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6 min read

Bled dry: some red flags for those who hope to date a vampire

A philosopher's guide to undying love.

Ryan is the author of A Guidebook to Monsters: Philosophy, Religion, and the Paranormal.

A modern vampire stairs at the face of his girlfried.
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in Twilight.
Lionsgate.

Writing from his new book, A Guidebook to Monsters, Ryan Stark delves into humanity’s undying passion for all things gothic.  In the first of a two-part series, he asks what is so irresistible about vampires, what do we want from them, and what’s the deal with the armadillos? 

 

Historians point to John Polidori’s The Vampyre as that vital moment in Western vampire lore when the grisly undead creature becomes instead a Casanova. London, 1819. Lord Ruthven, the suave vampire in question, seduces young women and orchestrates chaos in the lives of others—all for his own carnal pleasure. Importantly, he does this by way of persuasion, not rote coercion, which illustrates a key aspect of the modern vampires’ modus operandi. They prefer romance to compulsion, seduction to force. They prefer thrall, almost to the end, at which point the monster fully emerges and the victims fully grasp that their good senses have been compromised. But by then it is too late. 

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free,” Goethe once observed. Similarly, none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who believe themselves to be dating vampires. 

To resist, however, is easier said than done. Even Buffy the vampire slayer succumbs to thrall, so much so that she invites Dracula to bite her. And he happily obliges, if “happily” is possible in the mind of a vampire. Later, having sobered up from the ordeal, Buffy stakes the villain, but we are nonetheless left with an uneasy feeling. Despite all her experience, despite all her kung-fu knowhow, Buffy still crumbles in the wake of thrall, at least temporarily, putting herself in grave danger and eliciting from us a pressing set of questions. How could this have happened so easily? Will this happen again? Are women attracted to men in capes? 

Much like kryptonite, vampire magic also affects Superman. Two vampires have so far succeeded in hypnotizing him. Crucifer, not fortunate in name, enthralls our protagonist and sends him on several errands, until the Man of Steel has a moment of clarity, as the alcoholics call it, at which point he punches the ancient vampire through the heart. Dracula, too, disguised as an aristocrat named Rominoff, charms our superhero rather easily and then bites him on the neck, only to explode—hilariously—on the premise that Superman’s blood is tinged with sunlight. A moment of dream logic used to subvert the expectation that superblood might somehow benefit the Count. 

Lord Ruthven of Polidori fame also wanders into the DC Comic Book Universe and, per usual, charms his way through problems, until he inadvertently skewers himself on a war memorial. Before this happens, however, we get the strong impression that Ruthven could beguile Superman with ease, if given the chance: that pens are mightier than swords and always have been. 

On the contrary, vampires have a long history of not pointing to Heaven. Instead, they gild the lily. In their attempt to out-gothic the gothic, they turn their style inwardly upon themselves.

Psychoanalysts observe that to empathize with sociopaths is to negate the self most dangerously. They are right, I think, and right—too—that self-erasure proves difficult to recognize at times, because it feels like love. Such is the predicament of those who hope to rendezvous with vampires. Perhaps they have a death wish, some will say, or maybe a savior syndrome, as if they are to save the brooding scoundrels. As if they can. Regardless, the monsters have another plan entirely. As an early church father once explained, those who dine with the devils should bring long spoons. 

Not that vampires are particularly good at banquets. They inevitably exaggerate, like the Macbeths as they welcome King Duncan to the castle: “All our service,” the lady says, “in every point twice done and then done double.”  

Or recall the embroidered hospitality of Bela Lugosi’s 1931 Dracula, caught between silent film and sound: “I bid you welcome,” he says, acting out the part as if the audience must see the motive on his face. A perfect moment when the silent cinema and talking pictures conspire to produce the quintessential vampire ethos, an overstated affectation framed for the modern age. The bow of pretended humility, the elongated gesture, the monumental gravity. The outfit.   

