tearing down your community, you know,
mike (29:18.541)
Mm-hmm.
mike (29:21.947)
Yeah.
mike (29:27.89)
Well, and I think too, what this really speaks to is there’s this sort of like backhanded recognition of the interconnection of the body of Christ, where, like you said, if you’re not working for the building of Christ and the kingdom, then you become something that sucks the life from it, right? And this is a literal kind of physical manifestation of that. And like you said, you lose so much of your humanity, but there’s still enough there where you can almost like, it kind of goes back to our
When we talk about the uncanny valley where it’s like there still has to be enough humanity there for you to like recognize it but then enough that’s taken away where it becomes an unnatural or Uncomfortable and so like when like we’ve talked about with the zombies, you know It’s still the person or it still looks like the human but they’ve lost so much of what makes them human right the soul and The same thing when like you were saying the person has sold his or her soul to the devil And so they’ve lost that part of them
And but there’s still enough of them there where you can like see them. It looks like them or looks somewhat like them, or you can still see that last little shred of humanity and what are they doing? They’re sucking the life out of the, you know, the community at large, the body, the body of Christ in this case. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (30:41.182)
Absolutely. Well, and they’re also and we’ll get into this more detail too. They are a profane caricature of the body of Christ, right? They’re a satanic inversion of the human and the church, the practices of the church. And so we’ll get into that in a little bit too. But how many times have you seen in a zombie show or a vampire show where like you have someone that has like killed their loved one who’s turned into a zombie or vampire or something like that?
mike (30:50.841)
Mm-hmm. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (30:59.106)
Mm-hmm. Well, that’s where the whole yeah. No, definitely
Jacob (31:09.95)
And there’s someone else in the room like that’s not your husband anymore or that’s not your son anymore, you know, but like you were saying, it still looks like my husband. It still looks like my son. And in the
mike (31:13.766)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (31:19.874)
Or is there a little bit of my son still there, a little bit of my husband still there, and can I cope with being the one to actually kill? You know, what little left of it was there?
Jacob (31:29.078)
There is a really, really good 19th century story from a guy named Tolstoy, but it’s not the Tolstoy that we’re all thinking of. It’s like different Tolstoy. I know, shucks. This was Alexei Tolstoy. And he wrote a really, really great traditional piece of fiction called The Family of the Vordelac, because Vordelac was like a Eastern Slavic word for vampire. And in that story, it’s about a family. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (31:38.692)
Ah…
Jacob (31:57.73)
that slowly gets turned in. They all they all get turned into vampires because they can’t kill the dad. The dad is the first person to fall. And he’s like, Hey, if I come back in 10 days, and like, I’m not back within 10 days, you got to kill me when I come back, you had a stake me in the heart and he doesn’t explain why basically, if I’m after 10 days, if I’m late, you got to kill me. And he does come back late, but they won’t kill him. And subsequently, the entire family falls, right.
And it’s all told from the perspective of like a person who was like staying with the family, like hospitality style as he’s traveling across Europe. And it’s really great. It’s a great little piece of Gothic fiction. I think it was from France, but it’s about Eastern. It takes place in Eastern Europe. Um, but yeah, it’s this idea that the family can’t bring themselves to harm because of that. Satan disguising themselves, garbing themselves in your loved one, you know, and that’s what this vampire stuff is very much about.
mike (32:31.9)
Okay. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (32:52.318)
Hmm. ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (32:55.37)
is like the person comes back to destroy his family specifically especially this old folklore stuff because what we have now in like modern interpretations of the vampire is that like they just travel the world right and they’re kind of untethered they don’t have family and they just prey upon strangers and things like that is 100 not traditional vampire folklore
mike (33:16.358)
Well, because yeah, it’s almost like now because we’ve tried to like rehabilitate the image where it’s like, oh, they just want to be left alone. They’re trying to stay away from everybody until they, you know, because nature dictates they have to eat. And so like you said, they become the sort of like wandering, I guess, traveler or whatever, because they’ve been kicked out of humanity as if humanity is the real problem. Is that kind of the juxtaposition you’re creating? ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (33:38.21)
Mm hmm. Well, and well, the juxtaposition I’m pointing out is that in the traditional folklore, they harm their loved ones specifically, right. And I don’t mean that in the sense that oh, like, oh, this vampire has fallen in love with Bella, and he doesn’t want to harm her, you know, like, I’m talking about like, they come back. That’s just why it’s a very popular story that everyone knows about. But
mike (33:51.164)
Mm.
mike (33:59.351)
Man, you just gotta grind that axe, don’t you? ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (34:06.746)
Sure, sure, yeah. But that, it kind of speaks to the whole, you have to invite Dracula in too, which we’ll get more into when we get to the specific Dracula episode. That’s the significance. There has to be this level of familiarity.
