Vampires....and not the sparkly kind either!

That's right!

Ok, so before you get all bent out of shape about the obvious play on Twilight in the title,  let me at least preface this by saying it is not in any way about actual vampires, or vampire films! There, now that it's out of the way we can happily move on to the actual blog post. This post is about the most lethal kind of vampire out there, the Psychic Vampire. Psychic Vampires are well know both as a term and a people within the metaphysical community, in fact chances are that if you don't already know about them you have at least heard the term before.

Psychic Vampires don't drink blood or fly around as bats, they don't only come out at night either! It would be so much easier if they did of course, a simple call to your local Vampire Slayer and poof...dusted. Unfortunately that isn't the case here. The Psychic Vampire is a person just like any other, and can sometimes even be yourself. The trouble with a Psychic Vampire is that they draw upon energy. They create for themselves situations or events, sometimes even falsifying information in order to drain energy from others in order to fuel themselves. This can be done for a variety of reasons. Some simply don't know how to create or conserve their own energy and so they look for it from others. Others know exactly what they are doing and actually seek out their victims. And others still are willing victims of this Psychic Vampirism!

If you have ever had a conversation with someone, even for a short period of time and were left feeling drained, tired, or maybe even angry then you had a run in with this particularly nasty type of vampire. They use simple methods to make you open up to them so they can latch onto you psychically and begin to drain your energy. Usually by time you are done they feel great while you don't! I can't say that it's always easy to spot them as some can be really sneaky about it, but think of it this way, if they are throwing a pity party and you got the only invitation, politely decline. One of the most common ways that these vampires tend to get in is to complain about things, and why not? Complaining is something that we all do from time to time, and when someone does it to us we tend to listen and attempt to find something similar to their situation to relate to. There it is, you're already being sucked on like a cough drop at the flu ward! Ok, so maybe not the best analogy there but you get the point.

There are a few things that you can do in order to protect yourself from these types of individuals.

1. Don't get pulled in! Seriously! This is the easiest and yet the hardest one to work with. Don't surround yourself with those individuals that need to take your energy in order to thrive. At some point they are going to have to learn to deal with their energies in a constructive way, and they aren't going to be able to do that if you continue to let them drain from you! Something that I always live by is this, I am sure to surround myself with positive individuals and energy only!
2. Close of your energy points! Doing something as simple as crossing your arms, or legs will close off your energy circuits (so to speak of course), and will make the vampire unable to draw energy from you. It sounds too easy to be real right? Give it a shot, see if you sit there with your arms and legs crossed while they attempt to drain your energy you will not feel drained or tired afterward. You can still be the good friend, or sibling, or child, or whatever and listen to their situation without getting drained by it.
3. Psychic Protections. Surround yourself with white light, electricity, mirrors. Use these types of images in your protections to destroy or even bounce back the attacks that are made toward you. You can even use all three listed here in order to really keep yourself locked up and protected.

Believe it or not we deal with these people every day, sometimes even more than once. What it comes down to is that fact that your energy belongs to you. You are the only one that should decide where it goes and when, and you shouldn't have to be bullied and taken advantage of by these Psychic Vampires. Now that you are in the know, you won't have to ever again!
 

Amulets and Talismans

"Evil Eye Amulet" for protection against negative forces directed at you by others

Amulets and Talismans, well at least that's what the title of the blog post says. As in the above image there are many different kinds of Amulets and Talismans throughout history and the world. I don't want to focus on making a huge list of them for you or anything like that, I tend to be more informative than that as you can tell by now. So what I am going to do here is talk a little bit about these two items of magick.

Amulets and Talismans have been used for centuries and not just by magick users. In fact many cultures and religions tend to use Amulets to this day. From Greece, Egypt, Rome, China, Japan, all over the world there are many different types and forms of these items and chances are that you are wearing one, or using one in your day to day life and may not even be fully aware of it!

