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Coming Out of the Coffin02:23 Aug 06 2026
Times Read: 4
Coming Out of the Coffin: A Brief Exploration of Modern Urban Vampire Subculture
Published By: Jkimmelf
January 25th, 2014
Halloweenlove.com
Today, it is hard to go a few days without hearing about vampires. They dominate our television, our fiction, our movies, our politics, and even our past. From popular culture to history, vampires are ever-present. But while these vampires are creatures of legend and popular fiction, there are also individuals in contemporary society who call themselves vampires.
Some say they need to ingest blood regularly to feel healthy and survive; others claim to be “energy vampires” who depend on others’ life force, or prana, for sustenance. Still others enjoy the romance of identifying with, dressing and acting like legendary vampires – these are termed lifestylers. They are often misunderstood by mainstream society. Most often found in urban areas, they form an oppositional subculture that allows them to band together, find common ground, and create an identity.
The modern urban vampire is as elusive today, as its folkloric counterpart of yesteryear. Modern vampires have cherry-picked their desired traits and histories from many different fields involving the paranormal and supernatural – thus allowing their image to be shaped for their own satisfaction. It is through the reclamation of this identity that vampires have developed and begun to fabricate an origin for vampires throughout history.
Historically, legends of blood and soul sucking creatures feature in the folklore of Eastern and Southern Europe from ancient times on. However, the legendary vampire that gave rise to today’s literary and pop culture vampires is derived from East European folklore from the early modern period (17th and 18th centuries).
The belief in vampires, prior to the Enlightenment, was as “common as blades of grass” (Murgoci 1926:320). These beliefs were so prevalent that “not to believe in [them] was tantamount to heresy” (Keyworth 2006:241). From Asia to South America, there were and are vampires in the folklore of almost every culture – even if they do not go by the name of vampire; they are present within the histories and modern times of these different locations.
In European and Northeastern United States folklore, vampires are said to be the living dead; thus, vampires exist in a state of liminality – “the undead have achieved what the living desire: immortality” (Maser 2005:34). This quality, I will argue, is one of the traits that accounts for the contemporary attraction of the phenomenon.
Vampires were a screen that repressed people could project their desires upon; “the vampire becomes a projection of one’s own dreams, a mirror of the self that cannot exist within the constraints of time” (Atwater 2000:75). Vampires are a way to explain the unknown – thus becoming scapegoats for the problems of the times, from crop failure to epidemics (Atwater 2000:77).
However, like all good things that play on the imagination, the vampire did not fade away into the darkness – rather, it flourished in the minds of writers. No sooner were vampires banished from the beliefs of the elite, than they were relegated to literature. Legends, stories, and even some sightings were reported through the written world. People began to play with the superstitions that they had feared. This would create the real breeding ground for modern urban vampires of fiction and cinema.
It was through the taking of some of aspects from folkloric vampires and applying them to sensuous creatures of the night, that such vampires as Dracula were created. Dracula was one of the first highly sensual, mysterious creatures completely capable of interacting with humans without notice. Although I cannot do justice to the development of vampire literature in this brief post, Dracula is the forefather for what would eventually develop into Anne Rice’s Lestat and Louis characters from her Vampire Chronicles.
It is not coincidental that Anne Rice’s vampires sprang onto the cultural scene in the 1980s, just as the AIDs crisis during the 1980s created the sudden fear of mortality through blood-borne pathogens. Rice gave the world individuals that were free from the fears of the time. Instead of running in fright from the sight of blood, her vampires drank it, savoring every last drop. Rice “perceives the vampire’s image to be that of a ‘person who never diesÖ [who] takes a blood sacrifice in order to love, and exerts a charm over people'” (Steiger 2010:12).
In a time where the world was in utter chaos, what would be better than having the ability to live forever, to not worry about the current disease of the time, and to be highly romanticized? This is when the urban vampire communities first began to develop. People were trying to take control in a world that appeared to be without (Kahn 62:2007).
