Interview with the (Real) Vampire

I know Sappho Wolf very well, so you might not think I’m the best choice to interview her on the release of The Hybrid Vampire Handbook.  However, I have never known her as a vampire.  I know the movies and the novels and the Halloween costumes, but I knew almost nothing about the real vampire community until I read the Handbook.  Now I’m captivated—and more than a little jealous.

So you’ve gone and pulled a Lestat—giving away vampire secrets?

There aren’t any secrets here.  What’s in the Handbook is philosophy that’s around all of us every day, thought that anyone can use if only they would take the time to reflect.

But the Handbook points them out and explains them and presents it all as a whole as vampirism.

Right.  But it’s up to the reader to decide how to interpret what they read.

You set out to show exactly how it is possible to be a real vampire.  I think anyone who reads this will have a very different idea of what the vampire is all about.

Well, opening up people’s minds to these possibilities is certainly a goal of mine.  We’re the only ones who can put restrictions on our own thoughts.  Ditch the restrictions and a whole universe is ours.  The term “vampire” is expanding every day and incorporating new ideas.  Application is meaning, I suppose.

A prevailing theme in the Handbook is that vampirism is a matter of energy play.  Could you touch on that?

This goes back a bit, and is really the result of my personal journey as a vampire.  I was "awakened" if you will in 1985, so I've been at this vampire thing for a while.  In those first few years I was fortunate to be part of a group in which I could get willing and screened donors. But personally, I wasn't happy with accepting blood imbibing at face value. I had to find out what it was about blood that my mind and body were craving.  It took years, but I finally understood that for myself it wasn't blood I needed, but rather what was in the blood--prana, living energy, or lifeforce. While blood donors are few and far between, there are sources of prana all around us all the time if we only stop to see it that way.

That epiphany was a new beginning for me, the start of the quest for energy.  While it’s my belief that energy is at the core of all vampiric feeding, I of course understand that others may feel differently, and I respect them and their paths.  Yet at the same time I am so entirely enthralled with what the energy theory has done for me that I want to at least suggest it to other vampires—not a whack over the head, but rather through subtly acting in the community.

There are many groups in the real vampire community, and more are forming all the time.  Do you have a good relationship with other vampires?

For the most part, I play nicely with the other kids in the sandbox.  I participate in a number of vampire groups and efforts and discussions outside of those I moderate.  It’s always refreshing to talk with new people and discover new perspectives.  But naturally there are those who for one reason or another rub me the wrong way—that would be anyone claiming to have the one and only true vampire path, or anyone who’s in it to have power over others weak to suggestion.  I don’t have time for those who choose to be fettered.

Can power be a fetter?

Power, yes.  Leadership and guidance, however, can be liberating.

What kind of reaction do you get from vampires who don’t quite agree with you?  Do you think they might be angry with the publication of the Handbook?

Sure, I imagine a few folks are pissed.  After all, for me to come along and stress that the complete vampire is the independent vampire takes away some of the power these groups imagine they hold.  But if interest and participation are based on a tenuous power play in the first place, I don’t see any real value.

What’s next for Vampgeist Press?

At the moment I’m editing Vampires In Truth: The Anne de Molay Papers.  Anne was the founder of my Order back in 1970, and her writings are about vampirism and what she hoped to accomplish with the Order of Maidenfear.  She passed away in 2002 after teaching generations of vampires, and her legacy continues with us.  Also, Anne was a great friend and mentor to me, so I would like to honor her memory by sharing her innovations with the world.