WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:08.880 Monster House Presents. 2 00:00:13.439 --> 00:00:16.120 It's actually quite unlike anything we've ever seen before. 3 00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:21.879 A giant, hairy creature part eight parts. 4 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:26.000 In Luckness, a twenty four mile long bottomless lake in 5 00:00:26.039 --> 00:00:28.640 the Highlands of Scotland. It's a creature known as the 6 00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:53.039 Luckness Monster. Monster Talk. 7 00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:58.200 Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm 8 00:00:58.240 --> 00:01:02.159 Blake Smith and I'm Karen Hey. There are Monster Talkers. 9 00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:04.840 We had a crazy busy October, but I hope our 10 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:08.400 vampire content was a fun companion for these autumn days 11 00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:11.439 and nights. We talked about vampires all month long, from 12 00:01:11.439 --> 00:01:14.640 the pathology of Renfield Syndrome, to authentic folk tales to 13 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:18.519 just chatting about them in pop culture terms. Well, we 14 00:01:18.599 --> 00:01:21.480 have one more bite to take out of this delicious 15 00:01:21.719 --> 00:01:26.000 blood red apple. We're welcoming back Professor Joe Laycock to 16 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:29.480 talk about his research into people who partake in consensual 17 00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:33.200 vampirism and their culture, which lurks within a lot of 18 00:01:33.239 --> 00:01:36.719 other better known yet gothically shadowy communities. These are people 19 00:01:36.719 --> 00:01:39.760 who not only believe their vampires, but routinely drink blood 20 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:43.079 from willing donors. It's a wide ranging discussion. There's some 21 00:01:43.239 --> 00:01:46.319 role playing games there's some satanic panic, and of course 22 00:01:46.319 --> 00:01:50.439 there's murder. But I think Joe's helped me contextualize some 23 00:01:50.519 --> 00:01:52.280 of the folks I've met along the way in my 24 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:56.680 travels in Atlanta's nightclubs, gaming, horror, and music scene back 25 00:01:56.719 --> 00:01:59.480 in the day. We hope you enjoy this discussion and 26 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:01.879 check out the show notes for links to Joe's books. 27 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:02.799 Monster. 28 00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:06.439 Are are you ready to just get rolling? 29 00:02:07.879 --> 00:02:09.280 Sure? Yeah, okay, cool. 30 00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:12.240 I'm just gonna briefly say we're welcoming back. Joseph Flakecock 31 00:02:12.439 --> 00:02:15.000 and an assistant professor of religious studies at Texas State 32 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:19.000 University who has written several books on new religious movements 33 00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:21.039 and a lot of topics that will be near and 34 00:02:21.039 --> 00:02:23.000 dear to Munster Talk listeners. And you're also the co 35 00:02:23.159 --> 00:02:27.080 editor of the journal Novo Religio. But we're bringing you 36 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:30.960 on this time to be an expert about real life vampires. 37 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:33.000 And you wrote a book I think it came out 38 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:36.039 in two thousand and nine called Vampires Today, which also 39 00:02:36.199 --> 00:02:39.199 is like a great monthly magazine for the vampire. 40 00:02:38.840 --> 00:02:40.599 In your life, a newspaper. 41 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:44.599 Welcome back to the Showger, Thanks always great to talk 42 00:02:44.599 --> 00:02:45.120 to you guys. 43 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:47.599 So instead of having specific questions. We have a bunch 44 00:02:47.599 --> 00:02:50.360 of bullet points because this is a broad topic of 45 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:52.719 which I think weirdly. I think Karen and I are 46 00:02:52.719 --> 00:02:55.759 informed about what happened, but we're pretty ignorant, and we're 47 00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:58.280 going to be a proxy for the possible ignorance of 48 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:03.039 our audience. Just try to talk through this stuff to 49 00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:07.520 better understand about not vampires from movies, but people who 50 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:10.120 sort of believe that they are vampires. 