I fought upstream in the current of tittering tweens, a Twilight convention program and a gin tonic held high above the heads that bobbed and giggled below. From the photograph on the program, I was searching for a tall, studious-looking man who would be wearing glasses and a neatly trimmed painter’s brush.

When the wash of giddy tweens parted momentarily, I caught my first sight of Martin. Seated at his small table surrounded by books and rapt listeners, he was enthusiastically offering pieces of vampiric information to the young people, the new generation of vampire fans.

Since the late seventies, Martin V. Riccardo has been collecting and sharing his knowledge of vampires with anyone interested in the subject. On this particular day, the second of the unofficial Twilight event, Martin was schedule to give a slideshow presentation on his favorite subject to the vampire-enthused crowd.

And while Martin presented a wealth of information on the legends, lore, facts, and fiction of vampires during his presentation, I was curious about the man behind the lecture. Who was this famous vampire scholar? How had he come to study the masters of the night, start his own vampire journal, and begin a nationwide correspondence network with people of all ages...before email?! Much to my delight, the vampire-sage with a heart as big as his knowledge readily agreed to the interview that follows. Guests and ghouls, I present to you Mr. Martin V. Riccardo, vampire expert.

Martin, as both a vampire and an avid fan, please let me take an opportunity to first thank you for the book Liquid Dreams of Vampires. It’s just a wealth of information, even far beyond mere vampire lore!

Exactly, because the vampire has all these tremendous dimensions... almost all aspects of the darker side of human nature. It’s what Freud called the Id and Carl Jung called the Shadow. It’s the darker side within ourselves which has mythological or symbolic expression in the vampire.

When did your interest in supernatural beings like vampires begin?

I’ve always been interested in folk lore. As a young boy I would go to the library check out all the different books on folklore, reading stories from different countries and parts of the world. I was just always fascinated with the world of fantasy, the strange, the bizarre, and the paranormal. That’s something that’s always been a part of my life.

How is it that you are drawn to the vampire figure so passionately?

The vampire is appealing in a lot of different ways. The vampire is an expression of the dark side of human nature. The vampire represents mystery, danger, darkness, death, and all kinds of forbidden passion. In many ways, the vampire is an all purpose fantasy outlet. I’m very much drawn to the erotic nature and mystery of the vampire.

Which did you see first, Lee in a Hammer production or Lugosi in the 1931 Dracula?

I’m sure I saw Bela Lugosi in the 1931 Dracula first as a kid. As most young boys do, I loved monster movies. In those days however, I was not thrilled with vampires. I thought they were kind of pretentious. They were often just standing around posing, not really doing very much. It was only later on when I saw movies like Dracula has Risen from the Grave, when we see a more dynamic violent Dracula as portrayed by Christopher Lee, that my interest really began to spark and develop as far as the potential of the vampire.

Does your interest in the paranormal extend to include aliens and sasquatch and other creatures of the unknown?

Oh, certainly! I’ve been interested in all things strange and Fortean; the paranormal, unusual monsters of all types...these are things that have always been a part of my basic interest.

What other events in your life cemented your passion for the subject of vampirism?

Another thing that really triggered my interest years ago was when I was in college. I heard a lecture by another vampire scholar. His name is Leonard Wolf. He wrote a book called A Dream of Dracula . At the time in the 1970s, he was doing lectures on the subject of Dracula. He was also showing the 1922 silent vampire film Nosferatu. That is one of the things that sparked my interest, when I heard him talk about the many dimensions of the vampire and the strange attraction people have towards vampires.

Around that same time, I also saw Dracula has Risen from the Grave. These were two of the things that really sparked my interest. I was reading more and more about vampires, collecting books, eventually writing about vampires, and around 1977 began doing lectures about vampires. Then I started my journal for two years, the Journal of Vampirism, which was an outlet for my interest in vampires.

The Journal of Vampirism coincided with the Vampire Studies Society?

Yes, the Journal of Vampirism was the written outlet for the Vampire Studies Society. It was a way to put in writing and collect material from people, to really collect all kinds of information on the subject of vampires and make it available to the public.

What is the Vampire Studies Society?