Some speculate that if vampires were able to see themselves in mirrors, they would reconsider their wardrobes. We have reason to think otherwise. Of course, the true gothic is not the vampire aesthetic, because the true gothic always points to Heaven, as in Notre Dame Cathedral, for instance, or Westminster Abbey. On the contrary, vampires have a long history of not pointing to Heaven. Instead, they gild the lily. In their attempt to out-gothic the gothic, they turn their style inwardly upon themselves, incurvatus in se, which signals not grandeur but rather self-apotheosis. In essence, vampires are their own cathedrals, and with this premise proceed accordingly, candelabras in tow. 

If the vampire could only find pleasure in chocolate, if he could laugh with children, if he could be loved like Bella loves Edward in The Twilight Saga, then maybe there is hope enough in the world for all of us.

Longinus, in On the Sublime, uses the term “frigidity” to describe the emotional effect produced by such false grandeur. He means to convey both rhetorical and metaphysical coldness, as does Dante, who places the Devil in a block of ice at the Inferno’s gaudy center. As does Stanley Kubrick, too, who freezes the possessed Jack in the maze at the end of The Shining. And somewhere near the frozen middle of Hell we find the vampires, those who betrayed the strangers in their midst and preyed upon the lonely and the desperate. But now they only devour themselves. We are punished by our sins, not for them. 

On a side note, and concerning the vampire’s many choristers, the opening scene of Lugosi’s Dracula features three armadillos. They wander about the castle and mind their own business, it seems, as wolves howl and spiders weave their webs. On how they got there we do not know, but the armadillos further confirm Longinus’s additional point that the ridiculous and the sublime bear a family resemblance. 

What, then, are we to make of the vampires who sparkle and the vampires with souls? Or, if not in the direction of the dreamy, then in the theater of the absurd: Count Chocula, the mascot for a popular breakfast cereal, or the puppet Count von Count from the children’s program Sesame Street, who teaches viewers how to add and subtract—hitting all the numbers with his heavy Transylvanian accent. We might deem these manifestations too unserious to be taken seriously, but in fairness to the spirit of Count Chocula, perhaps something else happens here. Namely, we find more variations upon the culture-making effort to rehabilitate the demonic, and the almost demonic, as the case might be.  

If the vampire could only find pleasure in chocolate, if he could laugh with children, if he could be loved like Bella loves Edward in The Twilight Saga, then maybe there is hope enough in the world for all of us. Indeed, maybe some vampires have grown tired of being vampires. That said, we do well to heed the old Transylvanian proverb, lest we over-empathize with the villains: the sane would do no good if they made themselves monsters to help the monsters. 

A recent meme depicts the real Dracula in the company of Count Chocula, Count von Count, The Twilight Saga’s Edward, and several other less-than-scary princes of darkness, at which point Dracula laments that the vampires have lost their edge. 

And, true, I have yet to comment on psychic vampires and flaming extroverts, which is an oversight to be sure. As a corrective, and by way of conclusion, I observe the following: for twenty-seven dollars, one can buy a beaker of psychic vampire repellent from Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Store in Beverly Hills, California. The Paper Crane Apothecary makes the product, which—with an essential blend of rosemary, lavender, and juniper—protects against the fiends who corner people at parties. At present, however, shipping will be difficult: the website tells me “This item is sold out.” 

  

From A Guidebook to Monsters, Ryan J. Stark.  Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers. 

Article
Church and state
Culture
Freedom of Belief
War & peace
7 min read

Nigerians plead for an end to rampant murder

So-called ‘grazing conflicts’ need to be treated as a real humanitarian crisis

K.C. Nwajei is a freelance journalist based in Nigeria. 

Small huts in a crowded refugee camp.
Displaced villagers shelter in refugee camps in Benue State.
Open Doors.

 

In the state of Benue in the North Central region of Nigeria, life has become short and brutish, as mothers bury their husbands and children in an endless grief pervading Nigeria’s Middle Belt region. 

