Warning to the unwise:

Little children, you who hide behind contacts and copious amounts of bleak, black makeup just to desperately grasp at a power you will never understand, let alone possess.

Frivolous sucklings, just what do you think you know of the Darkness?

I would advise you to beware attracting her attention, but the whole lot of you are far too feeble-minded to heed caution.

Besides, pathetic insignificant creatures such as you could never hope to be worthy of her embrace. You think of yourselves as predators, and yet in the past, you have been my prey.

Such a shame, I would love to dance on the broken shells of your ruinous lives as your worlds come crashing down around you and your minds break from the pitiful screams of your loved ones as they suffer for your hubris.

Your pain may taste like failure, but at least it's filling.

Vampire Ferox:

I don't tend to identify with the label of Vampire, but not due to some need to rebel against the popularity of Vampires in our culture today, I am not attempting to be trendy by being a anti-Vampire nonconformist. Nor is my hesitation due to any dislike of the Vampire communities as a whole.

I feel more comfortable with the title of Siphon than Vampire, because I experience things during my feedings which I do not believe confines to the Occult definition of Vampire.

When I was much, much younger, I used to jokingly refer to myself as part Vampire, part Witch and part Werewolf. I knew that I had "draining" tendencies, although I never saw this as energy feeding, nor did I relate it to Vampirism. I honestly don't know why I associated with the term back then, but as I matured, I left it behind.

It wasn't until some years later when I met with a Psi/Sang Vampire on an Occult forum and after speaking with her, and reading the research she provided, that I became aware of what I had been experiencing. Although, I never claimed the title outside of the forum, because it always felt like I was being pulled into too many directions. Between my shifting, my craft and now energy feeding, I felt like a spiritual hypochondriac. This was only increased by my childhood fantasies, because I couldn't tell if my previous beliefs had any influence on my current experiences. It took me several years before I was comfortable and confident enough in myself to be able to embrace all of my different sides.

Still, I never required so much energy in the past that I considered myself as being on the same level as other Psi Vampires, plus....the term Psi just comes off as weird to me for some reason and I felt uncomfortable claiming it.

Plus, a few years back, I became aware of the fact that I don't just feed on energy, I also inject my own into others. Because I didn't understand this, I avoided talking about it. I had to be sure it wasn't just my imagination.

I also came to understand how harmful energy feeding had been to me before I became aware of shielding or filtering. Due to my shifting nature, I would often take on the personality traits, and emotions, of those I fed from. A type of empathic shifting which I refer to as Chameleon Shifting.

Whenever I was in public and consumed the energy of too many different people at one time, I would completely lose myself. My mind would shift from the fragmented thought patterns of one person to another, their personalities and emotions tearing me apart until my entire mind would shut down in self preservation. According to my Husband, my eyes would become dilated, and I would break out into a cold sweat. I would completely forget where I was, who I was, and if I was alone, would often wander around stores I had patronized hundreds of times in the past, completely lost and confused as to where I was. My thoughts were like a glass of water that had been spilled, and gathering them was like desperately trying to scoop up that water with a butterfly net.

Since learning how to shield, and filter the energy I fed from when grazing, I have been able to keep this from occurring, except for in times when I am hurt in some way and am unable to concentrate. When I am hurt, I require more energy than usual and my self-control is compromised.

It was this that originally lead me to the idea that I infected others with my cast-off energy in order to manipulate theirs. I'm not sure if mine morphs theirs, or just germinates within them and grows on it's own, using theirs as fertilizer, but when this occurs, I am in essence feeding on my own, recycled energy that I've cultivated inside of another.

When this happens, I don't shift, not even in the slightest. I believe this is also why I don't shift whenever I feed from my Mate, as he's so much a part of me, and carries so much of me inside of him, that I am still feeding off myself through my feedings on him.

This is one of the reasons I do not claim the label of Vampire, because I am a Shifter first, above anything else, and it's strong enough that it has influenced my feeding, instead of allowing my feedings to influence me.

I have suspected this for a long time, but it wasn't until recently that I was sure enough to openly speak about it. Like before, I had to make sure that this was not just something I'd dreamed up out of the depths of my very extensive, and often overactive imagination.

The details of the experimentation I used in order to gain confidence in this belief are a bit unpleasant so I'll take the cop-out and spare everyone the gory details.

I want to make it clear that I am not claiming to be some type of Uber-Vampire. I'm not a special, unique energy feeding snowflake. I do not consider myself to be superior to Vampires, if anything the opposite is true, as my feedings are hindered by my Shifting, so I have to jump through hoops just to keep my energy levels balanced.

I am a parasite, but I don't feel comfortable calling myself an energy vampire, because what I do is more akin to energy self-cannibalization.

I believe that there are probably others out there who experience what I do. Although honestly, I am still learning about myself and my feeding as well as my shifting, so I can't even say what I am, let along claim the label of an already defined Sub-culture.

Twilight Sparkle:

Vampires do not sparkle.

It is a proven scientific fact that something happens to a Vampire’s skin during their transition which causes their epidermis to take on a shimmery, glittering quality anytime seminal fluids make contact with it. This effect can be intensified by illuminating the subject’s unwashed flesh under UV lighting.

