The Definitive Guide to Emotional Vampires:  

How Stealing Energy Works 

Scott Jeffrey

Is there really such a thing as emotional vampires that steal energy from others? Or have I
gone off the esoteric deep end?

Here’s the thing: Most of us want to be positive, upstanding, good people. I get it. I have the
same impulse. But my experiences have taught me unequivocally, that the only way to
touch the “true light” in us is ​through the darkness​. Paradoxical, I know. But perhaps this
resonates with some of your life experiences too?

Here, we’ll explore the ins and outs of emotional vampires—how people are stealing
energy from each other every day, right under our noses. Then, we’ll take a look at what we
can do about it: how to detect it, protect from it, and contain our vampirism. Okay. Let’s
dive in.

First, A Personal Caveat 

The challenge with this topic is that we don’t have objective measurement tools to validate
this phenomenon. The experience of vampirism is purely subjective.

My goal here isn’t to convince you that such a thing as energy or emotional vampires exists
if you don't already believe it to be so, or if you haven't observed this as a "psychic fact" in
your life. Instead, I'm merely going to share my understanding based on various sources as
well as my experiences and observations. As always, keep what’s relevant to you and
discard the rest.

© 2019 ​Scott Jeffrey 1

So What is an Emotional Vampire? 

An emotional vampire is someone who unconsciously evokes emotions in others

specifically to feed on the triggered emotional energy. Related terms include energy
vampires, psychic vampires, psychopaths, sociopaths, witches, warlocks, and archons.

Psychologist Judith Orloff used the term emotional vampires in her book ​Emotional
Freedom​ (​audiobook​). Orloff highlights four different types of emotional vampires and
links each one to various psychological disorders:

1. The Narcissist (narcissistic personality)

2. The Victim (dependent personality)
3. The Controller (obsessive-compulsive personality)
4. The Splitter (borderline personality)

She includes in ​her book​ an “Emotional Vampire Survival Guide,” with assessments and
practical analysis. The problem I see with her commentary is that it leads you to believe
that some people are emotional vampires while others are not.

From my observations, everyone is an emotional vampire. It’s merely a function of the

situation and conditions that determine the level and degree of our vampirism. Saying that
some people are energy vampires while other people aren't, sets up a victim-perpetrator
game that the ego loves to play. So let's not play it!

Are You an Energy Vampire? A Quick Assessment 

You don't need to take a long survey to determine if you're an energy vampire.

Just answer these two questions:

1. Do you have everything you want in life so that you feel complete and whole?
2. From moment to moment, do you live in a state of flow, fully present, feeling
light, alive, alert, and free?

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If you can't honestly answer "yes" to both of these questions, then you're an energy
vampire, at least some of the time. As you’ll continue to see throughout this guide, ​everyone
has a vampire inside them (​ perhaps many of them). The conditions of the individual—both
internally and within their environment—determines how often the vampire gets
activated.

How Vampirism Relates to Maslow’s Hierarchy 

If you recall from ​Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs​, Maslow labeled all of our basic needs
deficiency needs ​and​ external needs​. Things like biological, safety, belonging, and esteem
needs are ​deficiency needs​ in that when we aren’t meeting them, we feel anxious or
neurotic. And they are ​external needs​ because we seek to meet them through the outside
world.

An underlying sense of deficiency drives us to meet these basic needs. This feeling of a need
not being met mainly relates to situations from our childhood. And so we consciously don't
know why we feel a sense of lack. And in the absence of a sense of completeness, of feeling
whole, we seek outside of ourselves for what’s missing. And this unconscious drive leads us
to vampirism—to stealing the energy, light, and luck from others.

Archetypes: Vampires, Witches, and Warlocks 

From the perspective of depth psychology, we would call the various types of vampires
archetypes​. Witches, Warlocks, and Vampires are all examples of archetypes that reside in
what Carl Jung called the ​collective unconscious​.

Envy triggers witches and warlocks. Hunger or deficiency evokes vampires. And these
ancient, primordial images have patterns of behaviors and knowledge related to how to
steal energy, light, and other qualities from other beings. But as modern and postmodern
people, we are primarily divorced from this knowledge (because of our disassociation from
the Purple value structure in ​Spiral Dynamics​).