The modern urban vampires started to form small groups that would later be termed ‘houses.í Information began to circulate, such as pamphlets entitled “How to Become a Vampire in Six Easy Steps”-“a six-day ceremony involving an owl-figurine, a raw chicken liver, eggs inscribed with lightening bolts, vinegar, a black human hair, and a great deal of chanting and clapping” – although this would be thought of as a joke within the community due to the utter ridiculous nature of the ritual (Laycock 2009:20).
At first, urban vampire communities were secretive, and contact was generally through other members. There were also select vampire clubs during the 1980s and 1990s that were available to the community – these would later become blacklisted due to their association as “feeding zones” (J.S. interview January 28, 2010). However, with the increasing popularity of the Internet in the 1990s, the vampires found a way to connect to each other (Laycock 2009:94). Chat rooms, forums, and websites began to fill the Net with information for the newly awakened. Vampires were no longer alone in the world. The Internet became a way for the community to plan meetings and gatherings.
With the development of the community, the image of the vampire began to take shape. Depending on the type of vampire, there are different elements that have contributed to their portrayals. There is borrowing from both the folkloric and literary vampires, although modern vampires tend to draw more heavily from fictional and cinematic vampires. The ideology, appearance, and even mannerisms seem to develop together.
One way vampires distinguish themselves from mainstream society is through their appearance. While appearance varies greatly among individuals, many favor Goth attire and wear clothes with a romanticized flair. However, this does not stop vampires from wearing jeans and t-shirts with a good old fashioned pair of Chucks, especially in more relaxed settings.
Formal vampire events – such as blood-fastings (similar to Neo-Pagan handfasting rituals), The Vampires’ Masquerade Ball, and the Endless Night Vampire Ball – are marked by the presence of over the top expressions of vampirism through attire. Fangs are worn, ankhs celebrating the vampire’s house are put on (each house has its own symbolic icon that is placed on an ankh as a form of visual membership), makeup varies from pale and ghoulish to glamorous, lace and vinyl are just as common as satin and silk, reds and blacks mix with all the colors of the rainbow and in-between, and as always there is the high spirits of festivity in the air. Clothing is an element in the vampire community that is in constant motion, as vampires enjoy expressing themselves creatively through this medium.
Michelle Belanger, a psi-vampire, is one of the most influential and public vampires within the community. She has helped to develop several houses. Each house is a gathering place for vampires to come together; each has its own set of rules, practices, and beliefs (Laycock 2009:99). Belanger wrote several vampire codexes. The codexes give basic information about the various types of vampires – psychic and sanguinarian. These are a sort of user manual for the newcomers to the communities. Through her efforts with Father Todd, a sanguinarian vampire, she co-created the Black Veil (titled as such to create a distinction from the role-playing vampire games of the time) (Russo 2008:191-195). The Black Veil is a set of ethics that all vampires, regardless of their feeding preferences, are expected to follow (Russo 2008:191; Laycock 2009) – this will be expanded upon later. Vampires that stray too far from the Black Veil are ostracized from the community.
As individuals become more isolated from one another through the use of the internet and advancing technologies, there is a corresponding increase in alienation, especially among teenagers. A teen who is teased at school for whatever reason, returns home to the internet, which provides a world where s/he can find acceptance. The vampire community is another outlet for these teens. Over the last ten years there has been an increasing flux in the number of youths that are becoming a part of the vampire community (J. S. interview January 28, 2010).
The vampire community allows for an outlet for how they are and who they want to be without a lot of judging present. It provides a ready-made romanticized identity for young people who feel marginalized and ostracized. However, it also creates a liminal place for teenagers to exist, due to the fact that most vampire meetings and gatherings are at twenty-one and over clubs, and many vampire groups will not allow members under eighteen to join because of legal issues (Brad and Mia interview February 20, 2010). In this liminal state, teen vampires are highly limited in their association with the vampire community itself in a direct way; the internet becomes their only connection to the world they so desperately want to fit into.
Vampires divide themselves in their communities according to feeding preference: they can be either energy or blood vampires. Typically, these are referred to as psychic and sanguinarian vampires. Psychic vampires, also known as psi, might only feed from sexual energy, or earth energy, or from certain types of people in certain situations. Sanguinarian vampires, also known as sang, feed from human blood, animal blood, or a mixture of the two. Many sanguinarian vampires are forced to become hybrid vampires who feed from blood and energy. This is usually because a blood donor cannot be found at one time or another. Sang vampires that have to feed from energy do not find it as filling; it has been described as “sipping tofu through a straw” (Julian Basarab interview September 30, 2009).
