vital energy

Energy vampire

An energy vampire or psychic vampire is a being said to have the ability to feed off the "life force" (often also called qi, prana, energy or vitality) of other living creatures. Alternative terms for these persons are pranic vampire, empathic vampire, energy predator (see below), psy/psi-vamp, energy parasite, energivore or psionic vampire.

Legends

The legends and spiritual teachings of some cultures refer to people, often given priestly attributes, who manipulate or remove (feed from) the energy of others. The tiger-women spoken of across Asia (as well as the fox-women of Japan) and the Jiang Shi of China may be noted, as can the incubus and succubus of Judaeo-Christian mythology. This concept is purported to be represented in the myths of a number of cultures, just as blood-drinking vampires are.

In the oral tradition of the Hopi, a powaqa is a sorcerer who comes to a victim pretending to help and then feeds off the victim's life force (see Powaqqatsi)..

'Modern' interpretations

Dion Fortune wrote of psychic parasitism in relation to vampirism as early as 1930 (considering it a combination of psychic and psychological pathology) in "Psychic Self-Defense". The term "psychic vampire" first gained attention in the 1960s with the publication of Anton LaVey's Satanic Bible. LaVey, who claimed to have coined the term, used it to mean a spiritually or emotionally weak person who drains vital energy from other people. Adam Parfrey likewise attributed the term to LaVey in an introduction to The Devil's Notebook.
The term is also used by Luis Marques in his work on vampirism and spirituality, entitled the Asetian Bible, where the definition of a psychic vampire goes beyond his ability to drain energy, but is portrayed as a definitive condition of the individual's soul and a secret mark of a connection to a shared past. This polemic view of the energy predator is based on an esoteric tradition known as Asetianism, which relies on predatory spirituality and the extensive use of Ancient Egyptian symbolism, whose teachings are strictly and thoroughly maintained by the occultist Order of Aset Ka.

The theme of the psychic vampire has been a focus within modern Vampire subculture. The way that the subculture has manipulated the image of the psychic vampire has been investigated by researchers such as Mark Benecke and A. Asbjorn Jon. Jon has noted that, like the traditional psychic vampires, those of Vampyre subculture 'prey[s] upon life-force or 'pranic' energy'. Jon also noted that the group has been loosely linked to the Goth subculture. Unfortunately, psychic vampires are forced to feel the emotions of those who they steal energy from, sometimes without consciously doing it. This condition is also called empathy.

In popular fiction

Energy vampires are not as common in literature, comics and movies compared to the more traditional vampires, but the concept nonetheless makes an appearance in a number of popular works. The 1968 Star Trek episode Day of the Dove featured an alien life force that intended to live off the psychic energy of anger by imprisoning Klingon and United Federation of Planets combatants forever in violent circumstances. In Lifeforce, a movie from 1985, most of London's population are turned into zombies after their lifeforce has been drained from them by three psychic vampires. The Wraith of the Stargate universe, the Vorvon from the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode entitled "Space Vampire", and the Atavus from Earth: Final Conflict feed on the "lifeforce" of humans.

For an example in video games, see the Metroids from the video game Metroid.

In the anime and manga series Sailor Moon, the Dark Kingdom/Negaverse collects the life energy of humans in order to make Queen Metallia (The Negaforce) grow stronger. Also in the Sailor Moon metaseries, characters like Queen Badiane also collect the energy of humans.

The White Court Vampires in Jim Butcher's Dresden novels are another example.

In World of Warcraft, the Nathrezim (Dreadlords) are vampyric in nature, draining Life Energy from their victims and devouring their souls (Dreadlord).

In the ZBS serialized audio drama "The Fourth Tower of Inverness" the Madonna Vampira is an energy vampire.

Philip K. Dick also wrote a short story about the subject in The Cookie Lady, where a young boy is drained of his youth and energy by an old woman.

Several of Stephen King's villains are energy or empathetic vampires: Pennywise from It, Dandelo from The Dark Tower series, Tak from The Regulators and Desperation, and Ardelia Lortz from the short story 'The Library Policeman' from Four Past Midnight. The concept also appears in Sleepwalkers, a 1992 film based on an unpublished novel by King.

L. J. Smith has a young adult fiction trilogy called Dark Visions which deals with energy vampires (called psychic vampires in the work). In this story, special crystals can store psychic energy. Contact with an impure one will increase psychic powers but will have the side effect of increasing one's life energy metabolism, causing the person to become an energy vampire. In the story, the energy vampires may acquire their needed energy from either a person, or one of the special crystals.

In an episode of Mortal Kombat: Conquest, the Master Cho character takes a small amount of life force from people so he can have energy.

In an episode of Ben 10: Alien Force, a villain named Mike Morningstar drains unsuspecting girls of their energy, turning them into zombie slaves that follow his orders, collecting more energy to give to the villain. Gwen, who nearly becomes a zombie slave herself, comes to her senses and gets her energy back, prompting the other zombie girls to do the same, reducing Mike into an aged, withered man in the process. The Ben 10 villain Zombozo the Clown is also an energy vampire, creating a machine called the Psyclown to drain the "positive energy" from his audiences order to have energy for himself.

In an episode of Teen Titans, a villain named Mother Mae-Eye drains her victims (mostly referred to by her as her "children", "sweeties" and "little ones") of their love, which (like the energy of the Sailor Moon anime and manga series) appears as a mist. Starfire later figures out her plan; Mother feeds on the "sweet, nourishing affection" of her children in order to have strength.

In the 1993 film entitled Hocus Pocus, the Sanderson Sisters used a magic witch's potion to suck the life force from little children.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly has a sinister villain known as the Crooked Man, whose strange powers and unnatural body are kept alive in his parallel world by convincing children in our world to betray another child, who he takes to his world and feeds on their energy for however long they would have lived.

In the manga/anime series Descendants of Darkness, the antagonist, Muraki, is said to be an energy-vampire.

Sources

Belanger, Michelle: The Psychic Vampire Codex: A Manual of Magick and Energy Work. Weiser Books, 2004. ISBN 1-57863-321-4
Bernstein, Albert J.: Emotional Vampires: Dealing With People Who Drain You Dry. McGraw-Hill, 2002. ISBN 0-07-138167-8
Fortune, Dion: Psychic Self-Defense. Weiser Books Publishing, 2001. ISBN 1-57863-151-3
Harbour, Dorothy: Energy Vampires: A Practical Guide for Psychic Self-protection. Destiny Books, 2002. ISBN 0-89281-910-3
Hort, Barbara E.: Unholy Hungers: Encountering the Psychic Vampire in Ourselves & Others. Shambhala, 1996. ISBN 1-57062-181-0
Kaldera, Raven: The Ethical Psychic Vampire. Xlibris Corporation, 2005. ISBN 1-4134-6198-0
Konstantinos: Vampires: The Occult Truth. Llewellyn Publications, 1996. ISBN 1-56718-380-8
LaVey, Anton Szandor: The Satanic Bible (Avon, 1969, ISBN 0-380-01539-0)
Nyarlathotep, Frater & Jesse Lindsay: Ardeth - The Made Vampire. Lulu Press, 2006. ISBN 978-1-84728-516-4
Slate, Joe H.: Psychic Vampires: Protection from Energy Predators & Parasites. Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd., 2002. ISBN 0-7387-0191-2
Marques, Luis: Asetian Bible. Aset Ka, 2007. ISBN 978-9899569409