Demons and Sorcery

I've been thinking lately about sorcery and demons.

According to most religions, demons are spirits who picked the wrong side in the primordial conflict, and who are now trying in their various ways to deal with their unembodied situation. Demons have always been problematic to the living. Some are relatively harmless, like one I've treated who lived long enough with its human host to absorb a moral sense and to develop a philosophical interest in its own predicament, as well as taking on components of its host’s identity. Some demons, however, are just out to do major damage to all things human, like their titular head.

The difficult thing with demonic possession is to be sure it really is OK with the host. I wouldn’t choose it myself, but hosts sometimes welcome their demons. The demonic dyad allows both human and demon to experience what neither is capable of alone: material, corporeal existence, however brief, along with shared consciousness and uninterrupted metaphysical memory from before the beginning.

Demonic possession of other living creatures is problematic as well. I know of one family whose dog made prophecies, all of which came true. Difficulties arose because the prophecies were things of interest only to a dog, such as that a troublesome cat would soon be moving into the neighborhood, or that there would shortly be a change in his brand of dog chow. The family found it disconcerting enough to get rid of the dog; with Humane Society help he was successfully (and usefully) placed with the owner of a kennel. Disembodied demons can haunt a place, and sometimes it is hard to tell if the haunting is demonic or ghostly. Ghosts won’t possess a person or anything else. They are usually just hanging around trying to get something finished before they move on to the next phase.

Demons are much scarier than ghosts. Sorcerers invoke the demonic by offering corporeality as the bait and then attempting to control the powers they call through black magic. It isn’t the only magic they use, but it is what makes them by definition sorcerers rather than simply magicians or wizards. Sorcery is extremely dangerous and unpredictable. A sorcerer might spend weeks or months calling a particular demon, only to have it, or another, respond unexpectedly. If the demon called is malevolent—and most are—sorcery lays the way open for it to enter the natural, material world and wreak havoc.

No wonder sorcery is illegal.

Another Glimpse of the Garden Faery

"What is it Like?"

Many years ago I worked at one of the few Vampire Treatment Facilities in the western US. Here is part of a transcript of a session, (with ID info removed):

"What is it like?”
“What is it like. At first it was like being a vegetarian with an insatiable appetite for red meat. You can’t believe what you’re doing, what you must do to maintain your—existence. You try not to do it. You try to find ways to minimize the damage, to do as little harm as possible... So you swear off live blood. Or you take only from the willing. But of course you do damage. It’s your nature—you are a dealer of death and destruction. You swear off blood altogether. You starve until you’re ravenous, a sick, weak animal. And then you come upon a human—even sick and starving, you’re stronger than they are—and you can’t control how you feed. You are nothing but the Thirst. Any humanity, any consciousness, is burnt away in the fever for blood.”
“The Thirst?”
“Food and drink and sex all mixed into one. And sin, and death, and hell. The certain knowledge that if you are destroyed it is the cold dark or the fire.”
“Do you know?”
“I know who I am, what I am. But if there’s anything after destruction—ask the demons.”
“God help you.”
“Don’t let me mislead you. Plenty of people envy the vampires, want to be one of the Undead. I did when I was human. There’re many volunteers. The vampires are beautiful and strong. And they have one huge advantage over humans. They’re heartless. They don’t care anymore—they have nothing to care with. They’ve moved beyond caring. They’re invincible. Nothing touches them. Nothing hurts them.”

Patently untrue, as this vampire no longer exists. But his responses to my questions still haunt me.

More Garden Faeries

With a little stealth and caution, I was able to observe a reunion between our local garden faery and other visitors. A highlight of my gardening year!

"Cure" For the Bite of a Vampire

A reader asks, after reviewing the Second Congressional Report, if there is a cure for a vampire bite before the victim is Turned. Here is an excerpt from one of the leading scholarly works on vampirism:

Between the first bite and the last is a sort of twilight phase or fugue state. These victims are under vampiric influence to a degree, without being either killed or Turned. Theoretically, this phase could continue indefinitely, perhaps long enough to justify the rumors of immortal human companions to the vampires. A person may be bitten once without apparent ill effect, but is thereafter vulnerable to influence by their attacker--and that influence, however slight, may manifest years later. The use of holy water, the holy cross, or other similar religious object may help to 'cleanse' the bite, but only if the victim believes in its efficacy. The bite and its effects disappear if at any point the attacking vampire is destroyed.

[emphasis mine] As a therapist, it is extremely difficult to consider that there is no other cure.

Common Garden Faery

To my delight, I have discovered a garden faery in our neighborhood.

Initially shy and stand-offish, and hiding from humans,

as with most faeries, encouragement, attention, gifts, and a non-threatening approach have really brought out the inner Faery Star!

Although faeries can be somewhat demanding* (and confusing) in their relationships with us mere mortals, I hope to see more of this cute little faery in our garden.

*"A mischievous fairy is the source of the curse placed on the young woman"

For Those Determined to Read Vamp-Fic

For a more or less accurate and thinly-disguised account of a possible relationship with a vampire, read Robin McKinley's Sunshine.

From Publishers Weekly
Buffyesque baker Rae "Sunshine" Seddon meets Count Dracula's hunky Byronic cousin in Newbery-Award-winner McKinley's first adult-and-then-some romp through the darkling streets of a spooky post-Voodoo Wars world. Now that human cities have been decimated, the vampiric elite holds one-fifth of the world's capital, threatening to control all the earth in less than 100 years, unless human SOFs (Special Other Forces) can hold them at bay by recruiting Sunshine, daughter of legendary sorcerer Onyx Blaise. As breathlessly narrated by Sunshine herself, the Cinnamon Roll Queen of Charlie's Coffeehouse, in the inchoate idiom of Britney, J. Lo and the Spice Girls, Sunshine's coming-of-magical-age launches when she is swarmed by noiseless vampires one night and chained in a decrepit ballroom as an entr‚e for mysterious, magnetic, half-starved Constantine, a powerful vampire whose mortal enemy Bo (short for Beauregard) shackled him there to perish slowly from daylight and deprivation. Most of the charm of this long venture into magic maturation derives from McKinley's keen ear and sensitive atmospherics, deft characterizations and clever juxtapositions of reality and the supernatural that might, just might, be lurking out there in "bad spots" right around a creepy urban corner or next to a deserted lake cabin. McKinley knows very well-and makes her readers believe-that "the insides of our own minds are the scariest things there are."

From Booklist
Rae Seddon, nicknamed Sunshine, lives a quiet life working at her stepfather's bakery. One night, she goes out to the lake for some peace and quiet. Big mistake. She is set upon by vampires, who take her to an old mansion. They chain her to the wall and leave her with another vampire, who is also chained. But the vampire, Constantine, doesn't try to eat her. Instead, he implores her to tell him stories to keep them both sane. Realizing she will have to save herself, Sunshine calls on the long-forgotten powers her grandmother began to cultivate in her when she was a child. She transforms her pocketknife into a key and unchains herself--and Constantine. Surprised, he agrees to flee with her when she offers to protect him from the sun with magic. They escape back to town, but Constantine knows his enemies won't be far behind, which means that he and Sunshine will have to face them together. A luminous, entrancing novel with an enthralling pair of characters at its heart.

Aside from a few unbelievable flights-of-fancy (magical protection from sunlight, for example), the story is a fairly accurate representation of what could happen in a relationship between a person with Fey ancestry and an ambivalent vampire.