In the beginning, there was a complete divide between the two types of vampirism. Sanguinarian vampires were the first to establish themselves, so when the psi vampires began to emerge on the scene they were met with some skepticism. Some of the sang vampires believed that only “‘real vampires drink blood'” (Laycock 2009:15). This was only part of the internecine struggles. Conflicts between ideas about feeding methods, practices, how gatherings should be handled, even down to how blood-wine (a wine that has been mixed with blood, usually animal) is prepared exist within these communities.
There are still clear differences between the two groups. Sanguinarian vampires still have to deal with the fact that in order to have a donor, a crime must be committed, because it is against the law to cut someone. Cutting oneself inevitably brings into question one’s mental state; therefore, sang vampires have to skirt around this (Lilith interview September 18, 2009). In contrast, there is no illegality to being a psi vampire – the only restrictions come from what they feel is right morally. Psi vampires can feed from a group of people, an individual person, living energy from natural elements, and sexual energy. Each psychic vampire has a choice as to feed from their source with or without the permission of the supplier.
Another ethically problematic aspect of this subculture is the practice of “grazing.” Grazing can be roughly defined as the random selection of an unscreened donor who is typically picked up in nightclubs or Goth bars (Elijah interview January 28, 2010). Although it is something that is highly looked down upon in the vampire communities, it still occurs and can be an aggressive act that brings an unwanted spotlight to the community.
A psychic vampire when asked whether or not he “grazed” stated, “grazing is in my eyes and a lot of the vampire communities eyes as being a rough, without rules, without morals. I don’t feed from those that are not willing unless it is by drawing in energy which will not hurt anyone and leave the person unharmed and unmarked” (J.S. interview January 28, 2010).
Just as a sanguinarian vampire when asked the same question, merely said, “I would never graze. My black swans [a person involved with the vampire community, nonexclusive to donors] typically cut, but I’ve had to resort to animal blood before. [The AIDS scare] has made us more cautious and less likely to graze or attack someone.” (Elijah interview January 25, 2010). It is a rare thing to come into contact with a vampire that believes in grazing as a positive element in the community or would willing resort to such an act.
The modern urban vampire community is always in flux. This community’s boundaries overlap with those of Goths, Pagans, part of the BDSM community, Left Hand Path witches, Satanists, and the list goes on. Since vampires are involved with so many other different subcultures, the community changes with the current politics as much as the environment. It is a way of expression that allows its members to explore who they are, as well as who they might want to become.
It is unfortunate that the media tends to focus on its more sensational and outrageous members, as in the case of Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey. This satanic sanguinarian vampire ran for President of the United States twice, in 2004 and 2008. As part of his presidential campaign, Sharkey claimed if he was elected that he would impale George W. Bush on the White House lawn. Nevertheless, like all oppositional subcultures, the vampires merely overcome their trials and tribulations and continue to evolve along with the larger cultures. The modern urban vampire community typically manages to dodge bad public relations and stay under the radar – allowing them to continue to function without drawing unnecessary attention to their unique ways of life.
Vampires, like modern Witches, are linked to many communities through their romantic reclamation of a negative folkloric figure. Vampires have claimed historical figures such as Jure Grando, Peter Plogojowitz, Arnold Paole, Vlad Tepes Dracula, Gilles de Rais, and Countess Erzsebet Bathory as fictive ancestors. It is not certain whether these people all practiced in some form of vampirism or not, but what is important is that the vampire community has chosen them as fictive ancestors.
Just as the modern vampire identity is based on a handpicked collection of attributes from folkloric and fictional aspects of vampirism, vampires have also created their own sacred origin myths that give them a link them to evolution and grant them a metaphysical origin. Many vampires have come to believe that vampires have always existed, or that “vampires have been around for a few centuries” (Elijah interview January 28, 2010). Some vampires believe that vampirism is merely another stage of human evolution, and see themselves as its representatives. Vampirism has become a way of reclaiming a past, and of creating a mythical future.