Jacob (34:08.37)
uh… the
Jacob (34:13.714)
And you do you do have to that’s the other thing is like even in the traditional. Yep. The, the father has to get invited back in. And like, so when he shows up, when the father shows back up after 10 days, he’s like, aren’t you going to invite me in? I’m your father. You know, he, he pulls like the father card. He’s like, what is this? Where are you guys crazy? Um, and they’re, and they get all ashamed and they like bring them into the house. And, and, you know, it’s like, Oh, you guys are so dumb. He told you not to do this. Your father told you not to do this. And here you go.
mike (34:32.403)
Hmm. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (34:43.423)
You’re the one yelling at the screen like, don’t go in there, don’t go, don’t invite them in. Don’t. That’s.
Jacob (34:46.194)
Yeah, exactly. Right. But no, so in traditional folklore, a vampire comes back and like kills his mom, and then kills his sister, and then kills his brother, kills his children. Right. Because it’s they destroy it’s the destruction of the family. And to an extent, the destruction of the community, because when their own family when they can’t feast on their own family.
they go to like the second layer of their family, which in a medieval community, like medieval communities, they were super close knit, right? You know, like these villages like were an extended family, right? And so it’s very personal in vampire folklore. It’s not like random strangers being killed. I mean, there’s some of that, but like, for the most part, the biggest fear is that your loved ones are going to be your destruction. And, and, um,
mike (35:18.044)
Mm-hmm. ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (35:39.762)
Hmm.
Jacob (35:41.554)
you know, some of this is because of like, plague, right? I mean, this folklore is coming out of a world in which like the black plague, the black plague, well, because all right, so here, here’s something I want you all to keep in mind.
mike (35:49.783)
That’s an interesting kind of…
mike (35:54.246)
Well, it kind of goes back to the whole personifying death thing, you know? And what better way for death to suck the life out of you too is through this personified disease. So that is an interesting, you know, I guess, reflection.
Jacob (35:57.842)
Yes. Well, because these are dead bodies, right? These are these are reanimated dead bodies. Yeah.
Jacob (36:10.018)
Well, that is and that’s a that’s 100%. I mean, two things to keep in mind. In the medieval world, it’s all Satan, right? All evil is all Satan. And it’s you know, it’s like, why is it a werewolf? Or why is it a vampire? Why is it both? Or why is it disease? Or why is it because it’s all the same? Disease is demonic. Disease is satanic. Sickness is a sign of demonic oppression, ruined Christian vampire loreright?
plague, when plagues roll through villages and decimate villages starting in the family, your father comes home with the plague and spreads that plague to everyone who he loves, right? Well, eventually, this paradigm of your own family being your physical destruction is that’s the zeitgeist that vampiric folklore emerges out of, right? And ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (37:06.106)
Yeah, they just personify it. They just give a name to it, sort of.
Jacob (37:07.698)
They are. Yeah, it’s just personified. It’s just personified plague, right? It’s personified demonic, satanic influence and things like that.
mike (37:11.706)
Which, I mean, go back to our like.
And isn’t that what so much of mythology has always been, is just the like taking this reality of human nature, of human existence or of human experience and giving a name to it, giving a face to it. And so here you have, like you said, one that is unique to the, you know, what, late medieval European kind of experience.
Jacob (37:27.331)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (37:37.494)
Sure. Absolutely. And so to just like, take the natural conversation path forward out of this idea that plague, because I think like a modern person could just like leave it at plague, and the personification of death, which is a totally accurate statement. But the vampire is a really good opportunity to reinforce just how much the spiritual and the material were the same thing to the medieval mind, right?
mike (37:53.229)
Mm.
mike (38:03.386)
Yeah, I mean, what brought death into the world in the first place? Right? I mean, and so that’s it’s a recognition of the deeper reality, the deeper spiritual reality, not necessarily seeing this arbitrary division between, well, that’s the that’s the world of germs and disease. And this is the world of, you know, devils. It’s more like. And I actually remember there was this a writer who said, you know, if I was if I was the devil, I would want to use something like germs to bring, you know, like to hide behind. I’d almost like hide behind germs.
