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Letter from Castle DraculaThe newsbullettin of The Transylvanian Society of DraculaJune 2004 |
Van Helsing was quick understanding that no rational, Cartesian means can finish the vampire – so he shamelessly resorted to the old folkloric means, in an age of Victorian materialistic victories (not quite, said Prof. Duncan Light’s paper, those victories were items of near past, and the “consolation culture” took their place, coupled with that weird English fear of invasion). Why has Mircea Eliade resorted to literature to express views incompatible with the rationalistic expectations of a modern scholar?
Why has Fred Hoyle, to name but two?
Throughout the Colloquium, a rebellious air of non-conformance with the “prove it” religion was manifest. Scholars are humans themselves, as we’ve discovered, and much as ‘peniciline’ reached its limits, so has the materialistic outlook of today.
Not in the sense of the abandonment of the rational attitude. This is (or should be) a secure asset of the human dowry. But the continuous denial of and subsequent derisorial attitude toward ‘paranormal’, ‘extrasensorial’, ‘superstitional’, ‘antiquated’ mass of information – shared by billions over ages - should not be reduced to the poor performances or our measurement gear today. They should, at least, be granted the benefit of virtual existence, not denial.
We cannot deny ourselves – claimed the air of the colloquium.
The “Count Dracula Award for the best documentary in 2003” went to “BAD COMPANY – producer Michael Bayley-Hughes, Wales, U.K. for:
The Award was bestowed after the screening of the film and after a paper delivered by the producer – on the dramatic case of Mathew Hardman – the 17 year old Welsh who killed his neighbor in 2001 and drank her blood – aspiring to become a vampire.
Whoever turned the meaning of the vampire into its contrary (sex-symbol, superman, immortal) should share into the responsibility – said some of the participants in the Award ceremony.
Along the existing website of the Company of Mysterious Journeys – www.mysteriousjourneys.com – which carries news on the initiation tours of the TSD, a new one has come into being (under contract with the TSD): www.transylvaniatours.com, belonging to the “Best Tours of Transylvania” - licensed touroperator, which also runs the tours designed and guided by the society.
Aside from tours, the new website will carry news on the life and activities of the TSD.
For your info, there will be no price differences between the society tours run by the C.M.J. and the B.T.T. More, the two touroperators will run the same set-departures, inviting their tourists under the roof of the same coach.
The tours will continue to be guided by society-trained guides, sharing the highly-specialized info gathered by the TSD at its annual conferences.
Members of our society expressed mixed appraisal of this latest Hollywoodian vampire film: the Romanians who saw it could not help a smile.
An American film critic said that we do not really see “American films”, but a variant of what Hollywood considers to be fit for “international” viewers.
Anyway, the TSD and its Company of Mysterious Journeys will entertain 26 winners of a sweepstake occasioned by the launching of “Van Helsing” – in September , as a “Long Weekend with Dracula”.
Will the difference show?
The theme of the 2005 symposium of the society will be “Mysteries in the life of Prince Vlad Tepes Dracula”.
The dates are May 13-15; competing for location are Targoviste – Vlad’s capital and Curtea de Arges (the capital of his grandfather, Prince Mircea the Old).
The full Call for papers and participation will be published in the July edition of this Newsletter.
Till then, should you have questions regarding aspects of Vlad’s life, that might qualify for inclusion into the debates of the symposium, please e-mail us at cdt@art.ro; or call/fax us at +40/21.233.99.15.