This disassociation doesn’t mean that energy vampires aren’t real; just that we have a
difficult time observing them. ​When you don’t know what to look for, you can miss what’s
right under your nose. ​Instead, most people perceive phenomenon like vampirism as

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primitive or superstitious, as I once did. But, in truth, we are merely misguided and
ignorant of this occult knowledge.

The Rise of Vampires in Our Culture 

Our unconscious, however, knows the truth. Could this be why our culture is obsessed with
stories about vampires? For example:

● The popular ​Twilight​ series of books and films

● The Vampire Diaries​ television series
● Buffy the Vampire Slayer​ television series
● Interview with a Vampire​ film
● The Originals​ television series
● The ​Blade​ series of comics and films
● Dracula​ films
● Transylvania​ animated film series

The list goes on and on.

When something strikes a chord with large segments of the population, it’s ​not​ random or
without reason.

The Original Vampire  

The original vampire archetype, as far as I can tell, is a character in the ​Zohar​ called Lilith.
According to this myth, Lilith was Adam’s first wife (yes, from the Adam and Eve origin
story in the Bible). Lilith leaves Adam and later becomes a queen of the demons. (Only then
does God create Eve from one of Adam’s ribs.)

The more common term for this type of demon is a ​succubus​, a supernatural entity found in
many forms of folklore and medieval legends. (In Greek mythology, they refer to them as
sirens​.) The succubus appears in the dreams of men as a beautiful woman who seduces
them and draws out their ​sexual energy​, depleting these men of their life force.

A succubus, however, doesn’t just come in dreams. One can argue that any time a woman is
behaving like a seductress or an enchantress, she’s in some way possessed by a succubus.

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The more emotional trauma girls endure during childhood (often by the father), the more
likely the succubus is to enter them in their teenage years and later. There’s also a male
version of the succubus called the ​incubus​ who functions in similar patterns towards
women. But seduction is only one method of energy vampires. (We’ll explore many others
below.)

Why Vampirism Relevant to Everyone 

Mature adulthood and development require two essential ingredients: ​awareness​ and
responsibility​. ​Awareness​ always comes first because you can’t take responsibility unless
you are aware of what’s happening.

According to developmental psychology, less than 2% of individuals ever reach mature

1
adulthood. That is, as a people, we are mostly immature. We don’t necessarily perceive
ourselves this way, however. Our conscious minds might see us in a glowing light. But
2
study after study shows that over ​90% of our behavior is unconscious​.

And emotional vampirism and stealing energy is one of the ​many​ things occurring outside
of our conscious awareness. Learning about vampirism, from my view, is a part of doing
shadow work​ and increasing one’s consciousness. By bringing this dynamic to light, we
begin to witness its occurrence within us and others. Only then are we in a position to
change it.

Why We Generally Avoid This Topic Entirely 

We tend to avoid topics like vampirism because they make us uncomfortable. Rejecting or
denying such experiences as psychic vampires give a false sense of security and safety. And
understandably so—who wants to think about people feeding on each other, with blood,
energy, or anything else?

1
Cook-Greuter, S.R. (2014). ​Nine Levels Of Increasing Embrace In Ego Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory
Of Vertical Growth And Meaning Making​.
2
Jerath, Ravinder & Braun, Molly & Barnes, Vernon. (2015). A unified 3D default space consciousness model
combining neurological and physiological processes that underlie conscious experience. ​Frontiers in
Psychology.​ ​10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01204​.

© 2019 ​Scott Jeffrey 5

Plus, if you dive into emotional vampirism and begin to see how you may be “feeding” on
others, it can evoke feelings of shame and guilt, two powerful emotions we seek to avoid.

The unconscious (our body) knows that vampirism exists; it ​feels it​ when it occurs. That is,
a part of us is aware of what we’ve done to even those closest to us. And so we remain in
denial to protect the ego’s sensitive self-image.

Conversely, when we realize what others have done to us, it can trigger feelings of
resentment and victimhood. (​“How could he/she do that to me!”)​ The Victim archetype can
be a hard one to shake.

But remember: This energy exchange is happening every day, everywhere—in every home,
school, and workplace—by parents, children, teachers, executives, friends, and spiritual
leaders alike.

