A magazine where I was interviewed in as well as Merticus Stevens and Damien Ferguson...
https://www.quo.es/ser-humano/a25316661/los-vampiros-existen/
BY MADO MARTÍNEZ
In the 80s they began to communicate fluently through letters, subscription lists, magazines. And the arrival of the Internet in the 90s caused the community to grow exponentially.
'Donors' nearby
"While most people are energetically nourished by eating and doing sports, we need to feed on vital energies, such as prana, chi, or through small amounts of blood from people known as 'donors'." Merticus explains that there are real vampires of various types: those who need to feed on blood, for which they reach oral and contractual agreements (all well written and stipulated), with people willing to become their donors. This type of vampire is very concerned about consuming blood in poor condition, and follows strict control procedures: they require medical examinations from their donors before blood is drawn, and they usually resort to syringes to obtain the appreciated fluid,
The frequency with which they consume blood varies and depends, among other things, on the availability of donors, of course, so some choose to freeze the blood, and others choose the one of animal origin or substitute foods. Then there are the psychic vampires, who do not feed on blood, but on what they consider the vital energy of others, also donors. The transmission is painless, although some of the latter claim that they feel slightly tired or dizzy after the ritual, which can be done by different methods. In third place are the hybrid vampires, those who need both blood and vital energy. All of them act with the prior consent of the donor.
Black swans
Merticus is hybrid. Your favorite method? The energetic and sexual exchange. In the jargon of the vampiric world, donors are known as 'black swans'. "Some vampires establish a romantic relationship with theirs. Others, only sexual. And there are those who besides feeding on their partner or spouse, have other blood donors, or tantrics. " Like life itself. We interviewed more vampires. We play many doors. In one of them, JP Vanir (now Dark Druid Goth) attends us, as he calls himself, a 42-year-old American who, like Merticus, began to identify as a real vampire after reading a book. It is hybrid. "I'm a pretty nocturnal being. Most of the time I'm tired, and that's why I get up at ten in the morning. I start to feel better when I'm surrounded by a lot of people and my donors. " When we ask him what he feels when he feeds on another person, he tells us: "I feel more alive and awake, I am no longer empty; I feel hyperactive." He is fully integrated into the vampiric community, and attends the parties they organize, events that with only two or three days of promotion manage to bring together at least 600 people. all of them elegantly attired for the occasion, with their gothic dresses, their lenses, and their fangs, of course, but made to measure. Nothing of the typical Halloween dentures.
We got in touch with Damien Ferguson, 34 years old. He lives in Washington and is an artist. He loves writing, painting, reading, listening to music, playing video games, learning things ... Oh, and also BDSM, a term that encompasses a series of sexual practices. Namely: bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism and masochism. According to the results of the surveys carried out by the Atlanta Vampire Alliance (AVA), 39% of these modern dráculas feel great interest for the sadomaso. Ferguson was introduced to us by DJ Williams, who is a professor of sociology, social work and criminology at the University of Idaho. He has spent years studying deviant social behaviors and is one of the world's greatest experts on real vampires: "Although there are people who assume that real vampires have delusions or some underlying psychopathology, there is no evidence that support this theory, "he replies.
The blood excites them
Clinical vampirism is a paraphilia, a strange mental disorder in which the individual is sexually aroused by the compulsive need to see, touch or ingest blood, believe or not to be a vampire. There is not much literature on this, although Herschel Prins postulated it as a clinical condition in 1985, and Richard Noll described its characteristics in 1992. Even so, it is not included in the ICD-10 or in any other diagnostic manual. The medical literature usually associates it with necrophilia and sexual fetishism.
We have one more meeting. The last, with Rafael Pintos, 53, better known as Wladimir Dragossán. He is a Galician artist and writer, from Pontevedra, specifically. His panama-style colonial hat (like the one that Retth Butler wore in Gone with the Wind), his walking stick and elegant clothes are, along with his charming manners, his letter of introduction. He looks after us with great kindness. "One day my father left me at a chicken farm with a friend of his. I fed fifteen, like playing, like a fox, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I must have been about five or six years old." This Pontevedra dandy considers that the vampire is born, it is not done, and that there are a series of biological factors that determine his condition: "They like the nightlife, the solemn music, the Gothic character. They have a very intense, liberated and active sexual life. They are great manipulators and seducers, "says Wladimir, who in turn is considered one of the oldest founders of real vampirism. "Someday I will be the world leader."