Jacob (38:14.455)
That’s right.
mike (38:32.698)
when I wanted to operate or bring fear into the world or something.
Jacob (38:32.91)
Sure.
Jacob (38:37.294)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s just, it’s, it’s a, it’s, it just makes sense, honestly, right? Like how, how humans are going to personify disease and destruction like this. But because they have such a spiritual worldview, that’s so infused with the powers of the divine and the powers of the demonic, and you have the sacred and the profane, right? Where, you know,
mike (38:59.172)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (39:03.926)
the powers of the divine are suffused through the church and its sacraments, and the community of love and, you know, the sacrament of marriage and all that stuff. Well, the opposite of all that the inversion of all that is going to manifest in this creature too. So they don’t leave it at this kind of like biological level, they understand that it’s both biological and spiritual. So that’s why. Well, that’s why they come back to life, right? So in the in
in the origins, I said that word, the origins of, yeah, exactly. Back in Greece, in the Eastern Church, excommunication is what caused vampirism, right? Once you are excommunicated from the life of Christ, from the body of Christ, that’s a surefire way to become a plague upon humanity, to be in your death.
mike (39:38.246)
Good emphasis, good emphasis, yeah.
Jacob (40:01.93)
Because when you die, your body won’t corrupt. This is how it was understood. And like, you know, I don’t think, I don’t think this was like the official doctrine of the church, but I think this is like the opinion that like, peasant people had in Greece back in like 400 AD, right? Where if you are bound by excommunication, then you will not corrupt until that excommunication is lifted. And so you become undead.
right? This is where undead comes from. This weird liminal place where like, they’re dead, but their body is not allowed to die. And so because of the excommunication and because of… Go on.
mike (40:31.494)
Yeah.
mike (40:44.614)
It’s another lack of unity that it has with all the other Christians who have fallen asleep, right? Those who have, you know, it’s in a sense their soul is at rest, at peace with the rest of the body of Christ, but this one can’t experience that because, like you said, it’s stuck in this in-between space.
Jacob (41:01.438)
It is. And it’s also really interesting in a version of like, saints not decomposing, right? Because simultaneously, you do have strong Christian traditions of saints, like, so the most godly people, their bodies will not corrupt, and they’ll turn into relics and things like that. Because of how holy they are. Well, this is like a weird perversion of that, where they’re not, they’re not. They’re not incorruptible. They’re so corrupt that they can’t fall apart.
mike (41:08.245)
Um.
mike (41:24.391)
Yeah.
Jacob (41:31.05)
like, you know, because of like, the binding of the church on it kind of thing. And so these bodies come back to life and plague their families and things like that. And so in all the things that we talked about, because all of this like what gets you excommunicated from the church? Well, like witchcraft will, you know, like making pacts with Satan will, all that stuff or suicide will, right? Because that’s another really, really common throughline is that suicide or violent death.
mike (41:32.962)
Yeah.
mike (41:42.078)
Mm.
mike (41:53.586)
Yeah.
Jacob (42:01.21)
is also a cause of vampirism. Right? So if you die by your own hand, if you commit suicide in the medieval minds, you’ve made your deal with the devil. You’ve rejected everything that Christ has given you by killing yourself by removing and you’ve done it against the image of God within you and things like that. It’s satanic.
mike (42:19.802)
And just to plug in really quickly, this is like you even said, this is the medieval mind where maybe pastoral theology and just our understanding of psychology and depression has come a long way where that’s not by any means what the official stance is or what it has to be. It’s just more this was how medieval people made sense of the reality that they were seeing for hundreds of years. Yeah. So just a very quick, I don’t want to derail you, but I just thought since you brought up that example. So.
Jacob (42:34.638)
Sure.
Jacob (42:41.115)
Yeah, I don’t want to be insensitive to, yeah, for sure.
