Several complex theories created during the early 1900s have evolved until the present day and offer arguments defending the existence of vampires, and explanations for how they could come to be. The plausibility of many of these obscure concepts have leaked into modern culture and have undoubtedly added fuel to our avid interest and suspension of disbelief in such exotic and highly disturbing entities. For the relatively sane mind, the very idea of revenants leaving the grave to walk among us unnoticed is inherently absurd, but arguments that suggest that the universe is much more complicated than we could possibly imagine are difficult to dispute. The universe is complicated, and many of us do believe in some form of life after death through our religious or spiritual convictions. That combination of basic truths in the human condition can open the door just a tiny bit to the frightening idea that maybe — just maybe — there are spiritual phenomena afoot that we can't explain. Theorists of psychic vampirism are only too happy to fill in the gaps.

The Flight of the Astral Body

An early proponent of psychic vampirism, Dion Fortune was a noted writer and occultist during the early to mid-1900s in England. As did many occult theorists of the era, Fortune believed that humans are a combination of two very separate entities — the physical body and the spiritual, or astral body. Upon normal death, both entities perish. In her book Psychic Self-Defense, Fortune cites a case during World War I in which several eastern European troops had been killed in combat. Among them were practitioners of black magic who could avoid going to the “Second Death,” as she refers to the death of the astral body, and “maintained themselves in the etheric double by vampirising the wounded … systematically drawing its etheric nutriment from him.” Regarding the fate of the victims of vampires, Fortune goes on to say: “the person who is vampirised, being depleted of vitality, is a psychic vacuum, himself absorbing from anyone he comes across in order to refill his depleted sources of vitality.”

Much of Dion Fortune's writings imply that there are those who purposely become vampires by practicing black magic and vampires who become so only because they are victims. She was of the firm belief that actual vampirism was rare in western Europe and believed that eastern Europe was the seat of “Black Magic” and thus the natural homeland of the true vampire.

Undead and Unbled

One of the most common concepts in the variety of theories of psychic vampirism is that people with questionable intentions can purposely drain the energy of their victims without killing them, or without their knowledge or consent. Variously known as pranic vampires, empathic vampires, energy parasites, and psy-vamps (also spelled psi-vamps), these practitioners often describe their activities in self-congratulatory terms, claiming that they are merely returning to an innocent and traditionally spiritual relationship with other humans.

Part of the argument centers on the idea that modern people have been turned into soulless zombies by an industrialized and heavily controlled world of technology and science, and that the natural human exchange of spiritual energy has been quashed. To achieve a more natural balance in the universe, these psychic vampires believe that the “normal” human condition is for some to yield energy and others to thrive on it. If you ever get the creepy feeling that someone is staring at you and trying to read your mind, beware, a psy-vamp might just be trying to psychically suck you dry instead.