SCROLL FROM THE EDITOR
Welcome to the May 2023 edition of The Midnight Sun!
Hello and welcome to a very special themed edition of The Midnight Sun.
Shadies and Gentlememes, I am so excited and pleased to present to you, VAMPIRE APPRECIATION MONTH! We have themed, collected, and curated a Vampire Experience for your reading and viewing pleasure. From Articles on Vampiric Healing and a look at the different Types of Vampires by Abri to The Empowerment of Fangs and What if the Villain Was Right? by yours truly, to a Vampire themed playlist that House Kheperu members all contributed songs to, we’ve got a good one this month. Below you’ll find more information about our upcoming return to in-person Gather, the month’s articles, and some fun, inclusive art. And remember next month? GATHER WILL BE NEARLY HERE! * Jazz hands *
I hope you enjoy, this month friends, and next month look for our newsletter at the normal time… but I also hope that maybe, just maybe, we will see you at Gather. I leave you with one of my favorite quotes, from The Vampire Lestat by the late Anne Rice;
“In spite of all the refinements of civilization that conspired to make art--the dizzying perfection of the string quartet or the sprawling grandeur of Fragonard's canvases--beauty was savage. It was as dangerous and lawless as the earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden.”
Miranda (Frick)
Curator and Editor of TMS
Are you attending the 2023 House Kheperu Gather, and wondering if there’s something you can do to help out? OR, are you unable to attend this year, but still wanting to contribute?
Excellent news! The Hospitality Crew got together and compiled a wishlist of things that folks have talked about or requested or batted about as good to have in a Hosp Suite for the event, and we are bringing it to you live!
You can find the 2023 House Kheperu Hospitality Wishlist here!
Help make Gather 2023 a phenomenal experience! House Kheperu is accepting donations via our Amazon Wishlist for the event. Your contribution will help us provide an unforgettable gathering for our community. Donate now and be a part of something amazing! If you see something you want to make sure is there, or that there is plenty of, or you’re just wanting to contribute and have the means to do so, it’s often the little things that can take something from good to great, and great to stellar!
House Kheperu Member Spotlight
Abri
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." ~ Frank Herbert, Dune
What interests you about energy work?
Anatomy. Our physical anatomy is already so interesting and unique from person to person. In the energetic space? The anatomy is far more fluid. The variety is immense. The shapes, connections, energy centers, flow, and structures are all complex and ever changing. I think that is what interests me the most- the constant change. There is always something new to discover or observe, and it isn't just the anatomy of the body. Oh, no. It is the anatomy of energetic spaces. The anatomy of rituals. The anatomy of nature and the interconnectedness of it. It is the webworkings that stretch out beyond our tiny blue dot in an expansive universe. It is so big, so small, and all happening at the same time. I love it.
What is one of your favorite movies?
So... My favorite movie isn't a movie of quality. This movie is my favorite movie because it is terrible. It makes me laugh at the sheer rushed audacity and terrible voice acting. That movie? Lady Death animated movie from 2004. It is a piece of cinematic tragedy that is so bad it shifts to hilarious and I adore it.
HK JAMS - May I Come In?
HK was tempted to just link the Queen of the Damned movie soundtrack (great soundtrack but that’s the extent to which we agree.) We didn’t! Instead, this month’s HK Jams are all those songs that speak to our vampire side. Enjoy the broody, moody, dance room vibes of this May playlist and enjoy!
Vampiric Healing
Psychic Vampirism and Energy Healing
by Cat Rogers
Psychic vampires and vampirism have long been maligned within fiction, magick, and occult spaces. Dion Fortune’s work Psychic Self-Defense and even Anton Lavey, most known for founding the Church of Satan, attributed psychic vampirism as a psychological or parasitic pathology that held no innate value beyond that of harm. Many have failed to consider that energetic vampirism can be a powerful healing practice and those who identify and practice ethical and consent-based vampirism can wield it.
