Origins of Nightkind: The Divine tie between Therian, Otherkin, and Vampyres
This is a fundamental question that we have all at some point asked ourselves and others as well only to receive the same answers over and over again. When looking into our origins, I first began looking into the paleontological aspects of the actual origins of man and the behavior of those early primal beings for something that would be logical to me. To say that I know everything about where we began or where we originated would be arrogant and erroneous and so all I have to offer are my theories and hypothesis. Nothing more. Knowing that not everyone is a spiritual person or even a religious one, I’ve included a more basic suggestion of origins of our kind at the end of my conjecture.
Through my consideration years ago, I found that some studies among our kind revealed several ties between the communities of Otherkin, Therian, Sanguine, and Psy alike. It seems that all of us have some Anomoly that in some way separates us apart from others. We have some common deficiencies such as B12, lactose intolerance, food allergies, nocturnal natures, and to some extent or another, an intolerance to light as well as strong empathy, psychic and pranic bonds with each other, healing, and a greater extrasensory perception than most mundane people. This indicates to me that we are more than just cousins. We have a common ancestral tie. It is too much of a coincidence that random people sharing some of the same symptoms would also have similar natures and so I began to see the community not as separate individuals but as a tribe.
Looking into mythological beings (and from most perspectives we are just that), almost always leads to yet more myths and legends. The truth is there is a little bit of truth in every myth and even more answers to be found by examining them. As I examined more myths of our kind I saw similarities between not only the creation of the Vampyre race, but also of the Nature Spirits, the Children of the Gods, and both as direct lineages of the Divine in accordance with the development of humanity.
I often consider what the Ancients mean to me, who I perceive them to be, where I perceive them to come from, and how they relate to me and my current incarnation. What I concluded is that the Creators, after sharing their breath of life and tethering us together through the silver strands of delicately woven Spirit, went a step further. Most religions accept that there was more than one; male and female that played an equal part in the Creation of all there is. Thus they also played an integral part in the spiritual and metaphysical development of the human race that resulted in the Vampyres and all of their cousins.
From the very beginnings of time humanity has sought to commune with the Divine in mystical, magickal, and altogether spiritual ways. We have created traditions of magick and mysticism, eons of precious philosophy based around the improvement and empowerment of our spiritual bodies and mind. In seeking that communion with the Divine, Divinity itself, both as the Androgyne and as Mother and Father, took into Their service those men and women who desired a spiritual bond above all others in the form of Priest and Priestess teaching them the mysteries through visions, dreams, spiritual communion, and intuitive discovery. To assist with their teachings They created aspects of themselves in ways that would be appealing to more mundane beings, appearing to Their followers as visions and dreams. To some They would appear as a great dragon, to others as a beautiful woman or man, and still to others as angelic beings surrounded by pure radiant light.
In time these aspects sought physical communion as well as spiritual with humanity and incarnated giving humanity physical contact with the Gods and Goddesses they loved so much. Being unable to support the same amount of prana that they were able to carry with them in infinite spiritual form and being limited to a physical form rather, it is possible that They lost prana or could not produce the amount needed to support Their spiritual infinity within a finite physical form. Priests and Priestesses of the incarnated Ancients were trained by the Ancients Themselves to both give and receive prana in effect learning to heal using energy, to become donors to those that became weakened by physical constraints, and to manifest their desires by walking between the worlds, being in service to the Ancients as conduit between themselves and the rest of humanity and also being the living donors to the Ancients.
Because the physical and spiritual forms of a being can not manifest on the same plane at the same time, They were unable to revert to Their original spiritual forms and remained in Their physical bodies. Over time They took to Themselves human mates taking into Their service as priests and priestesses and as beloveds and Their offspring being human but having a stronger sense of the mystical and inheriting the need for prana as well. These half human offspring were the foundations for the legend of world mythologies and the first race of humanity.
In time, as most things do, the Ancients returned to the realm of the Spirit to be incarnated again later on in time. It is possible that they assimilated through physical death or returned through spiritual ascension into Their complete Divinity. One thing is certain. At some point, the Ancients left humanity and communicate to Their children still just as They did in those first days of man. In the meantime, Their offspring developed in many different ways. Just as the incarnated Ancients took human mates, They first took each other as Divine lovers producing a race of purely Divine offspring, the Fae. As their parents were adept shapeshifters and magi so were Their children. The true children of the original incarnated aspects the Fae, or the Other, also took to themselves human mates and the breeding of vampyric humans with Other resulted in the Liannon shidhe, the Bdobhan shidhe, and countless other beings who would also take to themselves human mates, perhaps even other offspring of the incarnated Ancients. These humans were among the first races of humans created and they remained through survival of the fittest as living children of the Ancients.
To arrive where we are now, we must fast forward through countless centuries of human development, nomadic traveling, and genetic diversity. I suspect that the original race of vampyres was very small indeed as the first selection of priests and priestesses would have been very limited given the populations, individual spiritual awareness, and mental development. Reaching the point of enlightenment and spiritual Truth would have and still does, taken many years of study and training. Through communion, the Ancients would have given the priest and priestess an overpowering charisma, intellect, and strength perhaps even causing them to be worshiped as minor deities themselves. As humanity progressed and became more sophisticated so did their views on the Divine.
