The Truth About Energy Vampires

Art By: Samual Farrand

There are several spiritual concepts that are useful when giving us clarity into a larger framework for viewing the world around us and energy vampires is one of them. But the true meaning of this term has been obscured by our own folklore mixed with a healthy dose of WTF and animosity.

So I’m going to be sharing what an energy vampire truly is as well as how to free yourself from energy vampires.

Characteristics of an Energy Vampire

The most crucial thing to know about energy vampires if we want to identify them and remove ourselves from these dynamics is that everyone can behave like an energy vampire including ourselves, because behaving in a way that falls under the category of an energy vampire is a part of a spectrum, and the spectrum that is calibrating the amount of energy siphoning that is taking place from a persons behavior is consciousness. 

If we were to make an arbitrary scale of consciousness from entirely unconscious with absolutely no desire for awareness to very conscious and doing the necessary innerwork to broaden our awareness, a person who behaves in a way that would make them an energy vampire would fall in the zone of being close to entirely unconscious with no desire for awareness. 

So this would be the extreme form of how energy siphoning presents itself since unconsciousness is what creates the sample platter for every kind of pain one can possibly imagine. The more conscious a being becomes the more that is reflected in how they choose to source energy. The desire for harmony with their environment is much stronger than the need to source their energy from turmoil. They still suffer, but they suffer well. They self examine and self correct because they don’t get pleasure from endless durations of conflict. 

The less conscious a being is the more they lack the light of their own awareness. So energy vampires have different tastebuds when it comes to how they get their energy. Because someone who truly falls into the category of an energy vampire is unconscious and has no desire for self awareness, their traits and behaviors are going to naturally be experienced as draining. Even if they didn’t want to drain people it would still be draining to be around someone who is unconscious because they are going to act in very energetic demanding ways like entrenched in conflict, lying with no remorse, not able to take any responsibility, or always telling people all of their problems but never interested in solutions. 

You see how just by being unconscious its own special hell? Because you’re going to perceive all of life in it’s most primal way. We’re more threatened, we’re more concerned with power grabs in our relationships, we feel a strong sense of entitlement. We feel we need to take even in scenarios when a person would have freely gave. 

Energy vampires operate primarily from the reptilian brain. Because of this, the predator and prey dynamic is very strong in an energy vampire dynamic. They’re whole paradigm is filtered in infrared by the kinetics of the predator and prey connection. Either they play the role of eternal victims unknowingly indulging in their martyrdom or they are more at peace with their nature, they correspond with their wounds, allowing them to get pleasure more directly from the drama they inflict and design. 

And at the heart of the matter what does all of this unconscious behavior add up to? The Shadow. Energy vampires live in  the shadow. 

The shadow is the name given to the aspect of us that stores everything we have denied, repressed or simply don’t know how to embody. That is why shadow work is so important during a spiritual awakening. Because shadow work eventually reveals to us all of the aspects within us that lack the light of our own awareness. But for a genuine energy vampire they have no desire of becoming self aware, they will double down on their behavior before ever cultivating sincerity.

They are repelled by their reflection, no different than how an actual vampire cannot see their reflection in a mirror. So that is the defining factor that sets apart everyone else who can still act in a manner that’s energetically draining, but doesn’t actually reside within the zone of parasitic.

Energy Vampire Archetypes

There are prominent archetypes within the category of energy vampires which can make it challenging to identify this behavior if we are only thinking of energy vampires as point blank narcissists. One classical pattern is the damsel in distress. Where a person feeds off of constantly being helpless. Another pattern is the white knight, who on first appearances seems to be selfless and supportive, only to slowly make a person dependent on them. 

Another vampiric archetype is the false father or the false mother. This is someone who uses their authority to emotionally manipulate others into doing their bidding for them. 

There is also a strong affinity for martyrdom with energy vampires. They like being martyrs because it’s a flexible role. It’s a way to be both prey and predator at the same time. In fact martyrdom is not only a role anyone can get stuck in, it’s also deeply embedded into humans as part of our programming by the false light. So the feeling of martyrdom is natural for us to have since humans have a large capacity for empathy, but because we are inclined toward martyrdom, it is one of the largest tools used to exploit us, especially spiritual advanced individuals. 