51 00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:13.800 Yeah, where do you want to start real vampires modern vampiism. 52 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:17.520 When I think of real vampires, I think of people saying, oh, well, 53 00:03:17.599 --> 00:03:23.680 Dracula's based on blaod Tepis blood, the Impala or Elizabeth Bathrie. 54 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:25.280 I think of that kind of thing. But that's not 55 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:25.759 the kind. 56 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:29.680 Of real vampires that you've written about and researched. So 57 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:32.439 could you tell us a little bit about what modern 58 00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:34.439 vampiism or real vampires are? 59 00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:40.240 Sure, so I should be clear. You have psychiatric literature 60 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:44.439 on people who are consuming human blood and are dangerous 61 00:03:44.479 --> 00:03:49.599 and basically have to be institutionalized. Richard Knowle as a psychiatrist, 62 00:03:49.639 --> 00:03:54.080 and he coined the term Renfield syndrome after the character 63 00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:58.080 from Dracula, to describe this condition. It's not in the DSM, 64 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:01.159 but he's written about it. But when I looked at 65 00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:05.120 those cases, generally, the people who were actually like attacking 66 00:04:05.120 --> 00:04:08.400 people and consuming blood were so mentally ill that they 67 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:10.479 didn't really even know why they were doing these things. 68 00:04:10.840 --> 00:04:11.039 Right. 69 00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:13.879 They didn't say, oh, I did it because I'm a vampire. 70 00:04:13.960 --> 00:04:16.680 They would say, well, I don't have enough blood in 71 00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:19.160 my body or something like that. It would just be 72 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:22.920 totally incoherent. It was the psychiatrist who saw that behavior 73 00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:27.040 and labeled it as vamporism. Right. So the people that 74 00:04:27.319 --> 00:04:32.920 I interviewed were not the criminally insane. Yeah, they were 75 00:04:32.920 --> 00:04:37.759 not committing crimes. But they did say that we're not 76 00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:41.600 like other people. That other people can just sort of 77 00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:46.279 you know, be healthy, but that our health deteriorates if 78 00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:51.399 we do not either consume actual human blood or sort 79 00:04:51.439 --> 00:04:54.759 of feed off of the psychic energy or life force 80 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:59.879 of other people. And they said, they basically said, of 81 00:05:00.079 --> 00:05:04.040 vampire is a kind of shorthand to explain this condition 82 00:05:04.319 --> 00:05:05.439 that they believe. 83 00:05:05.160 --> 00:05:05.600 That they have. 84 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:07.879 I just want to say, what immediately comes to mind 85 00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:08.959 is iron deficiency. 86 00:05:09.399 --> 00:05:10.839 How much does that play a part in this? 87 00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:15.600 Well, we don't know, right, you know, there have been 88 00:05:17.199 --> 00:05:26.759 analysis or medical interpretations of you know, iron deficiency, fibromyalgia, 89 00:05:27.959 --> 00:05:29.879 or or just it's psychosomatic. 90 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:30.160 Right. 91 00:05:30.199 --> 00:05:32.319 You don't actually need to drink human blood. This is 92 00:05:32.360 --> 00:05:35.160 just in your head, right. How I got involved in 93 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:38.480 this research was when I was in Atlanta. There was 94 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:43.160 a group there called the Atlanta Vampire Alliance, and the 95 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:47.639 Atlanta Vampire Alliance really wanted to know, why are we 96 00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:51.279 like this, right? What is going on with us? Is it? 97 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:54.959 You know, is this actually some kind of poorly understood 98 00:05:56.199 --> 00:06:01.759 medical condition. Is there actually