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Another reposted comment; about vampires
So, over on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
weirdjews, someone asked the perennial question, "Do crosses work on Jewish vampires?"
Of course, several people pointed to Roman Polanski's movie, "The Fearless Vampire Killers", but after thinking about it, I came up with another answer:
On a slightly more serious note:
The vampire mythology as we currently have it, largely from Bram Stoker, is strongly Christaniocentric. The idea is that a vampire is someone who has sold their portion in Heavenly Life Everlasting for earthly life everlasting.
The vampire mythology is a mishmosh of various traditions, which, in general, take the "vampire" to be a being who has, in some way or another, given itself over to pure evil, trading its reward in the afterlife for power in the temporal world.
And all the things which defeat vampires are things which, in some tradition or another, are considered holy.
You can defeat a vampire with:
Sunlight
Crucifixes
Running Water
Crossroads
Garlic
Rowan Leaves or Branches
All of these things are things which are considered holy in some tradition or another.
You can also use burning and decapitation, but those are just general good things to try for anything -- those work against, y'know, people, too.
As good Anglicans, the characters in Bram Stoker's Dracula do not believe in the inherent holiness of the crucifix -- they believe that veneration of the crucifix as an inherently holy object is a form of idolatry. Nonetheless, the crucifix works for them.
So, a more serious answer:
It seems that, since the holy symbols of multiple traditions work, even for people who don't share that tradition, anything which has inherent sanctity would work. A mogen david does not have inherent holiness.
However, tefilin would work, and a vampire would likely be unable to pass a mezzuzah, even if he was invited into the house (again, the holy traditions of hospitality and guest-law in various traditions are in play there.)
The actual belief structure of the vampire would not come into play. A vampire is not Jewish. The person whose body the vampire inhabits may have been Jewish, but the vampire itself has no family ties, cultural ties, or religious ties -- it is outside the society and culture, and cannot be considered to have any religious life of its own. It has given all that up for temporal power.
(Reply to this)
weirdjews, someone asked the perennial question, "Do crosses work on Jewish vampires?"Of course, several people pointed to Roman Polanski's movie, "The Fearless Vampire Killers", but after thinking about it, I came up with another answer:
On a slightly more serious note:
The vampire mythology as we currently have it, largely from Bram Stoker, is strongly Christaniocentric. The idea is that a vampire is someone who has sold their portion in Heavenly Life Everlasting for earthly life everlasting.
The vampire mythology is a mishmosh of various traditions, which, in general, take the "vampire" to be a being who has, in some way or another, given itself over to pure evil, trading its reward in the afterlife for power in the temporal world.
And all the things which defeat vampires are things which, in some tradition or another, are considered holy.
You can defeat a vampire with:
Sunlight
Crucifixes
Running Water
Crossroads
Garlic
Rowan Leaves or Branches
All of these things are things which are considered holy in some tradition or another.
You can also use burning and decapitation, but those are just general good things to try for anything -- those work against, y'know, people, too.
As good Anglicans, the characters in Bram Stoker's Dracula do not believe in the inherent holiness of the crucifix -- they believe that veneration of the crucifix as an inherently holy object is a form of idolatry. Nonetheless, the crucifix works for them.
So, a more serious answer:
It seems that, since the holy symbols of multiple traditions work, even for people who don't share that tradition, anything which has inherent sanctity would work. A mogen david does not have inherent holiness.
However, tefilin would work, and a vampire would likely be unable to pass a mezzuzah, even if he was invited into the house (again, the holy traditions of hospitality and guest-law in various traditions are in play there.)
The actual belief structure of the vampire would not come into play. A vampire is not Jewish. The person whose body the vampire inhabits may have been Jewish, but the vampire itself has no family ties, cultural ties, or religious ties -- it is outside the society and culture, and cannot be considered to have any religious life of its own. It has given all that up for temporal power.
(Reply to this)
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After discussing it a lot for the Vampire campaign I was running, it was decided that the symbol matters to the wielder, not to the vampire, so as long as you believe in your symbol, it works... This doesn't cover sunlight, running water, and garlic like your scheme, though. (Garlic, we decided, didn't work, unless you were part of some mad Savoury Cooking Sect...)
Then The Mummy came out, with Benny cycling through holy symbols, and we could never talk straight about it again...
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Welllllllll, not all vampires willingly give everything up willingly. Some are just made, like Claudia (IWTV). She had no choice in the matter. And Louis (again, IWTV) was a vampire with a human heart/soul, so...he didn't like suckin' on people to begin with. Of course, that's the Anne Rice vampire, and not the traditional Bram Stoker Dracula, which was loosely based on Vlad Dracul but also based on Elizabeth Bathory.
Speaking of a Jewish vampire, I would think that he (or she) would be something like Louis, but worse. I mean...how do you know who's kosher? wouldn't a Jewish vampire be able to only feed on Orhtodox Jews? Or would it depend on whether or not the Jewish vampire was kosher to begin with. Hmm...I dunno. I can imagine what a Jewish vampire's mother would be like, though.
"Oy, do you really think you can actually feed on that one? It's so skinny! Don't put it in your mouth, you don't know where it's been!"
That ought to be a cartoon/drawing. XD
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(Anonymous) 2006-12-23 02:44 pm (UTC)(link)That's why a well-prepared vampire will plan on bursting through windows after having been invited in, and will bring along a sledge hammer to go through the walls. On the plus side for the people in the house, if the walls are lath and plaster, the bits of lath might be useful as improvised crosses, which is ironic, but any port in a storm.
Personally, while 'Day of the Jewish Vampire (Which Starts at Sundown)' might be interesting, I'd rather see the other half of the double feature: 'Frankenstein's Monster vs. the Golem.'