It is far more common to come into contact with article after article, book after book, and opinion pieces by the hundreds that continue to marginalize and demonize psychic vampirism. With such little awareness regarding psychic vampirism and the ethical means of engaging with the energic need, the communities that intersect with energy work have little resources or awareness of how psychic vampirism is more than a parasitic state. Psychic vampirism is a state of being. It comes with a spectrum of powerful abilities that require one to supplement their system with additional vital energy. These abilities are capable of so much more than the maligned nature of predation so often attributed to all psychic vampires.
The average psychic vampire is a being of deep energetic awareness. They have to be. Supplementing their lack of energy generation within their bodies by taking in vital energy from a donor means that psychic vampires often focus on those around them who generate ample energy. They also often are keenly aware of protections or other constructs meant to shield or keep them out or away from people or spaces. This means the average psychic vampire has a far more instinctual and complex view of the energetic world around them at any given time. This awareness means that ethical psychic vampires have an advantage in developing methods, techniques, and skills that can serve the community rather than merely feed upon it.
When it comes to subtle anatomy and energetic awareness of individuals, the psychic vampire excels in identifying weak points, strengths, flow, energy channels, energy centers, and how to navigate towards and through these areas. The psychic vampire requires these skills to carefully extract the energies they need when doing a direct or deep feed. Many psychic vampires rely on tendrils or innocuous cords of energy that can burrow into an individual and draw the energy they require from a donor. This further internal awareness means that psychic vampires are skilled at identifying blockages, scars, wounds, and other ailments of the subtle anatomy. It also means that they can target blockages to clear them, help increase energy in areas that need healing, decrease an abundance of energy in a subtly inflamed area, and so much more.
How then does a psychic vampire learn the positive applications of their skills? Unfortunately, not much literature exists that positively affirms the psychic vampire’s existence. There is a proliferation of material that claims various methods to ‘heal’ or ‘cure’ psychic vampirism. The topic of what makes a psychic vampire vampiric is a complex one. Some individuals are vampiric due to subtle body damage that, with time, can be healed and the vampiric condition rectified. This does not apply universally to psychic vampirism. Whether by the base nature of the subtle form, a choice, or subtle alteration, some are beyond the cures of well-intentioned but often ignorant practitioners.
Learning to heal yourself and others as a psychic vampire is best approached by understanding subtle anatomy, how energy exchange works, how the energy is transformed or transmuted, and how energies can be manipulated. Some of these skills are innate within the psychic vampire and may require careful self-observation to gain a deeper sense of control and awareness outside of instinct. This is good practice, in general, to allow the energy vampire greater finesse, control, and sensory awareness. Understanding various healing traditions becomes integral to building the knowledge base one may need to begin actively offering one’s skills to aid and the techniques of the psychic vampire are not limited to them. Anyone can learn the skills and techniques. Psychic vampires who lean into their innate abilities are simply more proficient at the methods that utilize their strengths.
House Kheperu’s founder, M. Belanger, spearheaded the development of energy work practices from a psychic vampire perspective. Their book The Psychic Energy Codex is a text that I cannot recommend enough as it functions as a workbook while imparting valuable knowledge and skills while their work The Psychic Vampire Codex delves into psychic vampirism more specifically. The Psychic Vampire Codex, while a beloved text by many, does include dated language and perspectives, often pushed by the publishing company that altered or shifted the original intent of its writer by including gendered language and odd physical associations with some of the content.
Despite these fragments of a time past, the content of the work reveals the techniques of psychic vampirism, feeding, awakening, and ethics as a foundational book for those striving to learn more about their psychic vampirism. I intend to further expand upon that work by bringing deeper insights into the application of techniques and methods that I have developed while learning from M. Belanger over the years. Through that study, I have expanded my understanding, developed my practice, and honed my psychic vampirism in such a manner that I can achieve significant and effective energetic observation and healing for those that require such intervention and I intend on sharing that knowledge.