something metaphysical happening here? Are 99 00:06:01.800 --> 00:06:07.360 we just insane? And so they organized this survey which 100 00:06:07.399 --> 00:06:10.360 you can go find online the results of their survey, 101 00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:13.079 But they surveyed about a thousand people who consider themselves 102 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:17.519 to be a vampires as a very very long survey, 103 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:22.079 but it asked all kinds of questions about medical history, religion, 104 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:25.319 the type of books they read, the type of movies 105 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:28.759 they watch, and so forth. And at the time, you know, 106 00:06:28.800 --> 00:06:31.519 I was going back to graduate school to get my PhD. 107 00:06:31.639 --> 00:06:34.319 Or I was thinking about doing it, and I thought, 108 00:06:34.879 --> 00:06:36.959 this is really interesting. You know, if you just wanted 109 00:06:36.959 --> 00:06:39.639 to pretend to be a vampire, this is a lot 110 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:42.920 of work that these people are putting into this, right, Yes, 111 00:06:43.319 --> 00:06:46.040 this is a lot of a commitment. And I'm a 112 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:49.360 religious studies person. All the literature from the perspective of 113 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:54.399 religious studies was very, very bad and basically saying that 114 00:06:56.079 --> 00:07:00.120 vampirism is basically a satanic cult that hates Christianity and 115 00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:03.639 that murders people, and and there was an article in 116 00:07:03.959 --> 00:07:07.680 like the Encyclopedia of American Religious Cultures basically saying these things. 117 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:11.439 And the person who wrote this article had never actually 118 00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:15.920 talked to a self identified vampire, which that's not fair. 119 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:18.680 You can't write an Encyclopedia article about, you know, Baptists 120 00:07:18.680 --> 00:07:23.600 if you've never once been a Baptist. Yeah. Yeah, So 121 00:07:23.600 --> 00:07:26.040 so my plan at the time was I was going 122 00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:29.199 to the American Academy of Religion conference. That's a big 123 00:07:30.279 --> 00:07:34.839 national conference of about nine thousand religion scholars, because I 124 00:07:34.879 --> 00:07:37.160 was applying to grad school and I basically wanted to 125 00:07:37.240 --> 00:07:39.720 kind of press the flesh and give a face to 126 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:43.920 associate with, you know, with anybody reading my application to 127 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:46.199 grad school. But I didn't want to make it obvious 128 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:48.480 that I was doing that. So I thought, I know, 129 00:07:48.519 --> 00:07:51.800 I'll present a paper, and then I'll say I'm here 130 00:07:51.800 --> 00:07:54.560 to present a paper, and and by the way, you know, 131 00:07:54.680 --> 00:07:58.759 you look for my application this this fall. And so 132 00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:01.560 I went to the vampires and I said, look, I 133 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:03.800 want this to be a win win, right. I am 134 00:08:03.879 --> 00:08:07.959 trying to get a conference paper out of this that 135 00:08:07.959 --> 00:08:10.519 people will find interesting, but I want this to be 136 00:08:10.560 --> 00:08:13.000 a chance for you to kind of help maybe clear 137 00:08:13.079 --> 00:08:17.639 up some misconceptions about your community. And so they eventually, 138 00:08:17.720 --> 00:08:20.199 you know, kind of let me hang out with them 139 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:22.279 and sort of learn what they were all about. And 140 00:08:22.319 --> 00:08:25.879 I gave the paper, and then afterwards I was approached 141 00:08:25.879 --> 00:08:31.879 by an acquisition editor from a publisher who said, can 142 00:08:31.920 --> 00:08:33.159 you make this into a book? 143 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:34.279 Nice? 144 00:08:34.279 --> 00:08:36.799 And I was in my twenties, I had never written. 145 00:08:36.840 --> 00:08:39.320 It was the first book I ever wrote. But the 146 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:41.519 editor knew something that I didn't know at the time, 147 00:08:41.559 --> 00:08:44.279 which was that Twilight was on the horizon. 