Our Vampire Meet up is listed at iTunes!!!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/sanford-vampire-shadowlore/id386496704

if you search instead, don””””t use “vampire” in the description; billions of podcasts come up. But if you put “shadowlore in the description, WE ARE THE ONLY ONE!!!! Please subscribe, review, and spread the word.

Most recent podcast is about Lilith. Previous 1 is about the Nephilim. Also necromancy, feeding techniques, energy work, and more.

And if you would like to present to one of our meet ups, or have a specific topic you would like discussed, please email me so we can set it up.

–
BB,
Vivienne D’Avalon
Soli boni moriuntur iuvenes; audere esse mali!

http://vampires.meetup.com/929/
to call in: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=17560&cmd=tc

http://twitter.com/VivienneDAvalon
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/vivienne.davalon

If you become aware that some one is drawing energy from you via your solar plexus can you block or stop this?

On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 3:01 AM, one of my Article Base readers wrote:

Dear Vivienne,

If you become aware that some one is drawing energy from you via your solar plexus can you block or stop this ?

Yes, absolutely! The first step is to visualize the energy pull that you feel as a cord of light coming from your solar plexus (or wherever you feel the energy loss). Then imagine a pair of scissors, a knife, or some other sharp object that appeals to you, cutting that cord.

The next step is to seal off the energy in your aura and heal the wound or hole that has been left. Imagine the end of the cord completely falling away from your body, and using your hand, feel energy coming from your hand to seal over the place in your aura where the cord was attached, until it feels whole again.

Next (and this is kind of nasty, but it’s what I would do), I would imagine lighting the other end of the cord on fire, and watching it burn its way back to wherever it came from. That should make your attacker think twice about doing something like that again, to you or anyone else. Another option is, before you cut the cord, imagine a nasty, icky energy or emotion projecting out from you up through the cord, “poisoning” the fuel line, as it were. That may or may not make your attacker sick, depending on whether they are able to metabolize that kind of energy. Many people do feed on some of the most unpleasant emotions possible. You can find more ideas like this in Michelle Belanger’s Psychic Vampire Codex.

Finally, there are some shielding exercises you can use to keep your aura strong and protected. I’ve addressed some of these in the free 5-part course I recently began offering at this site for subscribers. You can subscribe to the blog in the upper left-hand corner of this page (it’s free), and you get the 5-part course as a bonus. A couple of the books I mention in there might be of particular help to you:

The Llewellyn Practical Guide to Psychic Self Defense by Melita Denning and Osborne Phillips, and Psychic Protection by William Bloom. Both of these books, and the Belanger book, are available in the Persephone’s Haven bookstore.

The Bloom book has some great visualizations using shields of different sizes, shapes and colors, so you might want to consider focusing on something like that guarding your solar plexus as extra protection until you feel ok again.

You might also want to spend some time drawing on Universal energy from above, and Earth energy from below, pulling columns of light down through the top of your head and up through your feet, meeting in the middle at your solar plexus and replenishing your energy. That should replace what’s been taken from you in short order.

***

If anyone else has had an issue like this, or has any questions, please add a comment to this post, or email me.

BB,

Vivienne

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Books by vampires, for vampires

I’ve added some more books to the “non-fiction: vampirism” section of the PH bookstore. I figured I would make a list of books by vampires that might be a helpful resource, especially concerning awakening and turning.  I have not read all of these, so it’s up to you to discover how useful they are or whether you agree with the contents:

Practical Vampyrism for Modern Vampyres
by Lady CG

V Special Edition
by Father Sebastian

Of course, I had previously listed:

The Psychic Vampire Codex
by Michelle A Belanger

and

Vampires in Their Own Words
by Michelle Belanger

I’ve also added:

The Ethical Psychic Vampire
by Raven Kaldera

Vampires: The Occult Truth (Llewellyn Truth…
by Konstantinos

and

Emotional Vampires
by Albert Bernstein

Happy reading!  And as always, if you have any opinions about any of these books, please post a comment.

BB,

Vivienne

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new vampire fiction in the PH Book Store

new non-fiction vampire books in the PH Amazon Store

The bibliography of The Science of Vampires had so many fascinating books listed that I’ve started searching for them at Amazon and uploading them according to category. I’ve just added a whole bunch to the “non-fiction: vampires” section. I can’t vouch for all of these, because I haven’t read most of them, and they look like they come from many different view points. I have read Skal’s Monster Show, and absolutely loved it, so I’m looking forward to reading his treatments of the vampire archetype, Hollywood Gothic and Encounters with the Undead.

I found Liquid Dreams of Vampires quite interesting, and while Vampires Among Us is definitely one to be taken with a grain of salt, when it was first published I don’t think there was anything else like it, and I was happy to get it, and found it fascinating reading.

I would love to hear from anyone who has read some of the others on this list, and get your opinions. I would be happy to post any reviews you might want to write. You can leave comments on this post, or send me an email and I can upload a file.

