Do I believe in vampires?

I believe that the world is inhabited by many strange creatures, not all of them human. So the answer is yes, but I do not think that humans can become vampires or faeries or elves. I think that these other types of beings have hidden themselves well in the modern era, realizing how paranoid and dangerous humans can be, and that if you ever ran into a real vampire, you would never know it. There seems to be a lot of fascination with things dark and mysterious, probably as a reaction to the constraints of a technological and rationalist society, but all the Goths running around in black and listening to Marilyn Manson are not real vampires, much as they would like to be. Nor do I think it is right for us to try to be something that we are not, I am not a dog, and if I ran around thinking I was one, every one would think I was silly or deranged. I have much the same feeling for all the teens running around thinking they are vampires, and I think the real creatures are laughing too, but secretly. Is it fun to take a non-human point of view? Of course it is, that's the main thrill and lure of role-playing games. To step outside ourselves for a time, and see the world from a different angle is a great source of fun, but it can taken to a point where a person loses touch with the fact that he or she is just pretending and begins to think that they really ARE a non-human being and this is not healthy. There is more than enough power and mystery in just being a fully alive human child of the Goddess, and as it says in the Charge of the Goddess, "if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without."

This page last modified 11/9/98