Real Vampires, Night Stalkers and Creatures from the Darkside. Brad Steiger

was my only concern, my deepest conviction.

      All at once, I heard my voice speak out loud, commanding the demon to leave. Opening my eyes, I saw that the demon was gone, and I could see the light from the sun coming up outside. With the light of day, I felt rescued. I jumped up, headed for the door, and looked back into the room to make sure it was no longer there. I was startled. There on the bed was the Gerber doll that had been in the crib the night before.

      With my sister still sleeping, I tip-toed into the kitchen, and put on a pot of coffee. From the corner of my eye, I saw something moving. It was my grandfather making his way to the kitchen table. He was weak, but there was color and life in his face.

      “I had a dream about you,” he said. “You were fighting with a dog that was trying to eat me alive.”

       I tried screaming, but nothing would come out. In a split second, the animal was beside my bed.

      Although I wanted to tell him desperately about the demon, I did not. He was too ill. It was not long before the others began to make their way into the kitchen, and the subject turned to breakfast.

      Over the next couple of days, my grandfather gained strength, and sat with the family. We talked about God, hope, prayer and the ways of the world. Little did he know how my world had changed dramatically right there in his home. I no longer looked at the world the same way. There was definitely evil among us, and by the grace of God, I was spared from it. My prayers that night spared him, too.

      As I was packing, my grandmother came into the bedroom carrying a small, wooden trunk. She unlocked it, and pulled out the Gerber doll and the clothes that she had made for it. She was proud of it, and said she thought it looked identical to the Gerber baby on the cereal box.

      “Where’s the other one?” I asked looking around to see if it was back in the crib.

      She matter-of-factly stated, “I have just one, and I keep it under lock and key so nothing happens to it. It’s a collectible!”

      I told her that I had seen it in the crib the first night there, but she just shook her head, and told me it was impossible. It didn’t take long for me to gather up the rest of the family, and drive away. Looking into the rear view mirror, I saw my grandfather standing there waving one last, long good-bye. A part of me wanted to go back, and ask him what he had experienced while he was so ill, but I kept driving. A sense of relief came over me knowing he had been released from the bonds of evil that had brought him to the brink of death. As I rounded the corner, I waved back. We never saw each other again.

      The young woman claimed to be possessed by the spirit of a wolf.

       A Conversation with a “Werewolf Girl”

      Paul Dale Roberts, General Manager/Ghostwriter of Haunted and Paranormal Investigations International, sent me an account of his recent conversation with a young woman who claimed to be a modern-day werewolf.

      Paul, who lives in Sacramento, agreed to meet the “werewolf girl” in Vallejo at a coffee shop. According to Paul, he was able to spot her easily: She wore a cat ears head band, a pentagram ring and a black T-shirt that read “Live Animal.” Not hard to find at all.

      This is her story. About four years ago, she was bitten by a mountain lion while doing voluntary work at the San Diego Zoo. The male mountain lion was playing with her at first and had her arm in his mouth, then he got rough and actually bit her. She (let’s call her Diana, in honor of the Huntress) told me that everyone has an animal spirit within their being, and when she got bit, it brought out the wolf-like attributes that she was born with. When she got bitten that day, the essence of the wolf took over her persona. It possessed her.

      Diana said that it’s rare for werewolves to really transform into wolves and that she can’t transform at all, but she added that she does have heightened senses, such as hearing, smell, eyesight, and even the sense of touch. She can feel the fluctuations around a person’s body.

      When she became a werewolf, the hairs on her arms became dark. She pulled up her pants leg and displayed a whole lot of hair on her leg. Diana displayed no canine teeth, but she craves meat. She has eaten raw meat, but mostly orders medium rare steaks. During a full moon, her senses sky rocket in intensity. This happens the day before a full moon, during the full moon, and after a full moon—three nights of sensationally heightened senses.

      She told me that silver cannot harm her, but she has heard that silver can cause an allergic reaction to some werewolves. She lives a normal working life as a hostess at the Olive Garden. She has a boyfriend and her boyfriend is not “awakened,” but he is also a werewolf. None of her relatives are werewolves.

      She knows a few energy and physical vampires, but she made a point that werewolves and vampires are not mortal enemies as Hollywood would like you to believe in the Underworld series of films.

      The Blood Cults

      On January 7, 2009, a gathering of hundreds of Shiite men unsheathed their daggers and slashed the scalps of boys in the annual ritual of Ashura, a public display of blood shedding to commemorate the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein at the battle of Kerbala in the seventh century. The annual rite is known as “tatbeer,” and after receiving the wounds from the daggers, the boys march through the streets, spilling their blood, as they make their way to a shrine in northern Baghdad.

      While many Shiites protest the rite of tatbeer as barbaric and in violation of Islam’s prohibition of intentionally bringing harm to the body, those young boys who participate in the bloodletting attest that they feel no pain because they are committing the act for the love of Imam Hussein.

      Blood sacrifice, whether of humans or animals, is the oldest and most universal propitiatory act of the pious seeking favor from a benevolent or a wrathful god. An ancient Hittite cylinder seal from the second millennium B.C.E. depicts a human sacrifice in intricate detail.

      The God of the Hebrews strictly prohibited his followers from imitating their neighbors in the offering of human sacrifices (Lev. 20:25; Deut. 18:10). The one God placed a high value on human life and forbade this practice (Lev. 20:2–5; Jer. 32:35).

      While the Hebrew God on the one hand repeatedly emphasized that He, as Spirit, did not need or require food and that the true gift that He required was that of man’s love, commitment, and service, the Laws of Moses did require the blood of animals and the sacrifice of grain to God. These sacrifices were conducted for three basic reasons: Consecration, to dedicate oneself; Expiation, to cover one’s sin or guilt; Propitiation, to satisfy Divine anger.

      Consecration sacrifices were vegetable or grain offerings, but they could not be brought to God unless they had been preceded by an expiatory offering of a blood sacrifice. There was no consecration or commitment to God apart from expiation. According to the law, man could not approach God and be right with Him without the shedding of blood. The sacrifice itself could only be carried out by a High Priest under the strictest obedience to the law. The High Priest himself had to be consecrated before entering the innermost part of the temple or Holy of Holies where the sacrifice was offered to God.

      There seems to be a compulsion in various cults and sects to seek to appease the Dark Gods by the offering of the blood of willing—or unwilling—members (illustration by Ricardo Pustanio).

      In the Christian cosmology, the surrender of Jesus to submit to the will of the Father and to accept the ignoble death of crucifixion was to serve as the final sacrifice and was forever to put the issue of blood sacrifice to rest.

      The Upanishads of the Hindu sages, the Bhagavad-Gita