There are several other non-fiction books from Ramsland’s list that I want to add to the AStore, but they will probably be scattered across categories, so next I will get up some of the fiction; I had more that I’ve been reading recently that I need to add, as well, so I’ll post here when I get some more of those up.

Happy reading!

BB,

Vivienne

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Vampire Awakening and Turning: is it Even Possible to be Turned Into a Vampire?

I’ve got a new article uploaded to Article Base on the topic of February’s vampire meet up. It can be found here.

Please let me know what you think. I encourage you to leave comments here and at Article Base on the article. I’m looking forward to having a great discussion about all these ideas at the meet up.

BB,
Vivienne

The Science of Vampires – review

Lady Amethyst of Nephilim United and the Sanford Vampire Meet Up loaned me this book as a resource for the February meet up, which will be discussing vampire Awakening and whether Turning is possible (see my previous post for details).

The Science of Vampires, by Katherine Ramsland, Ph. D. covers a wide range of topics: fictional vampire characteristics, psychological illnesses and serial killers, vampire spirituality, the vampire subculture, the physical basis for bliss and the nature of evil.

Ramsland first discusses fictional vampires and how modern science might explain their abilities, using Dracula as a jumping off point.  She points out how tuberculosis and decomposition might have once been mistaken for vampirism, and then goes into the cellular process of aging, and the properties of blood.

She goes next into how literary vampires have evolved in popular culture, discussing the many paradigms and types of vampires and vampire mythology that have blossomed over the last century.  From this she leaps to quantum physics, psychology, psychic research, and a description of porphyria (an illness that has many symptoms in common with traditional vampire weaknesses, such as heightened sensitivity to the sun).

Next Ramsland discusses the bliss of a vampiric embrace in terms of certain brain functions, techniques such as hypnosis, meditation and trance, drugs such as DMT and LSD, and brain chemicals like endorphins (”inner morphine.”)  In this same section she discusses the possible results of being “embraced,” or how a normal human might be “Turned” into a vampire.  She suggests DNA and genetic mutation, viruses, and pathogens.

Next she goes into what I find to be the most disturbing sections of the book — a discussion of Vampire Personality Disorder, Renfield’s Syndrome, and a list of serial killers who may have fit these profiles.  She chooses to follow this up with an explanation of how forensics and profiling might solve a “vampire” killing, but she uses as her example fictional vampire qualities.  In other words, if Dracula really existed and really had the abilities he had, how might a CSI lab examine the crime scene, analyze the forensics, and profile the killer?  I find it unfortunate that she chooses to confuse real life serial killers with an aberrant psychological disorder, with fictional or literary vampires as if they really existed and a CSI lab would be faced with really trying to figure out what was going on.  I would have found it much more responsible if she had discussed how these forensic labs and profilers dealt with the actual crimes committed by the real life murderers.

Even worse, Ramsland then chooses to describe vampire hunters, and how to kill a (literary) vampire.  I call these portions of the book the most disturbing, because I have no doubt there are confused individuals out there who will be unable to draw the distinction between the “fictional” or literary vampires she discusses, the real-life serial killers she catalogs with legitimate psychological peculiarities, and the modern vampire subculture.  Oh, she throws a few lines in each time she begins to discuss the latter, stressing that they are not psychologically disturbed nor serial killers, but there are disturbed individuals out there who consider themselves to be self-appointed “vampire hunters,” and have attacked members of said vampire subculture.  I can easily imagine such disturbed individuals taking Ramsland’s discussions of literary vampires and the detection of their “crimes” as “real,” equating them with the real-life serial killers she also discusses in such close proximity, and from there making the leap that members of the  vampire subculture, are both “real” literary vampires and serial killers — especially since Ramsland jumps back and forth so frequently and freely between these three types in her explanations of various topics.

I was further disappointed that she chose to follow these sections with a discussion of psychic vampires and vampirism as a spiritual movement, while blending this with a discussion on the nature of evil and  an analysis of Dracula as a dark shaman and alchemist.  This unfortunately adds further credence to the idea that vampirism as a spiritual path is inextricably linked to the nature of evil.

Ramsland saves her “hook” for last — her discussion of vampires and sex is the next to last chapter of the book.  She goes briefly into a discussion of whether vampires can breed with humans when she mentions the dhampir in the vampire hunter section (supposedly the offspring of a vampire and a human), but not until this chapter does she get into the mechanics and hydraulics of sex.  She talks about the different vampire paradigms in various novels and explains whether their physiology would render them impotent, sterile, or capable of having sex and reproducing.

In this chapter she also discusses the attraction the vampire archetype has for the homosexual community, another so-called “deviant” or “outsider” community supposedly drawn to the similar status of vampires, who are seen as sexually uninhibited and similarly unbound by society’s sexual mores.  She follows this up with a discussion of AIDs (a very real problem for sanguine vampires) and the cross over of the vampire subculture with the S&M/bondage subculture, including the shared attraction for dominance and submission role playing.

