Hi, I’m James. Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by folklore, vampires, and the supernatural. Over the years, I’ve collected firsthand accounts of encounters with these entities—stories from friends, co-workers, family members, and witnesses.
Now, I’m recording these paranormal stories and sharing these oral histories with you. Each episode of The Night Visitors examines a single account drawn from testimony and family history, brought to life through narration and art.
The truth is, not all vampires drink blood.
Some drain strength, luck, or time. They appear in every culture’s folklore and they don’t always look like monsters. This channel covers the full spectrum of vampiric entities: psychic vampires, energy-draining beings, cursed figures, and the ancient forms these "visitors" take across different eras.
Whether you are a skeptic, a researcher, or someone who has lived through the inexplicable—welcome and thanks for being a part of our community of vampire enthusiasts!
The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
What if your first day at a new job ended with seeing a woman you'd only ever seen in a decades-old photograph? Inspired by Chinese vampire folklore, ghost brides, and New England Gothic. Chapter One of my serialized Gothic vampire novel, Night Flowers, is now live.
Would you take the job? Leave a comment!
Read Chapter One: jamesnightvisitors.substack.com/p/night-flowers-va…
P.S. I am so happy to share this book with you, I am serializing the book over the next 10 weeks, subscribe to my substack - it's free - to get the chapters delivered right to your inbox.
1 week ago | [YT] | 3
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The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
What really keeps a vampire away? Not just wooden stakes and holy water. In folklore from Eastern Europe, China, Southeast Asia, and beyond, vampires were said to fear some surprisingly unexpected things: handfuls of poppy seeds, thorny roses, running streams, mirrors, silver, salt, and even Christmas pudding. Do you have a vampire defense from your culture or one that we haven’t listed here? Share in the comments.
I spent the last few weeks (link at the bottom of this post) researching the folklore behind these beliefs, separating centuries-old traditions from the myths created by Bram Stoker and later films.
Some of the stories are genuinely eerie. Others are wonderfully strange. One involves villagers burying a suspected future vampire with two kilograms of poppy seeds. Another explains why mirrors became one of the most iconic vampire tests in history.
If you enjoy folklore, vampires, and the strange history behind our supernatural traditions, I think you'll enjoy this one.
🩸 You can read the full article The Vampire Survival guide: 13 Ways to Stop a Vampire According to Folklore. jamesnightvisitors.substack.com/p/the-vampire-surv…
1 week ago | [YT] | 4
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The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
It was fun to create images with the assistance of AI for the Croglin Grange vampire story we shared recently and AI isn't always cooperative. Frustrated that the prompts weren't being followed....I insulted the AI not terribly and it really did generate this image. When I called it out on it, it denied creating this image LOL!!! Truly crazy!! I guess AI is a kind of eternal being itself!
2 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 4
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The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
Bats became linked to vampires largely through European exposure to the New World. Spanish explorers in Central and South America encountered blood-feeding bats in the 16th century, and by the 18th century naturalists had formally named them "vampire bats" after the Eastern European folkloric vampire. This gave Western writers a real, blood-drinking creature to graft onto existing vampire lore. The literary fusion crystallized in the 19th century: Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872) has a bat-like apparition, and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) cemented the connection by giving Dracula the power to transform into a bat. From there, stage and film adaptations locked the bat-vampire association into popular culture permanently.
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 7
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The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
I was obsessed with Dark Shadows as a teenager and recently wrote a short essay about the impact the strong female characters in it impacted me then and now. Dark Shadows gave us women who were haunted, fearless, manipulative, compassionate, tragic, and unforgettable. They were witches, ghosts, vampires, waitresses and researchers too. The women of Collinsport and Collinwood Mansion didn't simply support the story - they were the story for me.
I’m curious have you watched the old series? What woman had the most impact for you or were you more interested in Barnabas? You can read my essay on substack here: jamesnightvisitors.substack.com/p/dark-shadows-wom…
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 3
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The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
In the folklore of the Gullah Geechee people of South Carolina and Georgia, there exists a vampire-like creature known as a Boo Hag or Boo Daddy. The Boo Hag/Daddy is a combination of a witch and a vampire, but unlike the more traditional vampire, it does not feed on blood, but rather steals a person’s life force by sucking out his/her breath. A popular defense against Boo Hag/Daddy attacks is to sprinkle salt and cayenne pepper in the corners of one’s bedroom. If a Boo Hag/Daddy encounters a straw broom, it will be compelled to count each individual straw until morning, when it will be forced to return home. This is yet another example of the vampire’s compulsion for counting that appears in various cultures around the world. The theme of the Boo Daddy appears in Grady Hendrix’s novel The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, which is a great book and definitely worth a read!
#boohag #folklore
P.S. Vampire folklore lovers, please visit my Substack where I share articles on vampire lore and pop-culture too! If you haven't subscribed to my YouTube channel here, please do. Thanks!
4 weeks ago | [YT] | 3
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The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
Bela Lugosi, famous for playing Dracula in the 1931 film adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, died on August 16, 1956, and was laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City dressed in his full Dracula costume. Contrary to popular belief, Lugosi never requested to be buried in the cloak himself; his son Bela G. Lugosi confirmed that he and his mother, Lillian, made that decision, believing it was what Lugosi would have wanted. The cape he wore into the grave wasn't the one from the original 1931 film. Since Bela wanted his son to keep the original costume, the family buried him in a lighter-weight cape he used for personal appearances. The genuine 1931 film cape stayed in the family for decades before eventually going to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in 2019. It's a fitting detail for a man whose signature role never let go of him, on screen or in the ground.
4 weeks ago | [YT] | 6
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The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
The Yara-ma-yha-who is one of Australia's most unsettling pieces of Aboriginal folklore. Described as a small, red, fig-tree-dwelling creature with an oversized head and octopus-like suckers on its hands and feet, it drops onto unsuspecting travelers, drains their blood through those suckers, swallows them whole, then regurgitates them, leaving the victim a little shorter, a little redder, and a little less themselves each time it happens. Repeat encounters gradually transform the victim into a Yara-ma-yha-who. That slow loss of self through blood-taking and bodily transformation puts it squarely in vampiric territory, even if it looks nothing like anything out of Transylvania.
1 month ago | [YT] | 4
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The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
In the rich tapestry of Japanese folklore, one particularly intriguing figure is the Hone-onna, or "bone woman." This vampiric spirit is often depicted as a beautiful woman who lures a former lover into her embrace, only to reveal her true, skeletal form once he is captivated by her charm. Traditionally, the Hone-onna is believed to be the restless spirit of a woman who died while in love and seeks to cling to life and the feelings that once gave her immense joy. Usually, the person haunted by the Hone-onna is the man that she loved in life whom she revisits nightly engaging in intimate acts and unintentionally draining her lover of his life force. These nocturnal visitations continue until either somebody spots the lovers thus exposing the true skeletal nature of the hone-onna or until her lover joins her on the other side. It is said that the true nature and appearance of the hone-onna can be seen by those who have not yet fallen in love or by people who are devoutly religions. Ofudo charms from Shinto or Buddhist temples offer protection against hone-onna when placed at the entry of the house, but only if the male lover leaves them there and is strong enough to resist the hone-onna’s seductive powers.
(Photo in public domain)
3 months ago | [YT] | 4
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The Night Visitors Vampire Research Society
I'm looking forward to building a community here with you. Here is the vibe of the podcast. Dark and spooky but not too scary. Thanks for stopping by and feel free to ask questions or share your stories with me.
5 months ago | [YT] | 6
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