A psychic vampire (or energy vampire) is a creature in

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...

said to feed off the " life force" of other living creatures. The term can also be used to describe a person who gets increased energy around other people, but leaves those other people exhausted or "drained" of energy.A Vampire's Life? It's Really Draining
Forget 'Twilight.' These Folks Pale in Comparison to the Stereotype. By Monica Hesse, Staff Writer, ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', November 24, 2008, Page C01 Psychic vampires are represented in the occult beliefs of various cultures and in fiction.

Psychic energy

Terms used to describe the substance or essence that psychic vampires take or receive from others include: ''energy'', '' qi'' (or ''ch'i''), ''life force'', ''

prana In yoga, Indian medicine and Indian martial arts, prana ( sa2, प्राण, ; the Sanskrit word for breath, " life force", or "vital principle") permeates reality on all levels including inanimate objects. In Hindu literature, prāṇa is ...

'', and ''vitality''. There is no scientific or medical evidence supporting the existence of the bodily or psychic energy they allegedly drain.

Emotional vampires

American author Albert Bernstein uses the phrase "emotional vampire" for people with various

personality disorder Personality disorders (PD) are a class of mental disorders characterized by enduring maladaptive patterns of behavior, cognition, and inner experience, exhibited across many contexts and deviating from those accepted by the individual's culture ...

s who are often considered to drain

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...

al energy from others.

Energy vampires

The term "energy vampire" is also used metaphorically to refer to people whose influence leaves a person feeling exhausted, unfocused, and depressed, without ascribing the phenomenon to psychic interference.Watch out for energy vampires
by Dr. Judith Orloff, ''

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

'', March 11, 2008

Dion Fortune Dion Fortune (born Violet Mary Firth, 6 December 1890 – 6 January 1946) was a British occultist, ceremonial magician, novelist and author. She was a co-founder of the Fraternity of the Inner Light, an occult organisation that promoted ph ...

wrote of psychic parasitism in relation to vampirism as early as 1930 in her book, ''Psychic Self-Defense''. Fortune considered psychic vampirism a combination of

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws, ...

and

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between t ...

pathology, and distinguished between what she considered to be true psychic vampirism and mental conditions that produce similar symptoms. For the latter, she named

folie à deux Folie à deux ('folly of two', or 'madness haredby two'), also known as shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a collection of rare psychiatric syndromes in which symptoms of a delusional belief, and sometimes hallucinations, ...

and similar phenomena. The term "psychic vampire" was popularized in the 1960s by Anton LaVey and his

Church of Satan The Church of Satan is a religious organization dedicated to the religion of LaVeyan Satanism as codified in ''The Satanic Bible''. The Church of Satan was established at the Black House (Church of Satan), Black House in San Francisco, Cali ...

. LaVey wrote on the topic in his book, ''

The Satanic Bible ''The Satanic Bible'' is a collection of essays, observations, and rituals published by Anton LaVey in 1969. It is the central religious text of LaVeyan Satanism, and is considered the foundation of its philosophy and dogma. It has been describ ...

'', and claimed to have coined the term. LaVey used ''psychic vampire'' to mean a spiritually or emotionally weak person who drains vital energy from other people.

Adam Parfrey Adam Parfrey (April 12, 1957 – May 10, 2018) was an American journalist, editor, and the publisher of Feral House books, whose work in all three capacities frequently centered on unusual, extreme, or "forbidden" areas of knowledge. A 2010 ''Se ...

likewise attributed the term to LaVey in an introduction to '' The Devil's Notebook''. The English singer-songwriter

Peter Hammill Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill (born 5 November 1948) is an English musician and recording artist. He was a founder member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Best known as a singer/songwriter, he also plays guitar and piano and ...

credits his erstwhile

Van der Graaf Generator Van der Graaf Generator are an English progressive rock band, formed in 1967 in Manchester by singer-songwriters Peter Hammill and Judge Smith, Chris Judge Smith and the first act signed by Charisma Records. They did not experience much commerc ...

colleague, violinist Graham Smith, with coining the term "energy vampires" in the 1970s in order to describe intrusive, over-zealous fans. Hammill included a song of the same name on his 1978 album ''

The Future Now ''The Future Now'' is the seventh studio album by Peter Hammill, released on Charisma Records in 1978. It was the first solo album Hammill released following the 1978 breakup of his band Van der Graaf Generator, although he had released numerous ...

''. The terms "energy vampire" and "psychic vampire" have been used as synonyms in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union as part of an occult revival. The 2019 American comedy horror television series ''

What We Do in the Shadows ''What We Do in the Shadows'' is a 2014 New Zealand mockumentary horror comedy film written and directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi and the first installment in the ''What We Do in the Shadows'' franchise. The film also stars Clem ...

'' includes the character Colin Robinson, a metaphorical and literal "energy vampire" who drains people's life forces by being boring or frustrating.

Vampire subculture

Sociologists such as Mark Benecke and A. Asbjørn JønA. Asbjorn Jon, 'The Psychic Vampire and Vampyre Subculture', in
Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies
', 12 (2002), pp. 143–148 (p.145) have identified a subculture of people who present themselves as vampires. Jon has noted that enthusiasts of the vampire subculture emulate traditional psychic vampires in that they describe 'prey ngupon life-force or 'pranic' energy'. Prominent figures in the subculture include

Michelle Belanger Michelle Belanger is an American author who has authored over two dozen nonfiction books on paranormal and occult topics, has appeared in television documentaries about magic and modern occultism. She has performed as a vocalist and worked as a w ...

, a self-described psychic vampire, who wrote a book titled ''The Psychic Vampire Codex: A Manual of Magick and Energy Work,'' published in 2004 by

New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...

press

Weiser Books Red Wheel Weiser Conari, also known in different periods in its history as RedWheel/Weiser, LLC and Samuel Weiser, Inc., is a book publisher with three imprints: Red Wheel, Weiser Books and Conari Books. It is America's second-largest publisher ...

. Belanger details a vampiric approach to energy work which she believes psychic vampires can use to heal others, representing an attempt to disassociate the psychic vampire subculture from negative connotations of vampirism.

Sexual vampires

A related mythological creature is a sexual vampire, which is supposed to feed off sexual energy. Sexual vampires include

succubi A succubus is a demon or supernatural entity in folklore, in female form, that appears in dreams to seduce men, usually through sexual activity. According to religious tradition, a succubus needs male semen to survive; repeated sexual activity ...

incubi An incubus is a demon in male form in folklore that seeks to have sexual intercourse with sleeping women; the corresponding spirit in female form is called a succubus. In medieval Europe, union with an incubus was supposed by some to result in ...

References

External links

Energy Vampires(Band): Energy Vampires

Llewellyn (Bookstore): Psychic Vampires

Article on Identifying Energy Vampires In Our Life By Divya Toshniwal
Magical terminology New Age Psychics Satanism Vampires Vampirism Vitalism