If you’ve been around the vampyre community long enough, you’ve seen questions about turning, or seen people ask if someone could be made into a vampyre and typically you’ll see a chorus of people respond back…

You can’t be turned into a vampire, you have to be born as one…

…but is that actually true?

If you hang out in the [online] Vampyre Community long enough, especially on Facebook,  you will start to see patterns of repetition in social spaces when it comes to information sharing. You see over the years, as people come and go from our community, people will ask the same questions over and over ad nauseum. This cyclical inevitability comes from the revolving door of newbies who come to the VC looking for basic answers.

Because of this dynamic of the same questions being asked over and over, people who have been in the community for a while will have been barraged with these questions more times than they can count. The consistent nature of this questioning can become bothersome, tiring, and annoying. So, people begin to reply to these inquiries with canned responses spat out as a knee jerk reactions.

The problem with these canned responses is that they’re often anecdotes picked up from somewhere and parroted for the rest of time. They’re answers that often come without questioning, exploration, or any level of analyzation. The issue being is that things are being widely dispensed as fact, yet these “facts” are often incorrect or incomplete. A good portion of the time the information that is being parroted can’t be explained because they really don’t know why they think this. They just know others have repeated the same responses over and over “so it must be true.”

One of the biggest examples of this is the way people react and respond to the idea of vampyric turning and the rebuttal of all vampyres “being born this way.”

You’re not a real vampyre until you’ve been asked to turn somebody (I kid, I kid) – It’s almost a rite of passage for every vampyre to get someone asking you to turn them. You see this in your DMs, comment sections, and in VC groups. Once someone asks to be turned, most vampyres screech NO! You HAVE TO be born that way… and move on.  The online vampyre community has groomed itself to shun this question because it’s always being asked by some idiot who has no clue, or has a fetish, or wants to become like the characters on Vampire Diaries or something like that and that’s just not how it works. Because of the regularity in which people experience this line of questioning, tenured members of the community become extremely jaded to the question. This causes people to instantly say NO and shun the conversation altogether. Which I mean, valid. I do the same most of the time in my groups because I don’t want to foster the environment to give someone’s escapist fantasy some kind of false hope.

However, I don’t think the answer to this question is quite that simple. I mean really, why would it be that simple when everything else about vampyrism is so convoluted?

Now we all know that I’m the Queen of speaking the quiet part out loud, so buckle up for some hot takes.

1. I do not think all Vampyres are “born that way.”
2. I do think “turning” is possible, but the implication of using the word “turning” isn’t worth actually using the term 🤣 Plus, majority of people don’t know how to do it nor have the patience, the drive, &/or spiritual prowess to pull it off.

I have purposely started these statements with “I think” because they are purely my opinions. I will continue to use “I think” statements for this purpose. I do not assert any of this as fact, just what I believe.

So let’s unpack these thoughts, shall we?

I do not think all Vampyres are “born that way.”

I think some vampyres are born that way. I think there are specific styles of vampyres you have to be born as. However, I do not think every single vampyre and vampyric practitioner needs to be born that way. (note the difference between vampyre & vampyric practitioner, we’ll circle back to that in a sec.)

Vampyrism includes a vast spectrum of ideals, philosophies, theologies, and lived experiences across the world. The spiritual vampyres of the Order of the Vampyre from the 80’s are vastly different from today’s “leaky chakra” energy vampyres. The Gotham vampyres of the 90’s & mid2000s are often vastly different from the TOV Vampyres of today. The LHP Vampyre will have extremely different views than the views of the House Kheperu vampyre… and a lot of medsangs think all of the above are full of shit.  If you know the pulse of these various different styles of vampyres, you should recognize they all have different ideals as to what constitutes a vampyre and how they come to be. Is any one of them correct? If one of them is correct, are they all correct? Who’s to say each version doesn’t track for it’s members. Why wouldn’t our individual perception of vampyrism tailor itself to what we believe and practice?

In my opinion vampirism awakens in people through a series of processes. For some vampyres, the processes are automatic. For other vampyres, they need a strong push to manifest. For many, people initiate themselves as vampyres through various styles of ritual to try to force their awakening or turning, and it’s more like an initiation into a spiritual practice rather than turning but those who embark on those rituals more than likely wouldn’t acknowledge that.

These processes happen differently from person to person or group to group. This is why we have so much variance in belief as to why vampyrism awakens and for whom. There’s arguments for and against all all of these vampyric experiences. What a lot of the arguments boil down to is whether vampyrism happens by nature or by nurture. Does one have to have a natural predisposition for Vampyrism to awaken within them, like something coded in their [spiritual] genetics lying dormant and waiting to come alive? Or can vampyrism be purposely nurtured to come alive within people, leaving everyone with the potential to master vampyric arts and awaken the beast within?

Personally, I believe it’s a little bit of column a, a little bit of column b.

The nurture part is no doubt part of the equation. Even [down to Earth] witches know that they can be “born a witch” and it doesn’t mean shit unless you nurture that part of your life. Well, some witches know that… oof.

