DARK, BUT NOT EVIL

They chose the dark path, they come when the darkness rises, be the fear of human and power at the same time. This characters were attached to vampires in many literature and  tv shows. But are they exist? The answer is shocking, yes they are. They live around us, but the good news is, they are not the death walking creatures. But do we have to afraid of them? Well, it depends.  I did a simple research about vampirism, and hopefully it helps to give everyone the right point of view about vampires.

Many believe that vampire or vampirism was established when a noble called Vlad from Dracule family that became an impaler. Since then he was known as a cold blood monster. But there is no written evidence, as I know, whether in people’s legend that Vlad drank blood. He impaled the prisonners to scare his enemies. I would rather believe that vampirism existed before the Crusade, maybe thousand years before Crusade. And nobody reaches that age to confirm the practice of vampirism.

Vampirism, exists not only in westren culture, in any culture throughout the world has specific blood drinker stories. Even in Indonesia, we know the practice of cannibalism. In a novel written by Damar Shashangka, Sabda palon, he describe a cannibalism ritual in Kawi mountain. This ritual aimed to keep someone’s sexual attraction and to gain the power of their black magic. Other well known blood drinker in Indonesia is Jenglot. This mini mummy is usually used to send negative impact, like sickness or even death, to someone. Nowadays, some people in Indonesia still keep jenglot.

In other hand, I found the difference between the practice of blood drinker or energy manipulation in Indonesia and in vampirism I westren culture. In Indonesia, people do some rituals of sacr ificing human’s blood for revenge, beauty, power, or wealth. As I study about the vampirsm, the consumption of human’s energy is used to strengthen themselves, but also to give a pleasure for the donors. That is why, they find donors not random people to fill their needs. It is like an energy exchange, or even energy manipulation.

As mentioned earlier, I will intend this written work to introduce and give a wider perspective, especially to people in Indonesia, which are not common with this term. Fortunately I found a person who is in this spiritual path. We can call her Jinx. Jinx, found her path in vampirism at the age of 18. She learns how to feed from people’s energy.

She gives me an unusual categorization of vampires. Before interviewing her, I found there are only three kinds of vampires, Sanguinarian, Psychic, and Hybrid. In addition, she gave a new category, called ‘Eros Vampire’.

Before we go further with this categories, I will describe each one of this category. Sanguinarian vampires are vampires who get their energy from blood. These vampires are the real blood drinker. But don’t be afraid, they don’t hunt like the traditional legends of vampires. They get their blood form donors. There are communities of vampires and they absolutely have the link to the donor. The donor also can be people they know well, like family, lovers, or friends. Before they consume the blood, they have to make sure that the donors’ blood is clean from any blood transmitted disease. The blood brings them energy, as they try to make this vampire-donor relationship is an exchanging energy.

Second is the Psychic vampires. This category is interesting to me. The concept of exchanging energy, basically, is known thousand years or even million years before this day. “But most people do this passively”, Jinx replied when I told about how actually people giving and taking energy form other people, or  other things in this universe. Psychic vampires get their energy from absorbing other people’s energy. In a video form BBC documentary, they found that many Psychic vampires live in big cities. Big cities provide them places with huge crowd so they can have their energy from the crowd. But for Jinx, she prefers to have energy from a donor. So she can build an intimate relationship, which benefits the energy exchange both for the donor and the vampire.  “It tastes like porridge”, when she talked about taking energy in a shopping mall.

Next, we are going to have a bit look at Hybrid vampires. Hybrid vampires get blood and human’s energy as their energy sources. In fact, watching an interview with this famous vampire inspired me to make this writing, Don. You can search his interviews on YouTube. He drinks blood but look harmless.

The forth type is a new one for me, and Jinx said it is still debatable in the community. Eros vampire, or defined as love vampire. This type of vampires get their energy from an intimate sexual relationship. It doesn’t always be a sexual intercourse, but they can absorb the energy when someone is flirting on them, or make out. To keep the balance, usually it stops in making out. This type, of course, needs an intimate partner to be the donor.

The rituals of vampirism may vary. It depends on religion of the vampire. I think, this differentiate vampirism from religion. A vampire could come from any religion, like Paganism, Left Path, even Christian and Jew. We will find no vampire in Islam because Islam  is really strict about energy manipulation, or intentionally taking energy from human’s life force. Some vampires also take the rituals into a purification process, like sleep in a coffin, and don’t have sex (as stated by Don, in Tyra Show interview). This purification process allows them to connect to the universe. That explains how Psychic vampires can read people’s mind, or what karma is going to happen to someone.

According to many sources, there is no scientific evidence about the vampire gene. Some speculation about vampire skull from middle age ca be found in some documentary videos or literatures. Most of the vampires I found are normal humans like us, but they chose this spiritual path. There were a story about a teen vampire in America named Rod Ferrel. He and his friends did the murder, then Rod found the pleasure of tasting human blood. He was sentenced to be in jail for the rest of his life, and he admitted to the press that he is vampire an he chose the dark path. But the contrary result also found later when I communicate, passively like reading or watching them and also actively, with some vampires from various community, they are harmless. They took this path to refine themselves, so they can have control of their minds and body. The meaning of being powerful is not taken in evil way, but moreover to have control of themselves and others in mutual relationship of vampire-donor.

If we google for  vampire’s communities, we will find there are a lot of them. This community is aimed to help the vampire about this spiritual path, and help them to find donors. Unfortunately, as vampirism grows as a subculture, there are posers that make this vampirism is more like a trend. This condition will distract people from the spiritual aspect of vampirism.

After reading this article, I hope people will do more research about any subculture or different side of our lives. Vampirism is one of world’s phenomenon that we cannot neglect. Maybe there are vampires around us, but they just don’t open themselves. I don’t ask people to judge the vampires, but I hope this information can contribute the readers’ knowledge about a subculture. As any knowledge is there for, so people can take lessons.

• It is quite difficult to list the sources. Because I found the information from many stuffs, like interviews in several tv broadcast, independent community videos, BBC documentary films, and of course interview with a real vampire named  Jinx (she refused to have her picture on blog).
• Here are some sites that also be my sources, and you can have more information about vampirism on them:

The Vampire Community & Subculture
http://www.suscitatio.com/images/CommunityDiagramNeg.jpg

Suggested Reading Material (Books):

Vampires Today: The Truth About Modern Vampirism – Joseph Laycock
http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Today-Truth-Modern-Vampirism/dp/0313364729/ref=sr_1_1

Vampires In Their Own Words: An Anthology Of Vampire Voices – Michelle Belanger
http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Their-Own-Words-Anthology/dp/0738712205

Voices of the Vampire Community (VVC)
http://www.veritasvosliberabit.com/vvc.html

HOPE YOU ENJOY READING IT.