I started Vampire Studies Society as an outlet for vampire fans like myself. At that time, in the late seventies, the interest in vampires was considered a rather off-beat subject. There wasn’t a huge interest in it at that period. But I started corresponding and meeting a lot of other people that were big fans who had read the novels like I did. We collected the comic books, watched the movies, and of course there were a few TV shows that were around before that time, like Dark Shadows in the late sixties and early seventies. So I was able to gather a number of people who had the same kind of strange interest that I had. Once I had put out the publication, I was able to expand the reach of the organization. People around the country, sometimes even around the world, were able to correspond with me.

This was done through mail?

Yes. In fact, to this day a good deal of my contact and correspondence is by regular snail mail. There’s so much on the Internet, we’re talking about virtually thousands of different sites about vampires on the Internet, that I really don’t have a strong presence there. I mainly still either talk to people personally on the phone or I correspond with them through my post office box in Berwyn.

How much correspondence do you receive now?

It used to be a lot more prior to the dominance of the Internet. There were times when I would get dozens of letters each week, but now I get about ten a month. And that’s fine with me. That’s more than enough for me to deal with.

How much time do you devote to your study of vampires?

Because this is just a hobby, I actually only spend a few hours a week. That includes my own reading and research along with correspondents and contacts. So as a hobby, it’s not something that’s all consuming and eats up most of my time; it’s something I’ll spend a few hours a week with... quite often for my own pleasure too, just to enjoy the strange subject of vampires.

Was the Vampire Studies Society a sole effort?

Like any society, it started off with myself as the head. Then the various members and subscribers were part of it at some point. I had various gatherings called Vampire Fan Forums where people would come out and share their interests. We would talk and have presentations, sometimes have various guest speakers.

Vampire Studies Society is now just Vampire Studies. Why is that?

I dropped the Society aspect of it in the 1990s because there was no longer any point in having it as a membership organization. Vampire Studies now is mainly just an information clearing house where I’m happy to share my information with people, answer questions, get people on track as far as whatever aspect of the research they’re interested in. But it’s no longer a membership organization.

I certainly hope we can help in letting people know you’re here and ready to listen and help. May someone send you an email?

People can communicate with me through the internet. It’s not my main mode of reaching people, but people are still welcome to contact me at my email address if they want to.

At what point did you start doing presentations with all your information?

That was around 1977. I put together a slide presentation dealing with vampires in both folk lore and popular culture and I’ve been doing that ever since. The basic title of my presentation is “Vampires; the Creatures of the Night”. A lot of the slides I was using when I started back in 1977 are some of the same slides I use today, although I have included a lot more different slides over the years.

How often are you presenting?

Normally it’s during the Hallowe’en season. This is the main time that I give my lectures, although I occasionally will give a lecture at other seasons of the year, but certainly not as often as I do in October.

If you were to broad description of your audience members from your seminars, how would you describe them?

I would say that the people that come to my lectures are people of all ages and all types. It’s remarkable that the interest really covers a full range. I have senior citizens who come in and tell me they used to enjoy watching Bela Lugosi in the old films. I have young people, some kids a little older than toddlers, who like the video games and the comics and the cartoons. So it’s really all ages, all types, all genders. Almost everyone can have an interest in vampires.

So this is an all ages show?

Right.

What’s the best way to contact you to reserve your time for a vampire presentation?

Anyone that wants to contact me for a presentation can just email me at batbite@msn.com

Would you tell us a little bit about your professional career in hypnosis?

Sure! The hypnosis that I work with is different than the misconceptions that most people have. Hypnosis is not mind-control. It’s not a matter of being blacked-out or unconscious. It’s nothing like that. Hypnosis is a special kind of relaxation that taps the power of the inner mind, your subconscious mind. Everyone has this subconscious that can tempt people, lure them down, make them do things they shouldn’t be doing. With hypnosis, by reaching this inner mind, it just brings out the inner strength, the drive, the will power, the mastery that was not coming to them before. It gets that inner mind working for a person instead of against them in their life.

What has been your experience with the subconscious? What do you feel it might be?

That’s one of the reasons I wrote the book Liquid Dreams of Vampires; dreams are in many ways an expression of this inner mind, an expression of what our dark desires are, what our inner desires, are and by exploring what happens in our dreams, we can discern what’s really going on within us. We can get an idea what our inner motivations are, what our inner passions are, sometimes what our dark sides are. It can help us understand ourselves in a better way... help us to realize what our inner motivations really are.

What type of behavioral changes do you work towards?