Unlike their often cruel and wicked progenitors, the vampires of modern urban areas go out of their way to try and not be the bloodthirsty creatures they were once made out to be. The Black Veil works to ensure that there are sorts of laws within the community. It ensures the proper treatment and respect of donors, having discretion and not causing unwanted attention to the community, respecting the fact that the community is a diverse organism, reminding people to use common sense, practice self-control, and live life as an example to the community.
The community is metaphorically portrayed as a family, and vampires are urged to respect it as such, using proper etiquette for their havens, being responsible, respecting elders and the people within a certain territory, lead responsibly, and following the ideals of the vampire ways. Vampires that do not stay within these rules are forced out of the community and are thus subject to the outside world and its criticisms. Many vampires try to become upstanding members of the larger communities that they live within, getting involved with local youth groups, charities, and the like (Lilith interview March 13, 2010).
There also seems a sense of trying to involve, as well as create family within the community. Vampires often take their entire family to a vampire meet-up or gathering; just as the Black Veil discusses, the community becomes your family and they are expected to be there as such. It is easy to see that although the vampires might have similar traits to their distant bloodthirsty cousins of yore, they are clearly not the same; modern vampires have taken history, literature, and folklore and shaped them into a positive image they wish to project.
Unfortunately, the study into urban vampire cultures is still limited. Most written material has been put out by the community itself, or from fields such as English, Religious Studies, and Psychology. There is still hardly any research done on the connection of vampirism to HIV/ AIDS or even why there is a physical need to intake human blood or living energy. The overall population is still very much so in the dark about the vampire community.
Vampire Hypothesis02:14 Aug 06 2026
Times Read: 11
Vampire Hypothesis: Is Vampirism Explained Through Homeostasis?
By Becka Wood
Published July 4, 2015
Vamped.org
In my efforts to try to find a physical link with the condition of vampirism, I’ve found myself to be taken as a person trying to disprove vampires altogether. On the contrary, think of me as the delightful Darwin whom went on his escapade in an efforts to try to proof God.
With that said, since this work may never be whole, I will simply call it a hypothesis or a postulate. Some of you the readers may have already drawn the same conclusions of a physical link or agree to some of the theories I’m going to argue here; affirmation that you are not alone is also well and good.
In this article, I will be looking over all the different types of energy deficient human beings—also called “vampires,” who are commonly found within collectives called the Vampire Community—and arguing the possibility of all of them being hybrids, that is, someone who needs both energy and blood and/or can adapt and/or take from both sources. I will be explaining this “need” through homeostasis and how it relates to the condition.
It would only make sense to start at homeostasis. But first, what is homeostasis? According to Anu Singh-Cundy and Michael L. Cain’s Discover Biology: Core Topics, 5th ed. (New York: Norton, 2012), a book I will be using extensively through this article: “Homeostasis . . . is the process of maintaining a relatively constant internal state despite fluctuations in the external environment. Homeostasis is vital for proper function of most organisms. For example, cell-level homeostasis maintains cytosolic pH about 7” (566).
It does this by keeping us at a regular temperature, further explained by Singh-Cundy and Cain (2012, 191):
"To counteract the natural tendency toward disorganization, the cell must capture, store and use energy. One of the many implications of the second law of thermodynamics is that the capture, storage, or use of living energy is never 100 percent efficient, so at least some of the invested energy is dissipated as a disordered and unusable form of energy called metabolic heat. In other words through the very act of creating order within living systems add to the disorder of the universe by releasing metabolic heat into the environment.
This is not to say I don’t consider the external environment a factor in the process of homeostasis, but there is an internal factor that also need to be regulated—meaning that lack of energy, regardless of environment, would eventually lead them to become cold. This would be a defining method one could use to palpably measure who is a “vampire” and who is not.
If vampires have a lack of energy that food cannot sustain, then it stands to reason we would be cold, because food alone would not keep our internal conditions, which is why they would get cold, sick and pain. That’s not to say they could not suffer other conditions but whether those are related to vampirism is something to question.
Also, they all should inevitably get cold and sick. In the process of the body dying for example, the blood slows down which causes the person to get cold. Some may die from different or instant means, say a blow to the head. But generally, a person does get cold in the process of dying.
