Three Vampire Hunters

So what are these people really after? Which ones seriously believe in vampires? Do they really believe in vampires? Are they delusional fraudsters, or are they trying to tell us something? What kind of hoax are they perpetrating, or is there some truth to what they are promoting? Are they just playing theatrical to suggest something else?

"The Practical Vampire Slayer"

Here we have some sort of serious, yet tongue-in-cheek psychologically oriented blog. Someone who has adopted the allegory of vampires into some kind of women's advice column. She has taken the symbolism of vampires and vampire hunters, and turned it into a modern self-help schtick.

She's gone over vampire lore and adapted it to some kind of defensive mechanism. The usual ex-husbands, ex-boyfriends, ex-friends, and relationship problems are analyzed, and like any modern pop-psychologist, she's giving people advice out of her own desire for advice or counseling. Its a "Dear Abbey" using the subtext of vampirism.

Certainly, there is no call for cutting off heads, or violent impaling of the undead. She seems to have grasped a dimension of 'vampirism' that Albert Bernstein has written about in his "Emotional Vampires" book.

This dimension of vampirism is of course a worthy perception, it crosses all lines of social spheres, and it useful because it brings one back to the awareness of their own boundaries, and what human beings are all capable of.

M. Scott Peck, in his book, "People of the Lie" hits home about human vampirism without calling it such, and follows along these same lines.

"He describes in some detail several individual cases involving his patients. In one, a moderately impaired neurotic patient pseudo-named George, made a 'pact with the devil' to alleviate his symptoms. As a psychiatrist Scott Peck makes an uncharacteristic moral judgement about George's therapeutic pact and was ultimately successful in treating him.

Most of his conclusions about the psychiatric condition he designates 'evil' are derived from his close study of one patient he names Charlene. Although Charlene is not dangerous, she is ultimately unable to have empathy for others in any way. According to Scott Peck, people like her see others as play things or tools to be manipulated for their uses or entertainment. Scott Peck claims that these people are rarely seen by psychiatrists and have never been treated successfully."

This is the realm of the sociopaths. "The Practical Vampire Slayer" is re-introducing this often unmentioned 'state' of human beings, in which most people do not consider when it comes to meeting real people in the real world. The fact is, in everyone's lives, the consideration of the problems they encounter with these evil people, that they are dealing with sociopaths, is rare. This is the idea that nobody 'believes' their friends, their enemies might be sociopaths, and this is an obvious parallel to the concept of vampires. It is clear that people will grasp these psychological concepts through the timeless mythology of the vampire.

Mario Corte's ANTI-VAMPIRE CENTER

"We are not looking for "effect" here; we will not offend the sensibility of those who come to visit us, there will be no talk of spurts of blood, nor any jokes that are in bad taste. Although there are numerous, diverse associations in the world that are based on Vampires, the Anti Vampire Center is not to be confused with them in any way in that it pursues a totally different goal: while the others, in fact, want to encourage an "openness" toward vampirism in its various forms, and even at times toward "free vampirism" (with its related aberrations), the Anti Vampire Center, on the other hand, seeks to encourage the liberation of the individual from vampirism."

Mario Corte presents a kind of double-dimensional reality of vampires, fusing this kind of sociopathic vampirism with what might be referred to as 'energy vampires.'

He does include the 'modern fashion vampires' or as I call them vampire-idolists, into this realm, because it is obvious that they too fall into the category of the sociopathic world. He is more serious than "The Practical Vampire" in that it is not entirely pure allegory or symbolism, while the symbolism is integrated, his presentation to help people become free of vampires and vampirism is a solid and interesting endeavor.

However, he too does not venture into the realm of shooting undead blood-suckers with silver bullets, or burning them with crosses. What he presents is compelling and most useful in examining these different dimensions of vampirism. However, he does not lose himself the way many newer "new age" authors have in mysticisms about yoga, prana, or spirit-energy like for instance Joe Slate in his book, "Psychic Vampires" will suggest that these psychic vampires will 'impede the growth and progress' of either our spiritual or economic lives, but some of what he writes can be used to rationalize the very same sociopathic behavior he's talking about.

