My parents used to have this book: Eating People Is Wrong. I never read it, but nowadays I’m wondering if I should. People talk about vampiric magic, but you don’t have to be the victim of a red-in-tooth-‘n-claw Dracula to get your power sucked dry – and either it’s getting worse or maybe I’m just noticing it more, just like smokers suddenly stink after you’ve given up cigarettes.
Just because blood-sucking vampires appear in myths and movies, it doesn’t mean that they are solely mythological or fictional creatures. Hollywood vampires suck on human blood in order to survive. Blood has long been synonymous with life force, going back tens of thousands of years and represented by hematite or red ochre in shamanic rituals. The archetypal vampire, Dracula, originated from Southeast Europe, but his was not the first vampire story. The ancient Mesopotamians, Hebrews and Romans had tales of demons and spirits that would drink blood and feast on flesh. So even they knew that eating people was wrong.
I know many magicians — some real and others, well … I don’t want to be unkind but it’s as if they’ve swallowed Harry Potter whole. These Hogwarts wannabees don’t have any real power at all. The spirits don’t communicate with them and so they don’t get any information or guidance about what to do. So they’re reduced to stealing power from others. However, they are only doing consciously what all of us have been taught to do unconsciously from the cradle. We imbibed these vampiric power plays with our mother’s milk, and as we grew, we unconconsciously adopted behavioural techniques — mainly in our interactions with our siblings but also with our parents as role models — which amounted to nothing more or less than stealing each others’ power.
The shaman in training has to first confront this Hammer horror — the realisation that they’ve been born into Planet Vampire and brought up and encouraged to throw out energetic streamers and suckers to feed on others, and that everyone they know is some kind of succubus, even their own mother — and then they have to work out how to transcend the vampiric realm in order to be able to own and stand in their own power.
Metaphors for overcoming this particular daemon and the subsequent attendant rebirth of the spiritual adept are found in all mythologies, and usually end with the hero tackling the dragon/serpent and then bruising its head with his heel.
Power plays
You won’t get any shamanic or real magical power until you overcome this dragon. This is because, it is my experience that the spirits are not going to give anyone any power if it’s just going to drain out of them, like water out of colander. You have to build a container to hold it and this requires, not least, living in truth and honouring others’ boundaries. They also want you to start working with some real, clean, unadulterated rocket fuel and not some dirty old lawnmower petrol you siphoned off from someone else. Or crisp, newly-minted notes is another good analogy. Because just like any paper currency, the more power is traded and passed around, the more worn and filthy and dog-eared it becomes, until eventually it disintegrates altogether and goes back to the Earth.
Learning to stand protected and whole in your own power is more than about guarding yourself with all the million-and-one methods of psychic protection available to the modern-day magical practitioner — from the Lesser Banishing ritual and the four pillars, to the blue translucent egg and the fiery pentagram to mention just a few. That’s because it’s no good using your intention to magically construct one of these energetic devices before setting off down the road if the first thing you’re then going to do is hand over your decision-making ability to the next person you meet at the bus stop just because they’ve got a bigger hat.
Even if they’re your boss, you have to learn to manage your power around them, and you will eventually get quite skillful in these sorts of situations.
But it’s best to start off small, at first. Don’t go straight for the might of the military-industrial juggernaut. Parity begins at home. Begin with your partner and your immediate friends and then watch as your whole life starts to transform. As you change the microcosm, the macrocosm will very often follow suit.
Of course, not allowing others to steal your power may make you quite unpopular at times. There are all sorts of unwritten contracts between vampires, and refusing to offer up the jugular often finds you in breach of one of them. Even not taking someone’s power when it’s being offered you willingly can cause the offerer to feel hurt or confused by your behaviour, although they don’t know why. They only know that this coping mechanism has always worked for them in the past, and so they don’t understand why it’s not working on you now. However, they don’t realise that the issue between you is about power — they just know that they feel uncomfortable around you — and so they decide they don’t like you for some other spurious reason, like your nose is too big.
