The word for vampire in Greek is vrykolakas. It entered the people's language here from the northeast when Orthodox Christianity had first spread into the Slavic countries. There in the first Christian millennium the people of the Balkans already had legends of werewolves, creatures who were cursed by living an eternal existence off the blood of others. In fact, the term derives from a Slavic word meaning "he who wears the wolf pelt." And as you know now, Greece already had a rich mythology inclusive of a blood-draining female creature, known as the lamaia.  

        People in the ancient world believed one's natural progression into a peaceful death could be halted by committing a huge human failing in life—an evil, intolerable act. For instance the murder of a family member, a sexual act of incest, or simply by dying violently and not being properly buried. Many ancient Greek tragedies revolve around the act of giving heroes their deserved burial rights to ensure their passage into a blissful subterranean world. During the Christian era, not being given the sanctity of death by a priest's blessing could block one's entry into heaven and cause a "wanderer" after death. An excommunication from the Church for heresy or committing an unspeakable act could also result in the body not naturally decaying after death—an observation of those individuals who were observed to be resuscitated and seen walking the Earth following their secure placement in the grave.

            But this is all too academic for what I had found here on Mykonos and wish to share with you now--off the pedantic and scholarly record, of course. Although I had covered in my doctoral thesis the European concept of the resuscitated—those called "revenants," who were believed dead yet were still seen as alive, I came to Greece for a more intense look into that issue. What I was to learn during and after my year of writing back at university, took on lively, sometimes unbelievable activities following that research there, on that gorgeous island. And as I celebrate this later summer, out of academia and while I await publication of my research paper, I cannot divorce myself physically from things I had become only intellectually involved with for over two years.

            Were it not for a brilliant friend back in California, one who was able to infiltrate some very esoteric knowledge about a society of, well--beings, (I hasten to call them people anymore), I would not be able to write you this log. This friend's discoveries and uncanny abilities through the Internet, made possible my further revelations beyond my formal education. It led to my discovery that these entities indeed do exist on this Mediterranean island. It also put in motion  my  phenomenal involvement with one particularly beautiful and fascinating "revenant" who, I was to learn, is without a doubt an authentic member of the living dead. Her name is Melina Vespucci—resident of this island, and someone whom I can honestly say I came to both loath and love at the same time.

        My mission, following the final draft of my UCSD doctoral thesis: Traditional Beliefs in the Balkans and Mediterranean Islands of Nefarious Immortality: Brought about by Curse and Deeds, was to come here to Greece to rest. But also I came to pick up where my research only left me—a place where one could actually become privy to the current goings-on of a subculture of those whom people had feared for thousands of years. But as I told you, that could only come from some very special and guarded information, discovered through a means by someone who knew how to access it.

        The Internet is a marvelous thing. It is our new obsession. Our mentor. Our companion. Our tool of the trade in many fields. A universal compendium of data, facts, information and wisdom. And it has become the accepting and dispassionate lover to many of us—providing copious companionship and, most popularly, erotic or affirming energy, so vital to the human animal. Granted it is also addictive, destructive, and the evil opiate to many whose non-productive lives are only further made reductive and devoid of industry--socially, intellectually, and economically. And so in terms of power over us all, can we not consider it a "god" by ancient standards of perception?

        After my ordeal of research back in California, and the discovery my friend made in a crevice so hidden in the darkest corner of the world, I will at least give the Net the present status of humanity's latest dimension—one in which more that half the world drifts in and out of daily. This new dimension of humanity consists of no time, no distance, no space, no physicality—yet it has become totally influential as to who we are and what we believe. It is now the arbiter of many of our decisions and actions which we take back with us to our original dimensions. I have come to see the Internet as our Fifth Dimension.