Some have attempted to argue with me that a vampire would not necessarily get cold or that homeostasis has nothing to do with vampirism. For instance, on June 16, 2015, S Lynne Price, a member of the Vampire Community News Facebook group told me: “My body temperature runs around 96.7. I am so active that I rarely get cold anymore however. I doubt homeostasis is the reason for symptoms.”
That does not make sense from a scientific point of view. This metabolic heat would also explain why we see “beacons,” a supposed high amount of energy and/or light emitted out of a vampire that is a supposed signal of a vampire and/or one whom awakened as a vampire; it is likely a large release of heat and as to why I myself get cold when low on energy. This beacon is a supposed great output of energy. Think of it like an angler-fish in the dark. That compelling.
On June 20th, 2015, a Vampire Community News member privately argued that spiritual and physical energy are two separate things in regards to psis, who are what the community defines as people who solely feed on energy. If that is so, then you would not have enough energy to obtain energy, you would be dead because physical energy would not hold you here and be virtually useless, and all the energy that a human replenishes themselves with, and has with, would technically be physical.
You could argue that you could sustain yourself on energy or blood alone, and finally how would something that is spiritual become physical so it can help you no longer be sick or recover? It wouldn’t because all you would have done is feed the soul temporarily so that the body could recover. So a part of you would feel better and a part of you would not until it recovers. Food sustains our lives.
Again, let’s look at a scientific example for clarity as to why this cannot be so (Singh-Cundy and Cain 2012, 189):
"The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but only converted from one form to another . . . All the energy in our universe is associated with matter, and energy and matter are equivalent; since matter cannot arise from nothing or be turned into nothing, energy too, cannot disappear without trace or be created brand-new out of nothing.
Meaning that energy is energy, there isn’t a difference since it all can be converted. That’s not to suggest we should be fine with just food, however. Let us look now at the various methods of energy obtaining.
We have our sangiunarians, which the community would define it as those who solely replenish their energy, that food does not, with blood. Now some sangs would argue at times that they have a lack of proteins or certain proteins in blood help them. Some Eros Vampires, which the community defines as sexual feeders—be it bodily fluids and/or sex energy—would argue that as well. From, the logical standpoint, one could argue that they would be fine if they ate more meat.
With that in mind, let’s look at the process of energy production (Singh-Cundy and Cain 2012, 208):
"In the process of making ATP (adenosine triphosphate- an energy carrying molecule), NADPH (Nicotinmide adenine dinucleotide phosphate with a hydrogen atom) and NADH, ADP becomes ATP, NADP becomes NADPH, and NAD (same as NADP only without a phosphate) becomes NADPH. NADPH and NADH each pick up two electrons and a hydrogen atom which convert them into high energy forms. Think of them as rechargeable batteries.
Cellular respiration is vital to this equation (Singh-Cundy and Cain 2012, 209–210):
In the process of making ATP (adenosine triphosphate- an energy carrying molecule), NADPH (Nicotinmide adenine dinucleotide phosphate with a hydrogen atom) and NADH, ADP becomes ATP, NADP becomes NADPH, and NAD (same as NADP only without a phosphate) becomes NADPH. NADPH and NADH each pick up two electrons and a hydrogen atom which convert them into high energy forms. Think of them as rechargeable batteries.
Cellular respiration is vital to this equation (Singh-Cundy and Cain 2012, 209–210):
Cellular respiration takes place in three stages: glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation. The first stage, glycolysis, takes places in the cytosol (all the inner parts of the cell that is not a cell part so excluding the nucleus, golgi, etc. The space), the fluid portion of the cytoplasm. During glycolysis sugars are split to make a three-carbon compound (pyruvate), releasing two molecules of ATP and two molecules of NADH for each glucose molecule that is split. Pyruvate enters the mitochondrion (an organelle with a double membrane that is the site of cellular respiration in eukaryotes). Eukaryotes a single-celled or multicellular organism in which each cell has a distinct nucleus ( the organelle in a eukaryote that contains the genetic blueprint in the form of DNA) and cytoplasm (the contents of a cell enclose by the plasma membrane (The phospholipid bilayer (think fat) that forms the outer boundary of the cell) but in eukaryotes, excluding the nucleus. Compare cytosol). The pyruvate is completely degraded through a sequence of enzyme-reactions known as the Krebs Cycle.
