PS037 - Energetic Connections and Psychic Feeding

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Ever have erotic or personal connections that leave you drained? People you engage with that wire you up, or leave you feeling icky? Let’s look into energetic compatibility, resonance, compatibility, and consensual psychic vampirism. Lee Harrington takes us on a journey in this month's podcast through the question of what to be aware of when connecting on an energetic level with others – in scenes, in sex, and in life at large.

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    Lee:

    Hello, fellow adventurers of Sexuality And Spirit.


    And welcome to Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington, my monthly show on this delicious podcast series where I have been delighted to get to talk about everything from sexuality to spirituality and everything in between.


    And this month, I've had a chance to think about a lot of these combination spaces of sexuality and spirituality and where they match up with each other.


    I recently got accepted to come out and teach at PantheaCon in February, which is a pagan conference out in that neck of the woods that I've been attending for a number of years.


    And it's going to be great to be back on the presenters list.


    And no, I'm not going to give away what I'm doing just yet, because that is still in its details of refinement.


    But along with that, I've been having some great discussions and secondary discussions around this intersection point.


    Over the last few months, I've been hosting a series of panels with TESS, the Oil And Spiegel Society of New York, which is one of the longest running kink educational organizations, if not the longest running.


    I'm not sure if it's that or Janice in San Francisco, but continuously running groups that has been putting together amazing programming over the years, having started out with what was called the TESS Circle, which was a support group of sorts where people could come and say, hi, my name's Lee.


    And I like kinky stuff.


    I like bondage and SM and role playing and erotic connections that are outside what's considered the norm.


    And it's great because nowadays, even with the panels that I did, we had circles afterwards where we'd had an entire panel of five people up front talking about specific topics.


    But afterwards, we would have this delightful discussion and sometimes really hard discussions based on the people that were there getting a chance to express their own emotions and their own journeys.


    And Tess has been doing this for a lot of years.


    Now, during these panels, we discussed everything from personal history and journeys, trauma around the space of how do we express ourselves as sexual beings when we have spiritual baggage.


    We talked about healing, personal growth, the things we've learned about our spiritual and energetic and personal journey through getting to explore our sexuality, what we've learned about our sexuality based on our spiritual and religious frameworks and everything in between.


    But during the second panel was a discussion around energy and specifically the energy exchange we have between two or more people when a scene is happening, when a sexual or kink engagement is happening between two or more people, and that experience of going from one body into another and back and forth in that loop that is formed happens.


    And for some people, this is not just a physical exchange.


    It's not just a flogger hitting somebody's back and then the moan coming back to that first person.


    It's more than that, or at least an extra layer beyond that.


    That there can be an experience of someone's essence, someone's aura, someone's chakric body, someone's self on that core self level that reaches out and says, Hi, I'm here and I see you.


    And here in this moment, I am open to being one with you.


    And the other self that is in that scene says, I see you.


    And in this moment, I say, yes.


    And we flow back and forth and back and forth in this wave.


    In this moment of truth and this moment of beauty, here we are in each other and not just your cock inside me, not just my cunt buried inside you.


    We are a flow, one to the other, and back again.


    Back again.


    This wave is really interesting in the context of that third panel because there was a gentleman by the name of Ramon who was on the panel who was coming from an African diasporic spiritual tradition background.


    And he was saying that he found it really curious for himself when he was hearing about a wide variety of panelists talking about that wave, talking about that energetic exchange between two or more people that happens in scenes.


    Because in his spiritual tradition, there is a lot of focus on purification, of wearing all whites when you are going into a religious setting, of taking the time to take cleansing baths, to wash the body free of any sort of emotional or energetic toxins, so that when you go before the spirits, you are able to be clean.


    And within that cleanliness, one of the things he was putting forward was that if we as individuals are putting into our body the energetic essence of others, when we are having these encounters, it is uncomfortable for him or it seemed uncomfortable to him to do so with individuals that were not aligned to his energetic being, to his core self.


    And I've been sitting with that concept ever since that panel with the question of basically, are we what we eat?


    What is the notion of this sanctification of the body when we put it within a sexual framework?


    In my book, Sacred Kink, I talked about the notion of ETDs, energetically transmitted diseases, where there's these times that I've experienced that I've been around people and I've absorbed that energetic gunk.


    This just itchiness of self that leaves me feeling toxic.


    And if I am engaging with others in sexual exchange or kink exchange or whatnot that has an energetic component to it, which many, I've met argue, all of these kinds of things have, if I am opening up my being to receive, what am I taking into me?