Jacob (42:46.794)
No, that’s nice of you to say. That’s a good point. Yeah. Well, and then also other examples would be like being hung at a crossroads, because the crossroads was this geographic location, a liminal space where Satan did his work. You know, you’re not on this
mike (43:04.37)
I was going to say that’s in a lot of movies, that’s where it happens, right? That’s where the person has that deal, makes that deal with the devil.
Jacob (43:07.634)
Yeah, the crossroads. It’s all tethered together. It’s all satanic. It’s all making deal with the devil. It’s like an unpeaceful death, right? It’s the way you die or if you’re excommunicated from the church, if you’re separated from the community in some way, if you remove yourself from the community, if you pursue Satan, this is when you become a plague upon your family and your community and you come back from the dead because you can’t die. You can’t… Death was given by God as a
boon for humanity so they wouldn’t live in sin forever. They wouldn’t live in sin for eternity. If you reject that, then you will live forever in sin as a vampire. You will not die in the same way that we’re supposed to die. The type of death that God gives us as a mercy. You get a type of death that’s like a weird character of death.
mike (43:55.226)
Yeah, I mean, that’s what…
mike (43:59.854)
And maybe this is where the whole sympathizing for vampires and a lot of modern media comes from is because we do recognize that there is something sad about this. There’s something miserable about this prolonged existence, spread. What’s the, I mean, to make it a Lord of the Rings reference, it’s the butter spread over too much bread. That’s exactly what Bilbo is taught. He’s becoming, right? That’s a vampiric. There’s our, yeah, all the way down. So.
Jacob (44:14.785)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (44:21.194)
Yeah, no, that’s not there’s our there’s our bingo. Yeah.
mike (44:27.078)
But that’s exactly what Tolkien was drawing from when he has his Gollum character, when he has what is happening to Bilbo, fortunately, slowly. And they talk about the circumstances for that. But it’s also why, if you remember, maybe as a kid, did you have to, in sixth grade, have to read Tuck Everlasting, where they drink from the spring and they live forever? But that’s where, again, they don’t become vampire, but they do live forever when they drink this water.
Jacob (44:47.206)
I haven’t, I haven’t. Uh oh.
Jacob (44:54.305)
Right.
mike (44:55.19)
And the family did it accidentally, so they weren’t trying to, but you, you sympathize with them because you recognize how out of place they feel, how it feels like their existence is just drawn on and on and on. And it’s the same thing with, yeah.
Jacob (44:58.274)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (45:06.174)
Yeah, how tough that would be. Well, even people who caricature, well, even people who caricature the Christian promise of eternal life, they’ll say, I don’t want that. I don’t want to live forever, you know, kind of thing, because they recognize that if you think that eternal life is sequential, if it’s Kronos, that like that becomes a hell over time, right? The one thing I do think that’s those types of themes are good fodder for vampire movies.
mike (45:15.901)
Yeah.
mike (45:19.496)
Mm-hmm.
mike (45:25.22)
Now.
mike (45:36.038)
Go back and listen to our time episode from a couple of weeks ago, by the way.
Jacob (45:36.182)
There’s a but you know, like interview with the vampire. There was a movie that had Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. It’s based on Anne Rice. Really, really popular series. Yeah, they did an AMC one. I think that one’s full of like weird stuff. But like, of course, it’s all vampire stuff. So it’s all weird stuff. But like, but that’s a really interesting movie, frankly, a really good drama about vampirism.
mike (45:45.158)
Oh yeah, the Tom Cruise, yeah. And then they made a new MC. Yeah.
mike (45:55.642)
I haven’t seen it yet.
Jacob (46:05.482)
But the main theme of it is just being doomed to like live forever, having to kill people you don’t want to kill and things like that. So it’s very humanizing take. Yeah, it’s very, oh, that’s been going around. Well, we can get into it when we get to the second part of the sandwich where we bring back stories again. But like what I will say in the folklore, that’s all hogwash. In the folklore, it’s kind of like when we were talking about how like you don’t have to sympathize with orcs in our Mandalorian episodes.
mike (46:14.586)
Maybe that’s where the sympathetic track started.
mike (46:32.251)
Yeah.