148 00:08:44.799 --> 00:08:46.720 Ah, yeah, true. 149 00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:49.080 Blood was on the horizon. So this book came out 150 00:08:49.080 --> 00:08:52.120 in two thousand and nine and I had this bizarre 151 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:55.519 fifteen minutes of fame when everybody wanted to talk to 152 00:08:55.559 --> 00:08:58.639 me about vampires. And at the height of it, MTV 153 00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:01.679 called me and asked if I would host a show 154 00:09:01.720 --> 00:09:05.639 where I went around the United States interviewing teenage vampires, 155 00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:09.200 and at the end, MTV went with this other show 156 00:09:09.240 --> 00:09:15.000 instead called Jersey Shore. There's an alternate timeline somewhere where 157 00:09:15.240 --> 00:09:15.919 I'm snooky. 158 00:09:16.519 --> 00:09:23.039 That's awesome. Yeah, that is so funny. But yeah, I 159 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:25.720 told you guys offline that. You know, I lived in 160 00:09:25.759 --> 00:09:29.360 the Metro Atlanta area in the nineties, so I remember 161 00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:33.639 when Vampire the Masquerade game had blown up, and it 162 00:09:33.720 --> 00:09:38.759 kind of overlapped with a bridjoining goth culture. There was 163 00:09:38.799 --> 00:09:42.600 a club here called the Masquerade, and there were lots 164 00:09:42.639 --> 00:09:46.879 of people who were sort of LARPing Vampire and not 165 00:09:46.919 --> 00:09:49.240 just playing it like a It was quite different from 166 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:54.159 Dungeons and Dragons, and I wondered how much these self 167 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:59.679 identifying vampires overlapped with the people who played the game. 168 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:02.919 Is that two circles that don't touch? Are is there 169 00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:04.840 an overlap or is it a circle in a circle 170 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:07.080 or where did you kind of sort of find that? 171 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:11.919 Yeah, No, there's there's huge overlap. So you know, Vampire 172 00:10:11.960 --> 00:10:15.919 the Mass Grade is an amazing game. You know, I 173 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:20.039 played that game back in the nineties. But they created 174 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:25.399 an entire sort of alternate world where it's it's our world. 175 00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:28.039 You know, human history as we know it existed, but 176 00:10:28.120 --> 00:10:30.639 there were vampires and werewolves the whole time, you know, 177 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:35.399 behind the scenes, changing things, and so the it's really 178 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:37.559 easy to get kind of enthralled in this. And they 179 00:10:37.639 --> 00:10:41.799 made all these endless details about different clams of vampires 180 00:10:41.840 --> 00:10:45.200 and their society and their rules and and so forth, 181 00:10:45.320 --> 00:10:48.840 right to the point where people would go on like 182 00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:51.960 AOL chat rooms where people were talking about this game 183 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:55.320 and not understand that it was a game. Yes, right, 184 00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:59.799 because because it seems so real, it was so detail oriented, right, 185 00:11:00.559 --> 00:11:02.440 and then it was a really fun game to play. 186 00:11:02.639 --> 00:11:05.679 And some of the vampires that I interviewed, particularly in 187 00:11:05.759 --> 00:11:07.639 the New York scene, the New York scene was very 188 00:11:07.720 --> 00:11:12.039 focused on kind of the club the club culture. Oh yeah, 189 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:14.240 the goth This was the if you've ever seen the 190 00:11:14.279 --> 00:11:17.360 movie A Party Monster, right, this was the era when 191 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:21.559 when when that was happening in New York. And they said, well, look, 192 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:23.279 this was a fun game. Why can't we do this 193 00:11:23.320 --> 00:11:23.879 all the time? 194 00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:25.039 Right? 