Michelle Belanger - Vampires In Their Own Words: An Anthology of Vampire Voices

About the Author

Michelle Belanger is a highly visible figure in the modern vampire community. Author of the best-selling Psychic Vampire Codex , Michelle is also the founder and head of House Kheperu, one of the most widely respected vampire households. She became involved in the worldwide vampire community in the early 1990s through the publication of her magazine, Shadowdance , and later through the International Society of Vampires. She was also involved with the Sanguinarium, contributing heavily to its publications and revising its code of ethics, the Black Veil. Belangers 2002 version of the Black Veil remains the most widely accepted version of a vampire Wiccan Rede.

Over the years, Michelle has worked as a bridge between the vampire community and the rest of the modern magickal subculture. Her books on magick and energy work have helped many modern practitioners gain a better understanding of the vampire as a magickal identity. She has expanded her outreach to a variety of media, including books, magazines, radio, and television documentaries.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Vampires In Their Own Words: An Anthology of Vampire Voices 2007 by Michelle Belanger.

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First e-book edition 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738717050

Book design by Steffani Sawyer

Cover art 2007 by Mike Watson Images Ltd.

Cover design by Lisa Novak

Editing by Brett Fechheimer

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Llewellyn Publications

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Manufactured in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to the memory of DDrennan.

You gave so much and received so little.

Too many of usmyself included

appreciated you only after you were gone.

: The World of Vampires

by Kris Steaveson

by Sedona of House Aeterno

by Midnight Childe

by Michelle Belanger of House Kheperu

by Jodi Lee

by Larae of Darkness Embraced

To Bleed or Not To Bleed
What Makes a Vampire Real? by Sylver ap Leanan

by Kiera of House AVA

by Rev. Vicutus, Dominus de Ordo Sekhemu

by Michelle Belanger of House Kheperu

by Anshar Seraphim of House Lost Haven

by Autumn Rain

by Gryphon Mandrakken of House Kheperu

by Khan

by Sphynxcat

by Khan

by Raven Kaldera

by Mairi of ShadowLore

by LadyBlak

by Ravena Lee of House Lost Haven

Accepting Our Differences,
Revealing Our Natures by Eclecta of House AVA

by Rev. Vicutus, Ordo Sekhemu

Joining a House, Church,
or Other Organization By Sphynxcat

by Sylver ap Leanan

by Raven Kaldera

by Sanguinarius

by Belfazaar Ashantison

by Alexander DuCoeur

by Sylver ap Leanan

by Michelle Belanger

by Madame X of House of the Dreaming

by LadyBlak

Atlanta Vampire Alliance:
Initiating Serious Studies

by Camille Thomas

The Serpents Kiss
On the Love/Hate Relationship between
Vampirism and Ceremonial Magick by Alexzandria and James Baker

by Alexzandria Baker

by Mora

I n traditional European folklore, a vampire is an undead being that nightly rises from the grave to suck the blood of the living. Hungry ghosts of the most ghoulish variety, folkloric vampires are trapped between life and death, and they seek to drag others into this shadowy existence along with them. Typically, the vampire of European folklore targets friends and family members for his or her nightly predations, leading scholars to suggest that vampirism was merely a convenient myth that grew up to explain instances of contagion, when a wasting sickness made its way through an entire extended family or village.

The vampires of modern fiction and film are far removed from their hideous cousins in folklore. Creatures of great power and beauty, the vampires of modern myth seem to represent our cultures quest for eternal youth. Seductive and forbidding, these night-dwelling creatures of fantasy also embody many of our darkest desires: forbidden sexuality, the power over life and death, the ability to surpass human limitationsfreedom on every level, even from natural laws.

Through Buffy and Blade, Dracula and Lestat, most modern readers are familiar with the vampire as a fictional archetype. But the archetype of the vampire extends well beyond fiction. For individuals involved in the magickal subculture, there is another vampiric identity: the psychic vampire. Not quite as deadly as their folkloric counterparts, psychic vampires are individuals driven to feed upon the energy of others. Often unaware of their condition, psychic vampires are nevertheless potent, and occultists from Dion Fortune to the members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn offer proscriptions against them. The time-honored tradition of psychic self-defense texts continues in the works of Konstantinos, Joe Slate, and Judith Orloff, modern writers who address the reality of psychic vampirism, offering methods of protecting ones energy from individuals perceived as psychic predators.