Catholics celebrate new Mass, return to "traditional roots"

Catholics celebrate new Mass, return to "traditional roots" - Catholics across the United States celebrated a new translation of Mass on Sunday that church leaders said would provide a deeper understanding of the faith, but which critics complained was unnecessary and confusing.

A third edition of the Roman Missal, which priests use to celebrate Mass, was born out of a directive in 2000 by Pope John Paul II to revise the text, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Its launch in the nation's 17,000 parishes coincided with the First Sunday of Advent, or the fourth Sunday before Christmas.

"Now is the time to seize the opportunity given to us for all Catholics in the United States to deepen, nurture, and celebrate our faith through the renewal of our worship and the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy," a statement on the conference website read.

The launch marks an overall shift closer to the original Latin text of the modern Roman Missal, ordered by Pope Paul VI in 1970 to bring consistency to the centuries-old celebration of Mass. It was revised in a second edition in 1975.

The new Mass has drawn criticism by some who call it an unnecessary nod to conservatives in the church and a slap at what some describe as the more progressive nature of many English-speaking parishes.

But Catholic leaders and some parishioners said the move would push parishioners and priests to become present to the meaning of a faith they've been practicing - and may know by rote - through two generations of the same wording.

"When things change, it makes you think," said Sister Ann Walsh, director of media relations for the Washington, D.C.-based conference. "So the prayers that had become very rote are suddenly changed, and it makes you get beyond the rote meaning or response. It makes you think about what you're saying."

CHANGES TO PRAYERS

The Missal includes prayers for recently canonized saints, an updated celebration of the Eucharist, and changes to some long-celebrated and oft-memorized prayers, responses and acclamations.

The most recognizable change to parishioners will likely be in the responsive preface to the Eucharist, in which a priest tells a congregation: "The Lord be with you." The previous response, "And also with you," has been changed to "And with your spirit."

Otherwise, the majority of changes were in the text read by the priest, not the congregation, Walsh said.

"It's not a big change for the congregation," she said. "It's a bigger change for the clergy."

She said clergy across the United States have been participating for months in workshops and training sessions to get ready for Sunday's launch of the new service.

Walsh said one member of the clergy had told her that he had been celebrating the old translation for decades, had it memorized, and was now "keeping his eyes on the text" to make sure he didn't stumble.

Such training, or maybe practice, might have helped some of the parishioners who grew up memorizing their parts and prayers, and found themselves lurching through words they once knew by heart.

Several who attended church on Sunday said the new response, "and with your spirit," tripped up nearly everyone and made for a unique experience.

"It was kind of fun to hear a full church stumble on those once standard prayers," said Jennifer Huckaba of Marietta, Georgia, who took Baptist family members to church with her and enjoyed the fact that, for once, the visitors weren't the only ones who didn't know the words. "It was odd."

Huckaba said that while she did not have a strong opinion about the changes, they were surprising given that the words were drilled into parishioners through classes and heavy emphasis on tradition throughout their lives.

"This is the way it is, and it's set in stone, and then to up and change it?" she said. "You're a little taken aback."

The switch to the new response referencing "spirit" was one of parishioner Mica Joiner's favorite changes during her service at Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church in Anguilla, Mississippi.

Joiner said she found the response to be beautiful and "much more appealing."

"I think it is good to recognize the spirit more so than the flesh ... The flesh is only around a short while anyway," Joiner said. "I am very pleased that the Catholic church is getting back to its more traditional roots." (Reuters)

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New Mass translation launches in American parishes

New Mass translation launches in American parishes — English-speaking Roman Catholics who have regularly attended Mass for years found themselves in an unfamiliar position Sunday, needing printed cards or sheets of paper to follow along with a ritual many have known since childhood.

"I don't think I said it the right way once," said Matthew Hoover, who attends St. Ann Catholic Church in Clayton, a growing town on the edge of the Raleigh suburbs. "I kept forgetting, and saying the old words."

The Mass itself — the central ritual of the Catholic faith — hasn't changed, but the English translation has, in the largest shakeup to the everyday faith of believers since the upheavals that followed the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. A years-long process of revision and negotiation led to an updated version of the Roman Missal, the text of prayers and instructions for celebrating Mass, which originally was written in Latin. The new translation was rolled out across the English-speaking Catholic world on Sunday after months of preparation.

