Interview w/Joseph Laycock of Vampires Today

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Interview w/Joseph Laycock of Vampires Today

Postby The Madame X » Mon Jul 06, 2009 6:51 am

Exclusive Interview with Joseph Laycock
Author of Vampires Today:
The Truth About Modern Vampirism
http://vampirefilmfestival.com/Joseph_Laycock.html
<http://vampirefilmfestival.com/Joseph_Laycock.html>

http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Today-Tr ... /031336472\
9/ref=sr_1_1
<http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Today-Truth-Modern-Vampirism/dp/03133647\
29/ref=sr_1_1>


Joseph Laycock is a fascinating study in extremes – a young graduate
of Harvard Divinity School who has written a book about modern vampires.
The Austin, Texas native received his undergraduate degree at Hampshire
College, Massachusetts. His major was an unusual one in our
materialistic culture, religion. When asked how his course of study went
over with other students, Joseph replied, "When I went to parties
and I mentioned that I was studying religion, people would ask me these
bizarre questions about religion, which made me start thinking that
maybe I should get paid to answer them."

He went on to graduate studies at Harvard and is now a doctoral
candidate at Boston University. Joseph Laycock has lectured and written
a number of articles about faith in our culture; however, his book is
not a tome about traditional religious practices in America or even
fundamentalist sects. Vampires Today: The Truth about Modern Vampirism
is a contemporary look at the community that has been marginalized for
eons not the fanged undead but individuals who have a special connection
with a misunderstood sub-culture; Joe has now brought those individuals
into the light.

VF: In light of the fascination with celluloid and literary vampires,
i.e. Twilight, Southern Vampire Mysteries and Let the Right One In, the
timing for the release of your book is remarkable. When you were writing
Vampires Today, did you have any idea how popular vampires were?

JL: No, not at all. I became interested in the real vampire community
mainly because I had a rare opportunity to study it in Atlanta. At the
time I had never heard of Charlaine Harris or Stephanie Myers. But the
timing was no accident: Praeger asked me to turn my research into a
book, knowing full well that this is a seller's market for vampires.

VF: Perhaps before we continue you can explain the difference between
the "undead" of myth, literature and cinema and the vampires you
met and interviewed.

JL: There are several types of self-identified vampires addressed in the
book. "Lifestyle vampires" admire the aesthetic of the vampire.
Lifestylers may have fangs made, they may even sleep in coffins, but
other than their commitments to their lifestyle they are no different
from everyone else. Most importantly, they can "quit" being a
lifestyle vampire if they choose. "Real vampires" either
consume blood or believe that they absorb the life energy (psi) of those
around them. Most real vampires see this as condition innate from birth
and believe that their physical, mental, and emotional health will
deteriorate if they go without feeding. It is, of course, possible to
be both a "real vampire" and a "life-styler"
simultaneously.

Neither real or lifestyle vampires claim to be undead or immortals. The
idea that a vampire could be a living person actually goes back to the
19th century and an occult group called the Theosophical Society. The
Theosophical Society traveled to India where they re-imagined European
vampire legends by drawing on Indian ideas of vital energy and holistic
medicine. I have met Hindus and students of Chinese medicine who
acknowledge that some people need to borrow or take energy from others
to be healthy––they just don't think of this as vampirism.

There were once people within the modern vampire community claiming that
they actually were undead immortals. This was especially common in the
early days of the Internet. Today, the community is more organized and
no one would ever take such a claim seriously. However, several
vampires believe that immortality is possible through reincarnation.
They believe that vampirism makes it possible to transfer more memories
from one life to the next.

VF: You graduated from Harvard's Divinity School, a fact that
appears at odds with your interest in vampires. Can you talk about what
drew you to writing about vampires in the first place?

JL: Believe or not, while researching this book I met a vampire who had
graduated from Harvard Divinity School. Harvard Divinity School is a
notoriously open-minded place. I remember interfaith services that
frequently included Buddhists, Pagans, and even atheists alongside
Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.

Many of my research projects are crimes of opportunity: I was living in
Atlanta when I found out that the Atlanta Vampire Alliance was
conducting a survey of the global vampire population. This survey took
an incredible amount of their time and money. This was not a religious
cult, this was a community trying to understand itself. As I argue in
the book, I think the very existence of the real vampire community
raises some important questions about identity in the modern world.

VF: Many people from traditional religions have issues with other
traditions they view as occult or even demonic yet one of the main
practices of traditional Christianity is devouring the body and blood of
Christ, something that seems almost vampiric to non-believers. Can you
discuss this?

JL: Much has been made––both by academics and in popular
culture––of the connection between Christianity and vampirism.
Both seem to involve rising from the grave, drinking blood, and gaining
immortality. The film Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter played heavily on
these connections and this film is sometimes shown at the American
Academy of Religion's national conference.

The Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation holds that during the
Eucharist, bread and wine quite literally become the body and blood of
Christ even though their appearance does not change. Martin Luther
considered this doctrine absurd and most Protestants have a more
symbolic understanding of the Eucharist. Historically, American
Catholics have been criticized for the doctrine of transubstantiation
and have even been called vampires.