Wladimir had great success in the Galician autonomous television, but he was not the first television vampire. In the US, Don Henrie entered Mad Mad House, SyFy's reality show, and left thousands of viewers breathless as he drank the blood of his girlfriend live. Don Henrie has fibromyalgia, a disease with which, by chance, a significant number of real vampires are diagnosed, according to AVA surveys. Sleep in a coffin to isolate yourself sensory and relieve the pain and extreme sensitivity associated with your condition. And finally, try to stay away from the sun, but not because it will burn and explode like a cicada, but because it is photoallergic. In Bulgaria they have found more than a hundred burials with symbols that reflect the fear of vampires. Contrary to what happens with clinical vampirism, among the community of real vampires what abounds, according to statistics, are women. Michelle Belanger is one of the most respected ladies in the world. He is 45 years old and lives in Ravenna (Ohio, USA) and is the author of several books on vampirism, occult sciences or supernatural themes. He has never hidden his identity, nor his spiritual way of understanding BDSM and polyamory. He defends safe practices, responsibility and communication in the alternative subcultures of which he is a part, and conducts energy training workshops for psychic vampires.
The myth of the vampire
Anthropology knows the myth well, because it is older than Bram Stoker's Dracula, inspired by a certain Vlad Tepes, a 15th-century Romanian prince famous for banishing the Ottomans of Europe, and who liked to impale his enemies, and that he neither drank blood (as we know), nor ran out before a string of garlic, nor was he immortal, nor did he burn himself in broad daylight, let alone become a bat. Those are stories that are rooted in the myths and legends of Eastern Europe, where we know that little by little we find a vampire of the Middle Ages buried with his feet and hands tied, and some stone in his mouth. In some cases, they were people who had been terribly evil in life, and who were buried by the peasants following this ritual. In Serbia, Romania or Bulgaria, there are still towns and villages where these beliefs are deeply rooted. In many other cases, the burial with this macabre ritual has given really overwhelming scenarios. One of them has just been news: they have just found a vampire child (actually, it is not known if it was a boy or a girl) in a children's cemetery in Lugnano (Umbria, Italy). It has nothing more and nothing less than 1,500 years old and David Pickel, archaeologist at the University of Arizona who directs the excavation, was quite surprised when he saw it. The necropolis in which it has been discovered dates from the 5th century and is located in an abandoned Roman villa of the 1st century. They buried it by putting a stone between its teeth. Why did they do it?
52 children buried
"The cemetery of the Roman villa of Poggio Gramignano is important, in the first place, because of its connection with the malaria epidemic that ravaged central Italy at that time. Malaria is one of the most significant diseases in the history of mankind; to this day it still kills a million people each year, most of them children. It is even believed that this disease could have contributed to the fall of Rome. The remains of these children, 52 to date, not only give us direct and indirect evidence that they are infected with malaria, but also allow us to glimpse the response of the community to this terrible disease. " As we can see, the cemetery in which his mortal remains rest, in and of itself, is special. But there is more. Apparently, archaeologists are finding abundant objects related to ritual magic: "We have found abundant evidence of witchcraft and strange rituals that, in short, make this cemetery in Poggio Gramignano a unique place.
Our most recent finding, a ten-year-old boy with a stone cemented inside his mouth, further enhances the uniqueness of this cemetery and how complex the relationship of the community with the deceased was." The experts who have participated in the excavations still do not know very well what they are facing, nor if they placed the stone between their teeth as part of a funeral ritual destined to prevent the evil that possessed it (malaria) from escaping from their corpse through the mouth and end up getting into the body of another person. Among the elements with which these children appear are raven claws, toad bones, bronze cauldrons with ashes, skeletons of puppies sacrificed, etc. Another playmate of this unusual children's cemetery, a three-year-old girl, was discovered in previous archaeological campaigns with stones on her hands and feet. Were they afraid that he would rise from his grave? Supposedly linked to vampirism, these beliefs are separated by light years from real vampires who like Vladimir or Merticus exhibit their passion for blood as a biological condition that, fortunately, does not hurt anyone.