Why Emotional Vampires Exist  

So why are vampires everywhere? The short answer is ​trauma.​ The level of trauma
inflicted on an individual during childhood largely determines the degree of vampirism
they express in later life. A person becomes an emotional or energy vampire because one or
both of their parents exhibited these behaviors, likely on a daily basis. There’s an adage in
psychology: ​what’s left incomplete you’re doomed to repeat​.

Because this trauma occurs mainly before our conscious mind develops, we don’t know the
trauma we endured. The body (the unconscious), however, knows. And the unconscious
can only repeat the same trauma on someone else UNTIL our conscious mind catches up
with what’s happening.

The other predominant reason for energy vampires is that the vast majority of us are
energetically depleted and out of balance. And once our subtle energy field gets distorted,
"feeding" on each other may be an automatic occurrence.

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The Subtle Energy Body 

Taoist, Buddhist, and Hindu systems explain that various types of energetic fields surround
our bodies. In the Taoist arts, one of these fields is called ​Wei qi​ or Guardian qi, which forms
a kind of protective shield around the body.

In the Buddhist tradition, Energy Medicine, and transpersonal psychology, they often refer
to it as the subtle energy field. New Age literature tends to use terms like the subtle energy
field and the auric field (aura) interchangeably, which is a mistake. These two fields are
different. The subtle energy generally extends only a few inches from the body while the
auric field is more expansive.

In the ​Active Side of Infinity​ (​audiobook​) the Yaqui shaman Don Juan explains to Carlos
Castaneda that we all have an energetic cloak that extends from above the crown of our
heads to the ground.

Restoring Our Energy Field to Stop Leakage 

When our energetic cloak is full, we are impenetrable. But once there’s an opening or break
in our field, which happens early in life, we are susceptible to various forces. This teaching
is similar to the microcosmic orbit and the macrocosmic orbit in Taoist practices. The
microcosmic orbit encompasses the torso while the macrocosmic orbit circulates through
and around the entire body.

In the commentary of the Taoist text, ​Hui-Ming Ching​, it says, “The shadowy monsters in
the body are the dark vapors of untransformed energy … The dark vapors are dangerous
because they can dissipate life energy and harm the seed of the Buddha.”

These “shadowy monsters” are similar to what Carlos Castaneda called “dark fliers.” I
believe they are akin to the archetypes or archon as well (vampires, witches, etc.) Through
the alchemical firing process described in the ​Hui-Ming Ching​ and other Taoist texts, you
can restore your life energy and original nature.

Again from the ​Hui-Ming Ching​: “When the bright pearl emerges, the hundred monsters are
driven away.”

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What Trauma Does to Our Energetic Fields 

We are born complete and whole, with our energetic fields intact. But soon after birth (in
the hospital, in fact), our fields come under attack. (See the documentary, The Business of
Being Born, for a sobering look at how everything goes wrong from the beginning, and
why.)

Each trauma we endure—including being slapped by the doctor after birth and receiving
negative emotions from what sits in our parents—disrupts our energetic fields. Once these
fields are disrupted, we are "incomplete." From then on, we are susceptible to vampirism
from others and become energy vampires ourselves.

Why We Steal Light From Each Other 

By “light” I mean the best qualities in each of us. We mainly steal light from each other
because we feel deficient. We intuit that we lack something we must have. For example,
let’s say a 30-year-old man must provide for his family. To do so, he has to compete and
achieve in the often-aggressive business jungle.

If he has trauma from childhood and feels incapable of competing (because his wounded
Child part hasn’t given way to a healthy Adult in him), he will fail in his ability to provide.
So what does he do with his fear and feelings of doubt and inadequacy?

If he isn’t fully conscious of these weaknesses, he will unconsciously dump them on his wife
and children. They will then feel weak and inadequate. Then, he can draw their light. Now,
he will be able to make his way in the world. Fathers often steal light from their family; as
do working mothers.

Friends steal from friends frequently too. (The "pretty, popular girl" in high school usually
keeps a less attractive and less confident girlfriend close to her side. Otherwise, the pretty
girl will have to feel her inner ugliness and insecurities.)

