Psychic Vampires
Forget the Garlic: An Introduction to Psychic Vampirism
By Leni Austine
You're bopping through your day in a great mood and you run into
someone you know. They launch into their daily tale of woe: their job
sucks, they can't get a loan, their apartment has roaches, their
car's broken down, their boyfriend left them. You make sympathetic
clicks with your tongue, suggestions that you know they won't follow
and end with a promise that you're there for them.
Your friend walks away smiling, but you feel like you've been hit by
a truck. Your good mood has evaporated. What gives?
Forget the dark brooding tormentors with fabulous clothes and perfect
hair. The modern psychic vampire does not consider him/herself
powerful or invincible. Far from it. They are perpetual victims and
gravitate to people that further this script, either by victimizing
them or by playing the role of rescuer. The psychic vampire is a
flaming narcissist. They only want to be near people who can affirm
their self concept as poor, suffering souls. It's all about them.
(Although, to be fair, unlike Dracula, virtually all psychic vampires
are unconscious of how they affect those they prey upon.)
When we play the role of victim and I'm not talking about people
who have been genuinely traumatized we give away our power. If we
feel that everyone is out to get us, we can feel justified in doing
what we have to get our needs met, regardless of ethics. Since every
interaction is defined as win-lose, we can only win if we screw
someone else over. This attitude keeps us from taking responsibility
for our lives. Everything is always someone else's fault.
Think about the people you find powerful. Not the bullies or drama
queens, but people who seem to have charmed lives. Things go right
for them and when they don't, they pick themselves up and move on to
brighter shores. They don't play the blame game and they surround
themselves with other folks who enjoy their lives and their work and
make good choices when things don't work out. These folks don't envy
their friends' success and they aren't surrounded by hapless losers
who make them look functional in comparison.
On the other hand, psychic vampires bank on the fact that our culture
doesn't teach us the skills to be powerful in our own right. They
count on other people being as powerless and luckless as themselves.
When we feel powerless and weak, holes open in our psychic energy
field: the invisible shield that we use to separate ourselves from
emotional or psychic attack. The same way that stress can deplete our
physical immunity and make us susceptible to colds, so a depleted
psychic shield makes us vulnerable to psychic illness. Gaps in our
shield give psychic vampires a nice place to sink their fangs into.
And since (unlike the mythical kind of vampire) a psychic attact
leaves no visible marks, there is no rational way to say, "Hey, stop
drinking me!" Any complaint makes us look crazy. So we doubt
ourselves, doubt our perceptions and our psychic shield is further
weakened. The cycle continues.
One simple but quite effective piece of psychic self-defense is known
as shielding, a much-neglected technique in modern Pagan teaching.
But shielding is actually quite important: we don't go out in nasty
weather without a coat; we don't leave our homes with the door wide
open. If we did, we would expect to catch a chill or come home to
find the TV set had gone missing. So why, with all the stress and
anxiety and downright violence filling our psychic bandwidth, should
we can go into the world unprotected?
Some folks advocate what they call a "positive attitude," by which
they mean that the best defense is no defense. (This is usually
prefaced with a phrase like "If you think you will be attacked, you
will be.") While there is truth to the idea that a certain type of
psychic attack (such as societally supported curses in traditiononal
cultures) depend substantially on the fear of the victim for their
effect, applied to the effects of non-announced psychic attacks, this
stance makes as much sense as saying a locked vehicle is an
invitation to grand theft auto. We do have a hand in creating our own
luck, but there are people out there who don't have our best
interests at heart. It's generally believed to be easier to prevent
auto theft if you lock your car. Extending the analogy, shielding is
the way we do this for our psychic selves.
What about hexing? A cautionary note.
In many cultures, so-called "negative" magics like hexing have
been and continue to be used to address perceived psychic or physical
attack. Often this was because there were no other options available.
In some cases, there still might not be injustice still exists and
the system doesn't work equally well for everyone - but it is fair to
say that today, for most people, most of the time, there are many non-
magical roads to justice. Police, courts of law and self-defense
classes are only a few, and we can use these resources as our first
line of defense against being victimized. Before we attempt to
use "negative" magic to solve our problems, we must ask ourselves:
Have we done everything humanly possible to resolve the issue? If we
don't ask those questions first, any aggressive spellcasting we
undertake may be useless or may create an even bigger mess.
The other danger in focusing too much on psychic attack is that of
projecting our fears and personal issues onto others. Many so-
called "Witch Wars" have erupted because someone accused someone else
of psychic vampirism. Since there is no objective evidence of a
psychic crime there's also no way to defend oneself against such
charges.
Very often the people who push our buttons are mirrors for the parts
of ourselves we don't like. The old adage about pointing fingers
still holds true: one finger points at the one we accuse - but the
other three point back at us.
Benefits of a sturdy psychic shield
A good shield emanates from our positive attitude. When a psychic
vampire wants to pass along their lousy mood, our positive attitude
about ourselves makes it impossible to take this on. Showing our
light when they want us to feel bad makes it impossible for them to
get what they want. It's like psychic aikido - using the energy of
the assailant's attack to throw them off balance.
A psychic shield can be "made" of whatever material you can
visualize. Some folks see it as a wet blanket that gets thrown on
whatever nasty thing comes at them, while others envision a Star Trek-
style force field. Still others imagine a semi-permeable membrane,
like that used in dialysis - blood flows through easily but all toxic
materials get filtered out. This image allows us to set the level of
protection to let good things (love, lottery numbers, positive
energy) through but keep out the crap. My personal favorite is an
image of garage doors, slamming down around me to block the stuff I
don't want. Depending on how vulnerable I feel, the "doors" can be
made of white light - or solid steel.
The best part of constructing shields against psychic attack is that
by developing your defenses you are increasing your self-confidence
and magical skills. Keeping the "vampires" at bay is just a really
cool side effect. After all, garlic is much more fun to cook with
than to hang around your neck.