195 00:11:25.159 --> 00:11:25.399 Yeah? 196 00:11:26.120 --> 00:11:28.440 Why why why do I only have to be a 197 00:11:28.519 --> 00:11:30.879 vampire lord? You know on Saturday night? I want to 198 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:33.080 do this twenty four or seven. So so at least 199 00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:38.600 one person actually admitted that Michelle Belonge, who has appeared 200 00:11:38.840 --> 00:11:41.320 on a Paranormal State and things like that, as sort 201 00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:44.440 of an intellectual leader for this community, and she's written 202 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:47.720 some of the best history about it from an insider perspective, 203 00:11:48.480 --> 00:11:51.440 and she said, yeah, we would. We would play Vampire 204 00:11:51.480 --> 00:11:54.720 the Masquerade, and then you know, after the game was 205 00:11:54.759 --> 00:11:57.200 over around two in the morning, if somebody was wearing, 206 00:11:57.360 --> 00:12:01.679 say a whole lot of occult jewelry or you know, 207 00:12:01.799 --> 00:12:04.240 suggested that they were into kind of a cult or 208 00:12:04.279 --> 00:12:07.200 metaphysical things, then I would I would. I would chat 209 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:09.080 them up and say, you know, do you what do 210 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:12.320 you think about the idea of some people are actually vampires. 211 00:12:12.879 --> 00:12:15.960 So I don't think that the real vampire community would 212 00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:17.799 have ever gotten to the size that it did if 213 00:12:17.840 --> 00:12:18.759 it weren't for that game. 214 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:26.480 She's interesting. She self identifies as a psychic vampire, and 215 00:12:27.279 --> 00:12:30.000 she's on social media. It's interesting. When I first saw 216 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:36.200 her on Paranormal State, I didn't like the way they 217 00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:40.360 presented her like she as a skeptical person. It annoyed me. 218 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:43.200 But interacting with her own social media, it turns out 219 00:12:43.240 --> 00:12:45.159 we have a lot in common, and I've had some 220 00:12:45.240 --> 00:12:48.240 very pleasant exchanges. So she probably doesn't remember me, but 221 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:51.080 I've had some very nice conversations with her. 222 00:12:52.120 --> 00:12:54.679 Yeah, she used to have a podcast called Shadow Dance, 223 00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:57.759 and I think she's very well read and very well 224 00:12:57.799 --> 00:13:04.360 spoken and very smart. But she has these subjective experiences involving, 225 00:13:05.080 --> 00:13:08.919 you know, energy and sort of feeding on on subtle energy. Right, 226 00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:12.320 And as a religion scholar, I just have to listen 227 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:14.679 to people describe their experiences. What am I going to say? 228 00:13:14.720 --> 00:13:16.840 You know you yeah, you didn't experience that? 229 00:13:18.159 --> 00:13:20.080 Right now, it would end the conversation. 230 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:26.039 Speaking of that, mentioning the Atlanta Vampire Alliance and spending 231 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:28.320 time with them, can you tell us a little bit 232 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:30.559 about what you learned from these people? And how big 233 00:13:30.679 --> 00:13:33.600 these numbers are, I mean, how many people are getting 234 00:13:33.639 --> 00:13:33.919 into this? 235 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:38.320 Yeah, I mean we don't really have good numbers. They 236 00:13:38.360 --> 00:13:40.559 were able to get a thousand people to fill out 237 00:13:40.639 --> 00:13:45.320 this survey, but not all of those people strictly identified 238 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:48.080 as vampires. Some of them may have defined themselves as 239 00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:51.240 an energy worker or something like that. And you know, 240 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:54.279 we never we never really know. Is this just a joke? 241 00:13:54.600 --> 00:13:54.679 Right? 242 00:13:54.759 --> 00:13:58.399 If somebody filled the survey where they were they serious 243 00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:01.039 about it? And also there is a great deal of 244 00:14:01.120 --> 00:14:04.200 paranoia in this community, and some of it is justified. 