How did a nice girl like me get involved with real vampires? Just how does a mild-mannered historian find herself researching vampires? And what is a vampire, anyway?
The most interesting bits of history are about people. Who are we? Where did we come from? What have we done? All of these are questions that help us better understand an even greater question—where are we going? When we question the past, we are in a sense bringing it into the present. Through discussion and reflection, we bring the people of history to life.
This is how—in the course of academic research and study—I have become a cultural anthropologist as well as a historian. The biggest difference is that in history I don’t have the actual people in front of me doing what they did and being what they were. In today’s world we have such a variety of societies and cultures that even the most avid cultural anthropologist can only touch on a few in a lifetime. But the field is rich and beckoning for anyone who dares.
All of this is great academic grounding. I never set out to be a removed observer of the vampire community. My journey began with an epiphany—the idea that there was something much more to being a real vampire than popular beliefs would have us think. For my own education, I needed to get right into the heart of things, to gain the insight of someone in the community. As a result, I’ve earned trust. I have made good friends and have come to know many fascinating people. I’ve had experiences that someone on the outside might never know. Most importantly, I have made my own contributions to the community and to the cause of social tolerance.
I am not betraying that trust in this work. Instead, I seek to share my experience in the vampire community. I seek to share because I have found something beautiful and wonderful in the people who call themselves vampires and in their thoughts. The average person might hear “vampire” and dismiss the whole community as a gaggle of kooks. Here my task is to present “vampire” as a term in transition, to encourage the reader to look beyond the word and see that words are really what we define them to be.
Great, you may be thinking. But why vampires?
The day I understood that use determines meaning liberated me. In all honesty, I had never thought of vampires as anything beyond the seductive characters from a Saturday night double feature. Then I met my first real vampires and listened to everything they shared with me. I was kind of embarrassed that I hadn’t expanded on the idea in my mind previously. But when I got it, when I understood how vampires could be real and how there was a thriving community, I felt as if the universe had opened up to me.
In the world of the vampire, there is no beginning and no end. Reality is a fluid state that each of us determines with our own minds. There’s something good going on here that’s difficult to define. We have a subculture that encourages individuals to be in touch with themselves, to be themselves instead of a cookie cutter of everyone else. We have a subculture that elevates the importance of reaching beyond ourselves out into the greater mysteries of the universe. We have a subculture where bonds between individuals are strong. As odd as it might seem at first, the vampire community is doing a lot right.
Am I blind to the uglier side of the vampire community? I’ve had a few encounters that have been less than pleasant. However, these have been the exception to the rule. As in any group, the vampire community has its troublemakers and its malcontents, and sometimes they have a valid point to make. There are vampires who seek to hold power over other vampires, but I suspect that most realize that the only real power comes from within. The real conflict is the vampire community coming up against the rest of society, a society that is not very tolerant and not willing to listen to any explanations. In order to survive, the vampire community needs more unity than discord.
My goal is to share something I have found to be fascinating and beneficial. No one needs to become a vampire. If you read through and pick up little treasures to use in your own life, they are yours to use as you see fit. But if you ever run into a real vampire, you might want to thank them. Whoever they are, they are a part of the living energy.
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