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Take a look back at the history of the vampire community.

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Greetings! I have returned with a follow up to my post on predatory spirituality and a change of format. Going forward I want to focus more on video production so if you have liked what I've written in the past hopefully you will check out some of my videos as I intend to keep a lot of the same themes. I already have some more "serious" vampire community and occultism related content but there is also a lot of gaming content for when you don't want to be as serious.

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Hunger is a Strength

The vampiric need, the Hunger, the impulse that compels us to consume our life medium of choice whether it’s blood, energy, etc. is the defining characteristic of the condition. Many consider it a detriment or even a curse. I’ve previously addressed this view before and suggested that, while it’s not pleasant, the Hunger does serve an ultimate purpose.

Hunger is a driving force. Rather than see it as a bane we should instead look at it as an opportunity, an opportunity to push ourselves to something greater than what we currently are and fueling our development and evolution, spiritual or otherwise. Aside from the obvious advantages of cultivating greater impulse control and willpower we could also view the driving force of hunger as a motivation to improve our financial or social standing. With improved financial stability and more social connections we open opportunities for regular feeding and free up time for personal development. This is just one example of the practical applications of embracing the Hunger. There is a reason successful people are sometimes described as “hungry.”

Instead of pushing the gnawing feeling away try to embrace it and use it. The Hunger is comparable to the Shadow Self; suppressing it only makes it come back stronger and usually at the least opportune time. Of course it’s better to sate the hunger when we can but when we can’t we should still try to make use of it. Self-loathing only feeds a negative self-image and feelings of powerlessness and denying a fundamental aspect of yourself breeds only contempt of your circumstances. None of that is conducive to unlocking your ultimate potential.

Hunger is what makes everything else possible.

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The Hunter’s Presence

While vampires are, for all practical social purposes, regular human beings there remains a facet of vampirism that, in my experience, tends to make itself indirectly known. I am talking about that inevitable discomfort that the presence of a vampiric individual eventually has on “normal” people. The time frame may vary from the first introduction to years after acquaintance but it’s been my experience that eventually something unseen about the vampire just makes people uncomfortable.

This may be related as feeling that the vampire is “too intense” or “makes people uncomfortable” despite participating in normal social and work activities. This is, of course, unrelated to any sort of “creepy” behavior that would understandably make people uncomfortable. I am talking about situations where there is no obvious reason for someone to feel this way and no reason at all to suspect that the vampire is different in any way.

While I don’t expect this to be universal I can say that it applies to me and I suspect many other vampires as well. Perhaps you remember being treated differently in school or at work for some reason that no one could elaborate on aside from the above uncomfortableness your presence causes. Things that everyone does like laughing, crying, or getting upset are seen much differently when you do them even if they are on par with the reactions of your peers.

My explanation for this is that all people have an inherent intuition or “sixth sense” about their environment. One could argue that this is or is not anything paranormal but the fact remains that we all get “gut feelings” to varying degrees. I think that this intuition that is latent in even the most oblivious modern humans eventually picks up on the “other” nature of the vampiric individual and primes the responses of other people on an unconscious level.

While I try to avoid any derogatory connotation of the terms, I think this is indicative of a deep prey response to the presence of a predator, spiritual or otherwise. Just like prey animals have instinct to tell them when danger looms, even if they cannot directly detect it with their senses, I think that humans have the same instinct. It’s no different than the bad feeling about someone that approaches you on a lonely sidewalk at night that makes you cross the street. It just takes place on a less visceral level since the danger is not usually physical and existential.

Then again, this could all just be a coping mechanism for the perpetual outsider to justify why they are the perpetual outsider despite their best efforts. Any explanation is better than none though, yes?

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We are very well hidden indeed...

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Grounding, Centering, and Cycling

For the energetic vampire the three practices of grounding, centering, and cycling, while not absolutely essential, can make existence a lot more comfortable. A common trap to fall into is the assumption that just taking more and more life force will fix everything and little thought is given to the quality of that life force and what one should actually do with it once it has been acquired. To mitigate this I offer some thoughts on the subject.

Grounding is very similar to the same term in electrical applications. Grounding energy in the spiritual, psychic, or metaphysical sense is essentially shunting to the earth any energy that is in excess or is of a quality that is not conducive to well being. We constantly accumulate, through our daily lives, all sorts of energetic attachments and blockages; anxiety over the car payment, worry about what so-and-so thought of your presentation, et cetera. These are normal aspects of life and are not unique to the vampire. However, the vampire, being particularly sensitive to their own energy, should be just as sensitive to the need to take care of it. Grounding off negative emotions provides a sort of clean slate for the next two processes.

