Vampires, Blood, and Morality
Vampires have been popular for a long time now, with each generation changing them slightly (or not-so-slightly) to suit their own needs/desires. While I rarely touch on the vampire phenomenon, or the thriving vampire subculture, there is some overlap between it and modern Paganism /occultism. The most obvious intersections being with popular metaphysical authors like Michelle Belanger and Konstantinos.
Recently, NPR journalist Margot Adler, long celebrated within the Pagan community for her seminal 1979 book “Drawing Down the Moon”, spent several months devouring 75 vampire-themed novels and noticed that what was collectively striking about them wasn’t their celebration of immortality, but their explorations of morality.
“But what I started noticing as I read all these novels and looked at all the recent television shows featuring vampires is that their near-immortality isn’t the most interesting thing about them. Almost all of these current vampires are struggling to be moral. It’s conventional to talk about vampires as sexual, with their hypnotic powers and their intimate penetrations and their blood-drinking and so forth. But most of these modern vampires are not talking as much about sex as they are about power.”
The fascination with vampires and vampirism, and what that popularity says about our culture, isn’t just isolated to minority faiths. An increasing number of Christian authors and scholars are now exploring the vampire, as detailed by a recent Christianity Today article by Elrena Evans.
“University of Richmond English professor Elisabeth Rose Gruner notes that both Christianity and vampirism equate blood with life. Humans instinctually understand that blood is life-giving. But the blood-drinking aspect of vampirism is a “ghastly parody of Christianity,” Gruner told CT. While the Christian believer attains eternal life by accepting the blood freely shed on his or her behalf, the vampire achieves immortality by sucking the life out of another.”
But while the CT article is interesting, and points to some fascinating Christian perspectives on the vampire, it is sadly marred by the unquestioning inclusion of an “ex-vampire” to warn off those curious teens so in love with sparkly blood-drinkers.
“The fantasy-reality line doesn’t always hold, however, says William Schnoebelen, founder of the Iowa-based apologetics ministry With One Accord. Before coming to Christ, the former Freemason and Wiccan says that he was also a member of a vampire sect: a “full-blown ‘church’ with sacraments and a kind of Mass, a dark reflection of the Catholic liturgy.” Drinking blood was a perverse facsimile of the Lord’s Supper.”
Who is William Schnoebelen? He’s yet another of those Christians who make a living being an “ex”, as in an ex-Wiccan (which automatically makes him an ex-Satanist, and yes he’s yet another admitted but un-convicted baby-sacrificer), an ex-Mason, an ex-Mormon, an ex-Catholic priest, and now, an ex-vampire. He was also, of course, a member of the Illuminati. Duh. Never mind that his claims are misleading at best and clearly fraudulent at worst, never mind that he’s published by the nutty anti-Catholic hate-group Chick Publications, he’s apparently a good source of information for the folks at Christianity Today. I realize that CT, like The Wild Hunt, is a niche publication with an editorial bias towards its own, but I would never try to pass off such a liar and con-man within the Pagan community as a reputable source of information.
Which brings us back to vampires and the morality of power-over. In the vampire subculture there are rules, ethics, and an established equilibrium concerning “feeding” (whether psychic or sanguinary). Relationships are negotiated, and power-over, when given, is only after consent and understanding has been established between parties. There are, naturally, bad actors, but in many ways it is far more moral than the “vampires” who prey on various minority faiths and subcultures, tapping into their vitality in order to generate money and fame (or win souls). The rise of the “moral” vampire, reflects our own negotiations with privilege and power, of being “on top of the food chain”. We continue to be fascinated because we are struggling with curbing our own rapacious desire to dominate and destroy all that has been set before us. To ultimately redeem ourselves (on a societal level) through love, through a connection to something outside our ego-needs.
As famous vampire novelist Anne Rice says in the closing of the Christianity Today article: “They are hunger, injustice, genocide, war. Vampire stories are a relatively safe way to explore human nature.” If we can overcome, or at least negotiate, with our vampiric natures, perhaps we can also find a way towards finding a balance in the world around us.
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