    What am I putting into myself?


    And do I have a consciousness of what I am consuming?


    We stop when we're eating food and look at what we're consuming and go, is this good for me?


    Okay, not everyone does.


    But for a lot of folks, it's okay.


    Am I allergic to this?


    Will I have an anaphylactic shock to the peanuts that are in front of me?


    And if I would, is it a good idea for me to put it in my mouth when I know it will harm me?


    If it's been sitting around for a long time, will I put this into my body without pausing for a moment to see, oh, is the pasta that's been in the fridge for a long time moldy?


    Is it a good idea for me?


    And everybody will draw those lines for themselves about whether the thing that's been in the fridge is a good idea for them if it's been there for a day or a week or a month.


    For some people, it's that notion of pausing and assessing where my body is at.


    Am I hungry?


    Will this be good for me or am I already full?


    When I talk to people who discuss being sexual or kink addicts, people who feel the compulsion to engage in these behaviors, it's that notion that they're already full, but it's just putting something else into them.


    Am I just consuming to have my heart not feel empty anymore?


    Is this good for me, for my essence, for my core self?


    Am I filling myself with what will be healthy, or am I going into the candy aisle and shoving it all into my face?


    What's healthy for me?


    And in the case of kink energetic consumption, am I connecting emotionally with someone because there's somebody I want to connect with emotionally, or am I doing it because I'm lonely?


    Am I doing it because it's someone who I can at least tap into right now and, oh, it's been so long just to have one person reply back and say, you are seen.


    Even if I know that person is toxic, even if I know they are moldy, even if I know that this is not healthy for me, please, please, just this once, just, just don't let me be alone.


    Because I know that's a dance that I've danced.


    It's a dance that I've danced, and it's a way to fill that place of pain, place of emptiness.


    And sometimes the answer is, I'm hungry.


    And it's okay to at least pause and look at it and see if it's moldy.


    Check with my own body for a second.


    Is this going to be okay?


    Do we at least have a condom available?


    Let's pause for a second, and that's it.


    We're done with the minimums.


    Go.


    I may not have eaten this thing before.


    I may not even know what's in it, but roll with it.


    Right?


    I'm just hungry.


    And sometimes the dumpster diving I've done in the past is more nourishing for me than the thing that I paid full price for at a restaurant that I knew really well.


    Sometimes that one moment of unknown connection is the pure bliss that I feel in my body that fills me up, that touches my essence and my spirit.


    And 15 years later, I look back and say, yes.


    I look back and say, yes, you, lucky strike cigarette between your lips, the boy from Germany I barely knew.


    You, you, I touch you to my skin, and it erupts a fire in my being.


    You, who I barely knew.


    I feel you.


    And you, that moment, you, so much richer than some of those moments I've had with people I knew for so long.


    But in the piece that Ramon brought up, what I find myself sitting with is that notion of you are what you eat.


    I am what I eat.


    It makes me think about the notion of energetic vampirism.


    Both Michelle Balanger and Raven Caldera speak really articulately about these issues.


    In Michelle's book, The Psychic Vampire Codex, or Psychic Vampire Codex, and Raven Caldera's The Ethical Psychic Vampire.


    In both of them, they address the issue that some people don't know that they are energetic vampires.


    In many forms of paganism and witchcraft and ceremonial magic, there is this notion that vampires are bad.


    That there's psychic vampires out there who will drain you dry, and these people should not be in your life.


    These are the people that you spend time with, and afterwards you just feel emptied.


    That they reached into you and took whatever you had left over.


    This might be your boss.


    This might be a friend.


    This might be a family member that you just feel empty around afterwards.


    These are people who tap into your chi, your essence, your being.


    And unconscious psychic vampires do this unconsciously.


    There's a part of their spirit that is hungry and goes, Oh, that's that really cool person who I totally love to hang out with.


    Oh my God, they're so amazing.


    And I feel so empty and bored and drained and tired.


    And when I hang out with them, I feel so much more inspired and invigorated, and they're not aware that they're taking.


    There are also those that, and these are the ones that get worried about and are that people talk about psychic defense and psychic warfare in the cases of vampires who are going, energetic vampires who are going out there and purposefully filling themselves up by draining someone else.


    That they know there is a lack.


    They know that they are empty and they go, okay, I'm empty and I need filled up, so I'm going to go to sources that I know have an exuberance, a fullness of self, and I will tap into them and I will drain them.


    That some individuals within this spectrum of the unethical psychic vampire, which is what the label I would use, will even go out there and do stuff where it's like, no, I don't care about any of this.