If you happen to noticed a Vampire who appears to be sparkling, rest assured that you are not witnessing some freak accident of nature. Vampires are not the mutated, bloodsucking spawns of Emma Frost.

What you are actually seeing is nothing more than the natural chemical reaction that occurs anytime the ejaculatory residue on undead flesh is exposed to direct sunlight.

Pain:

Pain is something most people run from, they fear it and do whatever they can to avoid it. I embrace mine. It's not that I'm a masochist. I don't enjoy suffering or get off on it.

I just need it. It's purifying to me, cleansing. Even when I was younger my physical self-destruction always had an element of ritual to it, and as I grew older and made the choice to walk the path I am on, I realized that it was a necessity.

This is how I pray. This is my offering. I was made for pain and I relish in my ability to withstand the worse that life has thrown at me.

When I was younger, people constantly tried to hurt me on a regular basis and yet they never could, not really. I learned how to detach myself, to scorn their pitiful attempts to subdue me.

There's not a single person in this world who has the power to hurt me more than I can hurt myself, and it is in the security of that knowledge that I am able to see them for the pathetic, inferior creatures that they truly are.

Lord of Illusions:

One of the most basic tenants of my spell crafting is illusion. In fact, the reason why I refuse to use a “k” whenever spelling the term magic, besides the fact that it's pretentious and stupid, is because regardless of whether it is staged, or crafted, magic is all about manipulating your target audience into believing that you are capable of great feats. It’s a trick, a con in order to make your target fear you based on nothing more than the day-to-day mishaps that would otherwise be ignored, but when fueled by paranoia, are instead credited to the Crafter. 

In this philosophy, Anton LaVey and I are in accord. Magic is a show, it’s as much of a charade as it is a legitimate manipulation of energy in order to inflict your will on a target.

That is not to say that I have not cast baneful spells against others in the past, or that I wasn’t successful in these endeavors, as I have, and I was, only that if I can make a target believe that I’m responsible for their misfortunes, then eventually they’ll grow fearful enough that I won’t even need to lift a finger against them, as they’ll psych themselves out and cause their own calamity for me.

Magic is at it’s root a manipulation, of either the energy you summon or the mind of your targets. Put on a convincing enough show, and in their eyes, you are capable of anything.

It is in this, the control of others through nothing more than a effectively convincing facade, that we become Gods.

The Penis Mightier:

They say that when somebody insults you that it’s just words, and there is no real power behind them except what you allow for.

That’s total bullshit, but it’s malleable bullshit.

The key component to spell crafting is intent. Words are nothing more than another focusing tool that we use to direct the power of our will against a target, for either beneficial or baneful results.

This ability is inherent in everyone. Just because a person is not educated on energy manipulation doesn’t mean that they lack the power to turn their intent into reality. They just sorta luck into it by accident, but despite their lack of knowledge, the result is the same.

When somebody talks shit about you, they are forcing their negative energy into you, for the result of making you feel like total crap. This is the spell, their words show the intent of their will. Basically any idiot or bully can be capable of a psychic attack, even if they’re dumber than a box of rocks.

Cruelty and malice are just as viable an attack as any spell.

This is why so many “bullies” require a following of mindless sycophants. The fear and devotion of their sheep-like cheerleaders help boost the aggressor’s attacks, which allows for them to better feed on the fear and pain they inflict upon others. There is a very strong relationship between bullies and Psi Vampirism, they’re just untutored and too stupid to realize the downfall to feeding strictly on negative energy.

The good news is that the majority of these people are untrained, working solely on instinct, which makes them sloppy, which in turn makes them and their actions easier to manage.

To counter these attacks, you need to shield against it. Basic Occult 101 I know, but I always have to bring it up. The very first thing I taught my older son when he was just a little Podling was shielding, so please excuse me if I get a little anal over it.

Any basic shielding should work, although there is some debate about what type of structure you should begin visualizing, as it varies depending on the individual crafter. I personally began with a seamless stone tower, which has evolved over the years, although some people believe that you should avoid heavy constructions, as they tend to weigh you down too much. Personally, I never felt weighted down, but that‘s just me.

Recognizing the feel of alien energy is another important step. This can be achieved with meditation and practice. You need to go inside of yourself, and learn the different types of energy within, as well as those that surround you on a regular basis. Self awareness and internal focus is the key. Once you get a feel for the difference between negative and position energy, you can begin to separate and purge yourself of anything that is not beneficial to you.

Once you get to this point, you can make a choice on whether or not to filter the energy and keep anything that you consider helpful, while flushing away the rest, or you can isolate and shape the energy into something extra special that you can then launch back into the target.

Simple spikes work, like a javelin, although if you really want to get creative, you can try forming several small spiked balls from it, focusing your intent to harm the target into them, then pew, pew, pew…..not only do you no longer have to worry about the damaging effects that the words of another might have on you, but you can also return their attacks with enough force to cause some serious harm.

There will always be those in this life who will seek to harm you for no other reason then because it fills some hole within them, but they are never satisfied, because they don't understand their own selves enough to fix the issues, so instead they keep inflicting harm, because for that one, small moment when they feed from your pain, they feel complete......that feeling is like a drug for them, and they will never stop seeking it, as shortly after that moment passes, they're empty again.