Psychic vampirism is a powerful state of being and if you are a psychic vampire as well, I hope that I can affirm your experience, assist in honing your skills, and impart the necessary ethics and boundaries needed to engage in your communities. My goal is to help guide you toward changing the view of psychic vampirism one positive interaction at a time. Psychic vampirism deserves to be acknowledged from a neutral viewpoint, similar to witchcraft or other occult practices. It is the quality of our character and our actions individually that should be the metric by which to judge us and not the heaps of literary misinformation that encourages deterrent practices that I assure you fail to work in most cases.
Stay tuned in the coming months as I further expand on the techniques and methods that psychic vampires and energy workers alike can use to expand their energetic skills for healing and improvement. Feel free to check out my work and methods at AetherBody.
Vampire Rituals for Daily Health
The AetherStore closes tonight at midnight so be sure to grab your last-minute House Kheperu shirt, hoodie, and/or wall scroll with this year’s design on it.
The Empowerment of Fangs
In 1994, as a wee young adult babby in a Waldenbooks, with earned yard work money to burn, I found a few books about Vampires. As it was barely the 90s, and TV ratings were not a thing yet, I’d already seen Lost Boys and had it listed in what my mother called “The Four L’s”, in reference to the four movies I would want to rent from the Video Store (Lost Boys, Labyrinth, Legend and Ladyhawke). But these were new Vampire stories in the Young Adult Section, and therefore how could my mom say no? She’d told me no to reading Anne Rice, and said that despite my elevated reading level it was not age-appropriate, much to my dismay. The Interview With The Vampire movie had just come out, and I was not allowed to see it either - for the same reasons.
But these books were in the Young Adult Section, and she approved them.
I devoured them within days. Luckily they were books in a series, so I just started saving money to buy them whenever I could and started collecting them over the next few years. One of the series, Nightworld by LJ Smith, was still actively being published. And I lived for it.
There was a draw to the idea of the vampire that I didn’t understand in full detail as a kid. I just knew that the idea of telepathy, healing powers, the ability to sway minds with a gaze, turn into animals, be faster, stronger than a ‘human’ - that stuff was all super cool and I would be willing to never see the sun again in trade.
Retrospectively, I realize that even to my young self, the concept of becoming a vampire was empowering; liberating. Through a transformation of the body, one could become more. To shed the restraints tying them down to achieve not only a freedom of self in the physical, but an opportunity to gather resources, allies, and knowledge. To travel the world and choose whether or not you were the villain, or a dark angel working from the shadows to preserve mortal life.
Autonomy. Choice. Freedom.
I swore up and down from that day that I would make a good candidate for vampirism. That I would miss all my friends and family once they passed on - the few that didn’t accept my offer to become one too, once I was embraced - and that I would spend my eternity learning languages and all the things there was to know. Because, of course, if you never stop learning, you never grow stagnant.
I was ten years old.
Here, almost three decades later, I have a much better understanding of why these themes and ideas were appealing. In addition to the struggles of just being a tween, into full-on teen (I never stopped reading the literature, though Rice’s Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis made me side-eye that truth for a minute…), I had some pretty tough situations in which I found myself. The child of divorcing parents, starting the workforce young due to financial struggles at home, and a few other things that the autonomy, choice, and freedom of the vampire embodied, and appealed greatly to me. Hell, they STILL do.
One way it worked against me, in my early 20s though, was when a psychic friend first noticed I was, to their senses, a psychic vampire. They asked me if I knew that, and I deflected and minimized my response because everyone knew I was into and encyclopedic on all things vampire. The insecurities of youth took the driver’s seat and I dismissed that idea entirely. How would it appear to the rest of the world, if the vampire girl started claiming to be a real vampire? Surely they’d think I was nuts and lock me up. That was the last thing I needed.
But it poked something that had started waking up in me. A truth my Higher Self, who was still not yet fully online or through the mortal language barrier, could yet explain. Why it was the themes of energetic (blood in the books) exchange, transformation, self-evolution, and all the things that I then consciously had some recognition of the calling to, impacted me as they did.
Spoiler alert; I was, in fact, a psychic vampire.
