Atlanta Vampire Alliance [AVA]

[Merticus]

VEWRS Purpose & Significance:

The Vampire & Energy Work Research Survey is conducted by the Atlanta Vampire Alliance [AVA] with support from various Houses and elders from the vampire community. This survey will address questions about the vampiric experience which have consistently been brought forward as concerns, either by members of the Community or by outside researchers in the professional or academic sectors. We have divided these concerns into the eleven topics which comprise the focus of this survey. We see these recurring questions as evidence of a need, felt by outside researchers and Community members alike, for a larger body of reliable knowledge about how vampires describe their personal experiences of dealing with their condition. We will attempt to gather data regarding these issues by researching specific cultural, physical, psychological, and emotional conditions that actually exist as written and reported from a vampire perspective. To this end, we intend to directly address these concerns: we will examine the different traits associated with the vampiric condition from feeding habits to psychic abilities; we will examine who vampires are, their backgrounds, educations, and religious or spiritual choices; we will gather data on how individuals experience their personal vampirism and how they experience the vampire community; and we will distinguish the differences between real vampirism and the role playing phenomenon.

Our goal is to provide this data in a comprehensive printed and digitally available analysis to the community as a resource for our deeper understanding of modern vampirism. We anticipate the results will provide a strong basis of fact and theoretical framework from which to dispel the popular misconceptions held by the public community, and highlight the flaws in the conventional theories of the scientific and academic communities regarding their frequent treatment of vampirism as both a cult and a dangerous practice. We hope that with the data gathered in this study available to the scholarly community as well as the vampire community, the questions that scholarly professionals have posed about us may be addressed from a solid factual base - the experiences reported by actual members of the Community. Furthermore, we intend to apply the raw data collected from this survey to several ongoing studies. The results will provide us with a statistical insight into the commonalities shared among real vampires and assist in identifying traits that may commonly occur in the public population but are misdiagnosed or dismissed. Using the census aspect of this study we will be able to evaluate the concentration of vampires in major metropolitan areas and throughout the world. This will permit us to highlight pockets of vampires that exist but may be under-represented in the Community. We will also be collecting personal family heredity information that will aid in establishing the frequency of vampirism throughout different generations and possible consideration of genetic inheritance theories. While this study employs a concurrent triangulation strategy, the qualitative aspects of our research will allow for a case study examination that covers the primary spectrum of beliefs and opinions held by the vampire community. The potential knowledge this survey may provide to the vampire community merits an extensive networking effort to gather support and participation.

In the pursuit of this goal, we believe that we are following in the tradition of, and building upon, the earliest efforts of members of our Community to share their experiences with each other online, on websites, forums, and in person discussions. The goal then, as it is now, was above all to help one another understand our experiences, and to enrich our Community's understanding of itself. While conducting this research we are committed to remaining neutral and abstaining from controversial rhetoric that could be viewed as biased. As researchers, we recognize that we have a responsibility to be both fair and thorough in serving our community. This is ultimately an effort by the Community, and for the Community, which we hope will also reach beyond our boundaries, to be a body of knowledge from which outside scholars can draw when trying to understand the reality of our lives and experience.


AVEWRS Purpose & Significance:

The Advanced Vampirism & Energy Work Research Survey (AVEWRS) is conducted by the Atlanta Vampire Alliance [AVA] with contributions from both independent and affiliated groups within the vampire community. This survey has come about in response to the inquiry received while conducting the original Vampire & Energy Work Research Survey (VEWRS) and from the examination of responses gathered during past months. The purpose of the VEWRS was to gather data about the general aspects of vampiric life and practice as reported by real vampires with a particular emphasis placed on the social structure and interactions amongst vampires within the Community. The scope of the survey covered many surface topics, but necessarily left many advanced topics unaddressed. During the ongoing analysis and correlation of the responses from the VEWRS we both identified the need as well as received a significant number of requests to address more in-depth aspects of the vampire community; specifically vampiric traits, abilities, beliefs, and energy work techniques. Based on these requests, five independent research topics were chosen to be explored and subsequently compiled into a single concise survey format to facilitate the ease of participation. We believe that the information gathered regarding these topics will be of specific and immediate interest to members of the Community, and will increase the knowledge that the Community has about itself, its members as individuals, and its relationship with other groups and communities.

