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| Vampires: The Occult Truth (Llewellyn Truth About Series) | 
 enlarge | Author: Konstantinos
Publisher: Llewellyn Publications
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95 (35.19 RON)
Buy New: $10.17 (23.94 RON)
You Save: $4.78 (11.25 RON) (32%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 78975
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.6
ISBN: 1567183808
Dewey Decimal Number: 133.423
EAN: 9781567183801
ASIN: 1567183808
Publication Date: September 1, 2002
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
Great for beginners July 27, 2006
If you are just beginning to research or read about the undercurrent vampires that exist(or don't according to some people) then this is a good book. That's if you know NOTHING. Or very little. For anyone who has been into vampires for a while and enjoys reading about them ect, this book is ok too. I say that because it offers some obsure theories on vampires. The book does come off has pushy though in the way it insists Vampires are among us. I do belive there are just some strongly dilusional poor souls out there who have watched way to many Dracula movies and now think they are among the undead. No, that's called insomnia, and they suffer from dillusionment. On the other hand, I also belive there are legit *vampires* that do exist.
This book was entertaining enough to get four stars and I'm sure would do just fine for anyone interested in vampires. But if you already have great knowledge of the vampires, skip over this book or just use it has a decorative bit on your coffee table. :)
 Mostly very sweet, but a few things bothered me June 23, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Konstantinos' book Vampires is mostly an interesting, easy to read, and well-written introduction to the phenomenon known as vampires; where they're from, what famous individuals from history who have inspired the modern view of vampires, how different the belief in vampires looked in different parts of the world, and so on.
Konstantinos, who for over fifteen years have researched the occult and written several books about most matters concerning the world of goth and the occult, manages to create a (mostly) pleasing mix of scepticism and belief, especially when it comes to historical tales about alleged "real" vampires where he thorough and informative explains how folklore easily can distort stories and how things that back in the days were taken as genuine evidence for the existence of vampires today turn out to be quite invalid.
But this scepticism doesn't last throughout the entire book. As soon as he gets to the section about psychic vampires - that is, vampires that prefer feeding on human energy instead of human blood - the perspective changes in an instant. From being both skeptical and critical in his approach Konstantinos now becomes a complete believer, as he starts talking about nightly attack by psychic vampires, a phenomenon that contains every single element from the phenomenon known as sleep paralysis (being incapable of movement, occurring right before waking up or going to sleep, a feeling of slight pressure on the chest, the notion that someone else is in the room, and so on). Obviously Konstantinos and his readers has every "right" in the world to believe in this, but it's quite surprising that he doesn't even mention the possibility that these nightly attacks are nothing but a very natural phenomenon which most people experience sometime during a lifetime.
This complete lack of scepticism took me by surprise, since he up till then had been critical about everything else he writes about. Yes, it's true that the book is mostly written for people who believe in the existence of magic and the supernatural - which becomes especially apparent at the end of the book - but still, approaching this section, like the rest of the book, with a critical mind wouldn't destroy Konstantinos' "occult reputation" (as far as I'm concerned, anyway), so it puzzles me as to why he writes the way he does.
And also, Konstantinos does have quite annoying tendency to keep telling the reader that future chapters and sections will deal with, and time and again he does this. Sure, this way of writing works excellent and can be very useful, but only to a certain extent, and after a while it usefulness simply transforms into something that you just don't want to be reminded of. Perhaps it's just me, but I couldn't help but to find this method extremely irritating in the long run.
However, Vampires is in the end a book for everyone, skeptics and believers alike, since Konstantinos makes sure to remind the reader that even something as strange as the supernatural deserves to be taken seriously. And this is, of course, very true. You might not agree with some of his ideas, but so what? Many people do, and this alone makes the field a valid one to study. Still, it wouldn't surprise me of he finds his largest audience among the ones inclined to believe in those exact things the established scientific community considers to be pure nonsense.
That didn't matter much to me though, because I still had a good time reading it, and I managed to learn something new in the process.
Not Concise September 29, 2005
7 out of 13 found this review helpful
Personally, aside from his other books, this was an okay book. The main premise is the 'occult' truth. Many people reading this book perhaps have no inkling to what the occult is. There are the immortal vampires (which I do not think he was trying to say there were), the vamps (or people who for one reason or the other need blood - they are also called sanguine vampires), and then it speaks of the psychic vampires (commonly called psy vamps).
His book is not concise because he obviously did not go too deeply into the psychic vampire portion. I know he was trying to sell it from the angle of popular misconceptions, but it is an unjust one. I have the first edition of this book and it was written back in 1996, back when one of the more commonly known psychic vampire houses was in full swing. If he had done any significant study into the matter of psy vamps as he did with sanguine vamps then it would have a decent read. However, he plays on common misconceptions of all the areas he speaks of in this book. I would recommend the book, on the subject of psychic vampires, 'The Psychic Vampire Codex' by Michelle Belanger. This is a first hand account of psychic vampires, from the psychic vampire prospective. For those interested in accurate and truthful information about the psychic vampire community.
In short, when I first read this almost ten years ago I was ignorant of the different areas of vampirism. With the information on the Net, and other books out there (even a decent Wikipedia Search) would yield more concise and accurate information on psychic vampires. Konstantinos was about 24 when he wrote this and so that would be roughly around the same age I am now...and I could have wrote a more accurate book on the subject. Perhaps that was because of the lack of media to look from at the time, but when you take into account that most of the information on psychic vampirism is pure conjecture with no real historical information on the matter as he had with the immortal, and sanguine vamps.
Whether it was because he did not want to provide the information (because historically it was out there) because it would sell the book or because he just did not have the means to find out, I cannot be certain. However, I would strongly recommend The Psychic Vampire Codex.
 by fate December 29, 2004
7 out of 13 found this review helpful
i got ahold of this book by luck when i was traveling into a novelty shop. i saw "vampires" and grabbed it because i am a vampire/gothic nut. the book is amazing, it is very entertaining and educational. this book can read either as for research or for leisure. i respect the author for never trying to shove his beliefs down your throat like most authors do; he educates you and allows you to lead your own conclusion. he breaks down vampirism in it's many fashions. for the slim book that it is, it has enough information to whet your appetite and get you salivating to find more reads on the occult of vampyres.
Vampires for the layman October 16, 2004
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book by Konstantinos contains some of the most original ideas on vampirism I've seen in a long time. This was one of his first books in print, but certainly not his least. His descriptions and ideas on the subject of vampirism is one of the things which led me to believe that some of our modern illnesses like Chronic Fatigue might in some way be connected to cases of psychic vampirism as illnesses like consumption (tuberculosis) were linked to vampirism in the 18th and 19th centuries.
His book is an invaluable resource for those interested in the various kinds of vampirism (and defense against them). Unlike other resources, his words are couched in a conversational tone and he does not fall into the trap of relying too heavily on outdated folklore. Some of the letters from the "real" vampires are a bit far-fetched, but it should be easy for any discerning reader to pick out the truth from the hockum.
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