So what are the benefits of stealing light from others? You can:

● Feel free of your shortcomings

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 ● Empowered to achieve more
● Make more money
● Be more popular and influential
● Feel good about yourself as you “help” others
● Be more competent, confident, and powerful

Stealing light has a lot of compelling benefits.

How Gurus Steal Light from Their Students 

Whenever you see a larger-than-life character on a stage, beware. Energetic thievery and
light stealing are at work. Gurus and students enter a kind of mutually-complicit
relationship. The student unconsciously agrees to give the guru their light. And the guru
gladly accepts it.

One common way this occurs is through the ​psychological mechanism called projection​.
The student ​projects​ their hidden, best qualities like being wise, calm, humorous, and
centered onto the guru. The guru than holds the student’s “inner gold” which makes the
guru feel more powerful and superior to their students.

Big Brand Personalities and Stealing Light 

Prominent brand personalities are notorious energy vampires too. They dissociate from
their fears and inadequacies and teach others how they can “overcome” them.

For example, take any famous motivational speaker. This individual might be running away
from his laziness and feelings of lack. But as long as the speaker unconsciously shames
their audience for their laziness and feelings of deficiency, the speaker feels elevated,
abundant, and competent while the audience looks up to him with feelings of awe. And
worse still, the speaker is likely taking large sums of money from the attendees for this
“service” too.

Psychologists and social workers often fall into this trap as well. Unconscious emotional
wounds are what drives individuals into these fields. As long as mental health workers are
“treating” others with their disowned symptoms (like anxiety and depression), they don’t
have to experience these symptoms as often within themselves.

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Seven Signs of Psychic Thievery 

How do you know if someone has stolen your light and energy? Here are a few common
signs:

● Chronic feeling of fatigue, especially after seeing certain individuals

● Wrestling with feelings of self-doubt and a lack of confidence
● A poor self-image (or you reject your self-image)
● Constant struggles with money (and even feeling repelled by it)
● Persistent feelings of shame and guilt
● A theme of lack runs through much of your life experience
● Frequent feelings of inadequacy and being less competent than those around you.

There are many other signs. But most of us can relate to the above experiences to varying
degrees. If you wrestle with high levels of self-doubt while your sibling or parents are
bustling with confidence, more than likely, they stole your light (and you unknowingly
allowed it to happen).

Five More Ways to Steal Energy from Others  

Okay, now let’s examine some of the ways we steal light and energy from each other (other
than seduction, which we covered above). The goal here is to increase our awareness of
what’s happening beneath the surface.

Energy Vampire Tactic #1: Praise

I’ve come to view praise as one of the most destructive forces in modern culture. Praise is
tricky because our minds associate positive attributes to it. Parents feel good about
themselves when they praise their kids. And the inflated child feels good when praised.

The shadow implications behind praise, however, are monumental. We’ve already learned
from psychologist Carol Dweck’s research that ​praise fosters a fixed mindset​ that impairs a
child’s ability to learn and grow. But from my experience, this is just the beginning. The
unconscious intention behind most forms of praise is ​manipulation.​ That is, the ​Detached

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Manipulator archetype​ uses praise as a tool to get others to do what it wants as well as to
steal their light. What do I mean?

Praising Children
Parents praise their children to get them to behave the way they want. We raise high-chair
tyrants by “serving" our children, and then we don't know how to handle the tyrant's
demands. But by praising the tyrant, telling them they are "good," we are subtly forcing
them to repress their inner tyrant. Then, they become more compliant and repress aspects
of the tyrant. This repression explains why the ​shadow​ in most individual grows so big by
age 18.

Praising Adults
Also, as adults, we don’t seek or desire praise. ​We do what we do as a consequence of what
​ he Child in us, however, might have been conditioned for praise. So if someone
we are. T
praises us for something we are doing—for example, for being generous, diligent, or
disciplined—it can activate the Child in us.

Magically, these innate qualities begin to leave us. We start to struggle with discipline and
lack generosity, and we don't know why. With the Child in charge, most of us act for the
approval of others, not by our “inner directive.”

Seeking approval creates an unhealthy dependency on others, stripping us of the qualities

of adulthood: autonomy, responsibility, and inner strength. Praise has a way of triggering
the ​Innocent One​ in us that then falls prey to the Manipulator in others.