Jacob (46:34.794)
like no these they’re parasites. They’re parasites like they have sold their soul to the devil. They have rejected love. They have rejected Christ. They’ve rejected God. They have lost their humanity. Literally they have become undead animals that bring nothing but pain and destruction to the people they loved most in life because that’s like the choice they made and that’s and that’s what and that’s how they’re going to be used by Satan now to afflict humanity. So there’s no
mike (46:35.225)
OK.
Jacob (47:04.314)
like and they’re very zombie like frankly, you know, like so at the end of the day, they don’t even most of the time, especially in like the real early folklore stuff is like, well, I take it back. There’s two there’s kind of two different like strains here. One strain is like they do have like the pretense of humanity. So think about the family of the Voragalak thing, the father’s like, I’m still your dad, let me in kind of thing, right? They do what there’s examples of that, right?
mike (47:29.468)
Yeah.
Jacob (47:32.554)
But then the second example though is like they’re basically zombies. They’re basically zombies. They’ve lost their humanity entirely and they literally just kind of like roam around trying to, you know, get back into their homes where they used to live and like literally parasite their family, you know, suck their blood. So before getting back to the other story stuff, let’s just do a quick run through of how this inversion of Christianity looks.
mike (47:51.765)
Mm. Yeah.
Jacob (48:01.842)
in vampire folklore. We will start obviously with like crucifixes. You know, the popular tradition is like if you have a cross, you know, vampires can’t stand the cross, right? It is literally because it’s the cross of Christ. It’s literally because demons, the demonic, the satanic, yeah. Yep. Yeah, they can’t stand Christ.
mike (48:08.167)
Mm-hmm.
mike (48:16.946)
I mean, there’s nothing magical about two pieces of wood put together. Or the letter T. Which I’m pretty sure I’ve heard a stand-up comedian talk about how vampires have a hard time reading because of so many T’s that they come across. But anyway, not to lighten this up too much.
Jacob (48:31.826)
Very good. No, exactly, exactly. Or holy water, right? Again, and so I actually, I put into the outline here just some of the prayers that are said in the Eastern Orthodox Church over holy water, which I think are, I’m just going to read them real quick for the sake of this episode, that these waters may be sanctified by the power and effectual operation and descent of the Holy Spirit.
mike (48:47.026)
Hmm
Jacob (48:57.506)
They’re made to set up on these waters the cleansing operation of the super substantial Trinity. And remember folks, we’re talking like this is all like plague and disease stuff, right? The vampire is like a parasite and a disease upon humanity. This idea of cleanliness, of purification as opposed to like disease, right? I mean, think of like leprosy in the Old and New Testament, you know. It’s the idea that there’s no difference between being healthy physically and being healthy spiritually and things like that.
mike (49:07.772)
Yeah.
mike (49:27.122)
Sure.
Jacob (49:28.898)
that Satan may be speedily crushed under our feet and that every counsel directed against us may be brought to naught. That the Lord our God will free us from every attack and temptation of the enemy and make us worthy of the good things which he hath promised. So these things, some of these prayers are what are said over holy water when it gets blessed, right? And that water in turn is
Jacob (49:57.81)
You know, when we talk about the cross in the church, one of our hymns is, let God arise and let his enemies be scattered. That those who hate him flee from his presence. As smoke vanishes, let them vanish. And as wax melts before the presence of fire. So let demons perish from the presence of those who love God and sign themselves with the sign of the cross, right? This is all like good versus evil, you know, triumphant Christians against like the powers of darkness stuff. You know?
mike (50:24.602)
And, you know, we were talking before of like, where in the spiritual context do we see holy water the most is in the context of baptism, which it’s not as obvious or as clear in the Western tradition, but you are seeing a sort of re-emergence of the emphasis on the exorcism aspect of a baptism. That in this ceremony that includes holy water, where the water is used to give new life to the baptized person.
there is an exorcism that takes place. And it’s like, that still happens. And so the whole connection of holy water and banishing, you know, evil spirits or banishing the devil, it reminded me of, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of this earlier, when we were talking from dusk till dawn. So you brought up how they put holy water in the squirt guns. Did you ever see that meme or that picture from the 2020 pandemic of the priest who was baptizing a baby with a, like squirting the…
Jacob (51:02.242)
Mm-hmm.
mike (51:21.486)
water at the baby. I’ll have to send it to you. It’ll have to be the episode art. And yeah, it’ll be the, there was a priest with a squirt gun with holy water. And you can see the parent, you know, six feet apart holding the baby and being baptized. So yeah. Anyway, sorry to derail again, but…
Jacob (51:21.911)
Oh, oh no.