In a region where women and families once tilled the soil for sustenance as children played freely on farmlands, an unrelenting nightmare now unfolds with worrisome and haunting regularity. 

Vicious and armed herdsmen, cloaked in impunity, have turned many villages and communities in the area into killing fields. They leave behind mass graves, charred houses, and shattered lives. 

As the world watches in silence, cries from the bloodied farmlands, a steady but unabated genocide unfolds, bringing in its wake ashes of burned houses and orphans, the human cost of Nigeria’s silent killings. This is the sad reality of our times. 

Many human rights groups and people of conscience say this is no longer a local conflict over grazing routes but a serious humanitarian crisis—the agony of abandoned lives in Nigeria’s killing fields crying out for justice and urgent, pragmatic international intervention before the region is wiped off the map. 

The most recent of these gory tales is the Yelewata Massacre in the Guma Local Government Area of Benue state. Reports have it that more than 200 innocent, vulnerable and unsuspecting persons—children and elderly from 47 families—were killed by suspected herdsmen on June 13 and 14. 

In a shocking revelation by the Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, 614,937 people were killed in the country in the past year. According to a local newspaper report (Daily Trust, June 22), the death toll figure is 10 times more than in war-torn Russia and Ukraine, which stands at 67,000. 

A victim of the mayhem, Janet Erdoo Terhemba, recounted her ordeal, in the news reports of the This Day newspaper. 

“I wasn’t around when it happened. At first, I was told my uncle was missing. Later, they said they found my father and stepmother. But my uncle and others, including a toddler, were burnt beyond recognition. They were butchered before they were set ablaze. My uncle was butchered—his wife too. In total, I lost eight people in one night … they were killed.” 

Ajim Doowuese is an internally displaced person from Yelwata. “All my children were burnt to death,” she said while sobbing. “Now I am childless.” 

David Tarku recounts this: “I traveled out of town and returned late in the night. Suddenly, the herdsmen attacked. I started running with my family, but my cousins were not lucky. They were killed.” 

These massacres have provoked reactions from Christian leaders, government, human rights groups, and well-meaning Nigerians, calling for decisive government actions. Pope Leo XIV, in his first official statement regarding the crisis in Nigeria, described it as “a terrible massacre in which mostly displaced civilians were murdered with extreme cruelty.” The pontiff offered prayers for security, justice, and peace for rural Christian communities he described as “relentless victims of violence.” 

The Rt. Rev. Dr. N.N. Inyom Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Markurdi, confirmed the story, while emphasizing that this is a “genocidal attack targeted at predominantly Christian communities.” 

Inyom has been a member of the Benue State Security Council through the past two administrations, and is a specialist in conflict and peace studies. “By any stretch of imagination … this is not a conflict,” he said. “It is pure genocide. … These are purely activities of terrorists to take the land of the communities. I have documents to support what I am saying, and pictures and names of the families and people killed in the Yelewata community.” 

“We have been living with this crisis over the years,” he added. “The Yelewata catastrophe is unimaginable.” 

“Benue state has 23 Local Government Areas, and about 17 are completely devastated. Over 1.5 million (mostly women and children) villagers are living in Internally Displaced Camps in the state. 

“Before my retirement, I had six archdeaconries. Out of these six, four have been sacked by the invading terrorists,” the bishop said. 

To buttress his claim, the bishop presented a list of the names and families he says have been killed during the Yelewata crisis. 

He challenged church leaders, irrespective of denomination, to speak up. “If the Pope could speak from the far-away Vatican, what happened to our local leaders? Let the church not just busy or bury itself in ‘spiritual deliverance.’ We need physical deliverance for our people who are being killed. I read a book on Rwandan crisis where the United Nations was asking, ‘Where was the Church before the escalation of the Rwandan crisis?’ Let the Church in Nigeria arise and let the leaders unite and save these communities.” 

He challenged the government to prioritize its duty of ensuring the security of lives of their citizens. “Government is not just about winning elections. They are looking at 2027 general elections. Meanwhile, people are being killed in 2025. Government must stop playing politics with the lives of its citizens.” 