Centering is the act of returning to right here, right now. We have a tendency to get lost in our mental landscapes and along the mental attachments we foster with myriad people, objects, places, and memories. Centering is coming back to center, the center of your consciousness. You cannot enact change from “over there”; you need to be present right here, inside your own awareness to not only perceive the state of your energy body but to also develop and maintain it. Pay attention to yourself, your immediate surroundings, and what’s going on inside of you. Come back from whatever flights of fancy or worries or to-do lists have occupied your mind and focus. All of those things will be there for you after you’ve finished the task at hand. Mindfulness meditation is excellent for helping with centering and will also aid in the last process.

Lastly we come to cycling. While grounding and centering are fairly common practices within magick and occultism, less often we hear about cycling. That is, cycling of the energy within the subtle body. Just like physical exercise gets the blood pumping to invigorate the body, energetic exercise gets vital force flowing through the subtle body to clear blockages and refine the vital force. There are many systems of energy work but when it comes specifically to cycling the vital force through the energy body I favor the Qi Gong practice of the Microcosmic Orbit which utilizes controlled breathing to circulate the vital energy through the main energy channels in the body. The repeated cycling of energy in this way, around and around, has the effect of refining and elevating the body’s energies and for the vampiric individual it has the very valuable benefit of reducing the need to feed. It has been my experience that with enough practice of energy circulation techniques the vampiric individual will often be able to go long periods of time with only generalized ambient feeding via a kind of osmosis, with little or no intent necessary on the vampire’s part to collect the ambient energy.

There was a time when I considered Qi Gong to hold a potential “cure” to the vampiric condition and that may be true for people whose vampirism is not an innate part of themselves. In the case of the innately vampiric individual the need and the hunger will return eventually if you begin to neglect your practice of cycling techniques and the energy begins to stagnate and accumulate defects. Just like with managing the hunger itself, vigilance is key. A sated, healthy vampire is a powerful vampire and if given the option, why would one choose to be in a weakened or frenzied state? Hopefully my elucidation of these processes will inspire you to a better state of being.

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The Hunger

Despite all of the many differences of opinion throughout the larger vampire community, one thing that just about everyone will agree on is that the need to feed is the defining characteristic of a vampire. But why do we hunger? This question is right up there with “What causes vampirism?” because it is essentially the same question. The desire to feed is the common denominator among all varieties of vampiric worldview. So, why do we feel the hunger and need to consume the life of others?

My perspective is that we hunger and feed to instigate processes of transformation both within ourselves and within those we feed upon. Nature is one thing consuming another thing and Nature does not stop at the boundaries of the physical world. In the physical world we have animals feeding on plants, animals feeding on those animals, and then various microorganisms that “feed” on virtually everything. Even the plants at the beginning of the cycle “feed” on the water and nutrients in the soil and the energy of the sun. This entire web of life is a chain of transformation. One thing is transformed into another thing, eventually ending up back at the beginning. The process begins again slightly differently as organisms evolve and time marches on.

Now shift this perspective to the metaphysical or spiritual world. Feeding on another person may be likened to the practice of bloodletting to balance the humors or busting up a clog in a stream to clear out stagnant water. Some of you may be familiar with the concept of a blockage within the energy meridians or chakra system. By feeding on an individual we not only take in what we hunger for and maintain our own vitality but we release stagnant “waters” within the person we are feeding from, allowing their own natural processes to rejuvenate them with clear running water. Being fed upon provides an outlet and may facilitate catharsis in the aware donor. Similarly, the infusion of new vitality and energy into the vampire flushes their own system to allow for clearing out blockages and stagnation.

Instead of viewing vampirism and the hunger as a curse I suggest we see it for what it is: another of Nature’s mechanisms for transformation that ushers in the next cycle. With the next cycle comes the next step in our development as living parts of a constantly changing cosmos.

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Predatory Spirituality

Nature is one thing eating another thing whether it is on the scale of amoebas or galaxies. The nature of the vampire is inherently predatory, driven by hunger and eventual understanding of an intrinsic primal nature. Therefore, the spirituality of the vampire is by necessity predatory. This is not to say that it is necessarily exploitative but it does come across as a harsh perspective to outsiders. The lion does not exploit the antelope but it does prey upon it. As such, the conscientious vampire does not exploit its source of sustenance but it does have to feed.

