Michelle Belanger, an expert on vampirism, author of The Psychic Vampire Codex, and self-professed psychic vampire, convinced nearly two dozen real-life vampires to break the silence that has so often kept their community shrouded in suspicion and secrecy.
A diverse collection of contributors--including Madame X and Sanguinarius--speak candidly about their beliefs, practices, and how they awakened to their identities as vampires. These fascinating firsthand accounts come from both psychic vampires who feed on energy for spiritual and physical nourishment, and sanguine vampires who drink actual blood.
Their true stories shed light on the compulsion to feed and what it feels like, working with donors, living with a social stigma, ethical principles, and other aspects of modern vampire culture.
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What are some of the stories you’ve heard about vampires? Surely, in this day and age, there isn’t a person out there who hasn’t heard of or read about Dracula. That undead, night-prowling Count of immense powers and unlimited appeal has caused quite a stir—and perpetuated the frightening myths that can make reality hard to live in.
Holy water, silver, sunlight, and garlic are banes to the Hollywood vampire. But being a real vampire does not give you an automatic allergy to silver. Holy water does not burn like acid, and garlic does not keep you at bay. The only myth that seems to hold some grain of truth to it has to do with sunlight. Sunlight will hardly reduce a real vampire to ash, but for myself, I do easily burn. I only burn once a year, though, and that turns into a deep enough tan that I don’t burn again. However, I don’t like being outside in the sunlight simply because it hurts my eyes, even when I wear heavy-duty sunglasses. I won’t sit out in the sun for more than half an hour at a time. This is true for summer or winter. Cloudy days are often just as bad.
Democratic Dilemmas and Divine Inspiration examines the significance or relevance of the idea that the U.S. Constitution was, as many believe, divinely inspired. How much did that belief matter to founders of the nation and how much does it matter no