Richard Fiore of Montgomery, Ala., his son Oscar, mom Vicki, and son Phipps, from left, participate in Mass at St. Peter's Catholic Church in Montgomery, Ala. Catholics nationwide began using a new translation of the Roman Missal on Nov. 27, 2011. (AP Photo, David Bundy)

Mickey Mattox, a professor at Milwaukee's Marquette University, said he was happy with the idea that the bishops wanted the translations as accurate as possible.

Adapting to the changes "was a lot less difficult than I thought it might be," said Mattox, 55, adding, "even though probably all of us are going to end up holding our worship folders for a few weeks until we memorize all the new language."

The Rev. George Witt, pastor of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on New York's Park Avenue, started the 11 a.m. Mass by noting Sunday was not only the first day of Advent, but also the first day to use the new Missal. He directed parishioners to a pamphlet inserted into the back of the now-outdated hymnal that spelled out the new wording. A notable number of worshippers stumbled after the priest said, "Peace be with you." The new response is "And with your spirit" instead of "And also with you." But many others confidently gave the right response.

Kathleen McCormack, a church volunteer and former school teacher, said she didn't like the new translation and didn't understand why the church needed a translation closer to Latin.

"Consubstantial? What is that word?" McCormack said, referring to a term in the retranslated Nicene Creed that replaces language calling Jesus "one in being with the Father."

But she saw a cautionary tale in the many Catholics she saw distance themselves from the church over changes made after the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

"It's not shaking my church experience," said McCormack, as she handed out church bulletins. "You have the spirit between you and God and the words are insignificant."

Most of the changes are actually to prayers recited by the priest, but some of the changes for prayers spoken or sung by the congregation revise familiar words that for some people are spoken almost automatically after years of churchgoing.

Along with the new response and unfamiliar words, the affirmation "We believe" has been replaced with "I believe" in the Nicene Creed. Some of the language seems more formal or poetic: the word "cup" has become "chalice."

"It's more British in some ways," said Monsignor Michael Clay, pastor of St. Ann. "But this is the first time that every English-speaking country in the world will be using the same translation of the Mass."

Clay likes the new translation, finding it closer to the Latin text that is still the church's official language. But some priests and parishioners have been less enthusiastic, criticizing the new version as too ponderous or distant, and in some cases circulating petitions asking for a delay in introducing the new missal.

Maribeth Lynch, 51, a publisher from the Milwaukee suburb of Elm Grove, said she was "distraught" over the changes and would refuse to "learn the damn prayers."

"It's ridiculous. I've been a Catholic for 50 years, and why would they make such stupid changes? They're word changes. They're semantics," she said.

"It's confusion. All it's doing is causing confusion," she said. "You want to go to church and be confused?"

The roots of the new translation go back to that epochal council held at the Vatican in the 1960s, which allowed Mass in languages other than Latin. An English-language missal was produced by 1973, but that was intended to be temporary while improvements were made.

In 2001, the Vatican office that oversees worship issued a directive requiring translation of the English missal that would be closer to the Latin rather than to more familiar vernacular speech. Numerous revisions and bishops' meetings eventually produced agreement on the translation being used Sunday.

Parishes and dioceses around the country have spent months trying to prepare Catholics for the change. Descriptions of the new translation have been printed in weekly bulletins, seminars have been held and, since Labor Day, many parishes have been gradually introducing the new translation piece by piece, starting with the parts of the liturgy that are sung.

Most of those activities are for the benefit of the average Catholic, but it's priests who have more new material to master.

"I've had a new missal in my hands for about three weeks now, and I've been literally practicing the prayers," Clay said. "I've been doing this now for 31 years, and a lot of these prayers I actually know by memory. I have to make sure my brain isn't getting ahead of my mouth." ( Associated Press )

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Americans Are Increasingly Praying For Their Health

Americans Are Increasingly Praying For Their Health - Americans, especially women and African-Americans, are increasingly turning to prayer when it comes to health issues, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association.

The study, which appears in the latest issue of the APA publication Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, found adults in the United States prayed about their health 36 percent more in 2007 than they did a decade before.

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts and West Virginia University crunched data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 1999, 2002 and 2007 National Health Surveys. The 2007 survey was the most recent one that included questions about prayer.

In 1999, 13 percent of adults over age 18 reported praying about health issues. That compares to 43 percent in 2002 and 49 percent in 2007. The study focused primarily on the 2002 and 2007 surveys, which questioned 30,080 adults and 23,393 adults, respectively.

