"One thing about living in Salem I never could stomach; all the damn vampires."
~Lost Boys
Well before I go on, the picture above is of a synagogue on Essex Street which is now the auxiliary parking lot for the Hawthorne Hotel which is consecrated land. It's a good place to hide from the vampires in town...
There was a high priest of a vampiric order in Salem from the NYC chapter who used to do outreach for those people who had a fetish of drinking each other's blood, but what was more important with his mission was how to curb people from draining energy from people without their permission.
Christopher Lee was pretty cool in those Hammer Horrors, but vampires are not immortal, they don't have super human strength, they don't turn into bats, but they can drain the life out of you...My friend tried to teach those people how not to. Till he converts them all, let me help you a little.
Have you ever got caught in a conversation where you start staring at your watch, you have not been able to say anything for the last 20 minutes, the person across from you is telling you their whole life story filled with pain and sorrow, and you walk away like you had just lost 5 years of your life. You have been bitten.
Have you been in a bar and had a woman come up to you and talk you up, and just walk away? Then you see her flirting with ten others before the night out. You all have been bitten.
Have you been in a coffee shop and you start to speak ten times only to be spoken over by another at the table, you have been bitten!
Do you ever feel good about giving change to panhandlers, but sometimes you walk away feeling like your bank account has been emptied, or better stated...you would of gladly handed over the contents of your bank account to get back the last 5 minutes of your life. You have been bitten.
Who is prone to these attacks? The strongest of us. Do they write articles defaming the character of the man living in a refrigerator box or the latest movie star? The movie star has more psychic energy to draw from, the man living in the box has had his life drained away years ago. If you had found yourself a favorite for bullies on the playground, it was because you shined.
There was something amazing about yourself. The bully was jealous of your free nature, your fashion, your caring, your wealth, your health, or happiness. Many times a bully comes from a broken home and at times the victim is from a better family environment. Needless to say in some fashion the victim had great wealth of spirit that the attacker felt compelled to take from you. Those who have the most energy shine bright.
These people tend to be great healers, but the downfall to them is that vampires are selfish. They honestly are looking for help and they cut in line before all others to access these healers. Their selfishness leaves them with the inability to listen or converse through their problems, so they can only drain the healer and become dependent on them. They transfer their pain to them and take their joy in exchange. Which is easy for most listeners want to give joy. In the end, the psychic vampire never learn to do for themselves. In this way healers feel drained and burned out and are remiss to help others later. Especially after years of watching those they tried to help never grow. These are lessons us
Salem psychics and healers must learn so we don't get burned out. For Salem is a city of transformation; give us your tired,your poor, those who feel strange, and those who are broken.
Many times the aggressive vampires act out as bullies when they are younger, but then over time realize it is much easier to be a passive vampire and be fed by other people's pity. In the first form they have to fight to steal a little feeding, in the later they are given a much larger feeding without much effort through pity.
These are the more mild forms of a psychic attack. Worse forms of attack can manifest from physically or emotionally abusive family, friends, or lovers. These people outside of family we had to invite into our lives; just like in the myths. The good thing is we also have the power to ask them to leave. They only can stay as long as we give them permission. This form of vampirism would need a much larger article and years of therapy to work out, so I will give you 10 steps on how to protect yourself from the casual vampiric encounter.
1. As you are approaching a stranger who feels a little off, standing in place, and they are scanning a crowd to make eye contact; keep walking. I used to make the mistake of smiling at them. I had a need to spread a smile and be acknowledged, and they had a need to be acknowledged. They would stop me versus another. By all means wave and smile at all you walk past in your life, but those who are not vamps probably will not stop and talk to you until they have seen you wave a few times. On other occasions, those who do engage you right away who are healthy feel like they are giving you something, not taking. These people make you spread a smile to the next person. Their persona just radiates toward you, the vamp's being just sucks the air out from around them. It is not the clothes, hair, or cleanliness that your decision to avoid them manifests from but their body language and a sense of dread around them. When approaching a vamp look above their head or at something in the other direction and focus on it and keep walking. Those who shine more have to work harder to ignore them, because they can sense you out. Have you ever felt, that if there is someone who is crazy in the room they tend to B line straight toward you...