Now I must switch to another topic that is tied to but not an obvious part of the origins of our kind. The gift of free will and spiritual blueprinting, in which the Ancients gifted us, Vampyre and mundane alike, with the ability to make our own decisions in as much as even being able to decide what would happen to us after our physical bodies expire. At the time of creating the spiritual ribbons that bind not only one soul to the other, but each soul to the source of all creation, the Divine gave to their new creations the decisions to map our every move, thought, decision, life lesson, path, obstacles, joys as well as tragedies prior to incarnating. We map out our lives down to the flecks of colors in our eyes, when we would acquire our first teeth and take our first steps in numerous blueprints. The final blueprinting is a collection of all of them, finely edited and attune to give us the abilities to grow and manifest our lives in positive and spiritual ways. At the time of incarnation, we have already decided to come into this world as either mundane or as Vampyre so that we have many lifetimes when we have lived as a normal every day person and in another life time as Vampyre, Therian, or Otherkin. Unless of course, we choose otherwise. This is the ultimate form of parental love and acceptance. I include the concept of blueprinting and free will only to separate the spiritual condition of vampyrism from the physical concept of genetics, which is in itself is highly questionable as an inherent origin.
The more scientific theories of our origins include recessive genetics, citing a hereditary ancestral condition that only occurs occasionally. That we may have long lines of Vampyres within our families is no indicator of recessive genes unless we maintain those genes through inbreeding. In some cultures, the concept of intermarrying within the family to preserve a lineage may have at one time been common, also including preserving a vampyric lineage as well. However, because we choose our aspects prior to coming into our incarnations it is unlikely that this is the case. Throughout history we have seen cases of this type of inbreeding and the end results, bringing about a sort of revenant condition in which someone exhibits Nightkind tendencies but because of their mental instability is a danger not only to themselves but to everyone else around them. Historical cases of Lycanthropy, Prions disease, or Reinfeld’s Syndrome in which madness is accompanied by the desire to consume human flesh and blood have often been mistaken for Vampyrism or Therianthropy.
Other theories of Nightkind origins not steeped in mental illness include physical disease, such as Porphyria which is a condition that causes the blood cells to disintegrate due to a B12 deficiency resulting in a severe anemic condition. Anemia in any form is a result of either genetics or deficiency and is by all definitions an illness not related to vampyrism as vampyrism can and does exist separate from this condition. Porphyria is also an inherited condition caused by interfamilial marrying somewhere down the line and is a recessive trait. Today the illness is extremely rare, although it is commonly blamed for our nature.
Over time I have tried to go over the myths and lore and discover the origins of our kind and have concluded that the original locale was not in effect Africa, which may well have been the origins of the second age of humanity, but in Northern Europe. Taking into effect that the descriptions of Vampyres and Therians have been found on caves, carvings, on altars, and some of the more ancient standing monuments and temple spaces as well as resplendent throughout myths and lore, the original Vampyres were from the more Northern climates. Although the climate during the first age may have been more jungle like and not as cold as we consider Northern Europe to be now, we know that these sacred places were used for human sacrifices as well as initiation, worship, lunar, and celestial celebrations. We are only just breaking the skin of the uses for these places. Recently a circle of monoliths strikingly similar to Stonehenge was found in Siberia, showing that these places were not merely a product of the Druidic cultures. Moving further southward, we also see other monuments and sacred spaces such as those found on Easter Island.
Anthropology tells us that the first race was a nomadic sort and actively traveled across the then singular continent of Afro~Euro~Stralia. Whether or not the Americas were a part of that is still very much debated. All were part of one great continent in which case the various tribes assimilated into their own territories and began the cultures that influenced the shaping of the world. In time, many of these races were driven to extinction either by their own actions or by environmental, stellar, or political reasons. In these ways, the Ancients traveled with Their tribes and in each culture became living representatives of the Divine.
Many legends and much evidence cite the first identifiable humans as originating from Africa and it is very well true also. Science has proven that at one time there was a great disaster, whether it was natural as in the case of the flood or whether it was a huge astronomical disaster of one or more asteroids, the face of the world and human civilization was greatly changed. Humanity was not completely destroyed but was greatly limited and the first emerging humans came out of Africa. There are still many parts of Siberia that have yet to be explored and it would be fair to say that the most primitive man would not have created such exact monuments to their deities. In this way humanity survived and our legends and traces of divine lineage of the Ancient Ones remained. Today we as living descendents of those first Vampyres, countless incarnations later, have that same beautiful connection with the Ancients through dreams, visions, and astral visitation. Just as the incarnated aspects of the Divine tried to fit an infinite creation into a finite shell, we also are more in tune with our infinite selves so much so that we have a higher vibration thus requiring a steady input of life force to maintain our health and physical shells.
These are just my theories and conjectures. No one should ever accept any statement of origins that does not ring true to their Spirit. Nothing that I have here is expressed as fact. As always, we should be open to what the Ancients are telling us and should examine and question everything until we find our own truth through intuitive discovery.
Aislin Ni MorRhiaghan,
copyright December 18, 2005