The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

I've been trying to write here about once a week -- but this week, with the holiday, I don't have a lot to report.

But I will say this: I wrote a lot to memorize in my journal this past week, and while I as traveling I began to commit rituals and the like to memory.

I haven't done this kind of work in a while, and I'd forgotten how pleasant it is. It really does imprint these things on your soul; it helps you relate to what you're memorizing more, and more deeply.

Especially for long pieces, memorization is like navigating your way through a room blindfolded. You start out clumsy and confused, but you sort things out, and pretty soon you know where everything belongs, more intimately than you would otherwise.

With the right mindset, it's even fun. Which is good, because I have a LOT of things to memorize. I'm committing the precepts of the Black Veil to memory, along with several other things my elders deem important, or that will become important to me in the future.

I'm thinking about the Black Veil a lot, lately. I'm committing it to memory, point by point (the 13-point revised version -- neither its contents nor its existence is secret, and a lot of folks have it on their profiles or pages here).

A lot of internet vampyres seem very skeptical that the Black Veil is ever actually used by any real groups. Which ... I actually have a lot of empathy for that point of view. As I've written before, I spent a long time looking at a lot of the publicly available vampyre materials (especially the 2013 edition of the Sanguinomicon) and feeling very skeptical that I was looking at descriptions of a real society.

I'm a little geographically isolated, but as I reach out into the community and get to know those local to me, I feel increasingly sure that these descriptions of the community are real. And I know for a fact that people -- some people, at least -- do indeed take the Black Veil very seriously.

I remember speaking to one of my local contacts and saying that while I respected the Black Veil, I didn't really feel like it was necessary. Wasn't it common sense? He correctly pointed out: common sense isn't common.

I still carry a little leeriness with me. I have a strong anarchist streak. I don't like cops or narcs. I generally believe communities should be self-policing.

But I got a gentle head-and-shoulders smack last night from the Ancients: this is how the vampyre community self-polices. This isn't some legalistic, tedious, extraneous thing.

In secret societies, there's a ton of potential for abuse. That's not a controversial or dangerous statement: think about frat hazings. Think about cults.

Honestly, the best metaphor I've come up with for how the vampyre community polices itself (or how it can) is #MeToo and the wave of sexual abuse revelations that are coming out. In a culture of silence, there's a ton of potential for the powerful to victimize the powerless.

The cops will likely never stand up to most of these sex abusers who are being revealed in entertainment and government. (The abusers are powerful; they have money; often there's no evidence, or the statute of limitations has expired.) So instead, as their victims come forward, the broader community says NO and punishes abusers by ostracizing them, pressuring them into receiving psychological treatment, keeping them from getting into situations where they could commit further abuse. American society is finally stepping up and stepping in, where the law can't or won't.

I worry that even saying all of this, or drawing that analogy, is somehow compromising -- as though acknowledging the potential for abuse in the community undermines us. But of COURSE that potential exists: we are people, and every community attracts predators, especially when there's sex and/or power involved. And communities NEED to self-police, because the law can't always, or won't.

So that's what we do in the vampyre community (ideally). The Black Veil and its enforcement is a self-regulation mechanism within the community, to stop serious abuse (of donors, of nadja, of each other) as it happens. It's something to be taken seriously: it sets community standards. As we engage with our Nightsides and our Dragons, it keeps us from sinking into nihilism or wanton destruction.

It is also about stepping in and stopping abuse before it starts, by setting community standards and reacting accordingly when they're breached. In truly serious situations that can be about cops, both literal ones and metaphorical ones within our community. But it doesn't have to be about that.

The Black Veil is about justice and looking out for each other and standing up for the vulnerable, and solving our problems inside our society as we're able to.

That's punk rock as hell, tbh.

COMMENTS

-

---

AetiusVesperus
21:47 Nov 21 2017

Well said.

---

Agdistis
06:26 Nov 22 2017

Thank you for your kind words.

---

POST COMMENT

Of course there are a plethora of new age books about "psychic vampyres" and how terrible we are.