A Buddhist prays at a pagoda. A new study published by the American Psychological Association says that Americans are increasingly prayer for their health. A researcher cites "a greater public awareness of Buddhist-based mindfulness practices that can include prayerful meditation" as one possible reason for the increase.

"The United States did have an increase in worship attendance across multiple religious faiths immediately after the 9/11 attack, but that has not stayed elevated," noted the study's lead author, Dr. Amy Wachholtz of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

"However, people continued to use informal and private spiritual practices such as prayer," Wachholtz said. She also noted "a greater public awareness of Buddhist-based mindfulness practices that can include prayerful meditation, which individuals may also be using to address a variety of health concerns."

The study reported that people who considered their health to be waning and those who found their health to be improving said they prayed more. According to Wachholtz, that suggests that people with progressive diseases or quick changes in health are likely to use prayer as a way to cope.

Steve Peoples, pastor at Mission Hill Church in Topeka, Kan., said he has seen the power of prayer first hand.

"I don't think there is any question that God answers prayers and heals people," said Peoples, who in recent years has had two kidney stones and seen a close friend survive cancer. Peoples said he found himself praying throughout those struggles.

He is also a part of Medi-Share, a Christian health-sharing organization that is similar to insurance and only accepts Christians who follow a specific Bible-based lifestyle as members. Members help foot each others medical bills and pray for one another when they are sick.

"A majority of my prayer would not be focused on my health and safety, but my prayers are more geared toward what I can do for God," Peoples said. "I think there is a correlation between that and wellness and that there is some blessing provided there."

Shais Taub, a Pittsburgh-based rabbi who specializes in ministering to Jews with alcohol and drug addictions, said prayer is especially popular among addicts.

"When human power no longer works, we entertain the notion of letting God give it a whirl," he said. "Other diseases, we keep throwing drugs and therapy at them to the bitter end. ... With the addict, when that stuff doesn't seem to work, we've learned to go straight the the source of all healing."

The APA study did not look at which methods of prayer people used or which religion they practiced. It also did not look at whether the adults surveyed experienced sickness before turning to prayer, or prayed before they got sick.

It did, however, look at race, class and gender.

Health-related prayer increased across all groups, but adults with the highest incomes were 15 percent less likely to pray for their health than those with the lowest incomes.

"We're seeing a wide variety of prayer use among people with good income and access to medical care," Wachholtz said. "People are not exchanging health insurance for prayer."

Women were more likely to pray for their health than men -- 56 percent of women reported health-related prayer in 2007 compared to 40 percent of men -- as were black Americans when compared to whites. Sixty-one percent of blacks reported health-related prayer in 2007, while 45 percent of whites reported the same.

People who exercised regularly were 25 percent less likely to pray about health than than those who did not exercise. ( huffingtonpost.com )

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In bibles’ release, Perak Mufti sees Muslim fury

In bibles’ release, Perak Mufti sees Muslim fury — Influential Perak Mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria has warned the release of the previously impounded 35,100 Malay-language bibles could lead to Malay anger and fearsome consequences.

He told The Malaysian Insider that he was “afraid” the community would rise in opposition of the ministry’s decision and create further tension in the already delicate situation.

“I am scared... everything can happen here. People are very unhappy and everything can happen,” he warned late yesterday.

The Muslim scholar said he had tried to establish contact with the prime minister upon hearing on Tuesday that the administration had relented to calls from Christian leaders to release the holy books, which were detained as they contained the word “Allah”.

In bibles’ release, Perak Mufti sees Muslim fury

“But I could not get through to him and his people could not offer me any information,” he said.

The Christian and Muslim religious communities have been engaged in a tug of war over the word “Allah”, with the latter group arguing that its use should be exclusive to them on the grounds as Islam is monotheistic and the word “Allah” denotes the Muslim God.

Christians, however, have argued that “Allah” is an Arabic word that has been used by those of other religious beliefs, including the Jews, in reference to God in many other parts of the world, notably in Arab nations and Indonesia.

The tussle is presently still trapped in the courts after the ministry won a stay of the 2009 High Court ruling that allowed Catholic weekly The Herald to use “Allah” in its Bahasa Malaysia edition.

Harussani said that regardless of the matter’s legal status, Muslims still believe “Allah” should stay exclusively theirs.

