Just rambling16:25 Oct 28 2013
Times Read: 408
“Kitra”, means “Crowned One” in Hebrew. I'm retired in my private life and a senior so I have heard it all and heard people go off who were prominent in the community to disappear never to be heard of again like Seether, Father Cosmo, Bholanath and others. Don't know if I remember how to spell the last person's ID anymore. He use to preside over the Order of the Crimson Tongue. There was also Lord Simion that retired from the community for personal family reasons quite awhile ago. Nice guy.
Many of the words chosen by the vampire community are arbitrary. Some are old, some made up and others chosen because their meanings seem to fit the circumstances and most started by those in the Eastern area of the US. Some of the most active people in the US community have been females. These three at one time lived close to each other. Michelle Balanger, Sanguinarius and Sylvere ap Leanann. They are very well known in the US community. Merticus is someone I never heard of until around 2005 or 06. He has been a trailblazer one might say but over time there have been numerous. They all injected lingo into the community including Mr. Todd aka Father Sabastiaan.
I prefer the word vampiric to vampire and quite a number of us do but there are a lot of spellings depending on where you come from. There are a lot of perspectives depending on where you come from. Because Endless Night is most often held in New Orleans they tend to try and rule the roost. Regions are halos and the list of terms they interject into the community are thought by them as something you should know but only the groupies know.
In the last well I will say five years or so the South African organizations have become very active and let themselves be known. They are a young lot with a lot of ideas and talking about things that have been hashed and rehashed numerous times. They want to be different and that they are and it is dangerous even in S. Africa to admit you believe these things let alone drink blood, the ones who do. Most vampirics DO NOT.
Another issue, Elders are not suppose to be telling people if they are or are not a vampire or their nature. It is a very big no no. There are some that do but it is not considered proper if one is part of any community. There is a mainstream community and there are side issue communities like the TOV and the Asetian, TOS and other stand alones.
Here is a good example of things that happen in the worldwide community. This group does not want to use names thought up in the west so they are going to be using these:
SAVA Accepts Proposed Changes To SA VC Donor Identification System. You can read this article below:
http://savampyrenews.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/sava-accepts-proposed-changes-to-sa-vc-donor-identification-system/
I don't know if I have this article in this journal already but I am going to post it here. I wrote it a few years ago but it is apt for the community in general.
How does the Herd Mentality
Affect the Vampire Culture?
It looks good, it sounds good and they are professing the right things. They have a great website and they are getting to know all the right people. The word rings out, join! The problem is, does the fluff make up for being exploited by someone who is an attention seeker and nothing of what they say? Perhaps they have been known in the community prior but have tuned out for a long time for whatever reason. In the interim, their online hierarchy has learned the nature of the person and who and what they really are and who they are not so they reject them but don’t pass it around the gamut of people involved in said subculture. This person will regroup and start another organization and offer tantalizing items to attract attention and get new converts. Their whole persona takes on a new face to attract a new and even old group of people with the same erroneous ideas and fakery but to do that by appealing to the “cool” factor.
This happens all the time, but generally certain people in particular and unless people are blinded to what is going on it can only be accounted for by the “herd mentality” and a yearning to be apart of something, anything even if they know it is fake. Don’t we ever question anything or just those that tend to be conflicting to accepted viewpoints? The vampire subculture is permeated with a myriad of people pretending to be something they are not, others who want to be in the forefront which appears to be a control issue and a variety of attractors. Many are saying all they want is to help the community but it is based solely on whether those they are helping have arrived at the same conclusions concerning the vampyre and the origins, feeding and general beliefs they have in common regardless of their veracity.
When you see one group using a certain type of organizational set-up, it is like dominos lined up and all of them fall in line together. It is the way to do things and the way to name things and of course we need some sort of rules. Rather than be individual certain people decide to create something and whether one likes it or not it becomes the holy writ of the culture. It is the same for anyone else in the community that writes something or creates something others think are “cool” and the queue is formed and everyone wants to follow the leader. The most interesting factor is how the individuals get deemed the leader? I call it schmoozing. Obviously they wrote books, were seen on television or created groups on any one of the social sites. They may have merely created their own website with bells and whistles.
The sad thing is that because of this mentality anyone can come onto the internet and proclaim to be a sovereign of some ancient council or order and in the know and if it sounds legitimate it is accepted every single time. The networking begins and all of a sudden this person becomes well known in the culture and voila this legitimizes them even if they are attention seekers and opportunists and nothing more. There are the rare cases where this doesn’t happen in one segment of the subculture. These zealous few are trying to warn others. The group is labeled a cult but only certain individuals pay much attention to the warnings because after all, the group is “so cool” and you know from past lives that this is the group for you.
Frederick Nietchze is the first person to coin the term “herd mentality,” which was a phrase that meant people are influenced by the larger group to think or behave in a certain way. Herds can be large or small depending on the subject but are in all cases, the many following the few or those that stand out in the crowd by providing the “bling” whether they are charlatans or sincere. This is pervasive in the vampyre community and many times it is due to sex appeal. Sometimes it is because the individual becomes a celebrity in some way. There are devotee’s to the vampyre culture and those that hate people of this type but in every case, there are followers regardless of the credentials of the person involved. Often, that is never asked because the superficial persona seems to fit in keeping with the culture. Therefore they get included in a long list of approved groups.
It is a sad example to the community as well as the public at large and especially when it is blatant the person, leader or Elder if they go by such a name, is pathological. They are living in a fantasy world of their own making and they are infecting those they come in contact with, with their own brand of nonsense. Yet, people line up and follow them and even venerate them somewhat. It is astonishing this goes on, on a daily basis. Some use the woes me factor that they have been mistreated and usurped by others. The real truth being that the light came on and realization that they were duped has made them furious. They wonder when the others will see the light but knowing that isn’t going to happen. Why, you ask? The reason is the word “drama.” These days, people hate the waves and it takes tidal waves to bring down a phony in the vampyre subculture. Attempting such an act will only get the person trying to make people realize the nature of the situation labeled a “troublemaker.” Therefore the credibility of the vampire subculture will always be in question until such time as they stop and take another path and quit going over the cliff with the rest of the buffoons.
RKB November 18, 2010
(This may be an unvarnished version because I wrote it for the GYP awhile back)
If you want to know more about the caste system go to House Kheperu. Michelle Balanger created it. She took the terms from various sources. Its her idea and created in modern times just like Wicca. I personally don't follow it but I don't try to tell people what they should believe or not believe. There are various beliefs throughout the community aside even from religious following that pertains to various factions within it or in other areas of the world. The community is very creative in that area.
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