Talismans

The term Talisman can be a more rounded for what we are talking about here, what I mean is that Amulets are a form of Talisman but Talismans are individual from Amulets. Now that I have more than likely confused the heck out of you lets continue. Talismans can be any item that has been created or charged with a magickal purpose or intent. Traditionally when we think of these things we think of necklaces, jewelry, or charms. If that is where you first go you would be right, but keep in mind that Talismans can also be pieces of paper, articles or clothing, or even a myriad of other items that you come across, provided of course that they are created into Talismans for a specific purpose. Talismans are usually used for things like luck, love, money, power, energy etc. They really run the gambit of things from A to Z and can be charged by the creator for any purpose that they desire. When carried they emit that energy and draw to themselves, and the user of course that similar energy in order to help manifest it in their physical lives.

Talismans can be purchased of course, from a dozen different websites and stores. These are great, but tend to be mass produced articles of jewelry that are already created for certain reasons and may not exactly meet the requirements of your personal need. In addition to that these pre-made ones are usually riddles with symbols and writing that can barely be deciphered. That in itself has always been a personal issue for me. Unless you are a master of symbology there is no way that you can tell wheat energy these symbols really take, where they have been or what they are currently used for. In fact I have even seen Talismans that have used symbols that have been completely made up from either T.V. or books. I Think that the best way to get a Talisman that you want, that you can charge with your personal energy and be sure will work for the purpose you create is to make it yourself. Now of course if you want all the fancy symbols and lettering you can do your research and find ones that are suited to your want or need, but sometimes as they say the easier the better. Metals, stones, woods, papers all of these things make terrific Talismans that can be charged with your personal magick and used right away. Stay away if you can from things like glass, and plastics that don't tend to hold energy well.

Amulets

These are a bit different from Talismans, Amulets tend to be charged with a specific purpose of protection for the bearer. In the same way as Talismans these can be any item and are most often articles of jewelry. Things like the Crucifix, Buddha, Pentacles, Evil Eyes are all forms of Amulets that are made for protective reasons. This type of Talisman is most often carried with the user on a daily basis while other types are carried until the user is satisfied with its use and then put away to use again.

Like Talismans, Amulets can be purchased or given to you by a loved one, maybe even passed down through your family for years. These tend to be a bit different in energy because each bearer of the item has believed that it was worn to keep them protected, and has such has likely been charged through many years for that exact reason. This isn't to say that you shouldn't also be charging an Amulet that has been passed down to you with your own protective energies or chants, but that the Amulet has likely retained all that energy from the past as well.


Keeping the item charged with its magick is important as well. Each time you wear, or carry the item it is important to focus a moment on the reason why it was created, the use of the item and what it is that the Talisman or Amulet is supposed to do for you.

Paranormal Information Association Conference

Poster for the 2014 P.I.A Conference

I just got home from about an hour drive from Sebring Florida where I attended the Paranormal Information Association Conference (or P.I.A for short), for my fourth year now. It was another great weekend accompanying the team I work with. Each year the P.I.A Conference is a chance for Florida Paranormal Investigative teams to mingle with each other, go over ideas and theories, and have a little fun while we are at it. This is the fourth year that it has been held at the Kenilworth Lodge an old historic hotel in central Florida.

The hotel itself has its own sort of glamor as an historic location. You can tell by the exposed pipes with sprinkler heads, the old slow moving elevator, and the decor that the Kenilworth has attempted to keep as much of its historical charm as possible with still moving forward into the new age of hotels that we seem to be entering. The place isn't for everyone, but if you are looking for a comfortable place to stay the night the rates and staff at the Lodge are very welcoming. The P.I.A. has been very blessed to have worked with the hotel four years now in holding their event, and each time the staff is more than happy to help. Anyway...before I go of on too much of a tangent here about the location let me get back to the point which is the P.I.A. itself.

The P.I.A. started out several years ago and was called the Florida Ghost Gathering, at that point it was simply a chance for other Paranormal Teams to meet with each other and get to know who's who so to speak. Once they found their success in that they wanted to be able to expand it a bit and, from what I have come to understand the P.I.A. was born. At the core of this conference is a group of administration teams, that from the beginning have seen to every aspect of the gathering itself. The main goal for this conference is to bring the Paranormal Investigative Community together and give them a place where they can learn, talk , and teach others as they go along.