Primarily, I work with people to stop smoking and to lose weight, but there are other things as well, such as reducing stress, stopping bad habits like nail biting, or improving certain aspects of their lives such as increasing sales motivation. It covers a wide range of things. Anything that can be a positive improvement or a way of breaking through a mental block, like a bad habit, is the way hypnosis can be used.

Do your hobby of vampirism and your professional career of hypnosis ever cross?

I do sometimes give a workshop which is called “Unearthing the Inner Vampire” where I discuss how people can relate to the vampire within themselves. In this workshop, I do a mind fantasy where people can relax and imagine encountering a real vampire and getting a little taste of what the vampire lifestyle might be like. With that kind of mind fantasy, I use some of techniques similar to hypnosis, but not quite hypnosis. In fact, one of these workshops was shown in the documentary, “National Vampire”.

It looked fascinating! How do people react?

The people there were certainly intrigued by what I was doing. I’ve done this a number of times at various locations. People have always had a very good reaction.

Forgive me if this is just a bit cheeky, but my curiosity is piqued. Given the vampire’s legendary ability to mesmerize, do you ever feel a kinship to the vampire when you practice hypnosis?

Actually, I never feel that kind of kinship because keep in mind, the hypnosis that the vampire uses is a mythical kind of hypnosis where it is mind-control dominating another person. As it turns out, real hypnosis, the therapeutic or behavioral kind that I use is not that kind of mythical hypnosis. The therapeutic hypnosis that I use actually brings out the natural inner strength in a person. It’s not mind-control. It’s not dominating a person. But it’s a way of bringing out inner strength and powers that just were not working as they should have in a person’s life.

You’re saying it’s very much the opposite?

Exactly. I’ve never felt any connection with the vampire through hypnotism.

Your wife has a fascinating profession as well. Do you mind sharing a bit about this as well?

My wife is a Tarot reader. She’s a professional psychic in that regard. She does readings for people who want to get some personal insight about their lives.

And you wanted to mention a special new addition to your family?

Just over a year ago, my wife Denise and I got a cocker spaniel puppy. He is incredibly cute. He’s fun to have around. He loves to play all the time. He’s very devoted and adds a lot to our lives. He’s our favorite little pet. His name is Corey.

In your works, you describe the classic vampire we know today as stemming from an early fifteen-century European origin. Are there even older vampires in world history?

Most modern beliefs in vampires, yes, come from Eastern Europe superstitions and traditions that seem to have begun primarily around the fifteen century; however, there are some older accounts of vampires. For instance, the ancient Hebrews and medieval Jews believed in Lilith, a supernatural female demonic creature that would come out at night and drink blood from infants and children. The ancient Greeks had a similar belief in the Lamia that was also a kind of female supernatural demon that would attack those in their sleep, especially children. The Lamia would drink blood and were often blamed for the deaths of children.

These date back before the common fifteenth century vampire. Even beyond that, there was a belief in twelfth century England written by a historian at that time, William of Newburgh. He wrote about the sanguisuga which is Latin for “blood sucker”. These were the dead reportedly coming back and attacking the living in their sleep.

So while there is precedence to the Eastern European vampire of the fifteenth century, most of the superstitions about vampires did originate from that time period, coming from countries like Poland, Hungary, Russia, Greece, and Romania. A lot of these Eastern European countries really believed that the dead could return, drink blood from the living, and maintain this kind of unearthly existence.

How many different types of vampirism would you say there are now?

There are certainly people who claim to be psychic vampires; that is, people who say that they have this ability to drain the energy of others. There are people who claim to be immortal vampires; individuals who believe they have an actual need for blood. It may just be a psychological need, but many of them feel it’s a physical need to drink blood also.

I certainly never encourage anyone to get involved in any of these lifestyles for the simple reason that they can develop a fixation or an addiction, what might be called a fetish, toward blood. People have fetishes towards gloves or shoes, and some people can develop a fetish towards blood. By getting involved in that kind of lifestyle and actually getting hooked on this, they can isolate themselves and make their lives even more lonely and difficult. While there are people who are drawn to the fantasy image of the vampire, I certainly never recommend that anyone try to get into that lifestyle. That is my personal opinion because I think it causes more problems in their lives than what they already have.

As vampirism has become a more popular subject, have you found yourself more fascinated by the myth of the vampire, or by the people who believe in the myth?