245 00:14:04.360 --> 00:14:07.080 I met vampires living in the Bible Belts who were 246 00:14:07.879 --> 00:14:11.360 basically outed as vampires and you know, would be fired 247 00:14:11.399 --> 00:14:14.240 from their job or kicked out of their church or 248 00:14:14.279 --> 00:14:17.200 whatever for this. So when you have that kind of 249 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:20.960 paranoia and somebody on the Internet says, hey, put all 250 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:24.440 your information in this survey, you know, there really were 251 00:14:24.559 --> 00:14:27.720 rumors within the community that the Atlanta Vampire Alliance was like, 252 00:14:27.919 --> 00:14:29.879 you know, the Men in Black or something, and they 253 00:14:29.919 --> 00:14:32.919 were here to round up all the vampires and put 254 00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:35.000 them in interment camps or something like that. 255 00:14:36.120 --> 00:14:36.759 So we don't know. 256 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:40.879 The numbers that I've heard is you know, several thousand, 257 00:14:41.159 --> 00:14:44.840 and those are just guesses from people like Michelle Belanje. 258 00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:47.799 So it's hard to tell. And there are people who 259 00:14:48.679 --> 00:14:50.440 you know, kind of phase out of this right that 260 00:14:50.559 --> 00:14:52.360 after a while they're like, oh, you know, maybe I'm 261 00:14:52.399 --> 00:14:56.080 not really a vampire. So it can be hard to tell. 262 00:14:56.840 --> 00:15:00.559 It does remind me a little bit of my experiences 263 00:15:00.600 --> 00:15:04.320 with the SCA Society for the Creative Anachronism, So where 264 00:15:04.320 --> 00:15:06.840 you have people who do it on the weekend, you know, 265 00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:09.879 and that's what they do and that's all, and you 266 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:13.279 have people who live it every day. And my experience 267 00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:17.080 playing Vampire the role playing game reminds me a little 268 00:15:17.120 --> 00:15:20.039 bit of have you ever been to like those? Like 269 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:21.840 I've never been to Williamsburg with that kind of a 270 00:15:21.919 --> 00:15:24.879 place where people are doing a reenactment and they will 271 00:15:25.039 --> 00:15:30.720 not break character, and it's like really frustrating. I've had 272 00:15:30.759 --> 00:15:34.360 some vampire experiences like that where it's like, I know, 273 00:15:34.639 --> 00:15:37.320 you're not a blood drinking vampire, but you're also not 274 00:15:37.480 --> 00:15:39.840 this person that you're pretending to be and that's really 275 00:15:39.919 --> 00:15:41.240 hard to have a conversation. 276 00:15:42.039 --> 00:15:44.600 So, you know, Michelle Balajay talks about what she calls 277 00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:48.200 womb communities, right, so one of them is the Vampire Larp, 278 00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:52.559 but another actually is things like renfares. You know, this 279 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:56.720 figure in New York named Father Sebastian is what's called 280 00:15:56.720 --> 00:16:00.679 a fang smith. So he has some training and dentistry 281 00:16:00.759 --> 00:16:04.240 and he'll make you these very nice, realistic things. Yeah, 282 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:06.159 I mean I think he has trained as like a 283 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:08.600 dental assistant or something like that. I'm not really sure, 284 00:16:08.679 --> 00:16:13.120 but he makes good fangs. But he started what's that are? 285 00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:16.759 Are they like veneres or like caps or can you 286 00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:17.600 take them off? 287 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:20.360 You can take them out, and they even I think 288 00:16:20.399 --> 00:16:22.759 they have different styles. Like if you want kind of 289 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:26.000 say the Lost Boys fangs versus the you know, dust 290 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:29.200 till Dawn fangs or something. There are people who get 291 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:33.320 permanent fangs made out of usually porcelain or something. And 292 00:16:33.399 --> 00:16:35.679 my understanding is if you do that, you have to 293 00:16:35.799 --> 00:16:38.440 kind of learn how to eat and drink and talk. 294 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:43.879 Usually it's the reverse, and you're getting caps to cover 295 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:44.519 that kind of thing. 296 00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:45.200 Right. 297 00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:48.519 But Father Sebastian talked about getting started in all of 298 00:16:48.559 --> 00:16:53.240 this at the Tuxedo Renaissance Festival in New York. And 299 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:56.600 one term used within the vampire community to talk about 300 00:16:56.679 --> 00:17:00.519 normal people people like me is mundanes. And that's a 301 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:02.360 term that comes from rent fairs, right, That's what you 302 00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:04.200 call the guy at the rend fairs just wearing jeans 303 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:04.799 and a T shirt. 