Posts Tagged ‘Vampires’
Medical History and the ‘Monster’
Monday, 01 April 2013 14:00
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Medical history so often includes intersections and byways that seem to take us into folklore, fiction, and the Gothic imagination itself.

While researching “monstrous” births from the early 1800s, I came across the following reprint of Kirby’s wonderful and scientific museum: or, Magazine of remarkable characters. The story recounts a child “covered with long hair” and “grovel[ing] upon the ground” is fastened to a post like a dog. Described as “wild and ferocious,” the story resembles those of the dog children—but the narrative has been embellished with the tone and phrasing now made famous by the Gothic narratives from Udolpho onwards. (Read more…) The “gentleman” who reports the scene says “he never say so wild and wretched a spot as the situation of the poor hut where they reside” and that “A most horrible mystery seems to hang over the whole.”[i] The landscape, a repeated trope of wretched wildness, is imbued with mysterious overtones that have, mainly, to do with paternity. Though not an orphan, this “creature [with] very little human in his appearance” is “owned” by the mother but essentially fatherless. The mother herself, a laboring single woman, “refuses to give any account” of the father and insists that “no one has a right to question her.” [ii] As with the maternal-mystery narratives described from medieval writers like Abrose Pare, these are often considered “monsters of God,” abominations, and the mystery is reserved for suspicious lineage, not for the inhumane treatment of the child. But in these later accounts, we also see the addition of romantic and gothic underpinnings–and surely a hint of the werewolf mythos.

Other narratives of children locked away or kept at home in potentially inhumane circumstances include one of a young girl suffering a type of palsy. She is not chained and, in fact, he parents seem to take what care they can of her, but her treatment is violent in the extreme. The child, whose jaw had locked, reportedly ate next to nothing for above ten years. When she did, it was through brute force, her parents prying open the jaw with sticks and forcing down liquid that she choked upon and vomited up. The famished invalid spent her time creeping about by the wall of her parents’ home, not unlike the character of Yellow Wallpaper. Of most interest in this case, however, is the narrated description of the girl’s body. Starving and dehydrated she must be, yet “her cheeks [are] full, red, and blooming. […]she slept a great deal and soundly, perspired sometimes, and now and then emitted pretty large quantities of blood at her mouth.”[iii] The account dates from 1775, but recollects the notes of vampire commissioners during the scare of 1730—and presages the more lurid narratives of Polidori’s Vampyre or Bram Stoker’s Dracula: “Her countenance is clear and pretty fresh; her features not disfigured nor sunk; […] and, to my astonishment, when I came to examine her body, for I expected to feel a skeleton, I found her breasts round and prominent, like those of a healthy young woman; her legs, arms, and thighs, not at all emaciated.”[iv] This description, which sexualized the paralytic invalid, focuses once again on the organs of reproduction—not the clitoris and vagina of the deformed infant, but on the more titillating full breasts and thighs of the adult woman. In the tradition of Mathew Lewis—but also of female writers like Charlotte Dacre—the scene of monstrosity is also a scene of sexuality and potential violence and forced “openings.”

It is worth remembering that these philosophical treatises, many of which devalued or discounted the supernatural, were neither widespread nor well-accepted even among the educated classes. In fact, only seventeen years earlier, Europe witnessed a vampire scare resulting in the appointment of vampire commissioners, autopsy inquests and the occasional mutilation of corpses–the position and condition of skeletons unearthed in ?eský Krumlov (and dated to 1732) suggest that vampire-killing rituals had been performed. Though by 1755, Gerhard van Swieten, personal physician of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, concluded his own investigation by saying that “vampires only appear were ignorance still reigns,” banishing the hunt for monsters did little to curb their appearance in print.

Just for fun, I looked for further documentation on ?eský Krumlov, and found a fascinating documentary called The Vampire Princess, about links between the outbreak and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. You can reach the full video here, or the Smithsonian Channel’s page.

[i] Kirby, R.S. Kirby’s wonderful and scientific museum: or, Magazine of remarkable characters, Vol 4. (London: 1820), , 242.

[ii] Ibid., 242.