He told The Malaysian Insider that he will meet with the Attorney-General on March 25 to discuss the issue and attempt to convince the latter to stop the release of the bibles.

“I will also try to meet with the home minister and the prime minister. I will talk to them,” he said.

He added he had little choice in the matter as he was facing pressure from the Muslim community to attempt to stop the release.

“Since they announced the release, I have been receiving scores of SMS. Muslims are telling me how angry they are and they asked me, challenged me — what are you going to do about it?

“Because oftentimes, I am always vocal about these issues... so what can I do? I will try to meet with the ministry,” he said.

Harussani stressed that Muslims were not opposing the use of the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia, but specifically wanted the word “Allah” to be replaced with another term, like “Tuhan”, which also refers to God.

“We are not against the bible but there are state enactments that say they cannot use ‘Allah’. It is haram (forbidden).

“Our reason is very simple. Islam is stated as the official religion of the country and ‘Allah’, in the Quran, is defined as ‘yang maha tunggal’ which means the only God. “So we rely on ‘Allah’ for everything and not any other God. It also says that there is no other like Him,” he explained.

According to Harussani, Christians referred to their God as the “Holy Trinity” of “the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.

“So it is wrong for them to use ‘Allah’ to refer to their God because ‘Allah’ is One. It is a grave offence and a serious affront to Islam,” he said.

Harussani conceded that Arab Christians have used the word “Allah” for over 2,000 years but pointed out that in practice, they often referred to their God as “Ilah”, which also means “God”.

He said that although the ministry had issued a conditional release on the holy books, there was no guarantee that they would not reach the hands of the Muslims.

“What guarantee do they have? What guarantee do they have that they (Christians) will not spread it to the Muslims?

“They will say, ‘oh, we did not force them (the Muslims) to take the books, they took it on their own’. So why create this problem?” he said.

He insisted that the government maintain the enactment enforced in 10 states in the peninsular that restricts the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims.

The Control and Restriction of the Propagation of Non-Islamic Religions Enactment restricts the use either verbally, or in print, of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims.

“And like I said before, Islam is the official religion, enshrined in the Federal Constitution. So in Islamic practice, the word ‘Allah’ is for the Muslims.

“Already they question the Malay ‘special rights’ in the Constitution. We have never said anything about the other religions... we do not stop them from doing anything. They act as if this country is a Christian country,” he charged.

Harussani pointed out that Muslims never complained when those of other faiths celebrated their religious or cultural festivals in an open manner.

“You know, when I was in New Zealand three years ago on Christmas day, I did not see any Santa Claus in their supermarkets or their hotels.

“When I travel at night, I see that not many homes sport Christmas lights or decorations. I asked the driver, ‘Why? Do people here not celebrate Christmas?’ And he told me they did,” he said.

In Malaysia, said Harussani, Christmas was celebrated in a big way with colourful lights and trees set up in many public places.

“Everywhere you go, you hear Christmas songs. But do the Muslim complain? No. Why? Because we do not have a problem with it,” he said.

The 35,100 Alkitab bibles are presently still held by the ministry in two ports — Port Klang and Kuching — as Christian leaders have refused to collect them due to the conditions imposed on their release.

The ministry had set two conditions to the importers of the consignments to allow the release of the books — that each book is stamped with a serial number and a ministry disclaimer that says “For Christians Only”.

The religious leaders, as well as many political parties, including the MCA, have denounced the conditions and want the ministry to lift them. ( yahoo.com )

READ MORE - In bibles’ release, Perak Mufti sees Muslim fury

Christians say will not collect Malay Bibles — The Christian community said today it is appalled by what it says is the Najib administration’s desecration of 5,100 holy books shipped in from Indonesia and has flat out refused to collect the Port Klang shipment.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia (CFM), which represents over 90 per cent of churches in the country, insisted that Putrajaya immediately drop the conditions imposed for the release of two shipments of Malay Bibles totalling 35,000 copies seized from Port Klang and Kuching port.

Last night, the Bible Society of Malaysia (BSM) was told its shipment of 5,100 Alkitab — as the Malay Bibles are called — have been stamped with the Home Ministry’s official seal, as per the conditions imposed for the release issued two days ago, without its prior permission.

