the seductive allure of vampirism

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
May 2, 2011
1,134
8
0
#21
There can be a metaphor but I am pretty sure this thread is talking about the mythical creature.
Daywalkers - (Sociopaths)
THE PARABLE OF THE DAY-TIME VAMPIRE

Let there be night
The lingering shadows of the night begin to retreat at the approaching golden rays of
dawn. She awakens from her slumber at the characteristic sound of the small alarm clock
that’s situated on the teak cabinet which stands beside her bed. Faithfully over many
years this trusty little clock has heralded the start of many new days charged with
positive expectation. So why should today be any different? Why should her luck change
so badly? How could fate be so cruel?

Wrapped in knots of unknowing she gets out of bed and stretches widely while emitting a
slight yawn before opening the brightly coloured curtains to greet the light of a new day.
And the energy and warmth of the sun beams reassuringly around her bedroom. How
could something that begins with so much light be the prelude to so much dark?

The conditioning of years helps her to move into her habitual routine as she quickly
moves into the shower and the final soporific vestiges of sleep are washed away with the
ebb and flow of the currents of revitalising water which burst energetically from the
shower. ‘It’s a new dawn – it’s a new day’ she sings to herself as she smiles in anticipation
of what she imagines awaits her today. But you never can tell – can you?

Having enjoyed the benefits of a fruit breakfast and chamomile infusion she leaves the
protection of her home and steps out into the embrace of the coming nightmare. What
makes this so sad is that she thinks she’s going to be safe in the daylight. But looks can
be deceiving.

She arrives at the appointed rendez vous and sits down on a blue and grey speckled office
chair that’s a clone of a million other such chairs that can be found in many thousands of
similar office complexes around the country. Everything seems so normal. Such a bland
setting for such an impending catastrophe.

Naturally she’s a bit nervous. This is to be, she thinks, an important meeting for her future
career. For so long she’s been seeking a role in a Human Resources department. She likes
people, she gets on well with people and practically everyone likes her too. She’s highly
talented and she’s got lots to offer. Oodles to offer. That’s why he noticed her.

Incisor dealing
He’s calculating. He’s cunning. He’s an adept compulsive liar with a cruel streak that when
utilised has rapier-like sharpness. And he wears a charming mask of charisma that has
proven, through regular use, to be his most prized weapon of all. Too often, too many of
his quarries have forgotten the age old warning given to remind us that sometimes the
Devil can appear, to those he intends on duping, in the form of an angel of light. Everyone
likes angels. You can trust angels. And today is to be no different. She too, victim number
‘who-knows-how-many?’ is to fall the same way.


A cut above the rest
Vampires don’t really exist. At least, not as they’re portrayed in the movies. And even in
the movies there is only one so-called ‘Daywalker’, a vampire who has all of the powers of
the demonic bloodsuckers and almost none of their weaknesses. He’s called Blade and
he’s stronger than the others. Daylight doesn’t bother him (which is why he’s known as
the ‘Daywalker’). Garlic and religious symbols are not a problem either. The reason for
this is because his mother was bitten when she was pregnant carrying him and as a result
of this twist of fate he was born part vampire - part human, so to speak. He possesses all
of the ‘benefits’ and almost none of the weaknesses. Almost none. But the weakness that
he shares with his erstwhile ‘family’ is a significant one. It’s…the thirst! However Blade is
different from the despotic vampiric bloodsuckers. He has goodness in his heart and
chooses not to vent his own flaws on those weaker than he. Instead he prefers to inject
himself daily with a special serum designed to keep the unwanted bloodlust at bay. That
way, instead of hurting others he uses his talents to protect society from the many
Nightwalkers who stalk the city streets.


Understandably, in this fantasy world, many of the vampire Nightwalkers want to gain
Blade’s invulnerability to daylight and they constantly seek ways to do so, including
genetic engineering. Because if they could become Daywalkers too they’d enjoy a round-
the-clock feeding-frenzy! But Blade manages to keep one step ahead of them and
stymies their plans for world domination. As a result bad vampires remain vulnerable to
light and Blade remains practically invulnerable and he fights for the cause of Right. At
least that’s how it is in the movies.