[iii] Ibid., 350

[iv] Ibid., 351

 

 

 
The Energetics of Psychopathy
Tuesday, 19 March 2013 15:30
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Picture: Anna Bal (CC)

Do you remember the scene in The Green Mile when death row inmate John Coffee is touched by murderer “Wild Bill”? After feeling some powerful negative energy, he says, “You a bad man.”

Are you like John Coffee? (Read more…) Would you know it if you brushed up against a cold-blooded killer? You might if you’re what Dr. Judith Orloff calls an “intuitive empath“.

I began to sense energy emanating from people when I was around 20 or 21 years old.  An interesting thing happens when a person turns 21: The prefrontal cortex of the brain matures. I think that I had always sensed energy around me unconsciously, but at this time I became conscious of it and began to investigate these experiences analytically. When I learned about Chi or Qi energy  in practices like reiki and qi gong, it was not simply an idea I accepted intellectually or on faith: It simply put a name to what I had already experienced.

People have energy emanating from them and this energy circulates around. Most people are somewhat suspicious of strangers, and in a strange environment their auras contract. When they become more comfortable and familiar with the people around them they open up.In addition to contracting ones aura as a self protection mechanism, others adopt a different strategy when in a strange place: They project hostile energy.

Some people may start out hostile at first but then warm up.  It’s natural to be somewhat suspicious of strangers. Historically people lived in tribes, and the men of the tribes would be protectors and outsiders would be the enemy. This has kind of broken down a bit now that people are organized more and more into mass societies, but often in isolated areas or among other other insular groups, this is the stance people adopt to outsiders. With people like this, some relatively simple cue might cause them to open up, like for example if they learn you are a friend of a friend or a know one of their relatives. Often I can feel people’s energy change in these situations.

A conversation is an exchange of energy. It circulates between the people. Ideally its an equal exchange. There is a basic reciprocity.

This exchange of energy between two normal people having a friendly conversation is for the most part unconscious. This exchange of energy is a mysterious thing. For example, imagine heading to go home for work,after a stressful day. You feel tired and worn out. Now, imagine that at the last minute your boss tells you “Hey, good job today! We really appreciate all the hard work you are putting in here.”

Suddenly you feel energized. Your feet are no longer dragging. You have a spring in your step. Somehow you have been recharged. It’s almost like you ate a candy bar or something. You have received a boost. Where did this energy come from? Medically, it would be easier to trace energy received from a candy bar than a compliment, but it is energy all the same. It was given to you by your boss, but not in such a way that his or her energy was depleted. The compliment probably led to positive energy on their part also. It was an even exchange. Its a very subtle thing but it is very real.

Psychopaths are a tribe of one. They are not open and friendly, but rather see themselves as being utterly alone in an extremely hostile universe. Their energetic stance is one of hostility, but they have a strategy of appearing friendly. They often mimic friendly behavior, but it’s a ruse, and no free exchange of energy is really possible with such people because they lack a basic trust toward the whole of humanity. They trick people into opening up their auras with charm, humor and conversational skills.We are conditioned to be friendly to friendly people, so the ruse tends to work. Were everyone a psychopath it wouldn’t work; there would be no society. It would be every man for himself.

The unease that most people feel when talking with a psychopath is mostly unconscious, but one thing some people often pick up is that their smile does not match their eyes. The eye is the window to the soul.

Most people don’t continuously make strong eye contact because it can be deemed threatening. In the course of a conversation they look away and check back once in a while to connect. I recall once having a conversation with a person I later determined to be a psychopath:  It was a friendly conversation about some topic I enjoy –  travel, or the outdoors or something –  and when I made eye contact I noticed that his eyes were hostile. His voice was totally friendly, slightly musical, even; he told jokes and little quirky anecdotes. It was jolting to see these cold eyes. They were eyes you would expect to see if we were squaring off to fight.

To him it was a fight.: He was measuring me up, because he had no trust toward me at all. Ours was a hostile exchange based on power, and was probably  like every other exchange he has  had with every other human being on the face of the Earth.

Our exchange felt like vampirism: I was drained of my energy. While there has been much written about “psychic vampirism”, I find most of it to be fairly inadequate because the authors usually fail to point out that people are exchanging energy all the time. It’s a subtle thing this energy, and it doesn’t exactly belong to you. We aren’t really even completely discreet entities: It is as if  there is energy all around us and we are simply patterns within this energy.