The carbon backbone of pyruvate is taken apart, releasing carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide you are exhaling into the air right now originated in the carbon backbones of the food you ate, following the complete dis-mantling of those food molecules by the Krebs Cycle produces a large bounty of ATP and NADH.
In the last and final step of cellular respiration, the chemical of NADH is converted into chemical energy of ATP through a membrane dependent process known as oxidative phosphorylation. Oxidative phosphorylation generates at least 15 times more ATP than does glycolysis alone. We cannot survive more than a few minutes without oxygen because, in the absence of this gas, our cells cannot make enough ATP to run the many activities that rely on energy delivered by this extraordinary energy carrier.
This could explain why I have difficulty breathing when low on energy because I’m trying to intake more oxygen hoping it will help where there is a lack and the process of how energy is made, lost, etc.
It also doesn’t show a need for protein that some sangs argue, rather sugars and oxygen are the key to energy. However, one could argue, hemoglobin is an oxygen-binding protein and that’s why it assists, but it’s virtually useless if there is no energy or lack thereof to deliver.
One could potentially argue that a sangs process is simply stalled or slowed. Bloodwork would disprove this being related to a shortage or hemoglobin and if there was it certainly would not be vampiric by the community’s standards. Perhaps there is some form of sugars left in the blood or bodily fluids that could argue chemical or physical.
For those that argue spiritual or energy as to what they glean from blood or bodily fluids, I have no means of explaining or disproving that scientifically. It is the same for psis. Psis are more complex, however, as there seems to be no scientific means of explaining how they are able to glean energy, what is within the energy, and how exactly the materials inside energy assist with homeostasis.
But whatever materials they do use, it must be something that links with or assists with cellular respiration and homeostasis. Nonetheless, the spiritual argument and science leads me to another theory I have.
I believe sangs try to separate themselves from psis as a means of saying the energy or means they go about things is different. It is different to a degree, but the outcome is still the same, I feel, in that it it’s about obtaining energy. Given that it’s all a means of obtaining it, it poses the thought that it’s all relative; a matter of preference.
Too many a time have I seen a sang unwilling to try another method of feeding. I feel that perhaps it take a little more to have an effect, or perhaps they have not unlocked it yet, or unware they are taking energy or were a hybrid all along. Either way, I have come to a theory that all energy is relative and you could potentially get energy from various means but people simply choose not to, have difficulty, or are unable to at the moment, or unware they can. (Look at first law of thermodynamics for scientific reasoning as to why I feel this is).
Sangs are possibly both physical and metaphysical. If their condition were purely chemical, as it seems people are making out, then their condition could be fixed and they would not be a vampire. Basically, if we are able to isolate a physical connection that cannot be fixed with food or supplements or is an unexplained medical condition and find an issue in the process of making energy that energy or expel too much energy in metabolic heat and blood and/or simple energy fixes we have our connection between the physical and the spiritual. Potentially. As I hope you can see I’m stating psi and sangs are both spiritual and physical and we could all be potentially hybrids.
You may argue that young blood transfusion assists with older fellows medical issues and this establishes the sang physical need. However, if this would mean that a sang would have to take from a younger person all the time and that the sangs would age rapidly without it and they would only come to need it when they got old. This likely has to do with something akin to stem cell research in that embryonic stem cells are capable of being molded into whatever cell possible.
Going from there, there’s reason to argue that younger blood cells are capable of fixing issues with older blood cells. Also, the young blood cells would get broken down in the stomach acids versus a transfusion. The body gets nutrients from the mother firstly, the body itself does not make hormones that degrade food right away.
It firstly gets nutrients from the mother in the womb through the bloodstream. The baby is shaped and affected by the mother’s hormone output and/or how they develop can affect the hormone levels. Yes, the body can adapt to a degree but without food it would eventually consume itself. This adaption of the body naturally, also supports my reasoning as to why I think vampires are hybrids and adaptive.