Let us prey
The good thing about being a sociopath is that you don’t come across as one. People
never suspect you – at least not until some damage has already been done. But by then
you’ve got all - or most - of what you want and you can move on. It’s funny, in a black-
humour kind of way too, because vampires and sociopaths are very similar. They’re both
parasites. They’re both able to exert powerful influence over individuals (and sometimes
groups) to bring them under their sway. They both lie – very convincingly (confidence
tricksters are called confidence tricksters because they’re very skilled at hoodwinking
people in order to gain their confidence). They’re both callous and have no concern or
compassion for their victims and they inflict suffering upon them without compunction.

They’re also totally self-centred. And as in the movies disbelief in vampires is one of the
worst forms of defence – so too in real life believing that ‘no one could ever pull one over
on me’ is also a great handicap to an individual’s safety and security where a sociopath is
concerned. And just as the vampires like to lord it over their human victims so too do the
sociopaths like to control and manipulate their unwitting hosts.


Test the spirits
Anyway…back to the story. He puts on his most angelic smile. ‘Hiiii’ he says as he greets
her. She rises to meet him. With feigned courtesy he motions her back to her chair and,
artfully, pretending innate gallantry he gently moves it back under her as she resumes
her seated position. This impresses her. A real gentleman! They talk about the job. He’s
done his homework well. He knows about her aspirations, he even has some background
information on her likes and dislikes and talks about how close he feels to her. About how
much alike he says they are. It’s like they share a ‘special bond…a very special bond’ he
continues. ‘It’s something spiritual’ he adds, his words dripping with contrived honesty
(and somewhere a demon laughs – it’s something spiritual alright, but not the kind of
spirit she expects). He knows that people like people who are like themselves – or who
are like they’d like to be like. He can be witty. He’s clearly very intelligent.

What a disarming combination! And all the while he’s ascertaining what he can persuade
her to give up to him. How much he can get – and how quickly he can get it. Be it money,
contacts, support, her emotional dependence on him or sex – or all of these things. Many
others have fallen this way. And it wasn’t a problem in the past when it was a male victim
he was working on because he can adapt his approach and change the ‘relationship’ from
that of paramour to that of a ‘brother’. It’s quite easy really, especially when you’ve done
it so often.


Trancefixed
Of course, he’s not really a director of the company he tells her he’s recruiting for. What’s
more – it doesn’t really exist, but that’s a minor problem for him. In actual fact, as far as a
career is concerned he’s always found it difficult to hold down any job for long. He keeps
falling out with people. Which is one reason why he started doing this. And the other
reason is – it’s just so much fun! But she doesn’t need to know about that. And if she ever
does find out, chances are it will be too late by then, anyway. Because if she gets any
doubts and starts to ask questions, he knows he’s adept at humiliating people with his
perverted intellect and mercurial mind and, what’s more, he often does it in company, to
make the pain more hurtful. Plus, he can always fire off a malicious lawsuit to intimidate
her if the need arises - that always works. So with the confidence born of a lifetime’s
experience he fixes his sugary gaze on her. On cue she melts at his beguiling manner.

She’s transfixed – or trance-fixed. And as he continues to weave his convincing story she
succumbs to its embrace. Like an unwitting insect bewitched by the scent of a Venus
flytrap, her aspirations act as the bait and she remains oblivious as the cage begins to
shut tightly around her.


Necking
As the weeks go by, for some reason they always meet at her house. He says it’s because
he can’t introduce her to rest of the office yet. It’s because he’s got ‘bigger plans in mind’
for her, he tells her. Human Resources is not a big enough step for her, he effuses. She’s
flattered. And she feels that an emotional, even romantic attachment is beginning to
develop between them. He tells her that he feels the same, but out of respect for her he
says they shouldn’t ‘rush into anything’. This means he values her, she concludes, and as
a result she lowers her final defences and he notches up another sexual conquest to his
list. His wife will never find out – and if she does he can always blame the woman. He’ll
think of a reason, if ever such a situation arises. It shouldn’t be too difficult.


