Psychic Vampirism Is Not As Glamorous As Blood Drinking

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  Most documentaries, articles and pretty much every other form of media that mentions Vampirism in the mainstream society is referring to Sanguine Vampirism….or at least the Blood Drinking aspects of Vampires. All historical references aside, most of our Western culture depends on the popular references of movies, television and written fiction. The Fictional Vampire is a blood drinker. These characters might have other attributes, but for better or worse, the defining feature of the modern depiction of The Vampire is as a Blood Drinker.

   

     The Fictional Vampire might have other spiritual, magickal or psychic powers–but in the mainstream reference, it is not necessarily a psychic/energy feeder. Some cultures consider the energy-feeder version of the Fictional Vampire as equivalent to the blood ingesting one. However, it is the blood drinker that seems to be the popular reference….so, it should not be anything close to a surprise that outside of the GVC, Psychic Vampires are basically invisible.

     Drinking blood is a very observable activity. Whether the person ingesting the blood is an actual Vampire–meaning that they derive some sort of benefit from drinking–the health benefits are secondary or irrelevant to the observing public. What the general (non-Vampire) populace might be interested in in Blood Drinkers can vary from person to person. The idea that Vampires could be real, challenges or supports a whole variety of other concepts, for each audience member.

     Blood drinking is not the norm here in modern Western culture. (Even though many Christians drink the symbolic “blood of Christ”.) When the general populace views blood drinking, there might automatically be a high level of intrigue or disgust, regardless of whether the viewer believes in Vampirism or that there could be any benefits derived from the practices of Sanguine Vampirism. For those who do not believe in Modern Vampires, the act of blood drinking could be seen as an extreme fetish, clinical vampirism, or extreme role play or lifestyling. On those levels, the perception of this deviant behavior is enough to interest or fascinate the general public outside of the GVC. It can be seen as equivalent to any other fetishes that are outside the norms of polite society.

     Then, there are those that believe that there could be a possibility of Real Vampires, because they are open to the idea of the supernatural and paranormal in everyday life. These can be religious or spiritual people, without any direct experience of interacting with Modern Vampires.  While this faction of society might not technically be part of the GVC, they perceive the possibility of the idea of Real Vampires existing.

     From there, we have a combined group of metaphysically-oriented persons (who are generally very open to the idea of ALL things being possible, using their personal paranormal experiences to justify an open belief in all possibilities)….and those that are hypothetically open to all possibilities (without having had any or having had very little metaphysical experience to justify this openness of belief–but believe in the possibility of Vampires, just because).

     In the GVC, we include Blood Feeders and Energy Feeders, as well as those who are “vampiric” (such as Otherkin), all under the umbrella term of Vampire. However, in popular culture, a Vampire is always a Blood Feeder. They probably have other attributes, but blood feeding is the standard. It is this association with the Vampire of fiction, movies and televisions programs which give the general audience an immediate reference point, an immediate familiarity….and therefore, comfort….with the IDEA of real, blood drinking Vampires.

     Any depiction of energy feeder might remind the general audience of those stories of witches who suck out life essence, the classic succubi or some other form of spirit/demon/ghost who consumes “souls” or essence. In popular culture, energy vampirism is not as common an association with the image of the “Vampire”.

  What would be the benefits of making the Psychic Vampire more well known? We use the terms Psychic Vampire (or Energy Vampire) as a catch-all term for those of us who need to feed on energy.  We gather under the name of Vampire for purposes of finding others who have similar life experiences and need to communicate with kindred for practical purposes. There are still quite a few negative associations with the terms Energy Vampire, Psychic Vampire and Spiritual Vampire in some circles. Outside the realm of blood, any non-physical type of vampirism is often thought to be of a non-consensual method.

     Common usage of the term “Energy Vampire” is that the Vampire is someone who is stealing something–attention, time, sympathy or emotion. There is more than likely no association with energy in the metaphysical sense. This sort of “Vampire” is a dependent, negative personality of some sort.

  This form of “vampire” is not as interesting or enticing as the blood-drinking form. People who have heard of psychological/emotional vampires are told to avoid them. It is bad to be one of these types of people. Therapy is called for, in the case of this kind of vampire.

     Why would we want to put ourselves out there and change the public perception of Energy Vampires? There are still many unawakened and unaware new Psychic Vampires being born in the world. These are kindred who need to know how to handle their vampirism, to keep healthy and how to avoid auto feeding.

  What would be the best approach to changing public perception about Psychic Vampires?

     To take the subject of Psychic Vampirism seriously, the audience needs to approach everything on a whole different platform than they would with physical blood drinking. The realm of the Psychic Vampire is that of the unseen, the non-physical. Unless the subject of non-material reality is a given….or perhaps, to the degree that it is a personal experience in the audience member….there might be no validation given to the experience of the Psychic Vampire in question.  Baseline respect might be given for someone’s beliefs, but there is no guarantee of interest from atheists, materialists or those that are more pragmatist in their attitude towards anything spiritual or metaphysical.

   

  Within the subculture of those that practice metaphysics, magick and healing….the “energy vampire” is still considered a very negative being, for a variety of reasons. Within the framework of energy healing and energy work, the need to feed could be seen more in the sense of what we would consider secondary or temporary vampirism. As is seen within the realm of energy workers, energy vampires are probably in need of extra energy because something in their energy system is damaged. Extra energy is needed because there is a leak or extra energy is needed to repair that damaged aspect. It simply becomes a matter of clocking in enough healing time. If the energy vampire is not healed in a timely manner, the problem might be passed off as something karmic….unhealable in this lifetime….but, the vampire is supposed to avoid feeding on other beings because “stealing” energy from others is considered unethical, under any circumstances. Anyone who needs to take energy from others needs to be healed from the cause of this condition…..period.

     We are talking about unseen activity in an unseen arena. Energy feeding belongs in the same realm as magick spells and psychic phenomena. There are so many people that make claim to magick that, whether it manifests or not, other people have no way of objectively validating that it worked. On the same note, there are so many claims of psychic activity that are either so inaccurate or have no way of being verified as genuine psychic activity. Couple with that….let’s be completely honest-some of us come off as nerds, creepy or crazy when we talk about the metaphysical. We do not have anything resembling a system of public relations or apologetics.  We are not taught how to talk about metaphysics in a way that comes off as presentable to non-metaphysical people.  Not all of us sound convincing when we bring up psychic vampirism….and that ruins it for those of us who can present it in a way that is logical, poetic or otherwise appealing to a particular audience.

   

     [Take a moment to breathe that in. If it is not you that sounds bad….it’s one of our people that sound creepy….or much worse, nerdy.]

  So….we do not have a lot of common images for the purely energy-oriented feeding creatures. I don’t get out much, but I’m thinking of that old movie “Life Force” (1985) and Lost Girl (SyFy channel). As Energy Vampires/Psychic Vampires, we are missing a context–a common cultural association with modern fiction or classic mythology. In one of my other articles, I suggested that we make the analogy/association with energy generators, while talking about energy work.  I suggested that we expand on the aspect of energy exchange and cleansing in modern spiritual work and healing.

   

     Blood feeders, in current day associations, have a mythology to fall back on.  We could pick out those fables of energy eating witches and spirits and construct a modern storytelling of those old folk tales….or we could build on a new angle in the current energy workers community.