My aversion to that idea began to dissolve after some long, hard conversations with a best friend who was a practitioner. We did what we call “went through witchy puberty” together. He was a safe space to discuss these things, and we ran experiments, tried things out, and looked at what little literature there was. From day one he was a huge advocate that “No, you are not a bad person for being this. This is for people who violate others without consent. I have never known you to do that.” Even unaware, on the occasion it did happen, we noticed that patterns showed I would just do more things that allowed me to ambiently feed more than anything, and he was able to help me work through my fears and concerns to stand up and fully embrace the idea that yeah… yeah I was this thing, and I would learn to be an ethical, effective version.
That I was, in fact, a vampire.
It wasn’t the same as I’d always read it. There was no direct mind reading for me, nor could I fly, I wasn’t super fast or strong… But even just owning the little things, even being partially this concept that had helped me navigate my life to that point, was powerful.
Then in 2010, that same friend found The Psychic Vampire Codex by Michelle Belanger and bought it for me. It was the first literature either of us had found that didn’t talk about Psy Vamps as monsters, or things to be protected from. Instead, the approach was a guide and something to help people learn how to engage in healthy, ethical ways.
And everything changed.
Since then, and through my journey, I have found that my inner child, who so desperately loved and longed for the feelings of self-empowerment, autonomy, and freedom, (and maybe to turn into a bat) was more honest in her search than 21 year old me was when I shied away from embracing (heh) myself as a Psy Vamp. The ten-year-old knew what she recognized, what she wanted, and didn’t let the fear of judgment or rejection guide her actions. No, she just did all the yard work to get all the money to buy all the books and learn more.
In the world today, everywhere you look there is someone or something trying to tell you how to feel about yourself, what you should think, what you shouldn’t think, do, or say, how to dress, what it looks like to be pretty (and if you don’t look like that you’re NOT pretty), how to feel, how to act, what to buy. The idea of being a vampire, transcending social expectation and only engaging when you choose, transcending weakness and mortality, to shed the chains of the mortal world that tries to shape us into a narrative that few of us find comfortable, calls to those of us who recognize that discomfort within. While my journey and truth are mine, I see value in sharing to present a perspective; The Vampire is a deeply empowering concept on a fundamental level in many ways.
If you have lifetimes to accumulate wealth, invest, steal, and or save money - then in perspective as an immortal being in fairly short order, you don’t have to worry about money.
If you have lifetimes to learn, you can learn anything and everything you want to.
If you have lifetimes to travel, you can go anywhere you want to, and if you’re faster, stronger, and have the ability to manipulate minds, then there is little to no danger in so doing.
And yes, there are sacrifices, but when aren’t there?
The Vampire is transformative. It is the idea that embracing a fundamental change and a dedication to learning and surviving will open a path to eschewing the things that you perceive hold you back, or even imprison you. It is the face and embodiment of seizing a moment of choice and evolving to become something more. In most cases, becoming more authentically yourself. It is a freedom born of autonomy, being in control of one’s own self to the totality of that truth under the sway of no one but your own mind, heart, and desires. Whether that makes you a villain, or a dark angel is fully up to you, and not some outdated social construct that your spark will outlive to see crumble and fade to dust with the ever-flowing passage of time.
And there is great power in that.
I’m glad I listened to ten-year-old me. Even if she didn’t fully grasp the magnitude at the time, she was right. We do make a pretty darn good vampire.
A note from your 2023 Gather con chair!
Gather 2023 is fast approaching! After holding virtual Gathers for a few years we are ready to get back in person and the members of House Kheperu are excited to see everyone. We’ve included a few new and exciting activities to gather this year.
The first is we are holding an exclusive event on Thursday evening. Tea with Kheprians gives attendees a chance to mingle and chat with House members in a more intimate setting. Gather is always chaotic for everyone and House members rarely get time to have quality chats with attendees, so we have set aside time to mingle.
The second addition to Gather this year is divination sessions. Members of House Kheperu have various talents and this year we wanted to highlight those who practice divination. This year attendees can choose from Abri, Ges, Hex, Miranda, or Seo to get a one-on-one session that is included in the Deluxe ticket.
