298 Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard
the sense of being the spirits of the once-living; true
spirit ghosts cannot affect the physical world at all.
“Poltergeist” is a psychokinetic manifestation usually
caused by a living person who has experienced or is going
through severe trauma—especially involving sexuality.Vampires
Vampires are soulless “undead” with no life of
their own, who sustain themselves by sucking life-
essence from the truly living. There are essentially two
types: those who suck your blood, and those who suck
your soul. Victims of vampires gradually lose energy,
decline, and wither. Although vampires are basically
loners, sometimes in big cities they may frequent certain
hangouts, like vampire bars
Vampires are creatures of the night who recoil
from the light of the Sun, which burns their skin. Having
no souls, they cannot see their reflection in a mirror.
They can’t come into your home (or your life) unless
you invite them in. They are repelled by holy symbols
and (except for the Italian ones) raw garlic. And they
die if you drive a wooden stake through their heart (well,
who wouldn’t?). But they cannot turn into bats, except
in fiction. And contrary to popular myth, real vampires
are not super-strong, but tend to be frail and weak.
Blood-sucking Vampires are popular figures in
literature, movies, and TV shows, and have been the
subject of folklore for millennia. In former times, people
who had fallen into a cataleptic paralysis or coma were
often declared dead and entombed. Sometimes they
would awaken in their coffins with severe mental im-
pairment and struggle forth from their crypts to take
up a nocturnal “undead” existence, preying on the liv-
ing, and returning at dawn to sleep in their sarcophagi.
In 1985, Dr. David Dolphin, a biochemist at the
University of British Columbia, proposed that vampires
were afflicted with a genetic disease called porphyria:This malfunction in the body’s chemistry makes
the skin sensitive to light, which explains why
sufferers tend to avoid the sun....
The disease can also cause retraction of the
gums, making them so taut that the teeth, although
no larger than ordinary, jut out in a menacing
manner akin to something more animal than
human.... And the disease may explain why
vampires, or porphyria victims, might well have
been afraid of garlic, in accord with mythology.
Garlic, Dolphin says, contains a chemical that
exacerbates the symptoms of porphyria.
Dolphin also notes that one treatment for the
disease is an injection of a blood product, heme.
Since that treatment did not exist in the Middle
Ages, when the myths originated, he speculates
that victims might have instinctively sought heme
by drinking blood. —Roger Highfield,
The Science of Harry Potter, pp. 188–89Rabies has also been suggested as
a factor in vampirism. The disease
is transmitted by biting, and symp-
toms include insomnia and an aver-
sion to mirrors and strong
smells (like garlic).
There are few actual blood-
sucking vampires around to-
day, and they present
little threat to magi-
ckal people. They
mostly get their blood
from blood banks or
willing volunteers, and
occasionally prey on
muggers and derelicts.
Psychic Vampires are far more common, and less
easily recognizable—often not until too late. These
soulless creatures are always needy, and fasten onto
you like a leech, sucking your soul and draining your
vitality with their never-ending demands. They appear
as hopeless neurotics or junkies, with no real lives,
and all they really care about is vainly trying to satisfy
their own unquenchable needs.
During the course of your life you will
undoubtedly encounter some of these creatures. Most
appear to be fairly normal people, physically; however,
their psychic nature will become apparent in the way
they treat you and others around them. They will
attempt to manipulate you to meet their needs—often
in ways that are harmful to you either physically or
emotionally. The psychic vampire is often known by
other names: sexual predator, manipulative girl/boy-
friend, co-dependent enabler. These are destructive
people whom those who care about you have probably
warned you to stay away from.Zombies
Zombies are also called “the living dead.” The
word comes from the African Congo nzambi (“spirit
of a dead person”). Pretty much confined to the
Caribbean island of Haiti, these are people who have
died and whose bodies have then been exhumed from
the grave and “re-animated” to turn them into soulless
slaves of evil bokors (Voodoo sorcerers).
Zombies are created by administering a powerful
poisonous drug that induces total paralysis and a state
of apparent death. After the victim is buried, the bokor
digs him up and feeds him another concoction, which
causes confusion and hallucinations. Giving the zombie
a new name, the bokor puts him to work. Zombies need
little food, but may recover if they eat salt.
The formula for the zombie death drug was
determined by Harvard ethnobotanist (one who studies
plants in a cultural context) Wade Davis in 1982. Of a
long list of foul and poisonous ingredients, the essential
element is the puffer fish, containing the deadly poison- Spectrum 2.p65 298 1/15/2004, 9:32 AM