The vampiric nature predisposes one to looking at other people as potential prey by the very nature of the drive to consume the vital force of others. There is a separation because people that are not vampiric find it difficult to understand that perspective or drive. As such, non-vampiric people usually do not consider their place in a spiritual food chain because they already believe themselves to be at the top of it. For the average person the religions of man typically meet all of their needs. For the vampire that feeds on the life of those around them, either willingly through donors or by ambient or direct feeding on strangers, their place as a predator of man is established and is usually a hurdle that some never really get over. Consequently, any self-accepting vampire that takes a spiritual view of existence must adapt their perspective to being a predator and this typically excludes most religions and spiritual paths that are common today.

Tenets of doing no harm and the like are meant for people that are on equal footing with equal needs. Some people choose to become vegetarians and vegans solely to avoid doing harm to other living creatures. The lion and the wolf cannot avoid doing harm if they expect to survive and the vampire is no different. Acceptance of this aspect of the self is probably the foundational component of a predatory spirituality. Everything else that one might consider as religious or philosophical tenets or ethical considerations can be derived from how conventional hunters interact with conventional prey. The main thing that separates the vampire from other predators is that they can blend in much more effectively with their prey than any other hunter, for better or worse. This leads to a bevy of social concerns that are beyond the scope of this post but merit at least a brief mention.

All of this may come across as arrogant in an age of egalitarianism but it is simply a logical extension of the facts of the vampiric condition. The sooner a vampire can accept what they are, including the spiritual aspect, the sooner they will be able to thrive. There are several spiritual paths that focus on the vampiric condition but there are others (usually pagan paths) that can be adapted to accommodate the vampiric worldview. I leave the specific trial of finding a path to the individual vampire as I am not a preacher or prophet but it is my opinion that by accepting the spiritual significance of the fundamental vampire nature the individual will be all the closer to a holistic identity and that is beneficial in all aspects of life.

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Vampiric Manifesting

What I am choosing to call “vampiric manifesting” I am doing so to differentiate from a more general type of magickal manifestation that refers to manifesting the will in physical reality through the use of magickal art. So then, what is vampiric manifesting? Vampiric manifesting isn’t inherently vampiric at all but the process utilizes a large amount of vital energy to actuate and in my experience is highly instinctual rather than intellectual in nature. Manifesting the vampiric nature in the form of increased physical performance is often the stuff of popular culture but any vampire that has explored their nature will likely have at least one example of manifesting to share.

These examples usually include bursts of superhuman strength, speed, or other faculties. Often this is brought on by extraordinary circumstances and in this respect these feats are not much different from your average person using their adrenaline to survive a life-or-death situation. This is why I say that “vampiric” manifesting is not inherently vampiric in practice. The part that makes it qualify as vampiric is partially the instinctual nature of it and partially the fact that it utilizes a large amount of vital energy that vampires happen to be adept at replenishing and utilizing in general. The vampire also need not be in a life-or-death situation to take advantage of manifesting.

This said, the fact that manifesting burns through such quantities of vital energy is why it isn’t practical on an everyday basis. Even if one were able to have access to virtually infinite vital essence one would still have to contend with the aftermath of pushing the physical body beyond it’s hardwired limits for more than a few moments. Abuse of manifesting is tantamount to abuse of the body and anyone that has ever pushed themselves beyond their limits for the sake of sport can attest that the body needs time to recover after extraordinary feats. For this reason it’s recommended not to abuse this ability. It has the potential to put one in an “energetic hole” that can be difficult to dig out of, especially if the particular vampire is already having problems with feeding.

I try to keep this blog geared toward the practical so I’m going to share a technique I stumbled upon for pushing into the manifesting state when the appropriate triggers are present. One typically already has to be in a somewhat primal and predatory mindset such as vigorous exercise or training (referring back to the instinctual precursor for manifesting). Once that condition is met simply turn your attention to your solar plexus energy center and the associated adrenal glands that rest on top of your kidneys. If you have trouble “feeling” your adrenal glands then perhaps look at an anatomy diagram. Feel these organs activating, both the physical glands and the energetic center. You should begin to feel the beginnings of an adrenaline release; dilated pupils, further increase in heart rate, chills running along your neck and spine. This release is then channeled into whatever activity you’re doing whether it be a feat of strength, speed, or perception.

Bear in mind the consequences of pushing your body beyond its limits for too long. You will have to recover from the adrenaline release as well as from the massive burn of vital energy stores. All caution in mind, hopefully you will find this useful.