In addition to transubstantiation, there is a lot of blood imagery in
Catholicism. Christian martyrs are often shown bleeding and saints such
as Francis of Assisi are often depicted with stigmata––the wounds
of Christ spontaneously appearing on the human body.

Vampires Among Us by Rosemary Ellen Guiley describes an interview with a
self-identified vampire who was raised Catholic. The vampire believed
that her Catholic upbringing may have caused her to equate blood with
love from an early age.

VF: There are religious elements to the vampire myth – the cross,
the rosary, holy water, the use of the host in the novel Dracula. How
do the modern vampires you encountered view traditional religion?
You've mentioned that there are Christian vampires - how do they
reconcile their status with their faith?

JL: Some vampires do consider vampirism to be a religion. The Temple of
the Vampire has been a legally registered church and there are several
other "vampire religions." There are also some who see
vampirism as a sort of "spiritual path." However, the majority
of vampires appear to view vampirism as a condition that is totally
separate from religious affiliation. One argued that being a vampire is
no more a religion than being a diabetic.

There is an article in a scholarly volume claiming vampires usually wear
only silver jewelry because gold is representative of the rites of the
Catholic Church. I found no evidence of this. While I cannot speak for
others, I imagine that most Christian vampires have no difficulty
reconciling their vampirism and their faith. Modern vampires do not
literally identify with the vampires of legend. Furthermore, the idea
that crosses and holy water repel vampires is a folk belief with no
doctrinal or scriptural basis. Conflict arises because some Christians
interpret vampirism as a demonic or occult practice. I have heard of
vampires in the Bible Belt being "outed" to their church and
forced to leave.

VF: Some members of a fundamentalist religious sects find the
celebration of Halloween as "demonic" and won't allow their
children to read literature like Harry Potter because of the reference
to magic and witches; unfortunately, these individuals probably
won't be reading Vampires Today. How would you address their
concerns?

JL: This question touches on an issue that came up a lot in my career as
a teacher: How do you weigh a child's right to autonomy against a
parent's right to raise their child as they see fit? In this case,
there is an important difference between religious belief and knowledge:
Setting aside the question of whether a Christian child ought to read
Harry Potter, there is a separate issue of false information.

A number of "ritual crime specialists" have attempted to make a
living by playing on popular fears about youth and sub-cultures. In some
cases, these experts receive government money to run seminars for law
enforcement on dubious topics such as "occult crime."
Typically, these specialists take isolated incidents and present them as
evidence of a dark and dangerous network that is all around us. In the
1980s this led to a moral panic over "Satanic Ritual Abuse." In
the 1990s, this attention shifted the Goth culture and the vampire
community. Just this spring, a ritual crime specialist appeared on a
local news station and stated that last Halloween, "a father was
killed at the request of his sixteen-year-old daughter, because he was
trying to intervene in her new Twilight, vampire behavior." The
girl was Danielle Black of Hagerstown, Maryland. So far, press coverage
of this case mentions nothing of vampires or Twilight. It does,
however, discuss the defense's claim that Danielle suffered numerous
beatings from her father.

Typically, ritual crime experts have dismissed the work of academics,
claiming that we "don't understand real police work." I do
think parents would be relieved––as well as better
informed––if they read my book instead of ritual crime literature.
I think the saddest thing about sensationalist accounts of "vampire
killers" is that it distracts from very real and very preventable
factors in these cases. Almost always there is a history of abuse or a
known mental illness than went untreated.

VF: You wrote of a researcher who disappeared in New York in 1996 while
researching the vampire subculture. You wrote that she was almost
certainly killed by the Russian mafia. Did you ever feel that your
safety was an issue during the time you researched your book?

JL: No. Everyone has their own tolerance for risk. While I was
studying vampires I was teaching in some fairly rough inner city
schools. We didn't use metal detectors and students would
frequently bring weapons to protect themselves. I have had a student
show me a wound on his foot where a bullet passed through his body.
I've also done kick boxing in Thailand. Having had these
experiences, I am aware that I don't think of "my safety" in
the same way as everyone else. Even so, there is really very little to
fear from modern vampires. Every community has its share of scandals
and gossip, but the vampires I worked with seemed unusually preoccupied
with ethics. This is probably due at least in part to their desire to
counter negative stereotypes about their community.

Books like Not in Kansas Anymore by Christine Wicker and Piercing the
Darkness by Katherine Ramsland both describe unnerving encounters with
the vampire community. I think there are several reasons why my
experience was so different. First, Wicker and Ramsland are journalists
and people want an exciting story. (Watching the Atlanta Vampire
Alliance discuss demographic data on vampires was not terribly
exciting.) Second, Wicker and Ramsland spent a lot of time in vampire
clubs. Almost by definition, behavior in a nightclub is very different
from everyday behavior. In the clubs, they encountered many life-style
vampires as well as public exhibitions of sado-masochism. Most of my
contacts were uninterested in the club scene and I spent very little
time in clubs in favor of more day-to-day observations. Finally, I am
aware that as a male, people will interact with me differently. For
example, Wicker describes visiting a "vampires and victims
ball," where a man wearing prosthetic fangs approached her and
asked, "So, are you a vampire or a victim?" Clearly, this
question contained innuendos of sexuality as well as power dynamics that
would make a lone woman uncomfortable. As a male, I would probably have
had a totally different experience at a "vampires and victims
ball."

