ow does a vampire come into existence? Some say that Lilith or Cain is the first vampire in history. Given what most vampire legends say, it can be concluded that vampires were originally human who underwent a unique transformation that enables them to remain active even after their bodies have died. The basic essence of becoming a vampire identical for vampire of both folklore and fiction with the difference being that vampires of folklore do not go through much physical transformation. Can any human become a vampire? Under what circumstances can a human become a vampire? There were carefully prepared qualifications for conditions under which the dead would rise again.

Whether thou art a ghost unburied,
Or a ghost that none careth for,
Or a ghost with none to make offerings to it,
Or a ghost that hath none to pour libations to it,
Or a ghost that hath no prosperity,

  Or-

He that lieth in a ditch,
He that no grave covereth,
He that lieth uncovereth,
Whose head is uncovered with dust,
The king's son that lieth in the desert,
Or in the ruins,
The hero whom they have slain with the sword,

  Or-

He that hath died of hunger in prison,
He that hath died of thirst in prison,
The hungry man who in his hunger hath not smelt the smell of food,
He whom the bank of a river hath made to perish,
He that hath died in the desert or marshes,
He that a storm hath overwhelmed in the desert,
The Night-wraith that hath no husband,
The night-fiend that hath no wife,
He that hath prosterity and he that hath none.

Destined to be a vampire

Some people are fated to become vampires from the moment they were born. Due to the conditions of their birth or a family curse. For some, there are rituals to negate this tragic fate. While for others... perhaps true death is the only cure to free their tortured souls:

• Born with teeth
• The 7th son of the 7th son
• Illegimate offspring of illegitimate parents
• Born with abnormal features (extra nipple, split lower lip)
• Conceived during a holy period (according to Church calendar)
• Born with bestial feature (fur down the front or back or covered in hair)
• Born with a red caul (normally white). In such cases, vampirism can be prevented by drying the caul and mixing it to the child's food for a fixed period of time

Most of the time, these people would not know of their fate until the moment of their deaths. In order to become undead, the human must die in order for the vampire to be born. Hence, we can conclude that death plays a very important factor in vampirism.

Predisposition

These are people who become vampires due to the way they lived their lives or they way they died. These people are considered to be no longer accepted in the realm of God and are Mother Earth would not accept the burial of such people. Such people are condemned to exist eternally in the darkness as punishments for the sins they committed in live:

• Suicides
• Criminals
• Alcoholics
• Evil-Doers
• Prostitutes
• People with no religion
• People who renounce life
• Victims of unsolved murders
• Christians who convert to Islam
• People who died suddenly and violently
• People who renounced the Eastern Orthodox Religion (This is the case of Vlad Dracula)

Having lost their humanity, these people possesses a hatred for life and when their natures are well suited for vampirism. They have that drive to take revenge on a world that has been unfair to them in life thus making them the most dangerous type of vampires.

Events

Most people become vampires due to circumstances not of their own fault. Of all the categories, these vampires are closer to being human. They have a passion towards life that other types of vampires lack. However, due to the dark nature of their unlives, this passion will soon be corrupted into an yearning to take the lives of others to replenish their own:

• Lack of burial
• Being attacked and transformed by a vampire
• The body was reflected in a mirror before burial
• Carelessness, improper and incomplete burial rites
• An animal jumping over the body before burial (bats, dogs and cats in particular)
• Children whose godfathers stumbled upon reciting the Apostle's Creed at their baptism
• A person whose shadow has been stolen. Theft usually occurs near a building where the victim's shadow is measured against the wall and secured by nailing a nail through the shadow's head.

The Transformation

The vampire of fiction has great appetite, sometimes claiming two victims per night. If all the victims of vampires became vampires themselves, the world would be full of them now. A certain ritual has to be fulfilled in order for the chosen victim to undergo transformation. Few books gave much attention to the process of transformation. Most vampire stories pay more attention to killing the vampire instead of studying their existence. The most detailed account is perharps given by Anne Rice in her book Interview with the Vampire.

