Vampires In Their Own Words

"There's no book available on the vampire culture today with the range, depth, and diversity of Belanger's Vampires in Their Own Words."—Katherine Ramsland, author of Piercing the Darkness and The Science of Vampires "Belanger gives empathetic access to an emergent new magical-religious community...An important sourcebook for both the scholar and inquiring public."—J. Gordon Melton, Director, Institute for the Study of American Religion, and author of The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead The Code of Silence Has Been Broken For this anthology, vampire Michelle Belanger convinced nearly two dozen real-life vampires to break the code of silence that has kept their fascinating subculture shrouded in secrecy. Sometimes provocative, sometimes surprisingly down-to-earth, these candid firsthand accounts come from both psi vampires who feed on energy and sanguine vampires who drink actual blood. Their true stories shed light on a variety of topics, including awakening to vampirism, the compulsion to feed and feeding practices, donor ethics and etiquette, and vampire traditions and codes of behavior.

While many people assume that vampires are merely the topic of popular movies and novels, it is also true that many believe they exist in real life, too. This book examines the legends about the various forms vampires take, how they feed on the living, and the dangers of encountering them. Also included are narratives documenting encounters (both ancient and recent) with vampires, and centuries-old Church warnings about the best method of avoiding them.

Today a new trend is clearly discernable, that of ‘hyper-real religions’. These are innovative religions and spiritualities that mix elements of religious traditions with popular culture. If we imagine a spectrum of intensity of the merging of popular culture with religion, we might find, at one end, groups practicing Jediism appropriated from the Star Wars movies, Matrixism from the Matrix trilogy, and neo-pagan rites based on stories from The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series. At the other end of the spectrum, members of mainstream religions, such as Christianity can be influenced or inspired by, for example, The Da Vinci Code. Through various case studies, this book studies the on- and off-line religious/spiritual consumption of these narratives through a social scientific approach.

The spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—the inspiration for the hit television series “A magnificent, compulsively readable thriller . . . Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire.”—Chicago Tribune Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly sensual, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.

The Gospel of Blood is the autobiography of Nico Claux, a French morgue attendant whose morbid obsessions led him to grave robbery, cannibalism and murder in the early 1990s. It is a bone-chilling chronicle of a real-life vampire who prowled the Gothic cemeteries of Paris, unearthing coffins and mutilating the bodies inside. A practicing Satanist, Claux escalated to murder after working for a year in several morgues, receiving orders to kill from the corpses he had autopsied.The Gospel of Blood provides a rare insight into a killer's tortured mind, as he relates the graphic details of his crimes, including never-before revealed confessions. It is a fascinating look inside the thoughts of a psychotic murderer who has found redemption in prison through art.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER From New York Times bestselling author Jay Kristoff comes Empire of the Vampire, the first illustrated volume of an astonishing new dark fantasy saga. From holy cup comes holy light; The faithful hand sets world aright. And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight, Mere man shall end this endless night. It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise. For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness. Gabriel de León is a silversaint: a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to defending realm and church from the creatures of the night. But even the Silver Order could not stem the tide once daylight failed us, and now, only Gabriel remains. Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the Wars of the Blood and the Forever King and the quest for humanity’s last remaining hope: The Holy Grail.

Peter Harris and his comrades might have won the first round, but the vampires have just raised the stakes . . . Following the death of Nero, the surviving vampires separate into deadly cabals, a corrupt vampire council is born, and ancient loyalties fall by the wayside. Not only are the vampires at war with each other, but their servants—the thralls—are on the brink of open rebellion. When Peter Harris and his band of insurgents learn of this unrest, they seize the opportunity and enter the vampire territory with purpose. It is time to free the slaves and rescue the breeders, but what Harris and his gang discover inside the cabal is worse than they bargained for . . . Will Harris and his ragtag soldiers make it out alive?