Now going from this, is it possible that the cause of vampirism is actually a metabolic birth defect? “When there is a problem with a baby’s body chemistry,” explains the KidsHealth.org “Birth Defects” page, “it is called a metabolic birth defect. Metabolic defects prevent the body from properly breaking down food to create energy. Examples of metabolic defects include Tay-Sachs disease, a fatal disease that affects the central nervous system, and phenylketonuria (PKU), which affects the way the body processes protein.”
Vampires may very well have an underlying metabolic defect that is unknown and somehow energy treats this. How this is, is something to consider. And to some they might say does it really work at all? Or is it psychosomatics?
Some people within the Vampire Community assert “vampires” are born, or have a familial tie to other “vampires.” I’d like to acquaint them with something else the KidsHealth.org’s “Birth Defects” page mentions: “Other genetic defects happen when both parents pass along a faulty gene for the same disease; this is called recessive inheritance and includes conditions such as Tay-Sachs disease and cystic fibrosis.”
To expand further on how this concept can tie to genes, let’s consider inborn errors of metabolism. As Wikipedia’s page on the condition explains:
Inborn errors of metabolism form a large class of genetic diseases involving congenital disorders of metabolism. The majority are due to defects of single genes that code for enzymes that facilitate conversion of various substances (substrates) into others (products). In most of the disorders, problems arise due to accumulation of substances which are toxic or interfere with normal function, or to the effects of reduced ability to synthesize essential compounds. Inborn errors of metabolism are now often referred to as congenital metabolic diseases or inherited metabolic diseases . . . Traditionally the inherited metabolic diseases were classified as disorders of carbohydrate metabolism, amino acid metabolism, organic acid metabolism, or lysosomal storage diseases. In recent decades, hundreds of new inherited disorders of metabolism have been discovered and the categories have proliferated. Following are some of the major classes of congenital metabolic diseases, with prominent examples of each class.
Medical search engine, medic8.com, also features further information on its “Metabolic Disorders” page:
Metabolic disorders are caused by inherited conditions or defects which affect the body’s metabolic system. The metabolic system is responsible for processing the food we eat and breaking it down to produce energy for the body to function; this is a complex process which involves enzymes. Many different types of enzyme are used during the digestion process, with some responsible for breaking food down and others responsible for breaking down and removing toxins from the body. In most cases, metabolic disorders are inherited from both parents. There are many different types of metabolic disorders, which affect the body in different ways . . . In most cases of birth defects, the cause is unknown; an abnormality or irregularity, which affects the genetic make-up of the cells, occurs at the point of conception and appears to happen for no known reason. Other possible causes of birth defects include infections, including toxoplasmosis and German measles, which affect the mother during pregnancy, exposure to harmful chemicals or environments or drinking or smoking during pregnancy.
This explain why we may have difficulty since the cause is unknown and, as the above article relates, some are recently being recognized. Interestingly, the condition may even explain why some people within the community “awaken” to their conditions later in life, going by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations’ “Inherited Metabolic Disorders” page:
Inherited metabolic disorders vary from acute life-threatening disease to less dangerous degenerative disorders. Their onset and severity may be exacerbated by environmental factors, such as diet and concurrent illness . . . They can occur at any time, even in adulthood.
Some within the Vampire Community may be panicking right now. “What have you done?!” they shriek. “You’ve reduced us to a medical condition!” However, I haven’t formulated anything that undermines us. If anything, it potentially validates us: after all, we know that blood and/or energy treats this issue. So, now hypothetically we can say vampirism is a result of a metabolic defect at birth that genes have yet to detect. Skeptics may say that this proves it’s all just an unknown disorder. I’ll leave that to the reader to consider.
Going from this, we can deconstruct all these labels like sangs, psis, hybrids, etc., that have us fighting and come to the realization that we all just are “vampires.” And I put that in quotations because, in reality we are energy deficient humans, or humans with metabolic defects whom adopt the label for conveniences’ sake.
Too often do we see those claiming to be newly awakened or curious “humans” trying to understand what we mean when we identify ourselves as vampires. Often, you see the word “vampire” and then human thrown in next after the fact, which leaves people to wonder, “Well, what are you? What am I?” It also leaves humans whom would normally understand to be even more skeptical than they were from the start.