VF: Do you yourself have a favorite fictional vampire or vampire story?

JL: Yes. I Am Legend by Robert Matheson. I have seen all three movie
adaptations with Vincent Price, Charlton Heston, and Will Smith. The
Theosophical society re-imagined the vampire as an energy feeder.
Matheson re-imagined the vampire again as a biological phenomenon. I Am
Legend set the mold for future biological and viral models of vampirism
such as The Hunger, Blade, and Ultra-Violet. In fact, the entire
"zombie survival" genre is indebted to this story. The
biological vampire has influenced medical science, which has tried to
explain vampire legends in terms of porphyria or other diseases. It has
also influenced self-identified vampires, many of whom compare vampirism
to a medical condition. On a personal level, I identify with the
protagonist, Robert Neville. Much like a graduate student, he eats
frozen dinners every night, studies constantly, and has no friends!

VF: You spent a great deal of time with members of vampire communities
in Atlanta and "energy workers" something that continues to
fascinate many people. What surprised you most about the real vampires
you encountered? Did you also interview donors, those who allow vampires
to drink their blood?

JL: I did notice a lot of unexpected interactions between vampires and
their donors. One member of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance is not a
vampire at all––he practices energy healing known as Reiki. The
vampires loved having him around and called him "our battery"
because he emitted so much energy.

Several of the vampires I met were "hybrids"––meaning that
they consumed by psi energy and blood. One woman explained that
vampires were often confused with blood fetishists––those who
receive sexual gratification from drinking or sharing their blood. She
explained that sometimes a symbiotic relationship would occur between a
vampire and a blood-fetishist serving as a donor. I also spoke to a
hybrid vampire who said that his blood donors were normally women he was
romantically involved with. His current girlfriend was a Wiccan. In
the past, Wiccans have regarded vampires as spiritual parasites although
relations have improved dramatically between the two groups. The Wiccan
was comfortable dating a vampire, with the caveat that her boyfriend
could not feed on her (blood or energy). Accordingly, her boyfriend has
had to sustain himself purely on psi energy.

VF: Did any of the vampires you interviewed attempt to
"convert" or "turn" you.

JL: Most vampires believe that you cannot "turn" into a vampire.
Instead, you discover that you always were one. This process is called
"awakening." Awakening bears some resemblance to discovering
one's sexual orientation: The person does not change, but they think
about their identity in a new way. I do know of one scholar who began
to wonder if he might be a vampire as a result of his research with this
community.

Vampires did not try to convert me, but they were concerned that I would
not be able to understand their world. This is always a problem in
studying religion because you can never truly see the world through
someone else's eyes. Many vampires were reluctant to talk to me at
first because they assumed I saw them as mentally ill. This was not an
unreasonable assumption considering what previous scholars have written
about this community.

I did participate in an energy workshop with vampires. Doing the energy
work, I did indeed feel tactile sensations on my palms and fingertips.
Having this experience gave me a vague idea of what it is like for a
vampire to experience subtle energy. At least one of my peers expressed
concerns that I had "gone native" and lost my objectivity. I
disagree. It would be unempirical to claim I did not feel sensations
while doing energy work, however, it is not my position that I actually
experienced subtle energy.

VF: Are you planning more writing about vampires?

JL: Possibly. I see vampires as part of a much larger trend in
contemporary religion. A recent survey indicated that the number of
Christians in America has dropped slightly in the last twenty years. At
the same time, the number of people who identify as having "no
religion" has doubled. These "nones" do not describe
themselves as atheists. Instead, they seem to have highly personalized
ideas about religion. I believe these "religions of one" are
the next major frontier for religious studies. It appears that with
modernity, religion has increasingly become linked to a search for
identity. I am drawn to vampires because they are an extremely radical
form of self-discovered identity.

I am currently interviewing people who describe themselves as
"otherkin." Like vampires, otherkin believe they are
fundamentally different from normal humans. Many of them identify as
animals, faeries, and mythological creatures. Current scholarship has
described otherkin as "an online religious movement," but I
suspect there is much more at stake here. The vampires have given me
entreé into this community and I see it as yet another opportunity.
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Postby deacongray » Mon Jul 13, 2009 6:48 pm

I am not as impressed with this work thus far as everyone else seems to be. While I appluad that a mainstreamer wrote something serious when it comes to vampires, I cannot over look that the info, the study, the background basically came right from the mouths of those who have long made a study of the community.

I suppose it is a good thing, after all the book was not written for Vamps, it was written for the mainstream, with the hope vamps would buy it and approve of what was written...and why not we all love to hear what we have to say vomited back to us.

If someone outside the community, or a newly awaked wanted info I would reccomend this book.

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