Vampires walk among us. But these people aren’t the stuff of nightmares – far from it actually. That’s if you can find one. They aren’t necessarily looking to be found but when you do track them down, they can be quite friendly.
“Real vampires” is the collective term by which these people are known. They’re not “real” in the sense that they turn into bats but many do sport fangs and just as many live a primarily nocturnal existence. These are just some of the cultural markers real vampires adopt to express a shared (and, according to them, biological) essence – they need blood (human or animal) or psychic energy from donors in order to feel healthy.
Becoming a Vampire
Their self-described nature begins to manifest around puberty. It derives, according to them, from the lack of subtle energies their bodies produce – energies other people take for granted. That’s the general consensus anyway. It’s a condition they claim to be unable to change.
The real vampire community, like the legendary figure it emulates, knows few national boundaries, from Russia and South Africa to England and the US.
The Varied Vampire Community
Some houses, and indeed whole vampire communities, as in the case of New Orleans, will combine their efforts to organise charity events, like feeding (not feeding on) the homeless. However, despite their humanitarian efforts, real vampires don’t go around advertising who they are for fear of discrimination.
Some semblance of the real vampire community has existed since at least the early to mid-1970s. John Browning of the Georgia Institute of technology says he has met around 35 real vampires in New Orlean. They ranged in age from 18 to 50 and represented both sexes equally. They practiced sanguinarian (blood) and psychic feeding – taking energy using, for example, the mind or hands.
Browning says that blood is generally described by his study participants as tasting metallic, or “coppery” but can also be influenced by the donor’s physiology, or even how well he or she is hydrated. Some psychic vampires use tantric feeding, that is through sexual encounters, while others use what could be described as astral feeding or feeding on another from afar. And others feed through emotion.
Afterwards, blood-drinking and psychic vampires feel better than they would if they were to sustain themselves on just food.
Browning says he found the vampires outwardly “normal” citizens. They performed blood-letting rituals safely and only with willing donors and regularly took part in medical exams that scarcely indicated complications from feeding practices.
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