The best we can do is make sure we're in completely control of ourselves, and protected against them.

Vexed neighbors:

My mother asked me some time ago to hex the neighbors for her. She wanted them to stop burning leaves out in their yard so we could open the windows in the summer time.

She likes to joke around with me about how I never actually did anything to them, except she ignores the fact that they don't burn leaves anymore due to the wife's recent battle with cancer.

Vampires ain't shit but leeches and ticks:

Earlier today some vampire accused me of misusing my abilities and giving vampires everywhere a bad name simply because I do not seek permission before feeding from a target, nor do I care whether or not I harm them.

Of course this amused me.

Vampires these days are no better than NeoWiccans with their harm none absurdity, and while I understand the need for discretion if one has to consumed blood, due to all those annoying little laws and all, there is just absolutely zero reason for energy feeders to adhere to some bonk code of ethics just because a few insipid twats got together and decided to make vampirism more socially friendly.

Although, I must admit that it appealed to my considerable vanity that anyone would think I possessed that much influence over the public image of vampirism as a whole.

Silly little Suckling.....whatever made you think that your foolish rules apply to me?

I am not your kind.

Crippling Guilt:

Mistakes are meaningless if all you do is wallow in regret, and there is a significant difference between remorse and self-pity.

Acknowledge your misjudgments, and learn from your wrongdoings. Otherwise you will continue to be stifled by your own ignorance, caught in a never-ending circle that’s bound to repeat itself until you finally mature enough to grow past the errors of your infancy.

Stand your ground, face your faults and move forward. The only thing holding you back is yourself.

Mother Nature's on the rag:

It was asked in an Occult group whether or not Nature is cruel. The following was my response:

Nature just is. It is a force that both destroys and creates indiscriminately. It will love you just as much as when you’re dead and rotting in the ground as when you’re frolicking under it’s warm summer skies.

Those who enjoy the abundance of the harvest, and the joy of Spring are quick to love Nature, and even quicker to later curse it during droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards and the myriad of other destructive forces that make up the whole of it’s being.

To me, Nature is a perfect balance. I accept it wholly, for both the life it nurtures, just as well as the death it generates.

Craft of the Wiseass:

A lot of Crafters have cute little pet names for persons of the non-Occult variety.

Titles such as Cowans, Mundanes, or Danes/Danies for short, as well as Muggles. thanks to the popularity of the Harry Potter series, are all utilized to describe anyone who isn‘t a Craft-user.

As for my personal Trad, we've taken to labeling the normal, non-magically-inclined amongst us as Lucys.

It’s both a shortening for “The Lucid Ones” as well as a reference to Lucy from the Peanuts comics, due to her roadside Psychiatrist stand where she offers advice to a mentally and emotionally disturbed Charlie Brown at the steep price of 5 cents a session.

My Trad has a lot of different terms based in both Occult practices, as well as acting as a reference to culturally popular jargon associated with insanity or revelry.

For example, our groups are known as Asylums, and a larger gathering of more than a single Asylum is known as a Carnival. The entire makeup of the Trad is referred to as an Institution. Our personal rituals are called Bacchanals, and those with a calling towards Seerdom are considered Sibyls. Individual members are known as Lunatics or Maeniacs.

As I stated before, there are two branches within the Black Roses Institution, both the Warlock and Shaman paths,  but it is not required for a Lunatic to claim either, or they could just as easily claim both.

All members are Lunatics though, regardless of what other titles they may or may not wish to adhere to. Asylum leaders are known as Thorns. 

The entire purpose of this Trad is to offer a haven for anyone who is either tired of the usual Coven politics and bullshit, as well as those who are just starting out and need a place to call their own. Anyone can claim kinship amongst the Black Roses, either out of a desire to eventually form their own Asylums based around it’s teachings, or as solitary practitioners, if they unable to play well with others.

This is a spiritual path, and not a religion. I can not stress that strongly enough. Whoever decides to walk this path, does so with their own Gods and personal religious practices. And while the Trad does not discriminate, I highly doubt I’ll see any Monotheists joining up in my lifetime. For one thing, those who do practice mysticism are so damned fluffy in their way of thinking that they’d most likely find most of what this Trad has to offer offensive, or at the very lest, contradictive to their beliefs.

There is a great deal more I could talk about in regard to this path, but since I am still in the process of creating it, I’ll just wait until all the puzzle pieces are in place before I delve too deeply into our various practices.

Painting half a picture never accomplishes anything other than to cause people to lose interest once they tire of waiting around for the finished product.

How that guy from Tombstone changed my life:

Back in the late 90’s there was a large influx of young persons who began dabbling in the Occult due to movies like The Craft and shows such as Buffy and Charmed. The Pagan group I was a part of during this time was rather disdainful towards these newbies, irritated with the misinformation that surrounded them, ridiculing these bright-eyed and bushy-tailed novices with their fresh-of-the-shelf copies of Teen Witch by the infamous Silver Ravenwolf, and shiny tales of “self-initiation” rituals.

To say that they were not welcomed with open arms would be a vast understatement.

