There are four types of vampire. Three kinds are real, and one is fictional.

The fictional type of vampire is the Count Dracula variety popularized by folk tales, books, fantasy magazines and movies. This type is supposed to be a reanimated corpse of someone who has previously been bitten by a vampire.

Which begs the question, where did the first vampire come from? In older folk tales, a vampire was someone who had lived a very wicked life, and was cursed for his or her evil deeds by being bound to the grave, and forced to wander the earth in search of fresh blood -- in this way a vampire could be created without having first been bitten by another vampire. A recent variation on the myth is that a vampire can only be created if the person bitten also drinks the blood of the vampire. This seems to have no historical foundation in folk tales.

Movie vampires are physical beings who nonetheless possess the power to dematerialize into mist, or change their shape into various creatures of the night, such as the bat and wolf. In the form of mist they can exit and enter their graves through minute cracks in the ground. They cannot see their reflections in mirrors, nor be seen in them. For some unspecified reason, this causes the vampire to hate mirrors, and to shatter any looking glasses that happen to be around. They are equally discomforted by garlic and the Christian cross, or the crucifix (cross with the figure of Jesus upon it). In modern versions of the myth, vampires sometimes show contempt for the cross rather than fear.

The vampires of popular modern fiction can be destroyed in a variety of ways. Sunlight and holy water dissolve their flesh and bones like strong acid. In some versions of the legend, sunlight causes them to burst into flames. A stake through their heart also causes them to decay very rapidly. In a modern variation of this detail, the stake merely renders the vampire immobile and apparently dead, but if withdrawn, the vampire immediately reanimates. Less common ways to kill a vampire in films and popular fiction are decapitation and a silver bullet through the heart.

These animated corpses are condemned to wander the night in search of blood. The older version of the modern myth suggests that only human blood is suitable, but in recent vampire stories animal blood is said to be a poor, temporary substitute. Despite their ceaseless craving for blood, vampires are immortal -- even if they never drink blood, they remain undead, but are maddened and weakened physically by long periods without this nourishment.

Obvious contradictions exist in the modern versions of the vampire myth. These stem from an underlying confusion over whether the vampire is corporeal or spiritual. Dracula exhibits characteristics of both a physical and a spiritual being. He can pass through a keyhole or transform into a bat, yet his body must physically rest in a coffin during the day in his native grave earth. He is forced to regularly drink blood, yet can go for an unspecified length of time -- perhaps forever -- without drinking it. He can be killed with a wooden stake through the heart, yet when killed he dissolves into vapors. He can be touched by the hand, yet cannot be seen reflected in a mirror.

The older legends of the vampire (but not the most ancient legends) avoid these contradictions of logic by declaring that the vampire is a spirit without a physical body. This spiritual vampire is a type of hungry ghost of a deceased evil doer who sucks out the life-force of his or her friends and relatives during the nights. These ghostly vampires always return to those they knew during life. To prevent the return of the spirits, the families took great care to have the body of the evil person staked to the ground in the grave. The stake was thought to pin the restless spirit into its corpse and prevent its nightly visitations. To be extra certain, the head of the corpse was cut off and its mouth stuffed with garlic.

In the most ancient of all vampire legends, such as those that existed in Egypt during pre-dynastic times, the vampire was a wholly physical corpse, reanimated as a punishment for its sins, that returned to its family to murder and eat the flesh of some unfortunate relative. We would probably call this most ancient species of fictional vampire a zombie or a ghoul today.

It is easy to see how the stories of a completely corporeal vampire that consumes human flesh, and a completely spiritual vampire that sucks out the vital life force, became combined into the half-physical and half-spiritual film vampire of the 20th century.

This is the vampire that most people think of when they hear the term spoken. It is only a fiction, but as is so often true, the legend is based on fact. There are three kinds of real vampire. They are not very well know outside the halls of esoteric lodges that study and practice the arcane arts, but I will reveal them for you here.