The thing is, I can't blame them. The vast majority of psychic vampyres are what the Sanguinarium calls "klavasi" -- latent, and usually unawakened.

If you are born into this condition and are unaware of it -- if you are klavasi -- you will find underhanded, nasty ways to meet your needs. You'll cling to people; you'll cause drama; you'll cultivate a sort of learned helplessness.

(I know I did.)

The process of Awakening from one's latent state involves cutting to the root of the problem. The fundamental problem isn't that people leave you, or don't understand you. (These are problems, and they're real, but they aren't the killing blow many unawakened klavasi assume.) Rather, the problem is the lack of energy.

Circumvent the problematic social arrangements; embrace power and life by addressing your most fundamental needs. The Gordian knot is sliced. Difficult things -- like keeping people in your life and caring for them -- become easy.

Because, to be blunt, you're no longer a jerk. And with your needs better-met and the road forward clear, you become empowered in ways you weren't before. (This is to set aside the psychic and magickal faculties many vampyres notice.)

So yes, the vast majority of unawakened, latent vampyres are incredible jerks. (Many Awakened vampyres are jerks, too, but there they have more power to make a choice about being jerks -- since being a jerk isn't what gets them a meal.) I do not begrudge people their frustration around the vast majority of psychic vampyres.

But here's the thing that's grabbing my attention, lately: the vast majority of these books identify psychic vampyres as loving to be around people.

... really?

Admittedly, people are what feed us. But I HATE dealing with people, and most vampyres I know seem to be largely of one mind on this. I've grown to love crowds, but only because I'm learning how to filter more efficiently, as I grow in power. (There is seldom any mention in these books of our empathic streak; heaven forbid they might humanize us.) Individual humans, in my experience, run the gamut between "dearly beloved" and "stultifying" (q.v. Oscar Wilde).

My Introverted faculties are generally well-developed; a big part of my Awakening has involved developing their Extroverted counterparts. As I do that, I love people more.

But I still am reserved around most people, and I think many vampyres are with me on that one. It's hard to say why -- the degree of separation between predator (or scavenger -- more on this TK) and the energetic source, maybe. Or the aristocratic streak many of us have, or strive to create in ourselves.

I am leery of people; they're leery of creatures like me. It's fitting, I guess; so many of our spiritual materials focus on how we bring balance wherever we go ...

COMMENTS

-

---

RyuNoctemAeternus
04:17 Nov 14 2017

well said

---

Minde
08:15 Nov 14 2017

I agree

---

POST COMMENT

So, I'm thinking about cryptomnesia today. That's the name for when you read something and then you forget it.

I had reason recently to refer back to Father Sebastiaan's Sanguinomicon (the Weiser 2010 edition). I first read this book a year or two ago.

In the process, I skimmed through the sections on the Strigoi Morte.

90% of the information I felt like I was coming to on my own (which I mentioned in a previous journal), is in that book. Particularly the mention of totemic, personal Strigoi Morte spirit-mentors. I'd completely forgotten about it.

I have some pretty complicated feelings about this:

1) I thought I'd given that book a pretty close reading, and in fact I'd like to think I read most books pretty attentively. What else have I forgotten from this book? What else have I forgotten from OTHER books?

2) When I presented my ideas to my elders, I felt like they were pretty original. Now I feel silly.

3) At the same time, though, I'm actually kind of grateful for this experience. I sometimes find Father Sebastiaan's writing style pretty frustrating: it's hard to determine what he's describing that he sees elsewhere in the vampyre community, and what he's describing in an attempt to bring it into being, or because he's describing the way he wishes it was.

A lot of my descriptions of what I think are true about the Strigoi Morte were based on logic. If we take description A as true, conclusions B and C follow. By forgetting what Father Sebastiaan wrote I accidentally came to the same conclusions as he did about the essential nature of these guardian spirits -- when previously I might have read his descriptions with a more skeptical eye. (One that evidently caused me to fail to commit his work to memory.)

That's exciting and makes me want to (re)discover more of his opinions about these spirits, and about the Sanguinarium system more generally.

One step back but two steps forward. I am trying to be compassionate with myself.