Ramsland closes by equating the dark allure of the mystery of the vampire, and its ever shifting and elusive nature, to the dark matter of the Universe that scientists are still struggling to explain.  A bit of a stretch, but I like her poetic turn of mind when she makes such comparisons throughout the book, and her ability to think outside the box.

All in all, The Science of Vampires is extremely well researched.  Ramsland does a pretty good job of keeping a wide variety of seemingly unrelated topics well organized, and she has a lot of fascinating information that should appeal both to fans of vampire fiction and to members of the vampire subculture alike.  I do believe she tried to be responsible in her presentation of real vampires amongst discussions of evil, serial killers, and literary vampires. If you can overlook the dangerous potential that certain unbalanced individuals might get them all confused, you should find a lot of very useful information, as well as many resources for further research in her well-cited text and extensive bibliography.

If any of you have read this book I would be very interested in hearing your take on it, and whether your opinions jive with mine.  Please do leave comments on this post and let me know what you think.

BB,

Vivienne

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Sanford Vampire and Shadowlore February Meetup – “Being and Becoming”

The Truth About Vampires

I was invited to write an article about vampirism for the Instant Magic newsletter. It’s published in their October issue, right hand column, “The Truth About Vampires.” The publisher mentioned that several members of the local Pagan and Wiccan meet up groups have been asking a lot of questions about vampires lately, and making a lot of comments, some positive and some negative, so he asked me to write an article that would answer some of those questions and hopefully dispel some of the negativity. Please tell me what you think of the article. Also, the original version of the article that I created to post at the meet up groups themselves, is posted at the Sanford Vampire and Shadowlore meet up in the files section. I plan on turning this into an Article Base article soon, as well.

Please take a look at the articles and comment here to let me know what you think, how I can improve further articles on the subject, or if there is anything about the subject that you would like to know more about in another article.

Enjoy!

BB,

Vivienne

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Friday’s vampire and Shadowlore meet up conference call in information

You have been invited by viviennedavalon to join a live Community Call. Sanford Vampire and Shadowlore Meet Up (Join in) Host: viviennedavalon – vivienne_davalon@yahoo.com Episode: EPISODE8 – Sanford Vampire and Shadowlore Meet Up – history and folklore Well, we didn’t have access to the community room at Panera Bread last time until mid-way through the meeting, but hopefully that doesn’t happen too often. Otherwise, it has been working out quite well for us. It is quieter for our recordings, and Kirra continues to come through for us by bringing her great mike. Of course, it helps if I remember to hit the “record” button on Talk Shoe, so there is actually a podcast for people to access later! eep! Last meeting’s topic was suggested by Vampiress, and she took the lead on this one. We addressed the relationship between vampire and donor, how to appropriately begin such a relationship, how to delineate the parameters of the relationship, spell out the responsibilities each has to the other, and avoid problems. It was a very informative meet up, and I am just kicking myself to here and back that I forgot to hit “record!” We will have to repeat the topic sometime down the line so we can have a podcast on the subject up for handy reference. Our next meet up on October 3, 2008 is our last meeting before Halloween, so Mordred suggested we talk about history, folklore, and other topics that are usually addressed by Hollywood and TV documentaries during this month — facts and fallacies, near-misses, myth and legend, etc. If you have any books along the lines of the “Vampire Encyclopedia” and its ilk, please bring them with you for handy reference and to share around. *** As our meet up matures, we want to continue to reach out to more like minded people in our area who need some networking and social acceptance, and who want the opportunity to learn and to teach. Our members have mentioned being rather insulated because of family issues, or the underwhelming enthusiasm of at least one local Wiccan group for vampires, or social drama online. We’ve been teaching specific topics and gotten some good discussions going, and want that to continue. We’re here to be an educational resource and support network, and the more talented people we get who are willing to share their experiences, the better that resource will be for all our members and for the larger community. There is a lot of creative cross-pollination going on, and I want us to continue to create a space and network that encourages productive, creative interaction, personal growth, and community cooperation to make great things happen! Looking forward to meeting more of you at October’s meet up. BB, Vivienne Call ID: 17560 Personal Message from the Host: This host did not include a personal message. Scheduled Time: Date: Fri, October 3, 2008 Time: 07:15 PM EDT How to participate: Call in: Dial: (724) 444-7444 Enter: 17560 # (Call ID) Enter: 1 # or your PIN Join from your computer: Click here to join the call or just listen along (Optional) Become a TalkShoe member Facebook user? You can join this Call directly through the TalkShoe Community Calling Facebook application. Listen to the Recording: If you missed this event or want to hear previous recorded episodes click here. P.S.: If you enjoyed this post, please share it by clicking on the “share” button below. Thank you!