Unseen Influencers: The Women in Black by Madeleine St. John

I remember reading a review of this book when it was first published, which was in 1993. The review was in a free magazine that was given away at many stations; I used to take a copy if it was handed to me, but it never had much content that I thought worth reading. 

I read the book section in one issue, and saw a review of The Women in Black. The book’s outline did not sound very promising - sales assistants in the dress department of a Sydney department store in the 1950s are not what I would normally want to read about - but my radar picked something up. I had learned to respect these inner promptings so I bought the book.

My radar chose well. On one level the book makes a passable light read; on another level it acts as a teaching guide by providing examples of unseen influences of a positive kind. I did not immediately realise this: the insights came to me gradually in the following years.

The most significant character in The Women in Black is called Magda. She has a very beneficial influence on her fellow workers and their lives and families; deliberately or unconsciously she arranges their affairs so that they all get their heart’s desire. She is a wonderful example of someone who is the exact opposite of an energy vampire and a saboteur; she is a giver and a facilitator and everyone around her benefits from knowing her. The ripple effect spreads throughout her sphere of influence.

Be very careful what you dwell on: getting caught in one's own traps

I have had some more ideas about Charlotte Brontë, and I want to pass on my interpretation of certain significant events in her life. I think that some of them can be attributed to what I think of as psychological black magic.

Charlotte Brontë and her siblings were obsessed with the Duke of Wellington, England’s hero of the time. He starred in many of the wonderful, Byronic stories that they created from their imaginations. Both Charlotte and Emily Brontë created dark, romantic heroes; it is likely that they thought of the Duke, whose real name was Arthur Wellesley, as dark and romantic too.

Charlotte eventually married a dark man whose first name was Arthur. Was this just a coincidence, or a case of ‘Be very careful what you wish for ...’? He annoyed her when he hung around and dogged her footsteps through the village, but perhaps he was drawn in and caught in a psychic trap.

Her letters show that she was a great daydreamer: she had an almost lifelong habit of ‘making out’ as it was then called. This helped her to escape from her surroundings and painful memories, and provided some compensation for an unsatisfactory life. 

Some of her imaginings were so intensely vivid that they were almost hallucinations. She went in for two types of daydreaming: one where it was similar to watching TV and she did not know what would happen next, and the other where she mentally choreographed the events and invested a lot of energy in them, living them as if they were real. Some of the results went into her books.

Energy vampires: my thoughts and memories Part II

How energy vampires feed

Some authorities say that the draining is done via the second or third chakra: this is very interesting as I remember having stomach pains that made me clutch myself and wrap my arms around myself when I was in the presence of certain members of my family. 

Energy vampires tend to stand very close, and parents may insist that you look at them when they are talking to you.  They may approach you silently so that you are thrown off balance when they startle you: this makes it easier for them to feed. I have experienced this many times. I have also been on the receiving end of techniques such as talking and complaining non-stop as a distraction from what they are doing, and continually asking stupid and unnecessary questions just as a pretext to approach and feed. 

They do not always need to be in their victims’ company: if there is a personal connection they can extract energy over the phone; they may send unpleasant letters or emails that give their victims a shock that lowers their defences so that the energy vampires can feed remotely.

Some vampires may not have specific victims; they drain the world at large by exerting a huge pull on the environment. They need fuel for their fantasies, and this can come from people whom they have never even met such as neighbours, fellow workers and people in public places.

Be very careful what you wish for: psychological black magic that backfired.

Black magic has been described as an ‘illegitimate short cut’. I really like this definition. It covers trying to get what you haven’t legitimately earned.

From what I have seen, some people do appear to use a kind of psychological black magic or mind power as an unseen influence to get or try to get what they want, as opposed to using natural methods. 

Natural methods they might use include obtaining qualifications and learning the skills that would help them to get suitable well-paid jobs, working to earn the money to pay for the things that they want and attracting decent human beings into their lives by being one themselves so that people like to do them favours, introduce them to others and invite them to events. In particular, natural methods mean asserting themselves, stating their position, negotiating with people and practising give and take in their relationships. 

I have also seen that even where these people do get what they asked for, it usually goes horribly wrong, backfires, turns sour or is a fifth rate travesty of what they really wanted. The backlash can make people very depressed and unstable. 

This is all unconscious: they never usually make the connection between what they were obsessively wishing for and what manifested in their lives. They never usually realise that they have sold their soul and sanity and got a very bad deal.

