The existence of superstitions is not common in any culture. Accordingly the superstitions on Vampires are also not uncommon. The superstition on Vampires primarily originates from Slavic spiritualism. The roots of this belief on vampires are based on the pre-Christian practices and concept of life after deaths. The practices would include ancestral worship and belief of soul after death. The complex spiritualism so practiced by Slavic people actually gave birth to the idea of ghosts and spirits after death. The very existence of spirit after death would lead to the belief that the spirit can come back to haunt the living.
The spirits were a part of the Slavic spiritual systems. And Vampires would take a form from that. These spirits were a part of the procedures and that living human beings would undertake to maintain peace with the evil spirits. The spirits who were benevolent would help the human beings and also protect them against the evil spirits. Evils spirits took the form vampires in later mythology. These spirits would be mostly deceased ancestor and needed to be appeased and had the power to cause harm to the human beings and lives stock.
The Slavic belief very categorically distinguishes between the human body and the souls. The vampires originate from these souls. It was believed that when a human being died the soul would live the body and wander around the locality for 40 days. During this period the soul had the ability to reenter the body and also can cause harm to the human beings within the locality or the family members. In order to ensure unrestricted movement it was suggested that the windows be kept open to let the soul move freely. Also to ensure that soul does not turn into vampires the burial rites were performed properly.