Each year there are different classes, seminars and workshops that you can attend to either learn more about something that you are not familiar with, or delve deeper into something that you are. Different social events as well as dinners are scheduled throughout the gathering; and there are vendors where you can purchase anything from the newest up and coming equipment, to nic-nacks such as jewelry or candles. Some years as well have seen some very popular and well known special guests from within the Paranormal Community that have given their time to be there and speak, and learn alongside the many other groups. Now before I go too far and you start signing up you do need to know that at the present time the conference is not open to the public. In the future we will have to see if this changes but in the meantime there are rules regarding registration of the event that can be found at their site.

The people of the conference have always been great. I personally have always found it to be so awesome to be able to speak with different groups and talk about investigations, or theories, or even about their evidence or personal experiences. Its refreshing in a way to be able to speak freely among your peers especially about something that you know everyone there is passionate about in the first place. Though the conference started out focusing more on the Paranormal or "ghost" investigative side of things it has expended over the years to include other facets of the Paranormal Community as well. Groups such as MUFON are often there, as well as others that focus on more spiritual aspects and more still that work with Mythology, or even Cryptozoology. 

Now no conference of any scale big or small is without a few snafu's now and again. Schedule changes sometimes occur and you may not get to attend everything that you want to within the weekend format, but the P.I.A. itself is still very new and each year they look for ways to improve upon the last and make the event something that is as best suited to the attendees and members as possible.

I always have a great time away, beside a lovely hotel its great to be able to reconnect with people that I have met there in previous years. I look forward as well to attending next year, and seeing what the P.I.A. has in store as it changes again and works toward the future.

Well....its been far too long

I know that a lot of you are still looking up the page, and you have noticed that there haven't been any updates in quite some time. I would like to change that in the future. I have had some very serious family things happen to me in the past few years and they have taken quite some time to get through. I apologize for not being around and not posting more often, I had such wonderful intentions to do it all the time.

Anyway, I'd like to start posting again soon, I miss the communication with you all , and moreso miss learning and teaching alongside all of you.

Thank you for your patience.

A litte off topic......

So many of you have asked me where I have been over the past year, and though I try to answer people as often as I can sometimes it has fallen by the wayside. I do apologize, it was not my intention to be gone for so long, but you see Life has taken an interesting course over the past year.

My grandmother was diagnosed with non small cell Lung Cancer. It's the type of cancer that cannot be cured, but can be fought. We started out with really high hopes as a family as she began her first rounds of treatment with Radiation and Chemo-Therapy. It all was going well and she suffered little to no side effects for a good long time. In fact it was going so well that we all nearly forgot that she even had cancer to begin with.

The doctors and nurses at the Cancer Center that she goes to have been some of the most phenomenal people I have met in my life! They have all been so caring and concerned for her from the very start, and that concern continues to this day.

Recently this with her diagnosis changed, a small tumor was found on the bone of her rib. This new development was rough as it caused her a decent amount of pain. So much in fact that she went through several  very strong pain medicines only to not be able to take most of them due to side effects. This time, as her Chemo medication changed she started to show more and more side effects, and it sort of hit us again......she has Cancer.

The ups and downs we've experienced since are the equivalent of taking a roller coaster ride from the top of Mt. Everest...straight down....then right back up again. It leaves your stomach in knots, causes stress and illness, and leaves you feeling confused and yes at sometimes hopeless.

She has been a fighter since day 1, especially since she was a Breast Cancer Survivor as well. She has been bound and determined not to let this Cancer beat her, and we commend her for that. Seeing the pain she goes through some days though is heart wrenching.

Something people tend to forget about though are the caregivers. The people that stand along side the Cancer patient and fight each day with them. The ones that help to feed, bathe, and care for them. The ones who are up all hours of the night with them, and take them from appointment to appointment with little regard for their own schedule, work or lives. The ones that sit there and watch as a person they love deteriorates before them, gets better, then deteriorates again.

