They’re slaughtering animals, drinking people’s blood and generally being very anti social
The residents of Treviso, a province in Veneto, northern Italy, may well have a reason to lock their doors at night, as an expert has warned that there is a vampire cult practising in the area.
Professor Giuseppe Bisetto, a scholar of religious cult activity, presented locals with his claims at a conference in the Treviso town of Oderzo last week. He asserted that the phenomena was not only genuine but growing in influence, and described secret meetings at a nearby derelict building and grisly initiation ceremonies in which aspiring members were required to drink the blood of their cult leader.
Whilst some of the more cynical among us might be reluctant to revile the existence of such a group, unusual incidents in the region indicate that animals, at least, are in danger. In February, the bodies of several disemboweled lambs were discovered in a Treviso field. In March, nine skinned rabbits with their hind legs removed were found dumped in a cemetery in the North-Eastern province of Vicenza. An investigating animal rights group, Guardie Zoofile, deemed the killings “ritualistic”.
The theft of Eucharist, which is the consecrated wafer that Catholics swallow in holy communion, from a church in Umbria has also been attributed to cult activity. It’s reportedly used as a key component in a satanic ‘black mass’ ritual, which is essentially an inverted version of a Catholic mass.
All of these cases occurred in March and February, something that is considered an important common denominator. 2nd February is a date on the Catholic calendar which marks the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, for Pagans the festival of Candlemas, and for Satanists, the day of blood sacrifice.
Public concerns over the cult may be accentuated by memory of some of the most notorious and shocking murders in Italian history, perpetrated by a self-professed satanic cult. Over the course of 1998 and 2004, cult gang, the ‘Beasts of Satan’ stabbed and bludgeoned three people to death, burying one of their victims alive and incorporating group sex and drug taking in the ritualistic murders.
Whilst substance abuse likely made a greater contribution to the bloodshed than any Satanic force, for a public almost 80 % Catholic, the threat of the devil feels a very real one. The subsequent paranoia spawned by the Beasts of Satan led to an increased governmental interest in cult movements, even a specialized police unit dubbed the ‘Satan Squad’, of which Professor Bisetto is rumoured to be a member.
Such ‘crackdowns’ often have the potential to persecute minority religious groups. And whilst the unnecessary slaughter of animals warrants condemnation and investigation, sacrifice is a feature of almost all religions, raising the question, do the ‘Vampires’ of Treviso have the right to freedom of religion?
Image: Shawn Allen Via Flickr
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