Personally I believed that it was better to treat them with as much kindness as possible, as even if the majority of them were just going through a fad, at least they could take away something positive from their experiences, instead of tainting everything they encountered with mockery and derision, which would only result in making them bitter and narrow-minded as they grew out of their witchy phase. What can I say? I was a much nicer person back then, more tolerant of other people's bullshit.

Although, there was also a more personal reason behind my desire to not snub them, as I too was first brought over to the Occult due to a film.

During my youth I had access to books on Greek mythology. When I was very young, my parents had purchased a copy of D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths for me and I was immediately captivated with the stories within. While I attended church services with my Mother at the time, I never saw any conflict between her God and the ones I read about. To me, they were all equally real, so even at an early age I was a polytheist.

It wasn’t until I attended a private, Church of God school, around the age of 10, that Monotheism’s less tolerant views on other religions became known to me.

I did not have a very positive experience in that school, but I will not go into detail about that, as it would take far more time than I’m willing to bore anyone with now, just that in the end, I had my breakdown, in the middle of class, which resulted in my expulsion from the school and a week at home while I waited to be enrolled in one of the worst public schools this state had to offer.

During that time I was silent, withdrawn and not in a very healthy frame of mind. My parents did not know what to do with me, and their disappointment in my behavior only added to the myriad of other issues that weighed heavily on my mind. I had experienced frightening visions and voices towards the end of my breakdown, which had lasted around 3 hours in total, and while it had cleared my head long enough to help me find a way to contact my mother, so she come to the school, the lucidity did not last long, and wasn’t helped much by the fact that by the time my mother arrived, she ended up walking in on 3 of the school’s administrators screaming at me while I lay in a crumbled, crying heap on the floor at their feet.

To make matters worse, the teachers had personally visited the parents of the two girls I had befriended in the school and warned them that I was a bad influence and that it was possible I was possessed by demons. One of the girls was able to sneak a single phone call to me in order to let me know that both of their parents had forbidden them from ever contacting me again, so for the first time in my life, I was completely alone.

That first night home, I was numb, and stayed locked in my room, mindlessly watching TV when the movie The Doors came on. I only watched it because the teachers at my school had made such a fuss over it’s release, telling the class that their songs were code for worshiping Satan.

I wasn’t paying much attention to the movie overall, the music didn’t really appeal to my tastes, and was woefully disappointing in terms of how evil it was built up to be, but one scene in particular stood out to me. Anyone who has seen the film should already know which one. It was the ritual scene between Jim Morrison and the Witch, Patricia Kennealy, whom he ended up sharing a fling and hand-fasting with.

While not very in-depth, her speech about witchcraft struck a cord in me. Especially when she mentioned the Bacchae. I already had a fascination with Maenads from the stories I’d read, so I took the scene as a sign, and decided at that point that I would find a way to gain some form of power, something I desperately craved since I had just lost all sense of myself, and had my confidence and personality brutally stripped away from me.

Right after that film went off, Warlock came on, with the ever-adorable Julian Sands in it, and I knew that it too was a sign, so that was the title I claimed for myself.

While not nearly as romantic as the awakening experiences of others, at the time it held great meaning to me. I had never heard of anyone practicing Witchcraft before. Even for years afterwards, I honestly thought that there were no other witches around. I was young and ignorant and had zero information in which to guide me. I didn’t care that I was building a belief system based around the voices in my head and a movie about an over hyped 60’s band, nor did I worry about the gender association of the term Warlock. I just knew that these were signs and even now, looking back on how it all came into play, I know that I was right in the choices I made. 

Even now, knowing how some terminology is ostracized by the Occult communities, I still wouldn’t change a thing. Whenever anyone gives me the “oath breaker” speech, I simply smile and tell them that I am re-claiming the term, even though it is used by Satanists and some Scottish Occultists, so it’s not as if I’m even original in my usage of it.

And while I was originally drawn to Greek theology, I still utilize the term Bacchae, instead of Maenad, as it was the first to truly speak to me, even going so far as to refer to my bi-monthly OBE rituals as Bacchanals, as it is a time where I allow the madness to fully take me over so that I can leave my body to shift and join in on the hunts of the full and dark moons. The term is not limited to just those rituals though, as in my path, it can also represent any time when a person fully gives themselves over to ecstasy and revelry.

I have learned to trust my visions and the voices, whenever they decide to make themselves known to me, and I still utilize films as a form of divination. While I have received no end of mockery due to this, as it’s not seen as being a “witchy” form of scrying, it has always worked for me and it’s not as if it is my sole resource for knowledge. I believe that signs can appear through any means and refuse to fabricate my choices simply because technology isn’t as respected or embraced as reading tea leaves or rune stones.

And while this is not the whole of my story, it is how I began my path, and why I don’t tend to feel any sort of scorn over those who began their interest in the Occult through similar means.

Good, Bad.....I'm the one with the Flying Monkeys:

Personally, I have no problem with Hexes, Jinxing, Curses, the Evil Eye, whatever the kids are calling it these days. It’s all good with me, which should be rather obvious by now to anyone reading this blog, but I figured I'd go ahead and spell it out. Pun intended.