Energy Vampire Tactic #2: Intimidation

Archetypes like the Sadist, or its younger counterpart, the Bully, love using intimidation to
draw energy and light from others.

In a “civilized” culture, intimidation isn't always blatant. Instead, this form of aggression
expresses itself through unconscious cues: a quick downward glance, crossing the arms, a
threatening tone of voice, or a gentle smirk. When someone puts another person down
(judges them), they are attempting to steal their light. When someone unconsciously tells
you, “Not for you,” they are trying to steal from you.

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This form of energetic thievery most often occurs when an individual has a lot of ​repressed
envy​. When a person sees something they want in another, and they can't fully
acknowledge their desire, envy, and jealousy, they will unconsciously try to steal it from
them.

Energy Vampire Tactic #3: Touch

This tactic is like something out of science fiction. I would never have believed it was valid
before developing energetic sensitivity through various qigong practices.

While qigong is about the cultivation of life force energy, there are dark-art techniques for
stealing energy from others. I once met a seasoned qigong practitioner who claimed to have
first-hand accounts with these dark arts.

Even with the most gentle touch we can steal energy from each other and block the flow of
energy in others as well. Do you recall as a child, not wanting to be hugged by your parents
or other relatives when they came over for the holidays? Parents often shame their
children for this behavior (“Go hug your grandmother”), so many of us forget about our
aversion to hugging.

But the reality is that most kids don't want to hug. They don't know why, but it's because
they're more connected to their bodies. Their unconscious (body) is telling them to stay
away.

How Parents Steal Energy from Their Children

If you’re a parent, have you ever come home from a bad day of work and couldn’t wait to
hug your young child? Do you feel like hugging and being around your kid(s) instantly
makes you feel better? Why might that be so?

Parents frequently steal the qi/energy from their children through hugs, kisses, and
touching (unconsciously, of course). Kissing a child on the top their heads, for example, is
an excellent way to draw their energy. The crown of the head is called the ​baihui​ point in
Chinese medicine and the Taoist arts. The baihui point is the spiritual access point for a
person’s higher consciousness.

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Another way parents steal the qi of their children, especially babies, is through their feet.
Consciously, a mother might kiss a baby’s foot because “it’s so cute.” Unconsciously,
however, they are drawing energy from the child's primary access point, called K1 in
acupuncture, ​Yongquan​, or the bubbling well.

If you’re a parent, when you feel like you’re tired or experiencing emotional imbalance, I
highly recommend staying clear of your kids. Children have considerably more qi/energy
than adults, so it’s natural for adults instinctually go to “feed” on them.

Energy Vampire Tactic #4: Emotional Evocation

The primary goal of energy vampires is to trigger an emotional reaction—the more intense
the emotion, the stronger the energetic charge with which it can feed. Shame and guilt are
two of the most potent weapons an emotional vampire can use to sap your life force.

● How could you…

● You should know better…
● Who do you think we are…

Phrases like these can collapse your energetic system, leaving you susceptible to more
energetic attacks. Other common tactics include irritating and annoying a person (children
often use this one on their parents), as well as surprising, shocking, or terrifying them.
Again, with babies (who are like infinite balls of energy), beyond the perceived innocence
of games like peek-a-booh, there’s a darker intent.

Surprising, shocking, and tickling are effective forms of emotional vampirism. How?

Tickling itself is a behavioral pattern of the Sadist archetype. It’s a form of torture,
especially to a helpless baby who can’t escape or defend itself. If you look closely in the
eyes of a child as you tickle them, you will see fear. Conversely, if you intently observe in
the eyes of the tickler, you'll see a vicious sadist. If you doubt that tickling induces fear, go
to tickle a child and watch their shoulders. The child’s shoulders immediately rise. Or even
better, imagine someone tickling you. Notice the tension around on your kidneys and the
muscles around your spine. All of these indicators relate to the physiology of fear.

In the dark arts, if you can evoke fear, it's easier to drain a person's energy.

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Energy Vampire Tactic #5: Psychic Attacks
One of the most common tools of psychic vampires is the direct use of thought forms. A
vampire will send "psychic signals" directed at a specific individual.