He tells her about the expansion of the company, and how he plans to make her a
director, with him. ‘Imagine, me and you together’ he says. What a team they’d make!
‘We’ll be unstoppable’ he adds. As he winks at her she fails to notice the dark clouds that
have begun to gather outside, blocking the light of the sun. It’s daytime – but it just got
very murky.

In order to present her to the Board as a potential director, he explains, ‘of course’ she’ll
need to have ‘demonstrated commitment to the company’ already. ‘Conveniently’, he
says, ‘they're just about to release some shares’. He apologetically says that he
‘shouldn’t really be telling anyone this – but our relationship is different’, adding that he
feels sure that ‘God will understand, and that makes it alright’, words uttered with a very
saintly look on his face. An appeal to holiness always works - when you go for the throat.
And somewhere nearby the Devil chuckles gleefully.

Vlad to be of service
Three days later she goes to the bank with a spring in her step and a smile on her face
and withdraws two-thirds of her life savings. Luck is certainly smiling on her today, she
thinks to herself. She’s right – except that it’s bad luck that’s doing the smiling. And it’s
less of a smile and more of a grin. She meets him at the appointed place. It’s where they
first met; in the rented office, only she doesn’t know it’s a temporary rent. Of course, this
one room, two chair, one table, no phone, no PC box-room must just be one of the
‘backrooms’ of this larger office complex, mustn’t it? He walks in and smiles. She lights up,
and another dark cloud passes across the face of the sun. ‘The Board is looking forward to
meeting you’ he says cheerfully, as he helps her into her chair again. She looks back at
him lovingly and responds: ‘I just want to tell you now how much I appreciate everything
you’re doing for me’. He replies with the silky words: ‘Darling, the pleasure is all mine’.

Willingly she gives him her money as he tells her how his ‘friend in the stock broker office,
Ubet & Ugamble, which is situated just across the road is waiting for the funds in order to
turn them into shares’ and how, then, later they would ‘meet the Board for a vote’ (‘which
was a foregone conclusion’) for her place as a director. He blows her a kiss and walks out
of the office with the words ‘sit tight’. And she does. She sits…and she sits…and she sits.


Waiting in vein
After an hour-and-a-half, she goes back to reception and asks if anyone knows where he
is. Is he already at the boardroom – or taking care of the paperwork somewhere? It hits
her like the proverbial vampire bat out of Hell as the perplexed receptionist slowly starts
to explain how Mr Hammerorror had ‘rented the office by the hour on just two occasions’.
Adding that the ‘meet and greet welcome rite on reception comes as part of the service
and out of courtesy we always put the name of the office renter on display in the foyer.
It’s that final professional touch which makes the £15.00 per hour rate so competitive’.

Actually, the receptionist remembers it was on the two occasions she visited the office
that he’d rented the room. She looks in the log book, ‘Here you go, ‘Ms V. Ictim to meet Mr
Hammerorror’ last month on the 13th and today’, which coincidently was the 13th too.
‘How about that for a fluke’ the receptionist says. Ms Ictim feels her blood run cold when
the receptionist finally explains that ‘He only ever gave us a mobile phone number as a
contact. We tried to call him once but the number was dead. Must have been a bad
reception!’, she concludes.


Ms V. Ictim swoons at the final body blow. Her money was gone, he was gone, and he’d
clearly used her as a sexual plaything in the process. And she’d consented to it all!

Psycho
‘Twenty-nine nine-fifty. Thirty thousand!’ he says gleefully as he counts his pickings.
‘What a sap. What a sap. They’re all so gullible…so gullible. They don’t deserve their
money. I deserve it. Because I’m so talented. There’s more than one born every minute,
ha ha!’, he laughs chillingly.


Remember: in the movies the Nightwalkers want to become Daywalkers so they seek to
replicate Blade’s inborn talent to use it for their own nefarious ends. And remember, they
don’t succeed. But remember, movies aren’t real. Frighteningly sociopaths are and
they’re always ravenously seeking new ways and ‘new angles’ to improve their skills for
manipulating others. Some train in law, some train in religion, others use other things and
some turn to the field of psychology in order to learn how to exert power over others. And
in the process they become the equivalent of what the vampires want to be, evil parasitic
Daywalkers. Using their enhanced predatory range to quarry new prey.