But it’s the same with vampyrism. Awakening is the very first step. Training your nature and honing your skills is a crucial and never-ending part of the vampyre’s growth…. But what if you hone and train those same skills to try to get yourself to awaken? Can you be successful doing that? Can you evoke the vampyric archetype and spirit hard enough to make a permanent change to your spiritual self? – I would imagine so, the LHP vampyres seem to have been doing it for decades.

But that’s a fundamental difference between vampyres who believe their nature is an affliction to their energy systems and those who evoke the vampyric spirit and archetype for personal power.

Back to the point at hand. I do not think all vampyres are born as vampyres.

• I think medsangs are born that way or end up with an illness at some point in life that makes them that way. They believe themselves to have a biological/physiological need to drink blood unrecognized by science or modern medicine and I think if you really have such an affliction, that’s not something you can or should want to awaken within you anyways.
• I think there are few vampyres who are as they say “of the blood,” who are born with a natural vampyric energy signature. They may present as any other VC member who ends up being serious about their study, but they have a natural vampyric “swagger” about them, their beacon is bright, their predatory nature was/is intrinsic. Yes, the phrase “of the blood” is straight out of V:tM. However, the concept in which it is attributed in real life is something that I have felt in others.
• I think many people are born with vampyric potential, but I think the same about witches. Technically, all people have the potential within them to nurture their personal witch spirit & self… (or whatever practitioner label you want to put in there) I think there are natural born witches just as I think there are natural born vampyres. But I think there are witch practitioners and vampyric practitioners who do just as well if not better than those who are born with “gifts” but never work to hone or train those gifts into skills.

I think a LOT of people who claim to be “real vampyres” are really magickal practitioners using vampiric aesthetics over their spiritual practice and calling themselves real vampyres.

Is there an actual difference between “real vampyres” and “vampyre magick practitioners” or “witches indulging in vampire aesthetics”? Depends on who you ask, honestly. If you came into the VC prior to the pandemic, there’s a good chance that you’d vehemently deny that practitioners & lifestylers are not real vampyres. That you absolutely can not make a vampyre who isn’t destined to awaken anyways. Nowadays, those lines in the sand are blurry as hell.

In my opinion, the difference depends on what people are doing in their practices that makes them consider themselves vampyres. Most people when asked this question would probably say yes, there’s a difference between “real vampyres” and “vampyre magick practitioners”. Majority would certainly argue there’s a difference between vampire lifestylers and real vampyres. Put 5 of each in a line and I bet the majority of people wouldn’t be able to tell which is which though.

It’s one of those things where truly discerning and/or energy sensitive individuals would be able to tell based on what they can read from your energy. Those who aren’t able to read energy like that will never really be able to tell the difference. Not every vampyre is skilled in reading energy like that either, so it’s not a true test of real vs. not to expect people to be able to tell. It’s a fool errand to even try to start picking out who is and isn’t a vampyre in the community today. We’ve done pretty good at eliminating that sort of elitist behavior from public spaces. Even those who know generally won’t say anything because it’s a dick move.

However, in my opinion… yes, there is a difference between real vampyres and vampyric practitioners. I think there is a big difference in the demeanor and energies of those who live lifelong vampyric lives and those who chose to live a vampyric lifestyle later on in their years. I think real vampyres often have a shared understanding of energetic concepts that takes vampyric practitioners a lot longer and a lot more hard work to achieve similar sensitivities too. I personally do not believe the majority of the lifestyler vampyres I come across online have the wherewithal nor fortitude for that level of self discipline and study to wield vampyric practice in a way that truly benefits them. However, I would never ever tell someone this nor that their path is invalid. (unless they’re on some super blatant fiction role-play story line shit, in which case I’m quick to call that out)

This does not mean a vampyric practitioner can not find life changing power and confidence in themselves and their practices through the lens of a vampyric witch. Quite the contrary. But I do believe the idea of “being a vampyre” is grossly overused in the same way “being an empath” is. The empath narrative is just a lot more mainstream.

Although, real vampyres can be lifestylers too. If you’ve ever shown up to an event in anything brocade or a frilly shirt and a pair of fangs, you too have been a lifestyler

The inevitable trajectory of our community is to embrace the practitioners and make sure we’re setting a stage for “traditions” to be remembered and to help people make wise choices. It’s all we can do, really. But is it really so bad?

So, do I really think turning is possible?

Short answer, yes…but the majority of people don’t know what that means, how to do it, or they don’t have the patience nor spiritual prowess to pull it off.

*GASP* – I know, I know. This is a super unpopular one. There’s caveats too.

“HOW DID YOU DO IT?! TELL ME HOW IT WAS DONE!”

Yeesh, Calm down Claudia.

I do not think anyone’s getting turned into an actual fictional vampire. I’m sure not going to give you any false hope about it!

Despite being on the unpopular side of the fence leaving it on the table of possibility, I don’t think it’s probably nor accessible/feasible to most people. I don’t think most VC travelers have the magickal fortitude to truly make themselves vampyric. But I’d never tell someone that as it’s not my place to rain on your parade. So, while I think it’s possible, I don’t intend to be the one to get into the details about how nor do I think it’s necessary for someone to even do, really. But explaining why is a topic for another day.