There are various techniques and exercises which you can use to replenish your own power reserves without having to resort to plundering the power of others. One of these entails drawing energy up from our mother the Earth, who is more than happy to supply us with power and also to take away our empties. There is one called The Rising Light Below. Another is called Diving Through the Moon Pool and uses the Moon card of the Tarot.
The matter of power — who owns it, who keeps it, who’s giving it away — is key to the shamanic practitioner, who knows that the source of most dis-ease is lack of power. And in teaching my clients how to reclaim their power, they become re-empowered and well again very quickly and then they are on their way. I have very few repeat appointments with people because they don’t need them. I can solve their problem in just one or two sessions. Spiritual healers who have you coming back every six weeks for “top-ups” are just creating a dependency on you so that they can continue to steal your power, in the form of your time and money. And by the way, watch out for all those big gorilla hugs – sometimes the vampire … er sorry, healer offering the huge hug needs it more than you do. And once they’ve wrapped their energy body around yours, they will suck till you’re dry.
Sure, they may not realise they’re stealing your power. But that doesn’t help you, does it, when you’re left feeling like a limp used condom on the morning after the night before?
I’ve just looked up Eating People is Wrong on Amazon. It turns out to be Malcolm Bradbury’s first novel, about university life, and here’s a telling quote from it.
“Moreover, all his life, Treece had been doing things that he did not exactly want to do, journeying off on holidays he had no intention of taking, watching plays he did not wish to see, playing sports he detested, simply because someone had gone to the trouble to persuade him, simply because he felt they cared, simply…well, simply because he could not say no. He always thought what a hard time of it he would have had if he had been a woman; he would have been pregnant all the time.”
I can’t think of a better description of someone who’s given away all their power.
If you think this sounds a little like you, or how you’ve been feeling lately, don’t worry. A shaman can help you get your power back. It’s one of the things we do.
This touched me. I’ve often thought that the average person completely misunderstands what power is. This isn’t surprising considering the prevailing spirit of the modern world, generated by those who manipulate humankind from the cradle to the grave. But still, it does perplex me that people don’t intuitively know or feel what it means to have power, their *own power*. The irony in my own life is that I have no issues standing in my own power for almost everything but, I sense deeply that my soul family or spirit guides (if you want to call them that, I’m wary of that phrase because of how the New Age has used it) have wanted me to develop another form of independence, one that goes much deeper than anything people would perceive in the mainstream or write about in pop-psychology-self-help books. When I was 18, a young man, only 21 years old himself and not very wise most of the time, said something to me that hit a nerve so powerfully that I remember wondering “where did that come from?” and “was that really him talking?”. He said to me, “I want you to learn to take care of yourself”. From the outside that would seem ridiculous, since I was out on my own, away from my family, taking care of myself and he was older than I, he was 21 years old, living at home with a mother who still made his bed (sometimes). But I knew deep down that he had just relayed an important message to me. That was 24 years ago and I still carry it with me! I have taken care of myself very well by worldly standards and spiritually over the years but I’m recently feeling that I’ve become too dependent on the connection (not the person but the connection) that I have with a spiritual assistant/teacher (well, he’s more of a philosopher). He was the first person I ever met who had the same depth and ineffable ‘something’ that flows through me and my life. He has been and still feels like a comrade, a brother, a fellow tribesman. But I sense now that I have set myself in motion, or, something else has set me in motion and now I must journey onwards on my own. I’ve had vivid dreams that tell me that I have ‘family’ watching over me, who have been pretending to ignore me because they want me to “do it on my own”..the same thing that 21 year old boy said to me all those years ago. In dreams, I’ve also gone to visit people who live in a mountain, who have wings on their backs and who give me messages about what I need to do. I think the average person is totally lost, I can’t even begin to imagine how they live and breath without connection to spirit, but they do somehow…and I think, “If even I can be unsure of how to map my route from here on, and feel trepidation about it, even with all of my fierce fire and independence…then how much more afraid must the masses be? No wonder they feed off of each other. They’re terrified to go it alone. They live a life without connectedness. Their vampirism is the only form of connection they know. Twisted and sad as it is, it’s all they know. I’m thinking that we all have a responsibility to sustain ourselves, spiritually and energetically. We don’t go from baby food to steak in one step, and it’s the same with self-generated power, true command of ourselves and our journey.