    I will take what I want to take.


    And in some cases, I will even keep taking more to purposefully empty that person, to energetically consume what they have, even if I am full.


    I will keep going.


    I will empty them.


    But I'm a big believer that both of these can become ethical psyvamps, ethical psychic vampires.


    And a number of years ago, I wrote an essay that I'm going to link to in the podcast notes about the idea that a lot of these people don't know what they're doing because they don't realize they're hungry.


    They don't realize they didn't have a meal recently.


    And so they just go out there and drain.


    I find that's so much more common than anybody who's doing it out of any sort of spite, out of any sort of meaning to draining.


    I think that's profoundly rare, incredibly rare, that most folks just don't even know that they're doing it.


    But ethical psychic vampires are folks who go, you know what, I need a little bit more chi, a little bit more energy than other people do.


    I run out.


    They're kind of the equivalent of energetic diabetics.


    They just run a little bit lower than other people, and they need their insulin shots.


    And so they find people or situations or settings where they can feed a little bit.


    A lot of these folks will go to high energy places like concerts and just soak up the ambient oomph in the room without draining it dry, just taking a little bit off the top, nibbling here and there.


    Some folks I know go to the people that are just, oh my god, so high energy all the time, oh my god, oh my god, and create a relationship where the person who is high chi, high energy, bouncing off the walls creates a relationship with the person who is low chi, low energy, and they build something between them.


    Whether they have a, quote, capital R, relationship or not.


    Sometimes it's a friendship.


    Sometimes it's a, hey, let's get together and do this thing, where it's a bonding experience for all or simply transactional.


    But in the kink community, I see people who aren't aware that they're creating these bonds or who aren't aware that, oh, we are two energetic drainers who are connecting with each other.


    And by passing the energy back and forth, we are making more energy through that transmission, through that connection.


    And because they're not aware of it, they're not aware that they're creating bonds with each other.


    That when we tap into each other beyond a surface level, it can feel like, wow, that was so deep.


    That was so profound.


    We're clearly in love with each other.


    We're clearly needing to dive in, and this must be love.


    And you know what?


    Sometimes those experiences can be that.


    For some people, these kinds of things can wake up past memory or deeper experience.


    I've met folks who have had these really deep emotional journey, altered state of consciousness scenes or connections where they go, wow, there's something more out there in the universe.


    I need to reevaluate myself.


    I need to really dive in to where these things happen.


    For some people, it's oh my god, I've never been with somebody in such an intense connection.


    I need to pause and make sure this is a real thing.


    And sometimes they find out.


    The next time they connect, it was just a thing.


    That one time, it was good for what it was.


    It woke them up and told them that something bigger can happen in their energetic connections, but really, that's enough.


    That's enough.


    And they can maybe have it happen sometime down the road with someone else.


    But if we are having that energy go back and forth, does this become an energetic transfusion or dialysis of sorts?


    And if it's a dialysis experience, if it's going into one thing and coming back, what's the filtering process?


    Am I becoming aware and am I in this exchange pausing to think about what's going into my body?


    Is this someone I want to connect with on that kind of level?


    Is this someone who I want to have connect with me on that kind of level?


    Is this healthy?


    Is this something that's going to feed my spirit in the long run?


    And with that, again, I keep going back to Ramon's thought of is the person I'm with in alignment?


    Have we purified ourselves?


    Am I passing on what I want to pass on?


    Is this person in a wavelength connection with me?


    Let's see if.


    So that's what I'm sitting with today.


    Because I had it pointed out to me recently, that I inspire and I charge up people.


    And I'm like, oh, that's great.


    But what the person was meaning was that I charge up people and then I let them go without even considered whether they want to be charged up.


    Without considering whether that's in alignment with their journey.


    And it's that question there of consent.


    Did that person consent to be pushed into the next chapter of their journey?


    To be told, oh, did you know that there's this big whole world out there?


    Did they consent to it?


    And I think in response, this question around, do we consent to life?


    And that's pretty esoteric.


    You know, that's a pretty big ponderance.


    Do we consent to our path in life?


    Do we consent to the next step?


    Do we consent to these things in the eyes of spirit?


    And you know what, it's a big question.


    And it's a big question I don't really have answers to right now, and that's okay because we don't have to have the answers to everything.


    We don't.


    It's okay to be in the unknowing that sometimes all we need to have is the next right step.


    And for those of you out there who don't necessarily realize that they're hungry, I ask you to pause and assess.


