An Associated Student’s Inc. special event will take place in Chumash auditorium on Wednesday May 5, from 8 to 11 pm. It is part of ASI’s True Life Series, and is titled “I am a Vampire,” featuring bestselling author, singer and prominent advocate of the vampire lifestyle, Michelle Belanger.
The event will feature a presentation by Belanger on the history of vampires, as well as the modern day vampire, followed by a showing of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon.”
ASI special events student supervisor Courtney Serafin, who organized the event, said she thought it would be a good idea in light of the recent vampire craze.
“It’s definitely a different kind of event than we’ve ever had on campus before, so hopefully there will be a good turnout,” Serafin said.
The featured speaker is one of the most respected authorities on the subject of vampires. Belanger is a self-described “psychic-vampire” and a spokesperson for the modern vampire cult movement.
She teaches classes around the country on dream-walking, energy exchange, spirit communication and many other fascinating and strange topics. Belanger is the author of multiple best-selling books about vampirism, and paranormal and occult research.
Her non-fiction works include the best-selling “Psychic Vampire Codex,” “Sacred Hunger,” “Psychic Dreamwalking,” “The Psychic Energy Codex,” “Vampires in Their Own Words” and “Walking the Twighlight Path.” She is co-author of “The Vampyre Almanac” and “V: the Book of the Strigoi Vii.” Her fiction work includes “The Enchanted Wood,” “These Haunted Dreams,” “This Heart of Flame” and “Wicked Kisses.” Belanger’s poetry works include “Soul Songs from Distant Shores” and “This Ritual of Me.” Her latest book, “The Dictionary of Demons: Names of the Damned” will be released in October 2010. She is also working on the “Watcher Angel Tarot deck” with artist Jackie Williams, which is also expected to be released in 2010.
Belanger has been featured in television shows and documentaries about magic, vampires and the modern occult, including multiple episodes of “Paranormal State” and documentaries on A&E, The History Channel and HBO.
She is also the founder of House Kheperu, a cult for vampire psychics like herself. It is a magical society with rituals and a caste system. It is based upon a unique style of energy work which is detailed in “The Psychic Vampire Codex.”
Belanger is also a talented singer and songwriter, and has collaborated with popular Gothic bands like URN and Nox Arcana on singles and albums. Her musical work can be heard on URN’s Desecrated Ashes (2003) and Dancing with the Demigods (2006), Nox Arcana’s Winter’s Knight (2005), Xyla’s Esoterica (2007) and the solo album, Blood of Angels (2006). She wrote the lyrics to several URN songs, Esoterica’s “The God Within,” and for all nine tracks on Blood of Angels, which she also sings.
Belanger was born intersex, or a “hermaphrodite,” the term she prefers because of its poetic origins. She had corrective surgery upon birth. Belanger’s childhood could be a story straight from Ray Bradbury’s October Country. Her small Midwest town featured a haunted public library, and it celebrated the return of flights of turkey vultures every year on the Ides of March.
Her home life was even stranger still. Raised by her maternal grandmother, psychic experiences and ghostly phenomenon were common occurrences in the Belanger household — but were only discussed behind closed doors. On the other hand, her estranged grandfather’s family included healers, tea-leaf readers and circus freaks who openly embraced their extraordinary gifts.
Afflicted with a life-threatening heart defect from birth, Belanger endured both out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences before the age of five. Her mother believed that these traumatic brushes with death made Belanger more sensitive to psychic phenomenon.
Belanger herself believes that her skills arise from a combination of genetics, environment and fate.
She is a firm believer that psychic perceptions are something that anyone can cultivate, and she teaches a variety of techniques based upon a fundamental perception of psychic energy.
The presentation by Belanger will be followed by a screening of “New Moon,” Stephenie Meyer’s second installment of the wildly popular “Twilight Saga.” The “Twilight Saga” is based upon Meyer’s best-selling book series about vampires.
This romantic fantasy about vampires stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. “New Moon” has been Summit Entertainment’s highest grossing film, and also set box office records for the most successful midnight screening in history. The film was freshly released on DVD March 20.
The event is free for Cal Poly students, and $10 for other community members.