Christians say will not collect Malay Bibles

The first requires the importers to directly stamp on the cover of each of the 35,000 copies the following words: “Peringatan: ‘Al Kitab Berita Baik’ ini untuk kegunaan penganut agama Kristian sahaja. Dengan perintah Menteri Dalam Negeri.” [In English: “Reminder: This ‘Al Kitab Berita Baik’ is for the use of Christians only. By order of the Home Minister.”]

The cover of the Alkitab would be stamped with the department’s official seal and dated as well.

The second condition requires the importers to stamp a serial number on each copy as if to demarcate copies from the released shipment and to enable the book to be traced back to the port of import.

“This means that the Bahasa Malaysia Bible is now treated as a restricted item, and the Word of God has been made subject to the control of man. This is wholly offensive to Christians,” CFM said in a strongly-worded statement today signed by its chairman Bishop Ng Moon Hing.

The umbrella body refuted government claims it had reached a compromise, saying it had never agreed that its holy books should be endorsed to say “it is only for Christians”.

“Any person who respects the Holy Scriptures of any religion would be appalled by this action. We will never accede to any desecration of the Bible since the Word of God to us is sacred,” it said.

Pointing to a 1982 order issued under the Internal Security Act (ISA), the CFM said nowhere in law was it stated that any form of words had to be endorsed on any copy of the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia.

“Given that copies may already have been endorsed, we will NOT take delivery of those endorsed copies,” it added.

The CFM said it also wholly rejects the federal government’s argument that the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia is “prejudicial to the national interest and security of Malaysia”.

It condemned the government’s treatment of its holy books as “subversive publication”.

The CFM said Christian Malaysians have always acted in good faith and with great patience to reach a peaceful end to religious dispute that would not compromise their beliefs.

“But that good faith has not been reciprocated by the government,” it said.

It further accused Putrajaya of having moved the “goal posts” over the years “through a systematic imposition of unreasonable conditions and restrictions”.

“As Christians we wonder how our Holy Scriptures can become a national security threat where countless number of us find it helpful in bringing hope and healing to broken lives and homes which we can testify to,” it said.

The CFM called on all Malaysians to rally together and reject all attempts to control the freedom of religion in the country.

It also advised all Christians to remain calm and pray for a dignified and respectful resolution to the ongoing Alkitab row and noted that Sunday will mark the second year the holy books have been detained at Port Klang.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein defended today his ministry’s stamping of the 5,100 Malay-language bibles in Port Klang with its official seal, saying it was standard protocol and not done to “deface” the Alkitab.

The minister also said his men had no choice but to adhere to these procedures as the BSM had wanted the Bibles to be released quickly.

“We stamped the Bible based on amalan (practice) before... during Abdullah Badawi and even Tun Dr Mahathir’s time,” Hishammuddin told reporters today, referring to the two immediate past prime ministers.

Hishammuddin appeared to suggest that the Christian community’s uproar over what they considered a violation of their holy book to be manufactured.

“They wanted it to be released quickly... if they want to find fault they can find fault... you can even say the Bibles are smelly after being kept for so long, if you want to find fault (with everything),” the minister claimed.

He said his officials had no intention to deface the Bibles, stressing that the Christian community should engage his ministry directly if it had issues or complaints over the measures taken.

However, he also voiced frustration over the inability to bridge the now-widening chasm with the community over the issue. ( yahoo.com )

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Why we find vampires sexy

Why we find vampires sexy. The hot undead sink their teeth into a pop-culture resurgence. It’s official: there are now enough vampires flying around the pop culture landscape to fill Transylvania Stadium during homecoming.

In the past week alone, a new novel co-written by a descendant of Dracula author Bram Stoker has been released, a comic book company has announced that Stephen King is helping write a vampire comic book, and a movie called “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” premiered.

Hulton Archive / Getty file

Actor Bela Lugosi prepares to bite the neck of an unconscious young woman in the 1931 movie "Dracula."

Meanwhile “True Blood” is a hit on HBO. Vampire jewelry, vampire fashion, and vampire make-up are outfitting bloody stylistas. Club kids can now mix their designer vodkas with a blood-like energy drink that comes in hospital blood bags, and recently a New Jersey newspaper ran a long feature about real-life vampire wannabes in suburban Montclair organizing themselves into the “Court of Lazarus.” Next month the “Twilight” movie sequel will hit theaters.

So with Halloween upon us it seems like a bloody good time (sorry) to ask a question:

“Huh?”