I don’t think less of those whose beliefs prohibit them from hexing, as even sheep have their place in the balance. I just don’t personally believe in limiting my craft or myself in such a way. Also, I don’t believe in Karma. Neither the original Hindu/Buddhist version of it, as I don't believe that reincarnation applies to everyone, nor the bastardized NeoWiccan version, simply because it's stupid. As far as the Neo-version goes in respect to my life, Karma either doesn’t exist, or it’s just really damn slow. It probably doesn’t hurt that I was fiddling around with spells long before I ever heard of the term Karma, so it’s not like the idea of it was floating around in my head, tripping me up or making me paranoid.

I also feel that it is beneficial to be able to know how to cause harm in order to better work in other areas. For example, how can you heal a person without causing harm to the disease that is affecting them? How can you protect your loved ones magically without being able to back that security up with a bit of mystical ass kicking should anyone be foolish enough to trespass against you and yours? Baneful magic is a part of the overall balance. I believe that sometimes a person has to be willing to get their hands dirty. That overall, they will be stronger for it.

IMO, it’s a rite of passage. An exploration of destruction before one can fully understand and embrace everything that comes after. I believe that everything has it’s purpose and place in our world, and that includes the things that many would shy away from due to personal, or moral objections.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate running around willy nilly, hexing every person who cuts you off in traffic…..although there was a time I used to have some fun with sigils, cutting them out of tin foil and wrapping the foil around a flashlight, then using it against bad drivers….but those were my younger years, I’ve mellowed considerably since then. I believe in personal responsibility, and proportionate spell casting, meaning that you don’t need to cast a death spell on a cheating lover, when a simple STD one would suffice.

Your Karma = Dogma!

I do not personally believe in the concept of a threefold law, or the NeoWiccan version of Karma.

In the 20-plus years that I have been a practitioner of the Occult I have never personally seen any evidence that there is any form of cosmic system in place that deals out punishments and rewards based on another person's actions.

Nor do I believe in a universal concept of good and evil.

Considering the fact that many of our morals and laws are based on our own desire for mortal self-preservation, I do not believe that most of the things that we, as humans, consider to be "good" or "bad" would be seen in the same light by a higher power.

A glance at the mythologies of any culture would show that the Gods themselves often embrace their own pettiness and cruelties, so why would they place judgment on us for doing likewise?

Now, I do believe that every action causes a reaction, but does that mean that if I hex someone that I'm going to be punished in return? No. In fact, the reaction caused by a negative action on my part could very well be positive.

Even if you look at energy manipulation in the same light as tossing a stone in a pond, and the reaction to your spell the ripples that stone causes, it is easy enough to avoid any form of backlash from your casting with simple shielding or making sure to get the wording of your spell right.

I do tend to look at all of my potential spells as I would a monkey's paw. The old "careful what you wish for". It is also why I never outsource any of my work to another entity, because while most of them are not nearly as dumb as they pretend to be, they will muck things up if you leave any leeway in your wording. Plus there's the whole fact that they always seem to want some sort of payment for their services and too many of them have a nasty sense of humor for me to want to meddle in their affairs.

Overall, while I do recognize that some recoil can result from spell casting, I personally do not believe that it is the result from some cosmic nanny that spanks us when we are bad. No, it is much more simple that than, usually the result of poor wording, dealings with entities that enjoy causing mischief, or even a witch's own paranoia and belief in Karma, which is what I attribute the majority of these "threefold" instances to.

Basically if you believe that you are going to be punished, then you are pretty much giving yourself the evil eye. Kinda the same as believing that breaking a mirror will bring you bad luck.

A person's own personal belief and superstition is usually their greatest enemy.

As to why anyone would want to believe in something that's so obviously detrimental to their own craft? Well, I personally believe that this mentality is the result of either residual fear left over from an early childhood monotheistic belief system, or a need on the practitioner’s part for society to accept their spiritual choices. They achieve this by convincing others that they are more harmless and enlightened than their religious counterparts.

It’s a fear of being judged, by either the God they were raised with, or the society they live in, as well as a social animal’s craving for acceptance from the rest of the herd. It’s easier to convince others that you do not fit the stereotypical misconceptions of an “Evil Witch” if you are constantly sprouting off about how not causing harms to others is one of the core tenets of your belief system.

It’s also why those types tend to become hysterically vocal against any Occultist who doesn’t follow their guidelines. They don’t want anyone drawing attention towards the more mischievous practices of the Craft, as the resulting negative perceptions could very easily shine the light right back on them.

What makes Karma such a prominent figurehead for such persons is the helpless desperation they feel when anyone harms them or the people they care about. They are unable to overcome their fears of persecution in order to take matters into their own hands, so they attempt to soothe their impotence with some mystical boogey man who will step up and spank their enemies for them. The irony is that they create this dogma in order to avoid crossing that fine “harm none” line and yet, by voicing their convictions in Karmic retribution, they are in fact subconsciously sending out baneful energies towards others with the intent to cause a specific degree of harm against them.

In a way, Karma is not very much different than giving another the Evil Eye. It just negates the need for personal responsibility so far as the practitioner themselves are concerned. In their minds they are still good little girls and boys who only dabble in white magic and never harm others. This type of deluded mindset makes it easier for them to sleep at night so of course they wholeheartedly embrace it with relish and ketchup.

