A psychic vampire (or energy vampire) is a creature in folklore said to feed off the "life force" of other living creatures. The term can also be used to describe a person who gets increased energy around other people, but leaves those other people exhausted or "drained" of energy.[1] Psychic vampires are represented in the occult beliefs of various cultures and in fiction.[2]

Psychic energy

Terms used to describe the substance or essence that psychic vampires take or receive from others include: energy,[1] qi (or ch'i), life force, prana,[1] and vitality. There is no scientific or medical evidence supporting the existence of the bodily or psychic energy they allegedly drain.[3]

Emotional vampires

American author Albert Bernstein uses the phrase "emotional vampire" for people with various personality disorders who are often considered to drain emotional energy from others.[4][5]

Energy vampires

"Energy vampire" redirects here. For devices that draw electricity when not in use, see Standby power.

The term "energy vampire" is also used metaphorically to refer to people whose influence leaves a person feeling exhausted, unfocused, and depressed, without ascribing the phenomenon to psychic interference.[6][7]

Dion Fortune wrote of psychic parasitism in relation to vampirism as early as 1930 in her book, Psychic Self-Defense.[8][9] Fortune considered psychic vampirism a combination of psychic and psychological pathology, and distinguished between what she considered to be true psychic vampirism and mental conditions that produce similar symptoms. For the latter, she named folie à deux and similar phenomena.

The term "psychic vampire" was popularized in the 1960s by Anton LaVey and his Church of Satan. LaVey wrote on the topic in his book, The Satanic Bible, and claimed to have coined the term.[10] LaVey used psychic vampire to mean a spiritually or emotionally weak person who drains vital energy from other people. Adam Parfrey likewise attributed the term to LaVey in an introduction to The Devil's Notebook.[11]

The English singer-songwriter Peter Hammill credits his erstwhile Van der Graaf Generator colleague, violinist Graham Smith, with coining the term "energy vampires" in the 1970s in order to describe intrusive, over-zealous fans. Hammill included a song of the same name on his 1978 album The Future Now.[12]

In the 1982 horror movie One Dark Night, Karl “Raymar” Raymarseivich is the name of a Russian psychic vampire who gains power from the lifeforce of young victims by frightening them to death. This is done by demonstrations of telekinesis which emanates as visible electrical currents of bioenergy. How he dies is unclear, but his malevolence posthumously remains in his body. Effectively, Raymar is a poltergeist in the mausoleum he is interred in, opening crypts (including his own), sliding out the caskets to the floor and randomly exhuming his fellow corpses to terrify unfortunate teenagers who have chosen the wrong place to have an overnight initiation.

The terms "energy vampire" and "psychic vampire" have been used as synonyms in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union as part of an occult revival.[13]

The 2019 American comedy horror television series What We Do in the Shadows includes the character Colin Robinson, a metaphorical and literal "energy vampire" who drains people's life forces by being boring or frustrating.[14]

Vampire subculture

Sociologists such as Mark Benecke[15] and A. Asbjørn Jøn[16] have identified a subculture of people who present themselves as vampires. Jon has noted that enthusiasts of the vampire subculture emulate traditional psychic vampires in that they describe 'prey[ing] upon life-force or 'pranic' energy'.[16] Prominent figures in the subculture include Michelle Belanger, a self-described psychic vampire, who wrote a book titled The Psychic Vampire Codex: A Manual of Magick and Energy Work, published in 2004 by Weiser Books. Belanger details a vampiric approach to energy work which she believes psychic vampires can use to heal others, representing an attempt to disassociate the psychic vampire subculture from negative connotations of vampirism.

Sexual vampires

A related mythological creature is a sexual vampire, which is supposed to feed off sexual energy.[17] Sexual vampires include succubi or incubi.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c A Vampire's Life? It's Really Draining: Forget 'Twilight.' These Folks Pale in Comparison to the Stereotype. By Monica Hesse, Staff Writer, Washington Post, November 24, 2008, Page C01
  2. ^ (Frost 1989, pp. 16–18)
  3. ^ Radford, Benjamin (7 January 2010). "Vampires Among Us: From Bats to Psychics". Live Science. Retrieved 17 February 2013.
  4. ^ Bernstein, Albert (2000). Emotional Vampires. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-135259-8. Archived from the original on 2011-09-03. Retrieved 2011-09-19.
  5. ^ Borchard, Therese. "5 Emotional Vampires and How to Combat Them". Psych Central.
  6. ^ Watch out for energy vampires, by Dr. Judith Orloff, CNN, March 11, 2008
  7. ^ O'Farrell, Peggy (23 September 2004). "'Energy Addict' puts positive spin on life with nutrition and exercise". Cincinnati Enquirer. Retrieved 2009-09-14.
  8. ^ Fortune, Dion (2001) [1930]. Psychic self-defense. Samuel Weiser. ISBN 978-1-57863-150-6. OCLC 44926949.
  9. ^ Charles and Collins, Carr; The Story of Dion Fortune, Thoth Books, 1998, ISBN 1-870450-33-7, p150,
  10. ^ Robinson, Eugene (November 1986). "Anton LaVey". Birth of Tragedy. Retrieved 2007-03-31.
  11. ^ Davison, Carol Margaret; Simpson-Housley, Paul (1997). Bram Stoker's Dracula: sucking through the century, 1897–1997. Dundurn Press Ltd. p. 310. ISBN 978-1-55002-279-7. LaVey defines psychic vampires as "individuals who drain others of their vital energy... They fill no useful purpose in our lives, and are neither love objects nor true friends.
  12. ^ Hammill, Peter (23 October 2006). "The Future Now". Sofa Sound. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
  13. ^ DeNio Stephens, Holly (1997). "The Occult in Russia Today". In Glatzer Rosenthal, Bernice (ed.). The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 468. ISBN 0-8014-8331-X.
  14. ^ "What We Do in the Shadows". BBC Online. 19 May 2019. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
  15. ^ Mark Benecke and Aleksandra Blak, 'Vampire Youth Subculture in New York City', presented as a conference paper at the Second World Dracula Congress (Poiana Brasov, Romania: 24–28 May 2000).
  16. ^ a b A. Asbjorn Jon, 'The Psychic Vampire and Vampyre Subculture', in Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies, 12 (2002), pp. 143–148 (p.145) ISBN 1-86389-831-X
  17. ^ (Frost 1989, p. 31)

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