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Techno-Vampirism

If one hangs around in vampire places online long enough they are likely to encounter the idea of feeding from technology. Some people literally mean drawing energy from electronic devices and there are lots of colorful anecdotes about drained cell phone batteries and stopped watches. The other connotation is using technology to facilitate a type of distance feeding. That is what I will be focusing on for this post.

The idea of using a computer or cell phone to facilitate distance feeding is just an extension of the principle of using a taglock or a personal connection in the practice of sympathetic magick. The only difference here is that technology is used to create that connection with another person. This is typically going to work best with someone that is a willing donor and will allow the subtle connection to take place with little resistance. It helps if you’ve known the person a while and know what they look like. Their real name, even if it’s just a first name, can be helpful as well.

Once you’ve established a personal connection with someone you can then begin the process of sending out your subtle awareness via tendrils (or whatever your preferred method is) to make contact with their subtle body. If you’re reading this and taking it at all seriously you are probably aware that this sort of subtle attachment is not bound by distance. In a sense it is similar to performing a Reiki treatment on someone at a distance but without the aid of a Reiki symbol and with more or less the opposite intent.

Once you feel that the connection has been made you can begin to pull their essence back to you just as you would if they were standing across the room. When you have finished you can make an effort to disconnect but it’s been my experience that a weak connection will remain for a time afterward, albeit diminished and sort of in the background. You can try to cut it or smooth out the puncture in the aura if that’s your inclination but assuming you haven’t gone too deep the connection and the wound will heal on their own soon enough.

Hopefully this has been helpful to you. Please remember that if you go around in chatrooms poking peoples’ energy bodies without permission that they may not take kindly to it, especially if you’re frequenting vampire or energy work communities. Beware.

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Breath and pranic feeding.

It’s long been a staple of psychic vampirism to coordinate the breath with feeding. How many of us use the energy centers in the nose and mouth as well? All similarities to pranayama breathing from yoga traditions aside, the mouth is an excellent point of focus for drawing vitality into yourself. It works on the physical level and it works on the energy level as well.

Tendrils get a lot of hype when it comes to feeding but try combining the use of tendrils with the siphoning action of combining the breath with the mouth to draw energy into yourself. This is not to say become a mouth breather as that is 1) very obvious and 2) unnecessary. Merely focusing on the energy center in the mouth while working the breath to draw vitality through your tendrils will produce the necessary draw and helps facilitate assimilation. You should notice a distinct “fullness” feeling in your mouth when properly activating the mouth center, similar to holding a very subtle liquid in your mouth.

Using the mouth seems an obvious choice for more intimate interactions but not everyone feeds from intimate partners and as such I suggest this alternative that combines the best of several methods into something I hope you’ll find effective.

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Broken vs. Evolved

When it comes to vampirism there seem to be two dominant schools of thinking about the condition. The first is that something is broken within the individual and that is what causes the vampiric need. The second is that the vampire is a different, possibly more advanced being (either energetically or in some opinions physically). While I don’t personally subscribe to any sort of vampire superiority ideology I do think that it’s worth considering that maybe we aren’t broken even if we feel like it sometimes.

Vampires, by nature of their need and condition, have certain perceptions and abilities that have been developed out of necessity. While these abilities may not be flashy movie superpowers they can provide an advantage within the social jungle that people have to navigate every day. They no doubt make fulfilling our needs easier but it is also possible to use them for more mundane gains. Persuasion, projection, and even manifestation allow for a vampiric presence to command a situation even if the others involved have no idea what is going on. This may seem largely psychological on the surface but try experimenting with the occult side of it and you might surprise yourself with what you can accomplish.

I think it’s time to stop thinking of vampires as broken, energetically or otherwise, and start seeing vampirism as something empowering. A path to becoming something greater, something better, even if it is out of necessity rather than choice. It is much more than a cross to bear in that there are two sides to every coin and this particular coin has some very interesting aspects on either side to be explored.

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“The blood is the life!”

But why is blood the life? A cursory examination of the circulatory system and the subtle channels of the energy body will show a high level of correspondence. One could say that the channels of the subtle body are the spiritual analog to the physical body’s circulatory system. This overlap causes the physical blood to take on the vital properties of the energy coursing through the subtle body and having the effect of living blood being a potent carrier of vital energy (qi, prana).

More interesting and perhaps more useful is the observation that the blood will actually go where the vital force is directed within the body in a sort of mirror relationship. Your imagination can guide you on the utility of such an understanding.