‘£2000 will cover that psychology course leaving me £28,000’ he says to himself as the
rain begins to fall heavily outside. ‘It will take about £100.00 to rent the next office and
buy a couple of takeaway meals and a few bottles of wine, which will leave me about
£27,900’ he continues. Such easy money – and such an adrenalin-pumping way of getting
it! Living on the edge like this seems to be the only way he can fill the gnawing emotional
void that often permeates his soul. Just like a vampire – the sociopath lacks any real
depth of character. Driven by the lust and the emotional buzz of living on the edge his
mind quickly moves greedily to begin the search for his next Ictim, or is that victim?

It could be you?
Six months later he looks out of the dingy apartment window that he’s just started
renting. ‘It ’s a new day – it’s a new scam’ he sings to himself. He told his wife he would be
away looking for work again – she falls for it every time. That’s not to say that she
doesn’t have her doubts, some serious doubts even, but she’s got so much ‘invested’ in
the relationship that she stops herself from doing what she knows she should, and lets
things carry on instead. It’s such a shame, a crying shame.


The apartment gives him a clear view of the building across the road. His money’s
starting to run out so he’s been watching someone for several days now. Take a look in
the mirror, does that someone look like you? And in another town, far away, Ms V. Ictim
wakes up to another day. Her curtains are now left tightly drawn, as has been her new
habit for the past six months. Slowly, with all the fragility of a cracked egg she seeks to
pull herself out of bed and ‘pull herself together’ so that she can get her life back on track.
Numbly she nibbles on some burnt toast and downs another black coffee, while the trickle
of tears gently washes over her face, like they have been doing so often lately.

The end?

Areas that sociopaths gravitate towards:

* Law
* Psychology
* Religion

Evidence indicates that a high proportion of sociopaths will enter into, or hang around the
fringes of occupations that enable them to exert power and influence over people. Law,
psychology-related occupations and religion specifically being well-known hang-outs for
people with sociopathic tendencies.


Warning:

So the moral to this story is this: remember, If you meet someone who seems to be ‘too
good to be true’ you might want to ask yourself if maybe they are indeed just that, too
good to be true.


The following links contain useful information about becoming aware of and protecting
yourself from sociopaths (sociopathic behaviour is also known as 'anti social personality
disorder'):

Lovefraud.com > How to spot a con artist
Lovefraud.com > Sociopaths: Con artists without conscience
Lovefraud.com > Key symptoms of a sociopath (psychopath, con artist)
Profile of a Sociopath
http://www.exitsupportnetwork.com/artcls/underst.htm
SCOTT PETERSON SOCIOPATH
The Sociopathic Style: Information on sociopaths, psychopaths and their victims
http://www.hare.org
http://www.psychopathysociety.org
Sociopath Personality Disorder | Self Help Zone
What is the Difference Between a Psychopath and a Sociopath?
http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~mcafee/Bin/sb.html
Is Your Boss a Psychopath? | Fast Company
Freedom of Mind Center - Steve Hassan Mind Control and Cult Expert
http://jobsadvice.guardian.co.uk/officehours/story/0,,1313261,00.html http://www.starboardwatch.com/sociopth.html
Ref. Link:Daywalkers - Sociopaths
 

leelee

Senior Member
Sep 5, 2011
1,258
8
38
35
#22
I don't really get your point as blade isn't real either. vampires are not real even if they are being used in a metaphor.
 
May 2, 2011
1,134
8
0
#23
I don't really get your point as blade isn't real either. vampires are not real even if they are being used in a metaphor.
The Parable/Article/Story/Example was about SOCIOPATHY, not a character in the story.
Let me try another example, the earlier one from a counselor, this one from a medical
professor. Sociopathic behaviors are the traits that the metaphor of 'vampire' reveals. It
is real, it is serious, it is well documented and understood. Rather than choose denial or
fantasy, take a look at this post or the video (and it's follow on's) and come to grips with
this reality. There are ways to shed this/these demons, thankfully because the causes as
well as the manifestations are well understood. This article or a similar one from the
same author was used in another thread regarding "The Spirit of Jezebel":

Inside the Mind of a Sociopath

This excerpt is from: "The SociopathNextDoor: The Ruthless vs. the Rest
of Us"
by Martha Stout Ph.D. (Broadway Books, New York, 2005, ISBN 0-7679-1581-X).
Martha Stout is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and elaborates on the tales
of ruthlessness in everyday life based on her 25 years of practice as a specialist in the
treatment of psychological trauma survivors.


Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse
no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern of the well-being of strangers,
friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in
your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had
taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a
burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools. Now add to this strange
fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is
radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is
universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly
effortless. You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are
never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so
bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience that they seldom even guess
at your condition.


In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered
liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to
the world. You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority
of people, who are kept in line by their consciences, will most likely remain undiscovered.

How will you live your life? What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and
with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)? The answer will depend
largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even
the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a
conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild
ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most,
conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and non-violent
ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites.


...
...


I trust that imagining yourself as any of these people feels insane to you, because such
people are insane, dangerously so. Insane but real - they even have a label. Many mental
health professionals refer to the condition of little or no conscience as "anti-social
personality disorder," a non-correctable disfigurement of character that is now thought
to be present in about 4 percent of the population - that is to say, one in twenty-five
people. This condition of missing conscience is called by other names, too, most often
"
sociopathy," or the somewhat more familiar term psychopathy. Guiltlessness was in fact
the first personality disorder to be recognized by psychiatry, and terms that have been
used at times over the past century include manie sans délire, psychopathic inferiority,
moral insanity, and moral imbecility.

Excerpted from the web link -->> Inside the Mind of a Sociopath

God Bless You in Jesus's name.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMYVpFwLRIk[/video]
 

leelee

Senior Member
Sep 5, 2011
1,258
8
38
35
#24
The Parable/Article/Story/Example was about SOCIOPATHY, not a character in the story.
Let me try another example, the earlier one from a counselor, this one from a medical
professor. Sociopathic behaviors are the traits that the metaphor of 'vampire' reveals. It
is real, it is serious, it is well documented and understood. Rather than choose denial or
fantasy, take a look at this post or the video (and it's follow on's) and come to grips with
this reality. There are ways to shed this/these demons, thankfully because the causes as
well as the manifestations are well understood. This article or a similar one from the
same author was used in another thread regarding "The Spirit of Jezebel":

Inside the Mind of a Sociopath

This excerpt is from: "The SociopathNextDoor: The Ruthless vs. the Rest
of Us"
by Martha Stout Ph.D. (Broadway Books, New York, 2005, ISBN 0-7679-1581-X).
Martha Stout is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and elaborates on the tales
of ruthlessness in everyday life based on her 25 years of practice as a specialist in the
treatment of psychological trauma survivors.


Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse
no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern of the well-being of strangers,
friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in
your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had
taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a
burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools. Now add to this strange
fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is
radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is
universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly
effortless. You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are
never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so
bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience that they seldom even guess
at your condition.


In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered
liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to
the world. You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority
of people, who are kept in line by their consciences, will most likely remain undiscovered.

How will you live your life? What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and
with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)? The answer will depend
largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even
the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a
conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild
ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most,
conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and non-violent
ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites.


...
...


I trust that imagining yourself as any of these people feels insane to you, because such
people are insane, dangerously so. Insane but real - they even have a label. Many mental
health professionals refer to the condition of little or no conscience as "anti-social
personality disorder," a non-correctable disfigurement of character that is now thought
to be present in about 4 percent of the population - that is to say, one in twenty-five
people. This condition of missing conscience is called by other names, too, most often
"
sociopathy," or the somewhat more familiar term psychopathy. Guiltlessness was in fact
the first personality disorder to be recognized by psychiatry, and terms that have been
used at times over the past century include manie sans délire, psychopathic inferiority,
moral insanity, and moral imbecility.

Excerpted from the web link -->> Inside the Mind of a Sociopath

God Bless You in Jesus's name.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMYVpFwLRIk[/video]
Which is about the metaphor. As I said before I think this one is more about the myth, or is it not? I am confused \i thought we were debating buffy and twilight here.