While he goes into yet another dimension of vampirism, specifically, sociopaths who are capable of sucking someone's literal energy, or 'chi,' it becomes clear that one can see that a person can adopt this kind of thinking in order to rationalize their own selfish 'climb to the top' in whatever path they are taking. By looking at everyone else as 'vampires' one can rationalize that anything they do which arrives at a difficulty can be blamed on someone else, because of course they're out to get you and stop you and steal your energy. Cults make use of this kind of thinking, telling their members that their wives, children, husbands are holding them back, stealing their energy.
While it is possible that people can get mixed up with someone who is a sociopath and not know it, because they don't want to believe it, the approach to excuse your own selfish behavior by calling everyone 'vampires' is not rare at all. Demonizing people who stand in your way is not entirely something new, nor necessarily connected to vampire mythology, however, there IS a culture building in the world, promoting these kind of self-deluding new age power-tripping sociopathic modes: books like The Psychic Vampire Codex, and The Ethical Psychic Vampire
actually promote this kind of selfish rationalization outright, and offer people a wealth of excuses through mysticisms, euphemisms, and other motivations for people to ignore the consequences of their actions. What I would argue, is that this kind of behavior is building a culture of total vampirism, spreading sociopathy like a plague.


Sean Manchester, Vampire Research Society

Here we have what appears to be a religious crusader, claiming to be an exorcist, a bishop, and a whole lot of other things. He has appeared on interviews on occult and paranormal shows, written a few books, and claiming to even have staked and 'dispatched' real undead blood-sucking vampires.

Much can be said about this man, but for now, he is an interesting case which follows the sentence of the last section above. While the behavior of the first two or three 'dimensions' of vampirism are building a culture of sociopaths, he has taken it upon himself to crusade against it with the usual religious mythology. He claims to be the successor to Montague Summers, but seems to not understand exactly what Montague Summers was. He has barrowed the narrative style of Montague Summers in his books, and added a new element, apparently barrowed from the Knights Templars with his 'Holy Grail Church' which seems to not be quite a church, but another 'society' or club. He may be an example of someone who has turned a crusade against vampirism into vampirism of a different kind.

His religious ideas overtake any rational approach to the subject, and at a certain point he loses the point of those very same religious ideas. His claims are extraordinary, and essentially, he asks us to simply believe him because of his outward 'Bishop's' appearance of authority. He has his followers, and they dutifully protect and defend everything he says and does, and it is very difficult to engage in communication with him.

What becomes apparent is that he seems to end up serving one purpose, to maintain the myths about vampires and neglect responding to what is being uncovered today about vampires, such as Bernstein and Corte's ideas, and even further ideas which while they may be disturbing and negatively pro-vampire, Sean Manchester's response is the usual reiteration of religious concepts and Summers lines. His 'Research Society' fails as a 'research' group because it is at its core a religious promotional cause. I can be convinced that some religious ideas may have a basis, and may even be effective, but it is difficult to accept the credibility of someone who makes the kinds of claims he does, and presents himself as a 'spiritual authority' on the subject. He offers no real research, and doesn't seem interested in furthering any research, as he says, he's written his books, given us his truths and thats the end of it. There's a lot of questions out there, and he has no answers to any of them, not to mention his behavior raises even more questions.

His Vampire Research Society seems to be full of members who also simply reiterate whatever he says, and present no new research or findings. I've found more information that has been uncovered and dusted off and dug up by completely bat-shit pagan authors who's books are so completely overt in their agendas that its annoying, but in the last 5 years, there have been several books out that have reached and presented new documentable folklore that Montague Summers and Dom Calmet never collected or presented. If someone presents something new, they are attacked by this "Vampire Research Society" even if they have the very same religious agenda as them, simply because they haven't bowed down to them as 'the authorities.' Well, they're soon to be history as even claiming to be the authorities as their information is going to be seriously out of date soon. Whether or not they're out there cutting off heads of corpses or sprinkling Holy Water on undead demons has yet to be proven, and from much of what we see in the claims of Sean Manchester regarding his interactions with 'vampires' we can see he's making some of this up, because it doesn't even correspond to some of the folklore he's supposedly the authority on. Perhaps it corresponds to Hammer Horror movies, but nothing in the texts I've read. His Holy Grail obsessions are interesting and ironic, and I wonder if he even knows just how closely related 'the Holy Grail' is related to vamprism. If he does, it would make sense that his 'gatekeeper' behavior is quite linked to his Holy Grail mysticism and if anything his job is to continue to promote the most ridiculous aspects of vampirism in order to throw people off the trail, because what he has become is a 'character' and anyone who lines up with his agenda is going to be similarly ridiculed.