Jacob (51:27.463)
Oh no. Yeah, honestly, that might be episode art. Yeah. Yikes.
Jacob (51:39.046)
Wow, wow, that’s crazy. So yeah, no, that’s fine. But anyway, it’s cool. I mean, this is this is why I love this folklore so much because it’s so like Christian, right? And its emphasis. It is Yeah, you know, but how about things like garlic, right? That doesn’t seem so obvious. We can say holy water and cross is obvious, right? Well, it’s because back in medieval apothecary, right back when in kind of pre modern medicine, stuff like that.
mike (51:51.026)
So theological.
mike (51:59.23)
Mm.
Jacob (52:06.434)
garlic was one of those type of superfoods that has like antiseptic qualities. So they would use garlic as medicine to fight disease and things like that. And because the vampire is just a form of disease to the medieval minds, right, as they understood disease as both a physical and spiritual reality. Yeah, so well, this helps my wounds heal. And so it’ll ward off evil spirits too. Right?
mike (52:35.79)
Yeah. No, that’s an interesting one. The.
Jacob (52:36.242)
And, you know, even up as late as, yeah, even as late as, you know, World War II, the Russians were using, if they didn’t have penicillin, they would use garlic and like treat their wounds with garlic and things like that. Because it’s just, they’ve been doing it for a thousand years. So that’s where garlic comes from. It was medicinal. But then, you know, the biggest inversion of or commentary on this, but this is a good
where the vampire is in relation to Christianity is the blood sucking itself. Right? So like, no, this is not something like the idea that the life is the blood for the blood is the life is obviously famously in the Old Testament. But this is a this is a human universal. This is why you have blood sucking creatures in China and South America, and in Europe and things like that Africa, every, every civilization has this idea that the blood is the life.
mike (53:19.098)
Mm.
mike (53:28.826)
Mm.
Jacob (53:33.846)
So the Old Testament did not introduce that idea to humanity. And you can see it in all kinds of like pagan stories too. You know, like famously a really good example is Odysseus.
mike (53:36.924)
No.
mike (53:43.578)
And this goes into one of the, so you talked about how, yeah, it wasn’t introduced in the Old Testament, but it also goes into the prohibitions of the Israelites in the Old Testament, is because this was being used to a very nefarious purpose in the context of worship, in the context of idolatry. Is that kind of where you’re going to?
Jacob (54:01.778)
Oh, no, that’s actually I’m glad you went there. Yeah, because, you know, Odysseus were taking us a little bit outside the car. If we’re in the Old Testament, still, I put Psalm 16, as a reference to the Canaanite blood libels, or libations, where they would be pouring the blood into and so like animal sacrifice as such, you know, like, if you really want to get into like how sacrifice works in any context, both the Old Testament and the pagan context.
mike (54:16.082)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (54:30.882)
the Lord spirits episodes, they have really, really good breakdowns of like how life like blood is like life stuff. It’s like organic life stuff. And so the people get sprinkled with the blood, you know, and because they’re being given life, the blood is being applied to them and the life is being applied to them kind of thing. But you know, the demonic pagan sacrifices, you know, they were being offered blood, the demons were being offered blood.
in these kind of blood sacrifices, you know, human sacrifices too. And because and that’s all vampire stuff. I mean, it’s clearly to the medieval Eastern European, they would have that that’s part and parcel of why they think vampires are what vampires are, because demonic entities want to drink blood. Because every all humanity knows that from time immemorial, you know, dead things want to drink blood.
mike (55:20.449)
Mm.
Jacob (55:25.566)
And so where I was going was Odysseus, you know, has a really good example, Homer. Odysseus has to feed blood to the dead people so that they can talk. Because they need life stuff. If they don’t have blood, they’re just shades. But if they have blood, they can perpetuate their existence.
mike (55:42.054)
Well, and you see this in a lot of, not even necessarily vampire stories, but when somebody is like doing some sort of magical conjuring or creating some sort of seal, it always requires, you know, the character has to like cut his hand and let some of the blood drop into the cauldron or into the, you know what I’m saying, into the thing. Because, yeah.