The first type of true vampire is the deluded living human being who feels the irresistible compulsion to consume human or animal blood. Some believe that this compulsion is the result of a physical sickness, but it is more generally held that the compulsion of blood-drinking is a mental disorder. It is sometimes accompanied by murderous and sadistic tendencies. In modern times, those afflicted with the compulsion to drink blood often take on the mythical qualities of the film vampire, as far as it is possible for a human being to so do. They shun mirrors, for example, and believe themselves without reflections; they avoid sunlight; they frequent graveyards; some imagine they can transform themselves into wolves or bats. Thanks to Anne Rice, vampires have become fashionable. Many young people have discovered a sexual thrill in drinking their own blood, or the blood of others. In this subculture blood is shared. Some fashion vampires imagine themselves possessed of unusual physical strength, or immortal life, or special occult powers such as the ability to control others mentally or to see in the dark.

The second type of true vampire is also a living human being, but one who sucks vital energy from others rather than physical blood. This class is known as the psychic vampire. Often these individuals are completely unaware of the effect their presence has on others. When they enter a crowded room, the vitality drains from those around them. Conversation quiets. Laughter ceases. A dark shadow seems to grip the heart. The psychic vampire may be animated and laughing all the while, but the happiness of others drains away. Usually this type of vampiric personality fixes itself on one person, or a small group, and feeds upon the life force of its victims until its victims are little more than hollow shells. Vampirized individuals lose hope, lack all energy or enthusiasm, and often commit suicide. The sucking of the life force occurs during sleep as well as waking. The dreams of the victim are haunted by the psychic vampire. Over time the will of the vampire completely subdues and controls the will of the victim. In this way the victim is prevented from breaking off the social connection with the vampire. As the vampire grows more vigorous and animated, the victim sinks into a dreaming, depressed, listless state.

Unless the connection between the vampire and its victim can be broken, sooner or later death of the victim will result from suicide, drugs, alcoholism, accident through weakness or inattention, or the inability to fight off disease. The vampire and his or her victim can be recognized by their relative energy levels, by the subservience of the victim and dominance of the vampire, and by the colors and strengths of their auras (the aura of a psychic vampire is bright, flaring, florid, and feverish; the aura of the victim is dark, dirty, grey, spotted, and weak).

The third type of true vampire is little known outside the circles of the Hermetic arts. It is a type of parasitic spirit that feeds upon the vital energy of human beings. These spirit vampires are known by various names. Often they adopt the opposite sex to their victim, since sexual energy is a highly concentrated food source, equivalent to sugar for the spiritual vampire. When these spirits do not assume human form they are called larvae. When they take on the form of a woman they are known as lamia or succubi. Male vampires of the spirit kind were sometimes called incubi or satyrs. They have many names in many cultures.

These spirit vampires visit their victims in their beds during sleep, and enter their dreams, where they adopt pleasing forms. After their hold upon their unwitting hosts is certain, they drop the pretense of lovers and allow their natural forms to be perceived. Their natural features are distorted and grotesque, continually contorted with passions.

Once the link is strong, the increasingly unwilling victim becomes obsessed with the spirit, and is able to feel, hear and see its presence during waking hours. The spiritual vampire haunts the presence of its victim, never leaving the victim's side day or night. The result of this drawing forth of the life force is total exhaustion for the unhappy human host. Often this results in sickness and death, although this type of vampirization may continue for many years. Those who possess psychic perceptions can sometimes see the vampire spirit hovering close to its host like a dark shadow.

Those who are afflicted by human psychic vampires can solve the problem simply by taking themselves far away from the influence of the vampire. This will prove difficult, since the vampire will sense that it is losing a source of nourishment, even if completely unaware of its true nature, and will exert all its considerable will power and guile to maintain a close connection with its hapless prey. The help and intervention of others is usually necessary to effect this complete break between the psychic vampire and its victim.

Those suffering from the obsession of a spiritual vampire face a more subtle difficulty. Physical removal of the host from the spirit is impossible, since spirits are not bound by limitations of distance. It is necessary to erect occult wards and barriers in order to achieve this separation. Magical boundaries are created which the spirit vampire cannot pass; or it is imprisoned within a particular object such as a ring or medallion, or a tree, or in a specific place such as a stone or pond (depending on its elemental nature and its natural affinities). It is more difficult, but possible, to destroy the spirit vampire, but this drastic course of action is seldom necessary.