Some examples from my own experience follow.

Energy vampires or psychic vampires: my thoughts and memories Part I

Introduction
I first encountered the terms ‘energy vampire’ and ‘psychic vampire’ in books many years ago. I soon realised that I had been a victim of such people for my entire life. Giving a name to a problem is the first step towards solving it.  

Since then, I have read a lot of material about energy or psychic vampires and found much of it familiar, relevant and helpful.  I now want to add my own contribution to the available body of information by supplying some details of my personal involvement with these people. My first hand, excruciatingly painful, experiences enable me to confirm much that has been written on this subject. Energy vampires are indeed a major unseen influence on many people’s lives.

What are energy vampires and psychic vampires?
These terms are often used interchangeably. Energy vampires are also known as suckers, sponges and leeches. 

Energy vampires can be thought of as people who have lost contact with their real selves; they have no inner source of vital energy so they are forced to look elsewhere for their supplies. 

Most of us are issued at birth with an internal energy support system, but energy vampires for one reason or another have forfeited their legal right to this allowance or become disconnected from it so need to find illegitimate sources of food and fuel outside themselves. They survive by draining the people around them.

Note that this is not connected with the fact that introverts can feel drained, and extroverts energised, by interacting with many people. Extroverts often wilt when they are alone, whereas introverts enjoy solitude because it offers a chance to recharge. This is perfectly normal, and is merely a sign of under and over stimulation. 

Many energy vampires siphon off people’s vital energy just to keep going and maintain their front or image; others do it for more sinister reasons such as raising the power to get something that they want.

Becoming an energy vampire can be an unfortunate side-effect or result of illness, age, ill treatment by others and psychosis and other forms of mental disturbance. Some creative people and celebrities may well become vampires too.

Aryan supremacy: blond hair and blue eyes versus black hair and brown eyes

The idea that people from the Nordic race are superior to those from other races was of enormous importance to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. They propagated that the best kinds of human beings were Northwestern Europeans, white-skinned people with blue eyes and blond hair; this meant that races such as the Negroid, Slavic and Mediterranean and people with black hair and brown eyes were considered to be inferior. 

Similar ideas affected people whose lives are of interest to me. 

When I first read a biography of Louisa May Alcott, I learned that her father was what we would now call an Aryan supremacist. Bronson Alcott was tall, and he had blond hair and blue eyes. He said that such people were superior to dark-haired people with black hair and brown eyes. Louisa resembled her mother, who could have passed for Spanish or Italian.

Bronson Alcott thought that his colouring indicated associations with the light and good, angelic forces; this implied that Louisa and her mother were not only inferior, but also dark, evil and demonic. When Louisa brought home a young man with fair colouring, Bronson said, “Sir, you are a child of light”. Why was this issue so important to him? What effect did his views have on Louisa and her mother?

Is it just a coincidence that Louisa was born in Germantown, Philadelphia? This reminds me of the connection between the Mitford family, Unity Valkyrie and her Aryan supremacist grandfather Bertie Mitford in particular, and Swastika, Ontario.

Alcotts and Brontës and psychic crime

When I first read some biographies of the Brontë and the Alcott families, I immediately noticed some connections and common patterns. Some of these features are also present in and relevant to my own family. There are large numbers of scholarly, well researched and comprehensive books and articles about these families of interest and many analyses of their literary works, but they do not cover the aspects that I am most interested in. 

I always look out for possible examples of psychic crime or psychological black magic when researching the lives and works of people whose experiences and outlook on life have much in common with my own. I also look out for coincidences; for example, both Louisa May Alcott's father Bronson and Charlotte Brontë's father Patrick as young men slightly changed their last names to make them more 'up-market'. 

Louisa May Alcott was born on the same day as her father; she died a few days after he did, which could indicate some kind of psychic stranglehold. 

There was a lot of elevated and progressive ideology in the family, and Louisa bought the idea that the Alcotts were a breed apart. Her father frequently opted out of supporting the family, and Louisa was the sacrificial victim who was made to feel responsible for earning enough to support the lot of them. 

She disapproved when her older sister Anna married a very ordinary man called John Pratt, who died ten years later - shortly before the joint birthday.  

If marrying into the elite Alcott family was not acceptable, neither was escaping. Her youngest sister May travelled around Europe, then wrote to say that she had married and would not be coming back to the US. Her letters described the luxuries that she now had. She died some months later in Paris. 

The deaths of May and Anna's husband seem suspicious to me.