I would say I am primarily interested in the myth. As I was just mentioning, it is a lifestyle, it’s not something that’s going to make anyone’s life better as far as I’m concerned. There are all kinds of people I was mentioning, psychic vampires who drain psychic energy from others, people who believe they actually have to drink blood and believe they have this physical need for it. But there are also all kinds of posers and people doing it purely for shock value. Overall, I don’t recommend it as anything for anyone to think they can get involved with as a playful thing. I don’t personally think it is. My interest is in the myth, the power of the vampire as an image. That’s what I focus on.

How do you feel about how the media handles the topic of modern-day attraction to vampires?

Quite often in the media, when they do news stories about people who claim to be vampires, it’s very negative and focused on criminal cases or murder cases such as the case of Rod Ferrel. He had a vampire cult based on role-playing games. This was late 1996. Rod Ferrel actually murdered two people in Florida. This became a big media sensation. He’s considered one of the real living vampires. Many other cases like that are reported in the news. In the 1980s in Sacramento, California, a man named Richard Chase was known to kill people, drinking their blood.

The media tends to latch onto stories like these and present anyone interested in vampires as being this kind of maniacal killer. As it turns out, the vast majority of these people, even people who are blood fetishists, are generally very non-violent people. They’re law-abiding; they do not attack others; they have willing donors and take small amounts of blood from these donors. They generally avoid the public attention and the media. There may be hundreds of them around the country and around the world, but you never hear anything about them because they’re simply following their own predilections, their own orientations toward blood; however, to me the media tends only focus on the sensationalistic and the criminal and the murderous.

When people hear about those who say they are real vampires, they only get a very negative point of view about it. The vast majority of vampire fans are not into any kind of blood drinking. I like to say that just because somebody wears a cowboy hat, it doesn’t mean he wants to go out and herd cattle. Likewise, there are all kinds of vampire fans who like to dress up like vampires and look like vampires, but the vast majority of them have absolutely no interest in drinking blood or harming anyone. Since I focus mainly on the myth of the vampire rather than the true cases of human vampires, that whole aspect is something I avoid in general.

You’ve mentioned this in every interview I’ve read, every book you’ve written, and your presentations, but for the benefit of our Guests, can you humor us and answer the obligatory “Have you met a real vampire?”

Being a scholar of vampirism, I have run into quite a few people that certainly look like real vampires. They are fearsome-looking, ghastly-looking, pale, strange, unusual. But the odd thing is that some of the strangest people I’ve encountered are some of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. I’m not in any way turned off or repelled by people who would dress up completely in very frightening vampire costumes. When you get to talk to them, you find that most of these people are very friendly, very nice, very out-going, but they simply have a tremendous enthusiasm for vampires. The same thing goes for Goths too. Sometimes Goths can be very intimidating in the clothes that they wear. The majority of them are very nice people.

While I may have run into people that certainly look almost exactly like real vampires, I would have to say that I don’t believe I have ever met any real supernatural undead vampires. I don’t personally believer they exist; however, people I have talked to have told me – and they’re very sincere – they have claimed that they have encountered real vampires.

A young woman in Indianapolis told me that when she was twenty-one, she met-up with a guy. She first met at a night club. She said this guy was the strangest looking man she had ever seen in her life. She described him as being white as a sheet with long black hair covering most of his face. She eventually became lovers with this guy and she discovered that his body was as cold as a corpse. As hard as she tried, she could never hear a heartbeat in his chest.

Things got even stranger when she would occasionally find bite marks on her body with blood running down after she had been with this guy. He always made a point of getting home before sunrise. What freaked her out even more was that sometimes he would wake her up with a phone call in the middle of the night and tell her exactly what she had just been dreaming. Now eventually, this guy dropped her from his life, but this young woman became obsessed with vampires. She got to the point where she even brought a coffin in her home that she slept in. She had permanent fangs put in her mouth. She still believes that this guy was a real vampire.

So that’s just one case. I’ve encountered a number of people who really believe they have met and even had relationships with real vampires. This is something I take with a grain of salt (or a clove of garlic). I’m not quite certain what is really going on here, but there are people who are quite sincere who believe they have met real vampires.

Have you ever experienced anything that leads you to believe in the non-vampiric paranormal?

