Psychic vampire

Key takeaways

Psychic vampire belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Psychic vampire to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Psychic vampire from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A psychic vampire is a creature in folklore said to feed off the "life force" of other living creatures. The term can also be used to describe a person who gets increased energy around other people, but leaves those other people exhausted or "drained" of energy. Psychic vampires are represented in the occult beliefs of various cultures and in fiction.

Psychic energy Terms used to describe the substance or essence that psychic vampires take or receive from others include: energy, qi (or ch'i), life force, prana, and vitality. There is no scientific or medical evidence supporting the existence of the bodily or psychic energy they allegedly drain.

Emotional vampires American author Albert Bernstein uses the phrase "emotional vampire" for people with various personality disorders who are often considered to drain emotional energy from others.

Energy vampires

The term "energy vampire" is also used metaphorically to refer to people whose influence leaves a person feeling exhausted, unfocused, and depressed, without ascribing the phenomenon to psychic interference. Dion Fortune wrote of psychic parasitism in relation to vampirism as early as 1930 in her book, Psychic Self-Defense. Fortune considered psychic vampirism a combination of psychic and psychological pathology, and distinguished between what she considered to be true psychic vampirism and mental conditions that produce similar symptoms. For the latter, she named folie à deux and similar phenomena. The term "psychic vampire" was popularized in the 1960s by Anton LaVey and his Church of Satan. LaVey wrote on the topic in his book, The Satanic Bible, and claimed to have coined the term. LaVey used psychic vampire to mean a spiritually or emotionally weak person who drains vital energy from other people. Adam Parfrey likewise attributed the term to LaVey in an introduction to The Devil's Notebook. The English singer-songwriter Peter Hammill credits his erstwhile Van der Graaf Generator colleague, violinist Graham Smith, with coining the term "energy vampires" in the 1970s in order to describe intrusive, over-zealous fans. Hammill included a song of the same name on his 1978 album The Future Now. In the 1982 horror movie One Dark Night, Karl “Raymar” Raymarseivich is the name of a Russian psychic vampire who gains power from the lifeforce of young victims by frightening them to death. This is done by demonstrations of telekinesis which emanates as visible electrical currents of bioenergy. How he dies is unclear, but his malevolence posthumously remains in his body. Effectively, Raymar is a poltergeist in the mausoleum he is interred in, opening crypts (including his own), sliding out the caskets to the floor and randomly exhuming his fellow corpses to terrify unfortunate teenagers who have chosen the wrong place to have an overnight initiation. The terms "energy vampire" and "psychic vampire" have been used as synonyms in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union as part of an occult revival. The 2019 American comedy horror television series What We Do in the Shadows includes the character Colin Robinson, a metaphorical and literal "energy vampire" who drains people's life forces by being boring or frustrating.

Vampire subculture Sociologists such as Mark Benecke and A. Asbjørn Jøn have identified a subculture of people who present themselves as vampires. Jon has noted that enthusiasts of the vampire subculture emulate traditional psychic vampires in that they describe 'prey[ing] upon life-force or 'pranic' energy'. Prominent figures in the subculture include Michelle Belanger, a self-described psychic vampire, who wrote a book titled The Psychic Vampire Codex: A Manual of Magick and Energy Work, published in 2004 by Weiser Books. Belanger details a vampiric approach to energy work which she believes psychic vampires can use to heal others, representing an attempt to disassociate the psychic vampire subculture from negative connotations of vampirism.

Sexual vampires A related mythological creature is a sexual vampire, which is supposed to feed off sexual energy. Sexual vampires include succubi or incubi.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Psychic vampire

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Psychic vampire claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Psychic vampire before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Psychic vampire ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Psychic vampire

In research: Psychic vampire appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Psychic vampire in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Psychic vampire is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Church of Satan, Interpersonal relationships, Psychics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Psychic vampire outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Psychic vampire in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Psychic vampire means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Psychic vampire out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Psychic vampire in simple terms?

A psychic vampire is a creature in folklore said to feed off the "life force" of other living creatures. The term can also be used to describe a person who gets increased energy around other people, but leaves those other people exhausted or "drained" of energy.

Why does Psychic vampire matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Psychic vampire?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Psychic vampire.