Implicit in my first post was the point that I have trouble sleeping at night.
I naturally feel like sleeping at around 6-7am onwards, and don't feel like sleeping any time before that.

I've been through several different medications for it - barbiturates, benzodiazepines, antihistamines, tricyclic antidepressants and more.

Interestingly none of them work (excluding one antihistamine with an interesting side-effect that renders me unable to comprehend my surroundings the next day), which means that I require extreme force of will to sleep at the wrong times and get up the next morning instead of sleeping through the day until when my body says I should wake up. Unfortunately most mornings I don't have extreme force of will - so I regularly miss early morning university lectures.

Not fun.

I'm a Christian, I should make that clear now. Makes for a slightly more interesting view of the universe, being a rather dark being in the service of the God of light and all.

However, forgoing an indepth theological discussion, I wanted to describe a rather good centering ritual which I use.

Generally, I sit cross-legged, hands resting in my lap, palms cupped upward, to form a sort of bowl.
Into this bowl, I then start an energy flow, which pools, and then begins to smoke, as a sacrifice (which although no longer necessary, is still a gift freely given).
With my eyes closed, and this energy burning, I clear my mind of all the clutter, and I then make my prayer - generally, a thanks for what I've been given, a rededication to the path I am attempting to follow, a request for help along this path, and possibly a few requests for the future.

Once this is completed I then generally receive a larger portion of energy back through the heaven-line, and I finish.

And oddly enough, my requests often come true - or when they don't, I get something better.

Although the strength of the ki that we carry varies from individual, it's linked to the physical well-being of that individual. While not requiring the body to be stronger or better to have a stronger energy-body (and indeed, I know someone who's health is declining, but their energy is increasing because of other exercises and rituals they perform), it helps to perform regular exercises.

I don't keep to this schedule anywhere near as often as I'd want to, but whenever I am able to, I try to perform 50 bokken strikes (being watchful of how I employ my ki in the strike, so as to focus the power, and in turn, my focus, as well as noting my breathing - oddly I tend to stop breathing while I do this exercise, which is a rather bad thing), as well as 25-50 pushups and situps.

For the purposes of strength, I probably don't need to perform these daily anyway, given that I'm already stronger than my physical body should allow, however, they help to boost stamina and endurance, which are things I lack. They're also good for meditative purposes (I recommend trying them while meditating, and see what happens).

The most eminent of the vampire houses is House Kheperu, which I believe was founded by Michelle Belanger (I could be wrong - if someone knows otherwise, I'd love to hear it). There are two reasons they're most eminent house. Firstly, because they published the Psychic Vampire Codex - the web-based and abridged version can be found here on Sacred-Magick, although it contains nothing of much practical use (unlike the full version so I'm lead to believe), it's a fairly good summary of Kheperian beliefs. I should point out though, that in the original Codex, the "counsellor" caste were actually the "concubine" caste, if that gives you some insight as to the mentality. And secondly, because Belanger helped to write up what is known as the Black Veil - a set of what was originally 13 laws for vampires to follow, although I hear that they've distilled it into less than that now.

Possibly the next best well known vampire organisation is the Vampire Church. I've never found them to be much of a resource though.

Following on is the Temple of the Vampire, who published the Vampire Bible - possibly the second most well-known vampiric publication. Oddly enough, I read a review of it by a Kheperian... and they found it to be rather egotistical, which amuses me since I find the Vampire Codex to be rather pretentious.

Possibly my favourite vampire organisation so far are the Strigoi VII who run the Sanguinarium. Although, like the Kheperians they have a tri-caste society, the reason I like them is because while they come off as a little insane. Not the "what a bunch of weirdos" insane though - the kind that you want to sit and listen to their ramblings, because you can tell that there's a lot of knowledge hidden in it.

A few other vampire houses (just to show you the diversity) are:
House Quinotaur
The Loyal Order of Saint Germaine
House Sekhemu
House Terebus
House Eclipse
The Darkness Embraced Vampire and Occult Society
The Court of Lazarus
House Crimson Blade
The Temple of Set with its Order of the Vampyre
The Order of Nekhbet
The House of Nephilim
The House of Dreaming (which I believe is Strigoi)

And there are plenty more. My most well-used resource is Sanguinarius, which despite the ads, is reasonably good - gives a few different perspectives on things.

A long time ago too, I came across a vampire court in both Sydney and Melbourne (the major cities outside Canberra, where I live), but apparently their sites either no longer exist, or I've just lost them.

Well, a first post needs a decent summary of what's going to happen, plus a little background on the general area.

Alrighty. I'm a psi-vampire. That means that my body naturally requires me to absorb energy from other living (or sometimes non-living) things. This is the second, and supposedly less common variety of vampire - the first being sanguine vampires - your standard blood drinkers.

Both kinds require their individual sustenances on a regular basis, otherwise they begin to deteriorate - suffering from symptoms ranging from depression, apathy, and excessive tiredness to decreased empathic abilities causing communication breakdown to physical weakness and so on.

Also there's the whole "sunlight" problem. The strength of that weakness varies from individual to individual. While I only require very dark sunglasses whenever I'm outside (or else face searing pain play across my retinas), some others have it so bad that they can't even let sunlight touch their skin or else they burn or blister relatively instantly. Similarly, there is a nocturnalism factor - that their circadian rhythms tend to cause them to be more active at night than daytime, which is convenient for the sunlight reactions, but inconvenient for interacting with the rest of society.

Of course, the package is never complete without the perks - I already mentioned one, which is the empathy. Obviously we also get the natural ability to notice energy, we also have the ability to manipulate people's perceptions, emotions and desires to a small degree (depending on the individual's level of will), and a few other things besides.

This journal is primarily my training and investigation journal. A place for me to store my deeper research into the various vampiric communities (so far I've discovered about 9 vampire houses, 2 vampire churches, and a few vampire "pylons" - pylons being temples of set), as well as record my exercises and experiments with various techniques.