“The greatest problem, he said, is that over time, government has not summoned the political will to implement the recommendation of the Peace and Reconciliation Commission. 

He called on the federal government to set up a Commission of Enquiry on this recurring crisis. 

Bishop Inyom called on the international community to intervene: “This is a Macedonian call. The international communities must speak up because a serious humanitarian crisis is looming.” 

Meanwhile, Amnesty International has been documenting the alarming escalation of attacks across Benue, where gunmen hold sway over the territories. 

Some prominent traditional rulers and Christian leaders have continued to express frustrations. 

In a strongly worded statement shared on X .com, Apostle Johnson Suleiman described the killings as evil, barbaric, and a mayhem. 

At a town-hall meeting with Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, professor James Ortese Iorzua Ayatse expressed his alarm: 

“We do have grave concern about the misinformation and misrepresentation regarding the security crisis in Benue State. It is not herders-farmers clashes, it is not communal clashes, it is not reprisal attacks or skirmishes. It is such misinformation that has led to suggestions such as “remain tolerant, negotiate for peace, learn to live with your neighbour. 

“Your Excellency, what we are dealing with in Benue is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocidal invasion of land-grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits which has been on for decades, and it is worsening every year. 

“Wrong diagnosis will always lead to wrong treatment. So we are dealing with something far more sinister than we think about. It is not learning to live with our neighbors. It is dealing with the war.” 

The leader of North Central Peace Advocates, Frank Utor, in a This Day newspaper report, wrote that the killers are well-trained members and affiliates of international terror groups with the mission to levy war against the indigenous communities of Benue, Plateau, and other parts of North Central. “The killers do not rear cattle, they do not engage in any known pastoral activities,” he said. 

Several media outlets have quoted elder statesmen in the communities expressing concerns about what some of them described as the “genocidal activities” of the criminal herdsmen. Some have argued and lamented that governments have failed to live up to their constitutional responsibility of protecting lives. 

The media, particularly social media, are awash with news berating the political elites in the state for failing to present a united, formidable, and common front to tackle the gruesome serial murders and carnage perpetuated by these criminal armed men. 

At a recent forum during the presentation of a posthumous award to Late Chief Raymond Alegho Dokpesi, a media mogul and founder of African Independent Television, the Rev. Father George Ehusani, a prominent Catholic priest and civil rights activist, said: 

“A lot of the clashes in Benue state are not clashes between two people. People are in their farms and 100 people in motorcycles with AK-47 riffles invade their village, sack them, and kill many. That is not ‘two fighting.’ That is one group of people going to kill people and sack them from their villages. 

“If AIT [a TV news channel] reports the news as “Clash over land in Benue state,” that would not be correct. That would be a lie.” The fact that we should communicate with gentleness does not mean we should tell lies.” 

According to monitored media reports, less than 72 hours after the mayhem, a combined force of Nigeria’s military and police chiefs launched a joint, cross-border manhunt for the gunmen who killed around 200 villagers in Yelewata on the night of June 13. 

Gen. Christopher Musa, the chief of defense, and Kayode Egbetokun, inspector-general of police, arrived in Markudi on June 16 to coordinate the operation. After assessing the carnage, Musa vowed to take the battle to the terrorists by changing the military’s strategy to fit the situation on ground. 

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who had previously condemned the violence in Benue state, had also directed security chiefs to implement his earlier directive to bring peace and security to the state. 

Following his visit to Benue on June 18, President Tinubu directed the Benue State Governor, the Rev. Hyacinth Iormem Alia, to set up an all-inclusive peace committee for the resolution of contentious issues that have rendered past efforts fruitless. 

In response, HURIWA, a human rights group, accused the Governor of showing what it describes as “aloofness to the gravity of the situation of mass slaughter of his people—women and children—by the terrorists masquerading as herders.”

This article first appeared in Livingchurch.org. Reproduced with permission. 

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