But their are so many different arrangements that energy siphoning takes on. It can play out in whatever way the energy vampire has an affinity for. It can insert itself into any dynamic and even though it falls under the spectrum of entirely unconscious, that does not mean that all of them are clueless, on the contrary. 

There are other ways a person can behave in the manner of an energy vampire while even be relatively conscious and these forms happen all the time. This is when a person is conscious but they have no desire for further awareness. So they are conscious enough to have awareness and may even be spiritual or philosophical, but they don’t have the capacity to sincerely examine themselves despite how intellectual they may be. Which means they can be a conscious individual and still siphon other peoples energy for their own means. 

A popular mechanism for this is love bombing. We see this all the time. Both from individuals who are aware and aren’t aware that they’re using this technique to gain closer access into a persons life to eventually pull a bait and switch. 

On the flip side of this, let’s say you yourself are giving praise to someone, not to love bomb them, but to simply share your open admiration because that’s what people do. A person who is behaving like an energy vampire will use the magnify glass effect. This is where they interpret that praise as in invitation for a power grab, because praise deteriorates a person into an infantile state of ego if they are not worthy of it. So they take any positive compliments as a way to diminish our own reflection in their eyes in order to magnify their own reflection. So they can’t handle an energy exchange without turning it into a power play. They use it to enhance their presence and lessen ours.

While a person who can handle praise or admiration will not evaporate into an ego maniac, they will have no issue acting as a mirror and reflecting the compliment, or praise back to the individual. Because power is awesome, it’s sublime and there’s enough of it to go around. 

A clear example of the borderline territory when conscious individuals behave like energy vampires is when someone spends all of their time fighting other people online, and camouflages it as helping wake humanity up. When they are secretly feeding off of all the conflict and drama that arises in order to gain a sense of authority. 

This dynamic is not the same as being a spiritual warrior. As spiritual warriors are committed to raising the consciousness of humanity, but aren’t doing it by desperately picking fights with anyone and everyone who will give them the time of day so that they can feed off of conflict, endlessly draining peoples energy by  micromanaging, making people defend themselves and over explain all done in the name of spiritual awareness. 

Spiritual warriors are sincere and discerning. They are fierce and wise. They aren’t afraid of conflict, but they pick their battles carefully and not because of what will give them the most amount of drama.  

How to Deal with Energy Vampires

Whatever scenario you may find yourself in when you’re dealing with energy siphoning. How to remove yourself from this dynamic is always going to be the same: You have to call them out directly on what they are doing. They are not going to own up to anything you say, they will even completely turn the tables on you. They will accuse you of things that aren’t true, they will fabricate stories, they aren’t interested in the truth. What they are interested in is feeding. The reason you have to call them out even if you look bad or crazy is because, like an actual vampire they are repelled by the light of day and when you call them out you are bringing the light of awareness to the shadows. 

So even though they will attack you, they were gonna attack you anyway, only now they can’t do it and still feel securely hidden. Some of them will completely move on just by you calling out what they’re doing. 

You have to take “The L”. This is a slang word I discovered for loss. You have to be very comfortable with taking the loss when you’re dealing with an energy vampire. This means you have to let them accuse you and portray you however they insisted instead of being held hostage by them and trying to prove yourself and defend yourself. Just take the L. Let them pull your proverbial hair on the way out as uncomfortable as that may be. Anytime you uplevel in life, there is going to be some reverb from it, but if we know there’s going to be reverb then we can treat it as a rite of passage. 

The next step in removing ourselves from an energy vampire dynamic is to hold yourself accountable and take ownership for what you have in common with the person. We have to walk this line without turning into a martyr or else we will have just cycled back into the victim mentality. Martyrdom is pretty juvenile it sounds good on paper, but it’s a hot mess in the 3D. You don’t want to get stuck in the murder mystery theatre level of reality for the rest of this precious life. Use the experience to help you connect with any aspects of yourself that you had discovered during it or had rejected prior to it. 

On the spiritual path we are not designed to avoid suffering but rather we are meant to learn how to suffer well. So as not to reproduce our suffering — and energy vampires are one of the best lessons for this. I hope this has helped you connect with your inner fang banger. 

 © 2022 Sarah Elkhaldy