That’s not to say that I have any real issue, besides a healthy lack of respect, for those who do choose to believe in Karma or follow the Threefold law, it is just that neither have anything to do with my personal path, no more than a Sceintologist’s belief in Xenu, or a Christian's belief in eternal damnation, has anything to do with me.

Karma Sutra:

The best thing about sex magic is that your vibrator can double as a wand.

Pentacular Manslaughter:

The Pentacle/Pentagram are two very well known Occult symbols, which pretty much goes without saying, but for me, they mean more than just their usual interpretation.

I personally prefer the Pentacle, as I tend to bind all of my symbols and sigils in circles, so instead of constantly typing out both terms, I shall instead focus on that one in particular.

Also keep in mind that I am not trying to redefine the commonly accepted meanings behind this symbol, as much as I am simply expanding on that in order to explain what it signifies to me and my path.

Inverted, the Pentacle represents a funnel, one meant to symbolize the drawing in of energy. The downward point symbolizes grounding, an embrace of the physical. Whenever I wear an inverted pentacle, it is expressing that I am on the hunt, seeking to draw energy into myself, while remaining steadily bound to the material world.

Right-side-up, the Pentacle represents an ascension of my nonphysical self, which I refer to in my path as my Phantom.

Bear with me here, I’m going to try and explain my used of that term.

For me, there are 3 sides to my being. The Physical, which is my fleshy, mortal shell, the pupa in which I spend the first stages of my journey in this life. The Mental, which is where logic, reason, emotions, and in my case, lunacy are stored, and finally the Spiritual. I believe that the mental and spiritual portions make up the soul, and that once we die and cast away our flesh, all that we are carries over to our next form. Since this form tends to be intangible at times, and since I have access to it anytime I exit my body for whatever reason or another, I began referring to it as my Phantom as a way to distinguish it from the soul or spirit.

The terms I use in my path are ones that I came up with years ago, in order to explain things I experienced, a very long time before I ever encountered my first piece of literature on the Occult, so some of them don’t exactly mesh well with what most people are used to. What can I say? After that long, I became stuck in my own way of doing things. Plus “Astral projected self” doesn’t work for me since I don’t tend to go to the Astral, and plus it’s a bit of a mouthful.

Moving on….

Basically, my Phantom is everything that I am outside of my flesh. It is the me that transcends the physical for the purposes of spiritual journeys, shifting, or the hunt. (Which is a totally different type of hunt from the one mentioned above.) So whenever I wear a Pentacle that is not inverted, it expresses an intention on my part to seek beyond the physical world, focusing my attention past materialism and anything else that binds me to my flesh.

While I also adhere to the Pentacle’s myriad of other meanings and symbolisms, these in particular are the foremost on my mind anytime I happen to have one on my person, and dictates just how I choose to wear it.

Nature blows:

When I was much younger, around 12-ish, my parents would spend a great deal of time over my aunt’s house, playing cards with her and her husband.

During these visits, I would always stand on the edge of her property and stare off into the distance. For hours I would do this, from the time we arrived, until we left, I would not move from that sport, hardly even blinking.

This is but one of the many reasons why my Mother’s side of the family thinks that I’m a little weird.

What they don’t know, what I never told anyone, is that I was attempting to summon the wind. All of those hours were actually being spent in meditation. I would focus on the trees across the street, because they were the only non-pines around, and did my damnedest to will the leaves into moving.

Alas, I was not successful. Nature, it seems, is not my forte, and neither is telekinesis apparently.

I always believed that since I felt empowered during storms, that I could also call them to me. I was wrong, Although, my mistake was only in believing I had the ability to summon them, comes to find out that I do have a connection to storms, just not the type I had expected.

It was this realization that caused me to divide my personal trad into two separate parts. Warlocks, who deal with energy manipulation, and Shamans who are more attuned towards Earth magics.

I settled on the Warlock path and have been happily offended Neo-Wiccans with the term ever since.

Poppet Master:

So the standard for poppets is to bury them in some neutral or symbolic place, depending on one's personal beliefs and/or preferences. 

Not so much the case with me, as I keep mine, always have. I can trace some of these suckers back almost 20 years, the older ones charged to people I don't even remember anymore.

Anytime I make a poppet, unless it's out of something disposable, I put it in a jar and seal it. Then I use my label maker to put a reference number on the jar, which I can later look up in my Grimoire for the specifics, such as name of the target, date the poppet was made, and spell details. Then I stack the jar on my shelf with all of the others to gloat over.

I call them my "pickled people”.

Any who, my problem is that after 20-odd years of crafting, I'm running out of room for these damn things. I don’t want to throw them out, as just having them around fuels my God-complex, but if I don’t find some type of storage system soon, then the whole lot of them are likely to topple over and crush me to death.

I can just see the headline for that….”Local Warlock murdered by her own Poppets”.

Death by Dollies might be an awesome name for an all female Punk band, but it’s not a very dignified way to kick the bucket.

Hidden intentions:

I'm not always so honest when it comes to my crafting.

A few months back someone requested my help with an employment spell. They had planned to get a job so they could move closer to me, and while I was on board with this plan at first, the person in question revealed some rather disturbing preferences to me which guaranteed that he would never be allowed near my home. I won't dish out the gory details here, let's just say that it involved prepubescent girls....as in a certain physical response he'd often experience at the sight of his own prepubescent nieces while they were in various states of undress.

