[asteram]

You appear to be missing a fundamental concept needed to understand the essay. I'm talking about energy: energy as in electrical energy, physical energy, emotional energy.

You can probably think of people with whom you have had a conversation and walked away drained, and also people with whom you have talked and walked away energized and with a spring in you step. The same goes for films, plays, musical performances. Some energize you, some drain your energy. This is real; all of us have experienced this. In theater is is very common for the actors to project their energy to the audience, leaving the actors drained. And sometimes vice-versa.

Some humans are energy vampires, they suck emotional energy, life energy, from others. Others are, shall I say, energy donors, some of whom give away too much of their own life energy to others. And there are a happy few who know how to stimulate energy in those around them without losing their own.

There is another level to this, an unseen level. On this level the energy donors and the energy vampires are known by various terms such as good and evil spirits, angels and demons etc. These are ancient terms, but their equivalent is found in the lore of all of mankind throughout all of history. These concepts are routinely dismissed by "modern" science and society as superstition, but if they have no reality why are they known to all peoples through all of time, no matter how isolated or far-flung?

They are real all right.

Here is the basic concept: Entities that are invisible to us are capable of feeding off of our emotional energy. Call them what you will. These invisible energy vampires do not feed off of love, gratitude, or joy. Their food is grief, anger, fear, hate, despair. The more intense the "negative" emotion, the more food value it has for them. They are among us, they are not in some distant heaven or hell. They have the ability to influence thoughts, to put a thought or an idea into people's heads. They stimulate negative emotions in us because it is food for them. They also stimulate violence, greed, wars, hate and division because all of these provide food for them. Both the seething anger of the perpetrator and the fear and pain of the victim are food for them, as are guilt and shame and depression.

In times past they were much more a visible force in society. The Aztec practice of human sacrifice provides a good example. The pain and fear of the sacrificial victim provided food for them, as did the cruel exultation of the priest, as did the emotional reactions of the congregation watching the sacrifice. It's worth noting that the very life force itself of the sacrificial victim was and is their choicest and strongest food.

Certain humans are well aware of the vampires, or become aware of them, and are willing to work with them in order to obtain material reward: wealth, power, sex, social standing. This is what "selling one's soul to the devil" entails, making a bargain with these entities to provide them with food, negative emotional energy, in exchange for rewards on the physical plane.

One of the biggest feasts for these entities is the suffering and destruction of war. War is a banquet; they are fed not only by the suffering and life force of those who are injured and killed in war, but by the grieving and pain of those left bereaved. Note that those who start the wars on our physical plane also profit from them on the physical plane; that is their payoff from the vampires.

Today things are a little more sophisticated than in Aztec times or even a century ago. The media provide the main source of food for the vampires. Imagine a horror film, a darkened theater full of people completely engrossed in the film; now imagine that you could see the invisible entities that are there in that theater feeding off of the shock, fear and horror of the audience. The same can be said of films of heartbreak and loss and films of war. All induce strong negative emotions in the audience and provide food.

The present carnage in Gaza? Food for the vampires on a worldwide scale as we watch in horror and anger and hate and judgment.

That is the fundamental concept.

Take your emotional focus away from the show, and you cease to provide a source of food. Further, you can now consciously use that energy in a positive manner, by working to make a better world, by sending loving and healing energy to the Earth. It is all one energy, and it can be directed consciously toward creation, love and gratitude.

I have taken my energy away from them. I will no longer be manipulated by them as a source of food. My energy, all of it, is now mine to direct as I consciously choose.