304 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:09.720 Yeah, we would frequently go to the mall, you know, 305 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:13.039 to get some food in our sca garb and call 306 00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:15.480 it freaking the mundanes. Absolutely, that's all over that. 307 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:16.720 Yeah. 308 00:17:17.640 --> 00:17:19.720 I imagine that's probably true for furries too, but I 309 00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:21.079 don't know that for a fact. 310 00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:24.559 But sure, yeah, oh. 311 00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:31.519 No, I have a line. I have a line. So 312 00:17:32.680 --> 00:17:38.400 let's talk about that psychic versus sanguinarian. What is that 313 00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:41.559 the main split within that group? And is it a 314 00:17:41.640 --> 00:17:44.880 split I mean, or is it how do they get along? 315 00:17:45.359 --> 00:17:46.279 You know that sort of thing. 316 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:49.839 Yeah. So, you know, drinking blood is kind of the 317 00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:53.720 sun quanan of being a vampire, and so the so 318 00:17:53.920 --> 00:17:56.480 called sanguinary and vampires, first of all, I should be clear, 319 00:17:57.079 --> 00:18:01.759 they're not drinking very much blood, right right, So they're 320 00:18:01.799 --> 00:18:04.440 finding they're finding a donor. And you know, it's only 321 00:18:04.519 --> 00:18:08.119 after I've finished this research that I realized the donors 322 00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:09.759 are kind of weirder than the vampires. 323 00:18:10.240 --> 00:18:10.480 Yeah. 324 00:18:11.200 --> 00:18:14.359 Its because because the vampires at least are like, I 325 00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:16.519 need this to be healthy, but the donors are like, 326 00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:18.599 you know, I'm just gonna find someone to cut me 327 00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:21.920 and drink some of my blood. And and for at 328 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:24.839 least some donors I met, this was a sexual thing, 329 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:27.519 you know, they got sexual gratification from it. But for 330 00:18:27.640 --> 00:18:30.880 others they just sort of felt, I don't know that 331 00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:35.759 this was a chance to be compassionate towards somebody. So 332 00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:38.720 so a lot of the discourse within the segmentariums is, well, 333 00:18:38.839 --> 00:18:40.759 if you're going to drink human blood, it's never a 334 00:18:40.839 --> 00:18:43.440 healthy thing to do. So what can you do to 335 00:18:43.559 --> 00:18:46.880 kind of reduce the risk, you know, getting like an 336 00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:51.200 STD test for your donor helps, but STED tests are 337 00:18:51.279 --> 00:18:55.200 meant to measure sexually transmitted diseases, not diseases from drinking blood. 338 00:18:56.440 --> 00:18:59.359 There's a lot of discussion about what is the part 339 00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:01.640 of the body that will be the least painful and 340 00:19:01.759 --> 00:19:04.200 leave the less scarring, and a lot of them said, well, 341 00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:06.599 kind of the back, kind of between the shoulder blades 342 00:19:06.680 --> 00:19:09.799 is actually very good for that. Some of them use 343 00:19:10.279 --> 00:19:13.680 lancets used by diabetics to test their blood sugar to 344 00:19:13.799 --> 00:19:16.640 extract a few drops of blood. And then you have 345 00:19:16.759 --> 00:19:21.240 the psychic vampires. And the idea of psychic vampirism really 346 00:19:21.319 --> 00:19:25.400 in Western culture comes out of nineteenth century occultism. Right. 