So rather than giving him what he wanted, I instead created a sigil against employment, one that would also bar him from achieving his goals. After it was charged, I sent him a copy and told him to wear it on his skin whenever he ventured out, which he did without question.

It worked as intended. No matter how many applications he put out, none of them proved successful. I think it was the first time in his entire life that he fought for something, motivated by my metaphysical backing, only to have his every dream turn slowly into dust as each day went by that he did not hear back from his potential employers.

To make matter worse, his luck deteriorated. The second he’d step out of his front door, any possible misfortune that could occur would strike him down, deflating him even more.

I never gave him any hint of what I did, despite the fact that he lost all faith in my abilities, because he assumed my spell was a flop.

Sometimes it’s better to be thought of as a delusional hack than to let the target know your true intentions.

Self-proclaimed Elders and the sucklings who love them:

I do not recognize the title of Elder in the Vampire communities, nor do I automatically kowtow to anyone claiming the name, as most who do are just pompous elitist desperately seeking someone to masturbate their egos for them.

The reason behind this is that none of these subcultures are based around learning, and are more the result of people with similar conditions seeking each other out for socialization and information exchange.

Unlike with the Occult, the majority of Vampiric practices can be covered in appropriately an hour or two. They require zero study, or any real discipline. You might extend this by researching the mythology of the creatures the term was taken from, but that has little to nothing to do with the actual practice.

As for seniority.....given that most of the "Elder" Vampires I've met over the years tend to possess the mental maturity of a 4-year-old with ADHD, I find it extremely hard to dredge up so much as a smidgen of respect for them based solely on the fact that they’ve lived on this planet longer than I have, regardless of how much they prance around like self-proclaimed demiGods, demanding the adoration of their sheep-like bandwagon of brain-dead sycophants.

Forget that most of them are idiots and losers with zero life outside their on-line communities, the mere fact that they have more candles on their cake than you do demands your instant, unquestionable awe.

Seriously, the last “Elder” vampire community that I was bored enough to join actually plagiarized the Cobra Kai symbol for their group’s crest. If that wasn’t bad enough, they also just sat around bitching and whining about those in their little subculture who embrace the vampire stereotype, only to turn right around and do the very things they claim to disdain in others.

Hypocrisy is one of the few consistencies that ties the various metaphysical communities together, and no other subculture embraces it as wholly as the Vampires.

Praise Satan!

It has been my experience that those who speak the loudest about how evil and dark they are, always tend to be the first ones to break down whining anytime another person so much as looks at them the wrong way.

Why is it that these Left-handed, Dark Witches and Vampires are always so damned ignorant regarding the ultra-malefic paths they claim to follow? Satan, Lilith, Baal, Set....they throw these names around in some sad attempt to gain metaphysical street-cred, like an aging ex-groupie listing the number of one-hit-wonders she used to blow in her youth, and yet none of them seem to actually have a coherent grasp on either the history or mythology surrounding these entities.

These are the types of people who babble on endlessly about their dagger collections and how much they love to drink blood. They invoke Lilith for love and lust spells, call on Satan as if he's their best buddy and list the Necronomicon and White Wolf role-playing books as part of their reference sources.

It would amuse me endlessly to witness them actually face the "Dark Gods" they claim to call upon.

And yes, I am not so much of a hypocrite that I don't realize that I too tend to wear my own super-uber-bitchiness on my sleeve, but come on, at least mine is tongue-in-cheek. I know how it all comes off, and I’m able to laugh at it.

Then again, I don’t take anything seriously, especially myself.

To Thrall or Not to Thrall:

Last year was a rather interesting time for me. I underwent some significant physical trauma which caused extensive damage to me both mentally and spiritually.

The event itself isn’t important, as in the end, I was kinda asking for it, only that afterwards I couldn’t handle my shit and began self-destructing hardcore.

I required energy, more than I ever had before, in order to heal myself. My preferred source is through sexual contact, but due to 8 months of forced abstinence last year, I was unable to feed, and was completely depleted.

Now I have taken demi-Thralls in the past whenever I was feeling too lazy to bother with the filtering involved with grazing. Due to my Shifting nature, I tend to take on the characteristics of those I feed on, so grazing can send my mind into a shifting frenzy. Sort of like multiple personalities, except times by a 100 and all of them are fighting for dominance at once.

In order to combat this, I keep a few people at my disposal whom I first infect with a teeny bit of my own energy, which in turn morphs theirs into something I can more easily feed from, without having to worry about all that pesky filtering and purging. If a Vampire is akin to a leech, then I am a spider and my own energy acts as a venom which first infects others, then liquefies their energy, leaving a nice creamy excess that I can lap up at my leisure.

The problem with this is that last year I found myself completely void of any infected peons to feed from, and without any excess energy to spare in order to farm up some new ones.

Instinct took over and I began toying with the sexual energy of others so that I could feed from that, targeting only a handful so that my shifting didn’t become too out of hand. There was nothing in it for me other than the feed, as I have a Mate and personally found the men I was masticating rather revolting. If given a choice, I would have never went there with anyone, but since I could not feed in the flesh, I had to settle for rummaging through human trash cans.