I’ve always been fascinated with the paranormal, but I guess one of the strangest things that happened to me was when I was a kid still in grammar school. It was around Easter time and I knew one of the local stores had Easter candy. I also knew that they were going to eventually lower the price of the candy. As the season is drawing to a close whatever candy they have left over, they mark down. So I asked a Ouija board “What time will they change the price of the candy?” I didn’t really believe it was going to happen.

I went down to the store and I was just walking around. I was watching a bank clock right across the street. It was a digital clock where the lights changed with the different numbers. When it came to the exact hour and minute that the Ouija board told me, I turned around to look at the Easter candy. The guy was walking down the aisle with a new sign. He actually changed the price of the candy at the moment that the bank clock across the street changed.

That was the strangest thing that has ever happened to me. I certainly believe in the possibility of ghosts and the paranormal, but I can’t say I’ve really experienced anything of the paranormal other than that particular experience.

Those are some very friendly Ouija spirits that had a peculiar interest in getting you cheaper candy.

It never happened again like that. I never got a prediction that was right on the minute like that. I was astounded when it happened. That convinced me that there may be something out there.

In your studies, have you had the opportunity to travel about and investigate places of vampiric lore?

Actually, no. I know a lot of people who have traveled all the way to Transylvania; it’s almost like a pilgrimage to some people who have such a devotion to Dracula. Of course there are now pilgrimages to places like New Orleans and Forks in the Northwest which is the setting for the Twilight books. I haven’t really traveled myself. I mainly just collect the material and gather stories from people, but I don’t do a lot of traveling to try to find real vampires.

What other students of vampirism have you met throughout your vampire studies?

Quite a few people. For instance, I know Don Glut. He wrote one of the first non-fiction books about vampires in modern times. It’s called True Vampires of History, published in 1970. He’s also a movie maker. He has a movie on DVD out now called Blood Scarab. He was also one of the very first writers for the first issue of Vampirella. That’s just a few of his credits. He’s been involved in vampires in a lot of different aspects over the years.

I’m also friends with J. Gordon Melton who wrote the The Vampire Book: Encyclopedia of the Undead. It’s a very thick tome you may have occasionally seen on bookshelves. I wrote an introduction and I’m one of the entries in the book. It’s probably the biggest encyclopedia on the subject of vampires. He’s done a number of other books on the subject of vampires as well. He used to live in the Chicago area and we actually used to watch vampire films together.

I’ve met people such as Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Kathern Ramsland, Leonard Wolf, the author who first inspired me with his lecture, and I’ve met Forry Ackerman. He was considered one of the greatest collectors of monster memorabilia. He had his own museum and just passed away last year. Those are some of the people I’ve known through my studies of vampires.

You did have the opportunity to meet Leonard Wolf after he had such an influence on your life?

Yes. I heard his lecture a second time when he lectured at Moraine Valley College in the Chicago area. I got a chance to go up and talk with him afterwards. He gave the impression that his interest was mainly on a scholarly level; he didn’t really have a true personal devotion to the subject, but it was an academic interest for him.

Which movie vampire are you most enthralled with?

Lugosi is the epitome of the vampire. Even though he is caricatured as a funny vampire in some ways, he still gave a performance that set the standard for all other vampires. And I think he did a remarkable job in the 1931 movie version of Dracula. I think Bela Lugosi is the best of the vampires.

Do you have any favorite horror movies?

I have quite a few movies that I really love and enjoy, but I guess because I’m a vampire fan, I would have to say Interview with a Vampire is probably my favorite horror film. It incorporates so many interesting aspects of the vampire, but it also has some horrific elements as well. Some things are really shocking and frightening that are thrown at you as part of the story. So I’d say that’s probably my favorite.

What plans do you have for Vampire Studies going forward?

In the future, I’m going to continue as I have, that is to continue to gather information, share information, get stories from people, and hopefully expand my own knowledge on the subject of vampires.

You have an open invitation to anyone having any experiences, dreams, or interests to contact you?

Exactly! Anybody who has an interest. Even people who would like to share newspaper stories or magazine articles with me, or in any way just want to pass on information I might be interested in, I’d be very happy to hear from anyone. Correspondence may be sent to: Martin V. Riccardo, P.O. Box 151, Berwyn, IL 60402-0151.

Martin, thank you so much for taking time away from both hobby and career to chat with us today. I think our Guests will all sleep better tonight knowing a little more about the subject of vampires.