        This can be easily explained by the observation that the first 3 dimensions we exist in, deal with space and direction. The 4th dimension is time ("from the seed to the tree"). And now we have this 5th dimension of pure knowledge which provides to us insight wherever our curiosity takes us. As a case in point, I had erroneously believed in most of my research that the notion of people defying death was but a sort of spiritual or hallucinatory dimension, conjured up by humans  through their hysteria and unscientific way of thinking. This occurred chiefly in times of fear and uncertainty—a basic boiling down to a world of good and evil. But as the Internet gave me the tools to look deeper, I discovered that there are indeed elements in existence which function on the principles of undefined laws. And it was through this wonderful tool that my brilliant friend attending UC Berkeley managed to infiltrate the cyber sphere and break through to where entities of my research (the "undead") actually and physically do exist.

        As you can imagine, for someone reading thousands of pages of tomes devoted to past records of these beings' existence, and documents attesting to their long history of activities, this was an epiphany of sorts to me. This discovery of an actual location of existing revenants came at a time in my studies at the university when, completing my work empirically, I did not want to take a chance with my reputation or corrupt the nature of traditional historiography on the subject by including it. And so I did not incorporate this Internet find into my body of purely academic inquiry. I did, however, decide to investigate this discovery revealed via the Net in person and to its rightful place.  That development would lead to my "mission" of which I now speak to you--an incursion to the island of Mykonos. What I found there was truly to be one of the world's epicenters of a very real and yet indefinable phenomenon.

      Before leaving Paraga Beach that first day at the Aegean Sea's edge (and being totally distracted by a pair of Belgian girls who persisted in playing paddle ball practically over me in the nude), I took out my reading for the day, late in the afternoon. It was from Tournefort's first hand research on that island 1701. In it he relates what he was told by the locals in one of the first recorded incidents of  "vampires:"

        There was a young farmer on the island in those times who was quite an evil-doer, causing much misery to the people who had difficulty tolerating his criminal antics. It was rumored he was finally violently murdered. The man's lifeless body was hardly buried for two days when the villagers began to complain to the local constable and the priest that they had seen him walking the streets of the town at night. He had been making bold attempts to enter people's houses. Some houses, it was reported, he did break into, causing much violent activity and assaulting members of entire families. The townspeople, after these disturbances continued for several nights, demanded that something be done.

        Ten days after the ruffian's funeral, and upon seeing him by many on each night thereafter, a new church Mass was called by the priest where everyone in the village attended to be blessed. An Albanian living in the town told the people this event was a curse he had witnessed in the north and it was well-known to the rural people there. He explained what should be done to break the curse. However, no one wanted to take his shocking suggestions until after the Mass and if the man was ever seen again.  He was, in fact, seen again in the plateia several more times near people's windows and doors, trying to make entry by scratching the wood with his fingernails.

        It was after this terrifying discovery  that the Albanian's remedy was finally attempted. The man's grave was exhumed and his corpse removed, first blessed again by the priest. It was reported by Tounefort in his journal that holy water was poured down the man's throat before he was reburied, and swords were pounded down into his casket to hold him in place. Heavy stones were also placed upon his grave. That very night to everyone's horror, many saw him again walking the streets just as noisy and threatening as ever. Some witnesses followed him out to the beach in front of the town. After he was chased away later that night from another villager's home, the second phase of the Albanian's cure was unanimously approved of.

        His body was exhumed again and the town's butcher was called upon to remove the revenant's heart. It was sprinkled with holy water and placed in a box by the constable. Following this ceremony, the organ was taken to a remote area on the island, reported to be the tip of Saint George's beach, a large sandy spit near the coastline. There it was said to be set afire and its ashes buried deep in the sand. While it is logical to expect the troubles would have stopped in those days and nights to come--it did not. 

        The man reportedly later attacked several fishermen during the night as they returned with their catch. At this point the revenant's  entire body was removed once more from the graveyard and placed in a wagon. It was taken to the northeast side of the island with a procession of villagers following and chanting "Vrykolakas! Vrykolakas!"  According to witnesses, the entire body of the man was cremated on the desolate  beach—a place some locals of the island still call today Cape Vrykolakas. 

                                                                                                                       *     *     *