After all, vampires have been around awhile. So why this new burst of enthusiasm for the undead?

For starters, they're a sinister catch-all who can symbolize everything from sex fantasies to escapism from swine flu worries to darker social issues, experts say.

“Vampires are convenient vessels, convenient metaphors, to play out all kinds of things,” explained Anne Stiles, an assistant professor of English literature at Washington State University and an expert on Bram Stoker and Victorian-era fiction. For example, some have viewed F.W. Murnau’s great 1922 silent movie “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” as anti-immigrant or anti-Jewish propaganda.

And, among other things, vampires are usually inherently hot — at least since the modern vampire era began 200 years ago.

In 1816, an associate of Lord Byron named John Polidori wrote “The Vampyre” (published in 1819), possibly inspired by Byron himself. Byron, for those of you who chose an economically viable major in college, was a dark, brooding romantic bad boy who appealed to women in the same way that Edward does, the male lead in “Twilight,” played by Robert Pattinson.

“Edward is a very romantic, smoldering figure,” explained Carrol Fry, professor emeritus at Northwest Missouri State University and author of “Cinema of the Occult: New Age Satanism, Wicca and Spiritualism in Film.” “He’s like Byron, or, say, James Dean.”

Young women and tween girls, Fry argued, love the image of a damaged, morally questionable young man who nevertheless can serve as her protector while she reforms him. What better way to invest a character with such qualities than to make him a protective vampire, bad by nature, but good by inclination?

Ravaged by a vampire

Some vampires are even more overtly sexual. In 1872 Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu, who was acquainted with Stoker, wrote a vampire novel called “Carmilla.” In it, Carmilla, the vampire, tries to initiate a lesbian affair with the narrator, but the sex was couched in metaphor because it was 1872.

“Sometimes,” the narrator tells us of her dreams, “there came a sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and longer and more lovingly as they reached my throat, but there the caress fixed itself. My heart beat faster, my breathing rose and fell rapidly and full drawn; a sobbing, that rose into a sense of strangulation, supervened, and turned into a dreadful convulsion, in which my senses left me and I became unconscious.”

That’s a pretty good description of an orgasm. Yet we hold the narrator blameless for what was then considered deviant sex because she was unwillingly mesmerized.

“It’s the idea that women can’t be blamed for desire,” Stiles suggested about “Carmilla” and Stoker’s “Dracula,” published in 1897.

Fetishism, deviance, perversion all play out in vampire literature, Stiles said. “The sexual undercurrents are not hard to see. You have penetration, an exchange of bodily fluids. He has mesmeric powers. He is very seductive. It’s an easy, veiled way to write about sex without censorship.”

Starting about the late 1950s through the Anne Rice novels of the 1970s and 1980s, Fry said, vampires in pop culture became something of authority-defying heroes and the sex became much more explicit. In vampire-themed B-movies “the girl always had to get her shirt ripped off,” Fry said, and as time went on vampires began showing up in porn, culminating in 1990’s immortal “Wanda Does Transylvania.”

A return to mystery

But in this day and age, with a preponderance of easily-accessible online porn, if we want to see sex, we don’t need to do it through a screen of vampire metaphor.

That sheer pervasiveness of sex, and of science, may be exactly what’s motivating us to rediscover the mystery inherent in vampires.

Fry believes that in a rational world with science triumphant we like to scare ourselves with the spooky. Vampires appeal to our primitive fears, not only of death, but our mutating human natures. Vampires are not fully human, nor fully animal, neither fully alive nor fully dead. In some ways they are superior beings.

Stiles, who has become an expert in the melding of 19th century scientific discoveries about the brain and literature, suggested that Dracula was Stoker’s rebellion against “bio-determinism when you had scientists telling us this is the way the world works, the way things are. Vampires resist that. They are spiritual beings and do not conform to the laws of science.”

We have stopped regarding mental and emotional problems as spiritual or even Freudian personality traits honed by our histories, she said. Instead we have reduced them to imbalances of chemicals like serotonin and we medicate them. Even attraction, lust, love have become scientific subjects. Vampires are a way to pretend we don’t know what we know and to luxuriate in mystery.

Stoker himself studied science, but the opening page of Dracula says outright that the book is “a history almost at variance with the possibilities of later-day belief.”

Exactly. So this weekend forget about the recession and war and H1N1. Get out there and mesmerize your lovers with your undead stare. ( msnbc.com )

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