In this novel, the vampire Louis tells the tale of his existence to a young journalist in present day America. He first told the journalist of how he had become a vampire A terrible tragedy involving his family occured and Louis, feeling responsible and guilty ; loses faith in life and in himself. A vampire Lestat attacks and drains Louis almost to the point of death. He returns a few days later to complete the transformation:

"His gray eyes burned with an incandesence, and the long hands which hung by his sides were not those of a human being. I think I knew everything in that instant, and all that he told me was only aftermath. What I mean is, the moment I saw him, saw his extraordinary aura and knew him to be no creature I'd ever known, I was reduced to nothing. That ego which could not accept the presence of an extraordinary human being in its midst was crushed. All my conceptions, even my guilt and wish to die, seemed utterly unimportant. I completely forgot myself!' he said, now silently touching his with his fist. `I forgot myself totally. And in the same instant I knew totally the meaning of possibility. From then on I experienced only increasing wonder. As he As he talked to me and told me of what I might become, of what his life had been and stood to be, my past shrank to embers. I saw my life as I stood apart from it, the vanity, the self-serving, the constant fleeing from one petty annoyance after another , the lip service to God and the Virgin and a host of saints whose names filled my prayer books, none of whom made the slightest difference in a narow materialistic, and selfish existence and selfish existence. I saw my real gods...the gods of most men. Food, drink, and security in conformity. Cinders."

The first step of transformation is to seduce the victim into accepting the vampire's dark embrace. The promise of eternal life, an existence beyond human's morals and obligations. A person's desire for immortality and superhuman power is a crucial force in surviving the transformation. Without these, the victim may just die before the transformation is complete:

"Be still. I am going to drain you now to the very threshold of death, and I want you to be quiet, so quiet that you can almost hear the flow of your blood through your veins, so quiet that you can hear the flow of that same blood through mine. It is your consciousness, your will, which must keep you alive."

When the victim is ready, the vampire will proceed to suck the victim's blood. Just before the victim dies, the vampire must replace the victim with their blood:

"`Listen, keep your eyes wide, ' Lestat whispered to me, his lips moving against my neck. I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion...."

He mused, his fingers slightly curling beneath his chin, the first finger appeared to lightly stroke it. "The result was that within minutes I was weak to paralysis. Panic- stricken, I discovered I could not even will myself to speak. Lestat still held me, of course, and his arm was like the weight of an iron bar. I felt his teeth withdraw with such a keeness that the two puncture wounds seemed enormous, lined with pain. And now he bent over my helpless head and, taking his right hand off me, bit his own wrist. The blood flowed down upon my shirt and coat, and he watched it with a narrow, gleaming eye. It seemed an eternity that he watched it, and that shimmer of light now hung behind his head like the backdrop of an apparition. I think that I knew what he meant to do even before he did it, and I was waiting in my helplessness as if I'd been waiting for years. He pressed his bleeding wrist to my mouth, said firmly , a little impatiently, `Louis, drink.' And I did. `Steady, Louis,' and `Hurry,' he whispered to me a number of times. I drank, sucking the blood out of the holes, experiencing for the firsttime since infancy the special pleasure of sucking nourishment, the body focused with the mind upon one vital source.

After sampling a vampire's pleasure for the first time, the victim will complete the transformation into a vampire. All senses are enhanced to their peaks master should be around to guide the the new vampire. It is only reasonable that creating a new vampire would require some of the creator's essence hence it controls their population.

A new vampire is a slave to its creator, it must follow its master's will due to the blood link between them. The master's power over its slave is telepathic; it does not need to be in the vicinity to control the vampire slave. The only way for a slave to be completely free of its master is to have a stronger will than its master, or slaying the master. A vampire slave may win its freedom as it grows more powerful with age. The ability to create new vampires grows with the strength of the vampires. A vampire that has created new slaves is known as a Master Vampire.

Most modern vampires are born to be vampires. The only sure method to become a vampire is to be born as one. There are theories stating that modern vampirism is actually caused by a virus. This virus supposedly mutates its host, making them somewhat of a subspecies. The basic anatomy are identical; humans and vampires suffer from the same injuries and diseases. The virus's mutation unlocks the host's inherent psychic ability; though it unlocks more of the negative aspect.

Usually, the virus cannot resist a human body's normal immune system. The infection can only take place if the immune system is severly weakened either through blood lost or other infections. It is said that if the infection is successful, the victim starts to become a vampire. If the victim's immune system has not recovered through the course of the infection, the transformation completes itself and the victim becomes a vampire. If this is true, one wonders if medication can fight vampirism...