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I once came into my power after ingesting an entheogen and shedding my “skin”.
it was far too much power to be able to communicate and live amongst normally with unclea(r/n) human beings.
i could not fathom such power existed within me.
we were born to be slaves to power, in a sense.
there really is no other option.
the funny thing about power is that it can not be held or hoarded. it must be radiated. and it seems the more power you radiate, the more is there within, to draw upon.
*all above comments are subject to the poster’s limited perspective and nervous system.
subject to change.
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As an outsider (but someone who understands what you’re talking about), this strikes me very strongly in one way.
It is that Power (& it needs a capital ‘P’) seems to be a thing everyone unconsciously recognises. Some observe it, some react to it, while others are drawn to it openly & shamelessly! This can be very uncomfortable if you are male, and are on the receiving end of a woman like this! – and surely, vice-versa!)
However, it is something that the conventional world doesn’t really or clearly acknowledge, not in the West anyway! In general, we don’t perceive it in our culture, consciously-speaking, although we can perceive charisma. We Respond and Notice Power (because it is something Real!), but it is often very unconscious (as your article implies)…
It is an odd thing. In the West, according to dictionaries, asking people, etc., it is seen as the ‘ability to get things done’ (like a politician), ‘having forceful energy’ (like an athlete, a dictator, etc.) but none of those things are what we really mean here.
It is something in-itself. Power IS (or it isn’t); or in most of us, it is there a little bit!
It can’t be defined in words. We can just say (e.g. to our friend) – that Person has Power, do you know what I mean?’, to them.
It is both an obvious and a very Subtle Energy, Presence, and IS-ness about the person.
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Thank you for this post in particular, and your other posts. I’ve only just recently found this page so am having a fascinating time reading! Thank you!
In particular this post answered a question I had for myself, ie why I don’t really seem to have many repeat clients. I wondered if it was something I wasn’t doing well enough – I am glad to know it’s because they’ve gotten their full power back or have learnt to claim their power back if they lose it in everyday living. Thanks again for the confirmation! X
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Glad you found it helpful, Eric.
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great post, ishtar! you are a very insightful person. 🙂 i have been reading your blog a lot lately, and this is one of the posts that really jumped out at me & made me rethink some relationships with others. thanks.
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Hello Alistair,
Yes, I’ve felt your energy around and been delighted to see you ‘soaking it up’!
Why don’t you have a look at my Shamanic Services and see if you think I can help you with shamanic healing. I can help very specifically with power loss through vampirism, but there’s other things I do too.
Then get in touch with me via the email address in the Contact page.
Speak to you soon,
Ishtar
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Ishtar,
have been reading your blog over the past week and soaking up much of the information here like a dry sponge. So much of it resonates with me and support theories / rumors I have heard before but which have never been explained thoroughly (your piece about Lucifer being a Woman, for example). Thank you!
I am intrigued – so how does one start along the road to shamanism? Where to start? I have a lot of Vampires around me (direct family and in-laws). I have this urge to learn more. Thanks for any reply you may have.
Alistair
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Thank you tweeting this post. When I saw the title, I knew I had to read it.
I once met a Master vampire who was a close friend of a mistake I was dating. He had the power to empty me like a bucket. Whenever he was in the room, he held the floor & spoke of mundane, often boring, things. No shift of topic or exchange of ideas was allowed. And it was as if the more lethargic I became, the more energy he had. He was always on the move, never sitting.
This man had a close bond with my sex-regret, & eventually I stopped going over there. Bad mojo.
In retrospect, I see the intensity of the two men’s relationship.
Now it seems like a sort of spiritual S&M partnership. Complete with whose “top”, whose “bottom, & a safety word.
So I wasn’t crazy. About that, anyway.
Thanks again!
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Thank you. Your Legacy of Witchcraft site is excellent too! http://legacyofwitchcraft.weebly.com/
I loved what you said about Crowley.
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Absolutely wonderful post. This is exactly the reminder needed today. I enjoy your blog very much!
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