It does sound a bit ridiculous to claim to have a vampire soul in you while your body is human. It makes more sense to claim to be an energy deficient human with vampiric needs or tendencies. Some would argue that the soul is applying the vampiric condition so like a fox did from when it was a fox. “You are close,” wrote Deacon Gray, a member of the Vampire Community News Facebook group on June 17, 2015, “the difference is once your spirit has an experience, it doesn’t simply go away. You take it with you…once you were a fox, there will always be some of the fox there.”
However, there is nothing to suggest a vampire had a vampire body according to the community, so essentially that argument falls flat. This is why I feel our body must be altered to some degree. Again, that doesn’t mean our soul is necessarily a vampire but it must have accommodated in order to not be entirely drained. Consider how our vessels would act if there was a highly vampiric need or if our soul had an astounding amount of power. Would the body be able to contain it? I don’t think so. I think therefore that there has to be a physical connection for the spiritual.
A ghost or spirit cannot feel pain no more because it lacks the nerves to feel pain it had in it’s body. Nor am I trying to state that all vampires are the same in abilities. I’m arguing spiritual logic against spiritual logic. People could argue what’s to say there is a soul, as well.
Some think I’m trying to paint vampires all with the same brush. For instance, Kate Gallwey, another Vampire Community News member shared the following on June 24, 2015:
Why would you think all souls inhabiting human bodies are the same?
Your journey to find yourself is admirable but you are presuming that the path is the same for all that self-identify as vampire. This is your journey and to agree or disagree with your findings is as daft as to agree or disagree with your reality would be.
If I tell you I see auras and souls, you can blink at me a few times and back away slowly. But it is my reality and in my reality there are many tribes of souls that in habit a human body. Even fragments of different souls. I have found others that can see this too. So I am not alone in my view. There are many strong tribal souls, either whole or fragmented, that identifies as vampire here. Their journeys are unique as is their pov.
All most people can say to either of us is – ‘thank you for sharing’.
But who’s to say we are so different to begin with? Again, what’s to suggest there is even a soul to begin with? Some don’t believe in such. You could argue there’s slight variation in regards to genetics but we are still human. People have argued that they are born into a random body and there cannot be a family link. Yet, some argue that they have it in their family and that it has skipped generations or shown later in the family. This would suggest to me that it is recessive.
Using basic Mendel’s concept of Inheritance, if we crossbred two humans with a vampiric allele we have a 25% chance of getting a vampire. So, to demonstrate we have two parents whom are H for human and h for vampire. They cross over an the result of the Punnet square is is that there is a 25% would be HH, 50% that they would be Hh and a 25% chance they would be hh the vampire phenotype. This 25% means that it is possible for it to skip generations.
If we had two vampires hh, there would be no other outcome but a vampire. We can have variation from our parents and perhaps ability in the soul. Perhaps the soul evolves to suit the body. This ties in again with metabolic defects in that it can be recessive as well. This would also mean that there are very few who are vampires, but I think we are quite similar. Nor do I think the evolution to be that dramatic to make us too different. It’s like trying to argue that an entire species is different then it doesn’t make it a species. It would be like trying to argue that all goldfinches are different—but they’re still goldfinches.
Therefore, in conclusion, there has to be a physical link-a metabolic defect, and we may very well be more human than initially thought. Energy is relative and we may well all be hybrids. They would all feel cold based upon metabolic heat, homeostasis and cellular respiration.
Your view will always be your view. You may say I’m trying to categorize all vampires to be the same. No, I think their abilities may be different, but in the end we’re very much similar to each other. You may find people discount this on the basis of supposed experience or spiritual; that’s their opinion or view. But much of what I have argued has a science to it. And that is a fact. This is what makes the most logical sense to me as a psi.
For further insights into the Vampire Community, read Paula-Maree Cavenett’s “Being a Vampyre: My Perspective.” If you’re interested in the Vampire Community, Joseph Laycock, a prominent scholar in the field, will be attending the upcoming vampire studies symposium. Book your tickets today!
REAL VAMPIRES LOVE VAMPIRE RAVE
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