    And if you are around a friend who is like this, finding ways to say with love and compassion and kindness, I love spending time with you, but sometimes I feel a little drained afterwards, and I don't mean that in a cruel way.


    But it would be really awesome if we created experiences where we both got really fed, where we both won out of it, where we both had a chance to dive in fully and engage.


    With each other, it'd be awesome if you brought some stuff to the table, too.


    Find new ways to say that in a way that the other person can hear it in loving kindness.


    Because at the end of the day, loving kindness makes a difference to say to the another person, I see you, and I hear you, and you're not evil, and you're not bad.


    You're not a bad person.


    You're just someone who's a little hungry.


    And for those of you who have become food and don't realize it or worse yet, realize and keep sacrificing, if you become empty too, you cannot feed another.


    Take the time, take the energy for that personal self-care to say, you know what, to be able to give, I need to be full as well.


    And I say that to you who are in service.


    I say that to you who are in submission, and say to you, you cannot be the fullest of giving in your surrender, in your service.


    There cannot be as deep of a power exchange in my personal experience, if you do not have power to exchange or to hand over.


    And that doesn't mean you can't be that scared little rabbit.


    It doesn't mean that you have to be the cougar who is bearing their neck to the other cougar.


    That's not what I'm saying.


    What I'm saying is that if that vital force is pumping through your veins, if your veins are empty, what can be consumed?


    In some cases, this is taking the time to go have an hour by yourself.


    This might be saying, ma'am, if you are open to it, it would be a delight to take you to a movie.


    It would be a delight for me to have an opportunity to make food for you.


    Would you be open to that, ma'am?


    And for those of you who find yourself drained and are in dominance within your relationship, who are in a place of mastery, who are in a place of ownership, who are in a place of being the guide, I ask you, what will fill you up, what will give you the juice to be able to guide, to be able to hand fully to your partner that power that you have as well?


    If we create this system back and forth and back and forth, and you don't have to be in a power exchange relationship for this to apply in any way, shape, or form, if we are lover and beloved, we are creating a dialysis system between us.


    We are hooking up our veins one to one, and we should be aware of the STDs, and in this case, the ETDs that each other have.


    We should be aware of who needs more and how they need more and how we can tap into our greatness by finding the strength for each of us, finding out how we each get fueled up.


    And if one of us gets so fueled up by going out to a live concert and the other one has their juice pumped through them by penetrating their body and sweating till dawn, why can't we go to that live concert and afterwards in the back of our car, let sweat flow across our bodies, lips caressing down skin as we both fuel up into the night erupting into our essence and our essence joining up into forever?


    We each deserve it.


    We each deserve our excellence and we each deserve to be filled.


    And our filling, our filling can be luscious.


    That we have the right to eat into our energetic body, not just Twinkies, not just Oreos, not just empty calories that might have us maybe survive until tomorrow.


    But we have the right to consume.


    No, not to consume.


    We have the right to feast.


    We have the right to sit down for a meal and enjoy the taste of food on the tip of our tongue and to pause, eyes closed, and be present.


    To enjoy the present of being present, to unwrap it, to unlace the ribbon, to take off the bow, to slowly open up that tape and reveal what's beneath.


    We have the chance, when we are flowing one into the other, or we create within ourselves a system of cycling within ourselves, two cycles happening next to each other without crossing over into the other, because we make an active choice not to, not out of rejecting the other, but choosing to be two turbines echoing, echoing in each other's presence, that I speed up and you speed up, and our engines become within our own selves.


    Instead of just eating those empty calories, why don't we fill ourselves up in a way that will have us fueled tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after?


    And that is my hope for every single one of us, that we find the things that meet those needs in us, and we fill up our hearts without hurting anyone else.


    That we do not rip away the needs of others and the energy of others, that we do not rip it away non-consensually.


    That we find the systems that fuel us and we create delicious delight.


    Let's create some delicious delight for each other and for ourselves.


    Let's do it, every single one of us.


    So thank you for joining me, fellow adventurers in sexuality and spirit.


    Here on Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington.


    You can find out more about me by going to passionandsoul.com and learn there about my wide variety of books including Sacred Kink which dives in further into topics of energetically transmitted diseases and more as well as my work on rope bondage, on connection, on age play and so much more.


    Find my complete archives of all of the other podcasts I've done for quite some time and dive into my blog entries as well and check out my upcoming appearances.


    I hope for every single one of you that you enjoy your delicious lives and until next time, have fun, explore your deliciousness, dive into your depths and find your own passion and soul.


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