Complimenting the work outlined in the VEWRS, we provide the opportunity in this follow-up survey for the participant to provide comprehensive written responses regarding the primary areas of personal experiences, abilities, and the application as well as interpretation of their beliefs. Some questions may not have an apparent direct connection to the vampire or energy worker communities; however, in order to correlate data in the areas of personality, beliefs, and demographic background they are crucial to establishing a foundation for detailed case study analysis. In many cases these questions directly address the past analysis of researchers regarding the vampire subculture and the conclusions drawn by these outside researchers from the examination of limited reported experiences by members of the Community. We hope that the data gathered through this survey will help serve our primary goal, and allow the Community to examine itself by addressing topics which are important to its members. Our intention is to provide this data in a comprehensive printed and digitally available analysis to the Community as a resource for our deeper understanding of modern vampirism. We anticipate the results will provide a body of data which will speak to members of the Community, clarify aspects of vampirism and the culture that vampires share, and allow individuals to place their own experiences, practices and beliefs in context, with regard to the greater Community.

Like with the VEWRS, the qualitative aspects of this survey will allow for an intrinsic case study examination that covers the primary spectrum of beliefs and opinions held by both the independent and affiliated vampire community. The AVEWRS is designed as a stand-alone study built after a preliminary review of the VEWRS, however, there is a provision embedded into its design to allow linking to the initial VEWRS for purposes of correlating the demographic and other quantitative data presented in topic one. The use of this sequential transformative strategy will enable our researchers to further expand the examination into the personal lifestyle, family background, medical history, paranormal experiences, and societal involvement as reported by individual vampires and first highlighted in the VEWRS. The remaining topics of the AVEWRS, unlike that of the VEWRS, are independent from one another and address uniquely different questions and purposes, however, directly adhere to the overall scope and spirit prevalent within both surveys. Utilizing a concurrent transformative strategy, sections two through five will examine a variety of subjects in varying levels of detail. We will attempt to highlight the integral nature of energy work within the vampire community by providing a comprehensive battery of questions concerning individual perception, manipulation, and utilization of energy. As evidenced throughout pockets within the community, terminology used to describe the vampiric condition is variable and thus presents a challenge to researchers to adequately interpret the intent of the participant. This issue is addressed in topic three through a qualitative examination of definitions used by the modern vampire community to describe vampirism. In addition the specific beliefs, postulated origins, characteristics, and practices of vampires are thoroughly examined. Building on the preliminary work concerning spirituality and its association with those in the Community, we will examine in greater detail the religious, spiritual, moral, ethical, and philosophical ideals that motivate and often serve as a uniting force for the Community. This phenomenological approach into the thought processes and viewpoints held by vampires is crucial to understanding the collective consciousness of shared beliefs within the Community and for potentially dispelling misconceptions of unethical and immoral treatment of others by our kind. An examination of how vampires interact with subcultures will compliment our preliminary finding in the VEWRS that many vampires identify themselves as belonging to one or more additional subcultures and/or otherkin classifications. This pseudo-ethnography will examine the core interactions, perceived and directed sentiment, and cultural similarities shared among communities.

We understand the value of quality responses over that of quantity and seek directly members of the community we recognize as being able to provide valuable insight. The potential knowledge this survey may provide to the vampire community merits an extensive networking effort to gather support and participation. While conducting this research we are committed to remaining neutral and abstaining from controversial rhetoric that could be viewed as biased. As researchers, we recognize that we have a responsibility to be both fair and thorough in serving our community. Using a pragmatic approach to our research we welcome exploration of the diversity of beliefs held by those of the Community without injection of assumptive claim or validity judgment. This is ultimately an effort by the Community, and for the Community, which we hope will also reach beyond our boundaries, to be a body of knowledge from which outside scholars can draw when trying to understand the reality of our lives and experience.