You give energy to people and they usually give energy back. There is a yin and yang to it –  something like resonance. You pass energy back and forth and come to resonate with each other more and more. That is what romantic intimacy is, and it can culminate in sexual intercourse. Most relationships don’t rise to that level of intimacy, of course, but we all participate in some form of intercourse in the general meaning of an “exchange” between two people.

Normal people experience this intercourse – this exchange – during daily interactions. There’s a reciprocity here. However, a psychopath always want to get the better of the other person in these exchanges: It is never a two-way thing. Everything about them is a lie.

Psychopaths lie to everybody because they are predators.When you interact with them you come to really feel like prey, or a deer caught in the headlights of an incoming car. Their gaze can feel physically hot; You can feel them probing you for weaknesses, to see if you can be put to some self-serving use or if you are a threat to be neutralized. Once again, everyone to them is the enemy. They have no friends.

I believe they have a different type of consciousness than other people, and they’re are actually feeding on other people’s consciousness. Consciousness is attention and attention is energy. They gravitate to positions of power because they is where people direct their attention. People “look to” leaders, and in an ideal sense of this social contract between the leader and the led it becomes mutually beneficial.

Unfortunately, psychopaths don’t go in for that.

It’s hard to understand their motivations: Do they become corrupt? Why can’t they be more honest?  Those questions are meaningless. If psychopathic leaders were honest and used their position of power to help others they wouldn’t be psychopaths. This is not just a weird personality quirk, it is central to who they are. I am saying this as a tautology: They “have to” be dishonest and lie and take advantage of others, just like the sun has to shine. The sun isn’t motivated to shine. The sun has no choice.

Researchers will continue to come up with materialist rationalizations for psychopathy.  there are plenty of theories about genetics and environment, and brain scans offer some clues into the biology of psychopaths, but I look at it simply like this: Everyone is a Star and the Star Psychopaths are black holes. It’s more or less just the way things are. In this world there are bunny rabbits as well as rattle snakes.

There are ramifications when a person does not give a wink about anyone else in the world but themselves.When psychopaths get into positions of power they wreak a lot of mayhem, but even if it was possible to round up all the psychopaths in the world and put them in padded cells, I suspect that  the world would be poorer for it. I wouldn’t want to live in a world with no dangers. Like rattle snakes, lions and tigers, psychopaths have some mysterious role to play. Also, I think its perfectly fine in terms if the balance of the universe that many of them end up in jail.

So how do I deal with psychopaths? First, as Jon Ronson, author of The Psychopath Test, pointed out, it does no good to see psychopaths all over the place, on every corner and under every rock. However,if you find your self in a situation of being fed upon and drained of energy – continually gazed at like a pork sirloin – then you obviously need some type of self-defense. Politely ignore them. don’t give them your attention. Don’t engage them any more than you absolutely have to do. Don’t sit near them if you have any choice at all, don’t strike up conversations with them. Stop being so goddamned friendly to them like you probably are with everyone else!  Friendliness and the normal positive regard for others’ well-being is the currency you use in your normal intercourse with the rest of humanity, but it’s lost on them: Withdraw it. It will all just be drained away and then you will have less for those who can appreciate it.

Note from the editor: If you’re interested in hearing more about Jon Ronson and his exploration of psychopathy, then you might want to check out his appearance on the DisinfoCast. Click here.

 

 
Doctors In Turkey Clinically Diagnose Man As Real-Life Vampire
Monday, 11 February 2013 13:00
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Live Science reports on a horrifying case of multiple personality disorder:

Doctors in Turkey have described what they claim to be a real-life vampire with multiple personalities and an addiction to drinking blood. The case study was published last fall.

The 23-year-old apparently started out slicing his own arms, chest and belly with razor blades, letting the blood drip into a cup so he could drink it. (Read more…) But when he experienced compulsions to drink blood “as urgent as breathing,” he started turning to other sources, the doctors said. The man was arrested several times after stabbing and biting others to collect and drink their blood. He apparently even got his father to get him bags from blood banks.

“Possibly due to ‘switching’ to another personality state, he was losing track during the ‘bloody’ events, did not care who the victim was anymore, and remained amnesic to this part of his act,” the report said. The man was ultimately diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic depression and alcohol abuse. To their knowledge, the man is the first patient with “vampirism” and DID.