347 00:19:25.720 --> 00:19:29.119 It's almost an old joke Hunger Show Blake, But everything 348 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:35.400 goes back to theosophy. The theosophists said, well, vampires are real, 349 00:19:35.440 --> 00:19:38.079 they're just not what you think. You know, vampires are, 350 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:42.400 you know, either corpses that are sort of astrally projecting 351 00:19:42.519 --> 00:19:45.720 and sucking up your life force, or they're sort of 352 00:19:45.799 --> 00:19:49.279 disembodied kind of ghosts. That feed on energy and so forth, 353 00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:52.759 and they said, some people are you know, they're sort 354 00:19:52.759 --> 00:19:55.319 of psychic sponges and they just feed on the life 355 00:19:55.359 --> 00:19:59.000 force of everybody around them. And the occult literature was basically, 356 00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:01.279 these people are really bad. You need to avoid them, 357 00:20:01.839 --> 00:20:04.200 and here are some rituals and things that you can 358 00:20:04.279 --> 00:20:08.079 use to protect yourself from them. And Michelle balannge describe 359 00:20:08.079 --> 00:20:10.880 growing up, you know, being an occult nick teenager and 360 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:13.400 reading about this and thinking, oh, my gosh, I think 361 00:20:13.400 --> 00:20:16.920 they're talking about me. I think I'm one of these 362 00:20:16.920 --> 00:20:20.759 psychic sponges that they're talking about. So the psychic vampires 363 00:20:20.839 --> 00:20:24.200 have said, well, you know, we're not just parasites, we're 364 00:20:24.279 --> 00:20:29.119 kind of energy manipulators, and so we could sort of 365 00:20:29.200 --> 00:20:31.599 feed on people's life for us in a way that's unethical. 366 00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:35.880 And Michelle Balange talks about, you know, I'm on a 367 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:38.359 plane and there's a crying baby, and I could you know, 368 00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:40.440 suck enough energy out of that baby so we would 369 00:20:40.440 --> 00:20:43.880 go to sleep. She said she thinks she could do 370 00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:46.960 that at one point, but instead I could go to 371 00:20:47.119 --> 00:20:49.480 like a concert where everybody's already in kind of a 372 00:20:49.559 --> 00:20:52.839 high energy state, and I can siphon off some of 373 00:20:52.880 --> 00:20:56.880 their energy and maybe even kind of almost like sculpt 374 00:20:56.920 --> 00:20:58.920 the crowd's energy in a way that they have like 375 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:01.519 a better time at the at the concert. 376 00:21:01.920 --> 00:21:02.079 Right. 377 00:21:06.200 --> 00:21:08.599 And I talked to people from Asia about this, and 378 00:21:08.920 --> 00:21:11.200 and they're like, of course people suck your energy. Of 379 00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:13.079 course there's people like that. Well, why are you calling 380 00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:14.720 them vampires? That's very dramatic. 381 00:21:16.119 --> 00:21:18.960 I mean, I don't know about you, but I've dated 382 00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:22.720 a few people who snapped my energy really badly. You know, 383 00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:26.559 it's not just a metaphor, right. 384 00:21:27.519 --> 00:21:30.359 Anton LaVey had this whole thing about you know, no 385 00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:35.359 no mercy for psychic vampires. Right. But in Asia, where 386 00:21:35.359 --> 00:21:38.880 there are more established ideas of things like chi energy 387 00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:43.880 or prana, it's it's much more normal to just say, oh, yeah, 388 00:21:43.960 --> 00:21:46.920 you know, I I got my my prana drained because 389 00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:49.720 I was hanging around the wrong people. Today, it's not 390 00:21:49.880 --> 00:21:53.720 seen as this kind of mystical occult a secret so 391 00:21:53.960 --> 00:21:56.119 on the on the Internet, which is really where the 392 00:21:56.759 --> 00:21:59.960 vampire community kind of took its form as it exists today, 393 00:22:00.599 --> 00:22:04.640 you initially had some sparring between people saying, well, you know, 394 00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:07.319 real vampires drink blood, You guys don't drink blood. You're 395 00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:10.880 just sort of, you know, just whatever. And then the 396 00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:13.559 psychic vampire is saying, well, no, actually, you know, you 397 00:22:13.759 --> 00:22:16.799 still require this physical medium to get life for us, 398 00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:18.799 but we are more evolved than you and we can 399 00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:23.519 just sort of siphon it off. And I think eventually 400 00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:25.839 they decided that, you know, it was better for them 401 00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:28.920