It's Time to Talk About Turning

If you've been involved in the vampyre community for very long the word "turning" is probably enough to send your eyes rolling and your fingers typing. Before you begin though, please take a moment to hear me out.

The usual response to "turning" from people in the community is to more or less immediately shut it down. Being fair, this is usually out of concern for safety. There are unscrupulous people that sell spells that turn you into a vampire, people that offer to turn you into a vampire in exchange for money or favors, and people that will use the promise of turning as leverage to manipulate you. Due to these dangers, discussions of turning are usually immediately stifled and the process itself is treated as impossible or at the very least, extremely difficult or obscure.

The topic of turning or making someone else into a vampyre has been ubiquitous within the online community basically since its inception. Obviously, in folklore as well as in popular culture, vampirism is usually transmitted through a process that results in an ordinary human being changed into a vampire. Given how much overlap there is between the real vampyre community and fiction there's no wondering how the concept of turning was introduced. As it specifically relates to the real vampyre community, turning narratives have two primary sources: Classicals and energy body alterations.

In the early days of the online community it wasn't uncommon to see users on forums claiming to be Classicals. Classical vampyres are essentially what you think of when you think of a fictional vampire: immortal and undead with the associated supernatural powers. They are supposedly made in a similar way to how vampires are made in fiction and in the dark corners of the early online vampyre community you could find them, or at least people claiming to be them.

Some of these characters were convincing and allowed the fantasy of becoming an Anne Rice vampire to stay alive for the rest of us, if only we could get close enough to or become friends with one of these centuries-old Classicals who, for some reason, wanted to hang out on web forums with wannabes. It seems that in the 1990s and into the 2000s the belief in immortals and turning was also not uncommon in the offline community; in Katherine Ramsland's Piercing the Darkness, the author reports hearing from one of her New York contacts in the community that they had a lead on meeting a real vampire that could "bring them over". There are also responses in Konstantinos' Vampires: The Occult Truth in which the respondent is waiting for an immortal to turn them or the respondent claims to be some variety of undead immortal vampire themselves.

It's fun to hope but I've always been of the opinion that immortal vampires like those depicted in fiction most likely do not exist and if they do I can't imagine them using their nights to hang out with random strangers on the Internet, but maybe I'm wrong. I hold the possibility of being turned by this kind of vampire under the highest suspicion and you probably should as well; it is an enticing carrot to use to manipulate people. This carries us to the other dominant turning narrative: making alterations to the energy body.

Among more spiritual vampyre groups, most prominently House Kheperu, members hold a belief in reincarnation or transmigration of the soul across lifetimes. In the case of House Kheperu, it is implied in Michelle Belanger’s The Psychic Vampire Codex that in the distant past the members performed certain rituals or procedures that altered their souls in a way that keeps them reincarnating but without losing their experience or identity between lifetimes. This process also gave them their vampyric need and abilities. Mythic origins are not out of the ordinary among esoteric or occult groups and this concept in itself is not very offensive, all things considered.

This being the case, what about performing these same alterations on a regular person in the present day in order to make them a vampyre? Alterations to the energy body are a concept in systems such as Reiki to confer attunement to the tradition. There have been those that have argued that vampyrism is caused by broken chakras or a damaged energy body and similarly they claim that by doing these things to an otherwise regular person they can be made into a vampyre. This is ultimately the same sort of carrot as the promise of being changed into a Classical immortal but given what's actually gained, why would someone choose this?

The promise of spiritual immortality, being able to reincarnate into new lives with memory of your previous ones, may seem enticing but this belief is not restricted to vampyric spiritual systems. The majority of "abilities" attributed to psychic vampyres are not related to their vampyrism and are noted in non-vampyric individuals to the point where courses exist to teach the average person energy work or how to become psychic. Even being able to feed psychically is an ability that anyone can learn, and most magickal vampyres do learn this ability without the need for alterations performed by someone else.

I treat this kind of "turning" as being more plausible than being made into a Classical but there is still the question of “Why?” It may be necessary in order to be initiated into a specific group but for the average person the juice is not worth the squeeze considering any supposed benefits of this kind of vampyrism can be gained in other ways. Initiation is common in magickal orders, witchcraft covens, and other esoteric groups but initiation is not the same as having someone do what amounts to magickal surgery on your soul to alter your reincarnation cycle.

If you want to join an order or coven that requires this kind of alteration I can only hope that you do your homework, manage your expectations, and know what you're getting yourself into. That being said, unless someone is using this as a way to manipulate you in a cult-like fashion I don't see a lot of harm in it. You ultimately have autonomy over your own soul, if you even believe in such a thing.

As a final note on turning, be suspicious of anyone offering you power or status in exchange for money or favors. The perception of having something exclusive that can be given to others if they are worthy is very enticing for the disenfranchised and vulnerable. Becoming a vampyre as we understand it within the vampyre community will not fix any of your problems. If anything, it will compound them. You will not be suddenly thrust into wealth or well-being. Selling spells or potions online, for outrageous sums of money, that will transform you into a vampire is just as predatory as abuse by a cult, if only slightly less dangerous. If anyone says they can make you a vampyre, and they're not talking metaphorically through initiation into a specific current, then you should probably run. It’s obvious what’s in it for you, but you should always ask “What’s in it for them?”