2. Do you ever find yourself being the town psychologist? First ask yourself, do you need people around you to be broken so you can fix them? If so you might be a vampire yourself... If you have an aptitude to listen, hear, and help you need to know who you can help and who are just draining you. This is important since the world can use all the help it can get and the more healers the lighter the burden for all of us. We do not need more Buddhas, Jesuses, Krishnas, or Mohameds, but more Frank, Bobs, and Joes. There are just more of us and we don't have to wait 2,000 years for them to come back again. Also if we did more for ourselves they might of shown up more than once every millennium. So only help those who help themselves, show growth, who converse with you, help brainstorm, and do not identify themselves as victims. Because it is important not to become so jaded that you never want to help anyone again.
3. Analyze your friendships. Do you have any friends who only call when they have problems? Do you have any friends who talk at you for over 20 minutes and only let you interject occasionally. Do you ever have any friends who ask you how you are doing and you get only 2 minutes before they go on about their life? Do you have any friends who praise you in private, but deface you in public? One thing I have learned is, a friend who is always sharing more problems than others who asks for discretion probably has told the same story word for word to at least 20 others. Never feel like you are abandoning them to themselves. Good advice from Suze Orman is, "I am perfectly happy to talk with you about your problems, but when you refuse to listen to any possible solutions or let me help you feel better I need to step away." You're better off helping the hitchhiker who needs a ride to the gas station or a jump start, the man with his arms full who needs the door held, letting someone into traffic, comfort the sick, comfort those in mourning, bring chicken soup, lend money occasionally, invest in dreams with firm foundations, pay better wages, hold the ladder, help those studying, and always help brainstorm. And always share your greatness, avoid those who steal it.
4. The opposite sex. When single and a person approaches you, just be in the moment. Don't jump to marriage, security, dating, end of loneliness, or sex in your mind. That way you can acknowledge a person who could be boring or draining and those who made you smile. Never lose that moment's smile for a desire. The Buddhist find life simpler when they give up fear and desire. If you desire something you may create fear you might not attain it. If any of those things happen (marriage, dating, sex), this way you did not miss any part of the journey. On average they will not. Also on average we always feel bad when we realize they didn't. So when you conquer desire you stop seeing people for what you want to see and see their true self. Vampires will allow you to see in them what you want, as long as they can feed on you. You want to see them as a bat, they are a bat. You want to see them as a wolf, they will be a wolf. Also the myth says you can not see them in a mirror; that is because you do not want to see their true self, only what you want to see. Also if you desire a relationship, a vamp will build your desire up by flirting hard to just drop you harder when they walk away. Also vampires tend to have many fawning over them like bees to honey and are cruel to them all. Avoid those with many people of the opposite sex clinging to them.
The 4 methods of dealing with psychic vampires above deal with passive vampires. Aggressive vampires need much more work and professional help to overcome. They appear in abusive marriages, middle management, and politicians...
A last side note, politicians. With royalty or powerful merchant families there tends to be a series of inbreeding and lack of parentship. Both parents are socially motivated and leave their children to a series of nannies or secondary caregivers. This leads the children to learn to do for themselves and a series of abandonment issues. Plus a feeling of self loathing when you can not even get your parents say you are wonderful against all of those opinions they carry home from the bullies. Merchants marry their children to others in their class to avoid competition by having new talent in their company, match degrees, to consolidate companies, and to avoid fears of being different among many others. The truth of the matter nobility just are a merchant class with patents. Rockefellers are just nobility without a king. Plus what a child does not learn, it can not teach as a parent. Like minds attract, then they marry. So we chose or are left to accept these child-kings to govern. They do not know when they enable, do harm, help, or destroy. It is like letting the guy who failed physics and chemistry run the nuclear power plant! Also remember the vampiric politician spend millions to convince you to allow them into your life and make you believe what they want. If you didn't have the power, they would not spend so much to steal it from us.
Yes, I know it was a tangent, but a good one...
Cheers,
Chris
Salem House Press Author
www.salemhousepress.com