If you haven’t already, grab your ticket and join us!
We take Covid-19 safety very seriously and want everyone to have a safe and fun Gather.
We look forward to seeing you in June!
House Kheperu Gather Con Chair, Stefanie (RogerDoger#0596 Discord)
Types of Vampires
From Energy to Blood
by Cat Rogers
The world of vampires is broad and diverse, filled with those from all cultural backgrounds, body types, degrees of melanin, languages, and many spiritual practices, faiths, and religions. Even amongst those who identify as vampires, diversity is ever present. Diversity in any community is an enriching and necessary element that assists in empowering each other, supporting each other, and allowing us to bring our varied skills and strengths to play. This interlocking weave creates the tapestry of community and within that specifically of the vampire, there are many bold threads. The following is a list, subject to development and change, of the known and identified types of vampires in the world.
Archetype Vampires
These are people who identify with the vampire aesthetic. They use the vampire archetype as a tool of empowerment to build their confidence, feel good about their body, wear the clothes and styles they enjoy, and wrap themselves up in the appearance of the vampire. They don’t require energy or blood for their survival and can pick up and put down this identity as needed.
Psychic Vampires (Energy Vampires)
These individuals require human vital energy or other specific types of energy to survive. Their bodies do not produce enough energy to sustain them and the lack of energy results in impacts on their mental, physical, and emotional health. Ethical psychic and energy vampires feed via donors (informed consent-based energy exchange) or ambient feeding practices (taking free floating and released ambient energies that are no longer attached to an individual.) There are several other feeding methods as well, but these are the two most common methods.
Sanguine Vampires
Individuals who ingest small amounts of human or animal blood are considered Sanguine vampires. These individuals, like psychic vampires, require this exchange for continued maintenance of their physical, mental, and emotional state. Due to the risk factor for blood-born pathogens, most sangs (sanguine vampires) practice strict and thorough safety practices. The sanguine vampire must be tested and their donors tested rigorously and often for any transmissible diseases in order to protect both vampire and donor. Methods of extracting blood from donors are often well-researched, with the amount taken small, and aftercare provided for optimum wound healing.
Carnalis Vampires
Often mistaken for succubi/incubi, these folx get their energy via erotic or sexual exchange and the energy they take is necessary for their physical, mental, and emotional health. Similar to sanguine vampires, carnalis vampires often pay special attention to being tested often and frequently along with their donors to assure they remain safe. Safe sex practices are critical to the carnalis vampire, although not all participate in the exchange of body fluids. Some find the energy they need merely in their donor’s release, which can often blur the line between psychic/energy vampires and carnalis vampires. Carnalis vampires differ in that the exchange almost always requires an element of eroticism, sexual exchange, or orgasmic release.
Cultus Vampires
These individuals serve a vampiric deity, but they themselves are not vampiric in nature. They take energy like other vampire types but pass it along to their vampiric god form. These individuals often act more as a proxy for their deity and work within the spiritual belief structure. As such, it is a religion or faith-based practice. Some practice consent and ethical vampirism as they pass along energy to their deity. Other cultus vampires do not practice safe, ethical, and consent-based exchanges and we do not condone them.
Member Art Gallery
May 2023 - Vampire Edition
“Invitation” by Miranda Harrell
“Passing Through” by Miranda Harrell
For all my Vampire the Masquerade players out there ♥
“Fuck You Stephenie Meyer” by Cat Rogers: In my world, vampires are diverse and more beautiful for it. I don’t give AF about your sparkles.
What If The Villian Was Right?
The Positive Lessons of The Vampire Throughout Time
by Miranda Harrell
Encyclopedia Britannica says about the modern interpretation of Vampires;
“The first prose vampire story published in English is believed to be John Polidori's “The Vampyre” (1819), about a mysterious aristocrat named Lord Ruthven who seduces young women only to drain their blood and disappear.”