This is what I have been doing this past year. I have been the caregiver for m Grandmother who is suffering with Lung Cancer. Each day is a battle for all of us, and there are some days where I am surprised that we find the strength to move on at all.

To all those that are suffering with any form of Cancer, or those that have lost loved ones dear to them because of it. Please take a moment each day to pray, send energy, and love to the patients, the caregivers, the families, and the Doctors and Nurses that care for them as well.

Doorways of Life....

One of the hardest things that we can ever remember is the fact that, in life, when one door closes another opens.

We have all been in a place before where it seems as if things are not going our way, are stagnant, or even coming to an end. The great thing about this though is that fact that it never really stops moving forward. You are bound to find some pitfalls along the way in your journey. Spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, all of these are going to have challenges associated with them when you travel down your path. Keeping in the back of your mind though that everything that is happening now is for a reason. It is all happening so that you can close a door on your path and open a new one to journey on. I can hear you now "Easier said than done there Thomas." and yes it is easier said than done, but at some point you have to just let go, and let Goddess! Let that hand guide you to where you are supposed to be instead of taking so much control that you wind up stuck knee deep in one of your pitfalls. Realize that you are guided by a higher power, a universal force, a Goddess or God. Let go of your control even for just a moment and let things play out the way they are supposed to.

I'm not saying that it is going to be good all the time, and in fact may lead to other stresses or "lessons" that need to be learned before that other door opens. The point is, that you have to shut down one end in order to open the other end. Sometimes in order to do that you need to simply let go. Its on of the hardest things that we as human beings can learn to do. We in the spiritual world are used to taking responsibility for our actions and emotions, sometimes so much so that we forget we are being guided in a larger scheme of things. Let that hand move you along, even if for a moment and experience it. Let if lead you forward to where you should be going and listen to what it has to say.

Those that fail at history...............

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.....when I was in High School (well not that far for some but far enough for me), my history teacher mentioned a phrase to the class at the beginning of the year that made us all want to work a little harder. He said "Those that fail history are doomed to repeat it."

Now in my high school mind the first thing I thought was that if I failed his class I would have to go to summer school and take it over again. I'm sure that every other student there thought the very same thing as we sat wide eyed and trembled at the possibility of summer courses.

It wasn't until years later that the thought came to my mind again and I realized its deeper meaning.

"Those that fail history are doomed to repeat it."

Life, among other things is about lessons. We enter situations and meet people and make choices all in order to learn a specific lesson from it at some point. We have a choice in all of this mind you, to either learn the lesson, or not. This is the deeper meaning. All those times that we failed to learn the lesson we were supposed to, those times of anger, grief, annoyance, pain we will repeat. These are usually the situations that we fail to learn lessons from because we get so emotionally involved within them that we cannot objectively learn from them.

These situations will come up over and over, again and again, until we finally buckle under and learn what we are supposed to learn. It is quite possible the hardest thing that we can force ourselves to do when confronted by these types of situations. We get caught up in our emotions, its part of being human. The idea here is to allow yourself ample time to get out of the emotional round-a-bout, and then take a step back. See things from the wider perspective.

Part of self awareness is recognizing patterns in your life. Learning when certain things are going to come back around that great wheel and smack you in the butt! If we instead learned from these situations wouldn't we then be able to incur a better come a round from that wheel? If the wheel is full of nothing but positive life lessons than that is what is going to come back again and again.

This isn't to say that negative ones aren't going to manifest from time to time, after all there needs to be a balance and sometimes a person needs that extra kick in the bum in order to get the lesson learned, but all in all its about objectivity and awareness.

Next time you find yourself in a situation where you know there is a lesson to be learned, and you are so caught up in it emotionally, recognize it and take that step back. Try to view things from all angles, meditate, converse with your Guides, do what you need to do to see things objectively so that you can begin to learn the lesson that is in store for you.