Although we might prefer to believe that our thoughts are private, this isn’t the case. As
Nobel laureate Sir John Carew Eccles discovered, the mind is like a sending and receiving
center.

We’ve all had the experience of having a person from our past enter our stream of
consciousness. These experiences aren't random. In most cases, this occurs because the
other person was thinking about you. In the case of psychic vampires, they will repeatedly
direct negative thoughts and ill wishes toward you. The challenge here is that the
individual sending these negative thoughts is often unaware of it.

For example, someone who often worries about another person (including a mother) is
likely unconscious to how a part of them is wishing another harm. A part of this person
wants the individual they are worrying about to be safe or careful, while another part
might want them to get hit by a car. The individual, however, is only conscious of the
former part (because they haven’t ​integrated their shadow​).

In witchcraft, there are specific spells that are used to draw energy from others. Because
we are mostly unconscious to this occult knowledge, the archetypes in us conduct these
practices without our awareness.

Beware of These Two Archetypes ... 

There are two archetypes, in particular, that you’ll want to watch out for when you’re
learning about energy vampires: the Denying Innocent One and the Helpless Victim.

I cover the Denying Innocent One in ​this guide on the magician archetype​. The innocent one
will deny they are involved in vampirism. This archetype will make you feel like you're
purely innocent and "unaware" of what's going on. This "innocent" part of a person will
wholeheartedly reject the notion that they might wish harm to someone they "love."

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The Helpless Victim is a variation of the Weakling Prince, the passive shadow of the King
archetype (covered in Moore and Gillette’s ​King Warrior Magician Lover​). The victim loves
to play the “poor me” game and feed on the sympathy of others. I say to beware of these
two archetypes because they can be difficult to detect and they can easily trick our
conscious mind. Behind the innocent one is the Detached Manipulator. Cloaked beneath the
helpless victim, is the Tyrant. And these two archetypes are often out for blood…

How to Stop Being an Emotional Vampire  

The first step is realizing you are one. As I said earlier, everyone is an energy vampire. That
is, under the right conditions, we each steal energy and light from others.

But it’s also accurate to say that ​no one is an emotional vampire.​ Emotional and energy
vampires, witches, and warlocks are archetypal forces that abide in us, but it’s not what we
are. If we remain unconscious to them, however, they operate within us whether we want
them to or not. The key, then, is to become conscious of these archetypal forces within us. I
see five main reasons why we fail to witness energy vampirism more readily:

First,​ when the pineal gland is calcified, as it seems to be in most individuals, it may not be
possible to perceive psychic events like emotional and psychic vampirism.

See: ​How to Decalcify Your Pineal Gland

Second,​ we hold an incredible amount of repressed emotions, which block the energy flow
through the primary channels of our body.

See: ​How to Transmute Repressed Emotions

Third,​ we haven't developed the sensitivity to experience this natural flow of energy
within us (see below).

See: ​How to Cultivate Energy Standing Still

Fourth​, we move too quickly. The faster we move around, the less information we process.
Slow down and stay curious. You'll be amazed at how your perception changes.

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Fifth​, we are consumed by shame and guilt. Shame can be a useful emotion if it motivates
you to take action. But if you’re accustomed to repressing shame, it will reinforce your
unconscious behaviors.

How to Take Back your Light, Energy, and Luck 

It may be a universal law that someone cannot energetically take from you without your
consent. Consent, in this case, can come in the form of ignorance, innocence, or silence. The
primary way to reclaim what's yours is by ​remembering​. Recall what's yours and what's
not. Correct recollection, of course, isn't always a straightforward task.

Psychic thievery begins in childhood before we consciously know who we are. For this
reason, Jung spoke about the ​individuation process​—the path to becoming a whole
individual and returning to our Self. Two essential elements of the individuation process
are:

1. Getting to know your shadow

2. Taking back your projections

I've covered both of these topics in other guides, but projection is a primary mechanism by
which we give away our light. Every time you reject something in yourself including
confidence, strength, and intelligence, you give it away to someone else. That is, when you
don’t claim what’s yours, you enable someone else to take it from you.

