Finding Our Humanity in Paranormal Literature
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conversion to take place.
While this conversion is said to be a spiritual death and rebirth,
rather than a literal one, vampire conversion involves a literal death: the
heart must stop before full vampirism can take place through an
exchange of blood, or, in some cases, an exchange of chemicals found
only in vampire DNA. This also parallels the idea that to be a new
religious convert, one’s old life must die completely. In the Holy Bible,
Jesus states, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24), with the cross
representing death. The most defining characteristic of vampires, aside
from drinking blood, has been their inability to