Before that, there were stories in ancient Greece of vampire-like creatures that would appear under the cloak of night and drain a person of bodily fluids. Stories of similar beings thrived in medieval times, draining the blood of the living. Most of these proved to be hysteria that grew around a misinterpretation of disease symptoms surrounding sun sensitivities and tuberculosis, concluded by research done in the 20th and 21st centuries. You’d be hard-pressed here in 2023 to find someone that hasn’t heard of vampires. Be it through the lens of books, comics, movies, or television, the Vampire has persisted as an intriguing fixture in Urban Fantasy, Horror, and even Dark Classic Fantasy for centuries.
More often than not, Vampires are presented as monsters of some kind - the sad boi love interest turned into a vampire against his will, or a villain straight out the gate, or mindless blood-hungering parasites brought on by curses, diseases, or something equally tragic befalling them. In modern media, there has been a swerve into Vampires as love interests or heroes as well, but it’s a relatively newer addition to Vampires as a genre.
Yes, the 1980s is “relatively newer” when you think about some of the origins being Ancient Greece.
When you look even at the evolution of Vampire stories from Bram Stoker’s famous novel Dracula to the artsy and deeply modern interpretation of the Vampire in Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, it’s an interesting transformation. What started as a creature borne of fear, misunderstanding, and folklore has been shaped by stories, words, studies, and the imagination into something so much more intricate, sometimes horrifying, sometimes beautiful, and desirable. From Nosferatu to Queen of the Damned, the intrigue and draw of immortal beings possessed of eternal youth, undying, though predatory - having to feed on the life force of others to sustain themselves - has captivated us.
There’s something to be said about an innate fear of mortality and dying that the vampire brings the promise that perhaps such truths might be avoided. As a monster or villain, the idea that something preying on “us” can be defeated despite its immortality holds a different, if equal appeal. To me, there’s something more that adds to the concept of the vampire that carries a deeply positive message; how to live authentically and how to Find Your Devil.
Finding your Devil is a new idea to me, though applicable to things I’ve understood throughout my life as I am learning. It’s a conversation my partner and I were having about leaning into understanding what drives you, where your passions and desires lay, advocating for yourself and those desires, and learning to be comfortable in taking up that space. Any space. I may write more about this in a future article, as it’s still a new idea for me, but this is the basics that are applicable to this article.
At a very high level, The Vampire is a creature of driven desire; be it the mindless vampire monsters hunting for blood and seeking their base needs, or the more refined, sophisticated vampires of Laurel K. Hamilton’s novels with individual desires, motives, histories, and methods to achieve much the same. Vampires don’t have to worry (in most cases) about diseases, very few things can kill them, and they have all the time in the world if they are careful, to do… well, whatever they want. In many of the stories, the vampires that lose their passion, drive, or reasons for ‘living’, are the ones that don’t make it. They have powers of the mind to sway thoughts, and physical prowess to back up their bite and stand their ground when they say or do something controversial or defend what’s theirs and their space. They can say, and do what they need to, and many do so in order to protect their immortality, or just up and leave if things get too dangerous.
Y’know, the way that every ‘good mental health practice’ course and video tells us all we should be nourishing ourselves and our peace?
And there are exceptions - just as there are in any genre, there is bad writing, racism, and disgusting personal beliefs of the author being revealed through fiction - but we don’t stan those… sparkles need not apply. Overall, the ideals, message, and questions the vampire inspires us to ask, bring us a little closer to our own truths.
“What Drives You?”
“What are you passionate about?”
“What feeds your soul?”
“What would you do with yourself, if you didn’t have to worry about day-to-day life?
“What do you want? And what are you willing to do to achieve it?”
Villain, antihero, dark lover, a normal person gifted with immortality obsessed with memorizing every scientific name for the natural world, or mindless hunger - we all have little pieces of these concepts inside of us that the composite ideal of Vampires calls to.
Maybe, if we all listened to that call, and leaned in a little more, we could find a place where we all live like truly immortal vampires, driven by passion, leaving others to their passions, doing things that feed our bodies and souls, thus our legacies reaching immortality, even if our bodies don’t. Because aren’t we all sometimes horrifying, sometimes beautiful and desirable?
Lean in.