It was around this time that I sought out an ex-demi-Thrall of mine, someone who was a veritable untapped source of energy. While this person was particularly grotesque, they did provide me with enough energy that I was able to abandon my other pets and focus entirely on them. I might not have enjoyed what I was doing very much, but at least I only had to tolerate a single fool instead of a whole harem of them.

And, in the end, it worked. First I bound him to me, after tricking him into giving me his consent and isolating him from everyone else in his life, then I played the part of the simpering, submissive little girl to feed into his perverted, Lolita-inspired fantasies. The result being that I was able to pretty much hallow him out without him so much as suspecting what I was really up to.

Also, I would like to point out that all of this was done via the interwebs and that despite my ravenous state, there is no way in hell I would have sough out a male source such as this in the flesh. Despite my open-minded attitude about sex, and overly perverse nature, I am still Mated. Beyond Mated in fact, as my Mate imprinted himself on me at such an early age that it would be impossible for me to let another male anywhere near me, let alone allow one to touch me.

My Mate knew what I was up to, as there are no secrets between us, and he had no problems with it so long as it was limited to on-line. He was unable to feed me at the time, and considered my interactions amusing at best, as he knew how much I loathed my newest Thrall.

After a period of a few months, the feeding began to take it’s toll on him. I had not been careful or respectful of his health or mental stability during any of this, instead gorging myself on his essence until I had literally sucked any redeeming qualities he possessed right out of him. He became paranoid, possessive, bitter, easily agitated and self-destructive. The Happiness he displayed when we first resumed contact eroded, leaving only a sad, pitiful shell behind.

It was around this time that I was once again able to resume my regular feeding habits, and I had healed enough from the energy I’d taken from my Thrall that I no longer required anything more from him. I decided to reward him by breaking the bindings and attempting to maintain our friendship, on a strictly platonic level.

This did not go over very well.

He was not interested in a friendship with me, and despite the many times I informed him that nothing would ever happen between us in real life, or that any response he witnessed from me was faked for the sake of his ego, he still ended up convincing himself that I was in love with him and planned on leaving my Mate to come live with him in his disabled father’s shack of a house, where he sleeps on a worn out, filthy couch and steals his father’s foodstamps.

I tolerated 3 weeks worth of his tantrums, irritated with his behavior. While I know it was the result of my feedings, I still felt as if he should have been grateful for what I offered, as he was completely alone without me, and aside from suddenly refusing to play along with his perverted role-playing, I had been a damn good friend to him, spending money lavishly on him and his father, as well as fluffing his ego. I was so nice to the bloated loser that I was practically speaking to him in baby talk anytime we interacted, because it was what he required in order to feel good about himself.

To say that he had “Mommy issues” would be a vast understatement.

Eventually his sulking became too much for me and when he attempted to manipulate me into submitting to his demands, I instead turned it around on him and used it as an excuse to give myself a guilt-free out of what had become a messy and highly irritating situation.

It still amuses me that he thought he could play mind-games with me of all people. That should show just how pathetically stupid he was. What can I say? I didn’t pick him for his brains, if that were the case I would have starved.

So that was my most recent experience with Thralldom, which while ending badly for the Thrall, resulted in my continued survival.

I believe that from now on, I shall stick primarily to female Thralls, as not only am I actually attracted to them, but I also hold the females I feed from in much higher esteem than I do the males. Plus, they just taste better. They’re not as easy to manipulate, but sometimes you have to work for your food.

After all, not everyone can be a Happy Meal with legs.

Freak of Nature:

I do believe a little introduction is in order, that is normally how these things go after all.

I am an energy feeder/manipulator as well as a Shapeshifter and Practitioner of the Occult, although not always in that order.

There are the usual terms associated with all of these, but I do not tend to subscribe to most of them. I do not really associate with the Therian or Vampire communities, nor do I prefer to claim either title as for one thing, Therians are not exactly shifters, and my methods for feeding on the energy of others is a little different than that of most Psionic Vampires, although I’ll save that particular explanation for a later date.

I have created my own Trad to define my callings in this mortal life of mine, which was more out of necessity than ego in the beginning, as I was completely alone and without any form of information when I first began my path.

I am not Wiccan, or Neo-Wiccan. I am not any type of whatever myriad, bullshit variation of Wiccan there is out there these days, nor do I believe in either the threefold law or their re-defining of Karma.

I am a balanced practitioner with zero qualms about hexing the ever-loving shit out of anyone who irks me and I make no apologies for it. Although, I might also hex you if I want to experiment with a new spell, or maybe if I‘m just bored….I don’t really need a reason to turn others into my own, personal guinea pigs. 

I am a Warlock, and please do not waste your breath on any of that “oath-breaker” nonsense, as my Trad has officially reclaimed the term. To quote Randel Graves: “It's cool, I'm taking it back.”

I’m also a Lunatic, a Maeniac, and an all around horrible human being to be within the general vicinity of.

Seriously, ask any of my ex-acquaintances, they’ll tell you that you’re better off attempting to befriend the Ebola virus.

I think the real question isn’t so much, why does somebody like me exist, but rather, why in the hell are you still here?