And as I explained in this ​projection guide​, when you project your light onto others,
especially teachers and other authority figures, they gladly receive it (because it feeds their
inflation). But few people are willing to give it back when you awaken to what’s happening.
So that means you have to ​take it back​. It’s not stealing because it’s your light in the first
place. You can accomplish this through your conscious intent. Generally, nothing needs to
occur in the physical world. From ​the Center​, you say, “What’s yours is yours. What’s mine
is mine.”

Why We Need to Cultivate Energy 

One of my qigong instructors once told me that there are only three ways to get energy:

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 1. Steal it,
2. Evoke it, or
3. Cultivate it.

Stealing is the most common way. Evocation occurs through prayer to the "gods" and occult
rituals (black magic). The third way is by cultivating your internal energy.

Consider how energetically depleted we are as a people. Stimulants like caffeine are so
commonplace that it’s difficult to imagine life without them. ​Nootropics​ are on the rise
because caffeine isn’t enough to address our growing fatigue and lack of alertness. We work
tirelessly in front of computers, bombarded by harmful electromagnetic frequencies from
WIFI and our devices. Our stress taxes our adrenal glands 24/7. Most of us live in a state of
chronic stress and fatigue, but we might not even slow down long enough to notice our
condition. Is it any wonder that we’ve all become energy vampires feeding on each other?

How to Cultivate Your Life Energy 

So here’s the good news: there are methods for cultivating life force energy within us.
Qigong and Nei Gong represent vast systems of theories and practices designed to open up
your body and cultivate the energy running through you and nature itself. This topic is vast.
If you’re new to qigong, I suggest you find a local class taught by a skilled practitioner.

A foundational practice in many qigong systems is called ​Zhan Zhuang​, or standing like a
tree. Through this practice, you'll learn how to align your posture, bring your mind into
your body, and sink and consolidate your energy or qi. Of the many different styles and
systems I've studied, Zhan Zhuang has had the most impact on me physically, mentally, and
emotionally. You can get started with this in-depth, ​beginner’s guide to Zhan Zhuang here​.

If you’re interested in additional resources, I recommend Lam Kam Chuen’s ​The Way of
Energy​ and Damo Mitchell’s ​Daoist Nei Gong​ as excellent entry points into this topic.

How to Protect Your Energy 

Now, I don't like the idea of "protection" from vampires. This notion can evoke tension and
fear in itself. And fear is how energy vampires can feed on us in the first place.

© 2019 ​Scott Jeffrey 17

When you’re in the Center​—neutral, light-hearted, open, and free—emotional vampires
can do you no harm. But unconscious and ​repressed emotions​ make it difficult to stay
neutral from moment to moment. So the first thing we must do is ​develop self-awareness
so we can more readily connect with how we’re feeling in the moment. If we aren’t aware
of what’s happening and how an emotional vampire is trying to hook us, there’s not much
we can do.

The Innocent One, a shadow of the ​Magician archetype​, wants to believe everyone
(especially those closest to us) are purely good. And when we identify with this innocence,
we certainly won't see what's happening. That said, what can you do when you observe an
energy vampire in your presence?

Here are five methods worth experimenting with:

● Ground yourself​. Root yourself in your body and sink your energy into the earth.
● Smile inwardly at your heart. Lighten up as much as possible.
● Place one or both hands over your navel region. This hand position creates an
energetic seal.
● Own your space. Everyone has an energetic field that extends out around them.
When you root yourself in your space, only the most aggressive vampires will
attempt to break it.
● Try a protection mudra. There are some hand positions used in Buddhist and Hindu
traditions to provide psychic protection. For example:

Perhaps the single best way to ward off psychic attacks is to ​stay neutral​.

Recap: Welcome to the World of Energy Vampires 

The wisdom within our bodies knows that energy vampires exist. It has experienced this
psychic event firsthand (from both sides) throughout its life. Most of us haven’t developed our
consciousness to the point where we can be accountable for all of our thoughts and feelings.
Yet, this accountability is necessary for self-leadership. This level of psychic accountability is
necessary if we are to contain our vampirism, or at least lessen its effects on us.

© 2019 ​Scott Jeffrey 18

Read Next 

How to Reclaim Your Inner Gold (Psychological Projection)

How to Transmute Repressed Emotions
A Complete Guide to Shadow Work

© 2019 ​Scott Jeffrey 19