Jacob (55:58.642)
Oh yeah. Yep, absolutely. Give a bit of their life.
mike (56:02.682)
So, but it’s this idea of, yeah, it’s, you know, whatever spirit you’re conjuring is like drinking that blood. It’s taking that in and usually it’s a bad guy. So it kind of, you know, kind of works. It’s kind of fitting, so.
Jacob (56:09.134)
Mm hmm. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. And clearly, this is all a satanic inversion of our Eucharistic act as the body as the body of Christ. And then we participate in the body and blood of Christ and things like that. We have a sacred ordained way to manifest this spiritual truth that the blood is the life, right? And so these weird
mike (56:20.522)
Mm.
Jacob (56:36.002)
perverse undead entities that are perpetuating their existence by taking the blood in themselves, perpetuating their undead quote unquote life by sucking the life out of other people. That’s all just Satan stuff to the medieval mind. It’s like it all just makes perfect sense. So I know that we’re wrapping up, we’re getting to the end of this episode, but I promised the second loaf of bread, the second piece of bread on this. And that’s intentional because next time we’re going to talk about Dracula.
mike (56:47.87)
Mm.
Jacob (57:05.474)
You can’t have a conversation about vampires and not bring up Dracula, but there’s so much to unpack in Dracula that I was like, I need a second episode, right? But a brief little literary review of the things leading up to Dracula works for this episode. So let me just give you a quick rundown. It starts with Lord Byron. Everyone knows Lord Byron. He was a famous poet in the early 19th century.
mike (57:10.65)
We gave in and gave him a part two, gave him a part two.
mike (57:23.454)
Alright.
Jacob (57:33.63)
and he was famous for being like basically a debauched libertine. And he creates he introduces the first English poem of that references vampireism. It was called The Your or the Your. I don’t know how to pronounce it, but it’s not a poem about vampires, but it has an example of vampireism in it. And I won’t read all of it, but you can go Google like what his what he says about vampires.
mike (57:49.915)
Yeah.
Jacob (58:00.51)
And it’s a reference to a person coming back to the dead and killing their family. Right. In other words, we’re not at sexy vampire in 1809 when Lord Byron is writing about vampires, even though Lord Byron himself is a famously debauched person. He understands vampire and he learned this in Greece, by the way, he took one of those like European tours of the continent and he went to Greece and that’s where he heard of vampires.
mike (58:05.265)
Hmm.
mike (58:11.471)
Well…
mike (58:18.779)
Yeah.
Jacob (58:26.662)
Um, but uh, yeah, and in that context, yeah, the vampire comes back and kills their family, right? So we’re not We’re not sexy vampires yet folk um But he had a buddy who quickly became not his buddy named john paludori. He was his doctor his traveling doctor He was the same age as lord byron, but uh, he came to hate lord byron because lord byron was a jerk And so he wrote a vampire story called the vampire creative
mike (58:35.102)
Mm-hmm.
Jacob (58:55.226)
uh but hey if it’s like the first one then he gets it right yeah you know they didn’t even like people didn’t even like know what vampires were and so yeah you can just say the vampire oh what’s that yeah and he literally just takes Byron and turns them into a vampire character named Lord Ruthven and Lord Ruthven he goes around seducing women all over europe and like killing them and like ruining the reputations that is literally so this is like a super
mike (58:56.226)
Yeah, well, you know, I was going to say it is because yeah, exactly.
mike (59:04.346)
It’s not a vampire story, it’s THE vampire story.
mike (59:21.147)
Mm.
Jacob (59:23.246)
not veiled attack on Byron’s character. But this is kind of, this is the origin of the sexy vampire that seduces women and all that stuff. It’s The Vampire by John Polidori, 1819.
mike (59:26.599)
Okay.
mike (59:37.61)
And I think there is some, you know, if we’re seeing it in terms, if we’re seeing it through the lens of sin, you know, because we can see sin itself as sucking the spiritual life from a community. And you’re talking Victorians, like what’s the sin that they’re like obsessed with in terms of sucking the life or the respectability out of the community? It’s going to be something to do with lust. It’s going to be something to do with, and so that you have this vampire who is already symbolic of sucking the life from.
And now it’s like, how do we, you know, almost like spiritualize that, but not spiritualize it in the sense of like actual spirituality, it’s more like the spirit of our community. That seems like a good sort of analog. Not, not that I like. Yeah.
ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (01:00:14.69)
your? Well, it’s they’re not mutually exclusive. And that’s why that’s why we’re actually when you get to Dracula, you’re gonna see both. But if this is this is kind of like the prototypes, this is like where all these things because we went through a whole episode of like vampire lore, where it’s pestilence and disease and demonism, and killing your family. It’s like, well, how do you get to sexy vampire? How do you get to sparkling sexy vampire, you know, in the sun from all that? Well, kind of through John Polidori.
mike (01:00:27.612)
Yeah.
mike (01:00:33.359)
Yeah.
mike (01:00:37.784)
Mm.
Jacob (01:00:43.622)
because he’s making fun of Lord Byron or he wants to tear down Lord Byron’s reputation. And so one of the things about this, yeah, I don’t see it. And so, but there’s no references to Christianity in the vampire by John Polidori. He really is like he’s taken this idea of like destroying people by sucking their blood. But it’s not within a Christian context at all. Right?
mike (01:00:46.234)
Yeah. When it’s like, Lord Byron is fine with this. He’s like, Hey, I can live with that. Yeah. Backfired a little bit.
mike (01:01:01.126)
Yeah.
mike (01:01:10.618)
Mm.
ruined Christian vampire lore
Jacob (01:01:10.826)
Because this is like romanticism and post enlightenment and he’s really just adopting this folklore to fit a very different story type. And so that’s where you actually see the divergence in English literature. You start with Lord Byron himself actually having a reference to a traditional like vampires are a pest that killed their family. But then you get John Polidori, his buddy, creating a vampire tale that becomes really popular. But it’s all about the sexy vampire that lures women.
After that, you get Varnie the Vampire in the mid 19th century that is, I haven’t actually read this because it’s like 800 pages, but it was really popular at the time. That’s an example of a vampire that so far as I know, it’s not like rooted in Christian tropes. It’s still just a vampire rolling around, attacking strangers, traveling the continents, just like pulpy, salacious, you know, biting on women’s necks.
ruined Christian vampire lore
type stuff. But then the other these are all like the most popular. Oh, I should mention that family of the vordelak. This is also this was a French story, but I got translated into English. And that was a really famous one to that one is very traditional. That one has killing the family rooted in, you know, the cross becomes like the guy the main character gets saved because he’s wearing a cross. And the cross intervenes between him and this, you know, person that’s going to kill him kind of thing. There’s a monk in it’s that
mike (01:02:29.68)
Hmm.
Jacob (01:02:35.49)
give some advice, you know, so that one still has a lot of like Eastern European Christian tropes in it. But then in the 1870s, you get Carmilla, which is a great story. I actually love the story Carmilla. It’s really famous nowadays because it’s got a lot of like proto lesbian stuff in it. And even I have to admit that the story does have things that are really easy to get lesbian connotations from. Like the main characters like it’s like she loved me like I was a man, you know, like it’s like, okay.
ruined Christian vampire lore
mike (01:02:55.858)
Hmph.
Jacob (01:03:05.65)
But she, Carmilla, she can’t stand Christian stuff. So they got the Christian stuff back in it. You know, there’s a funeral procession, they’re singing hymns and she has to like stop her ears up and like, la la, you know, I don’t want to hear this, you know, she gets sick. And then after that you get Dracula. And that’s for next episode.
mike (01:03:24.458)
And yeah, well, no, and I appreciate the recap too, because it does kind of build us up too, so that we can more fully appreciate the, when we talk specifically about Dracula, even though we might go through some different iterations of Dracula, where we can see a lot of these things come from. And now that we have this foundation too, seeing a lot of the very explicitly spiritual side to it too. So yeah, thank you, Jacob, and thank you guys for coming to listen to this episode of the Voyage Podcast. Look forward to just, or.
hearing from you guys, leave a five star rating, leave a positive review, positive comment, and that can kind of get this podcast out to more listeners and we can start to just kind of share this conversation with others, so thanks guys.
Jacob (01:04:06.846)
Alright, come back, part two.