February 26, 2008

Being accepted into a cult isn't all fun and games. Behind the secrecy and magic there’s a lot of slog. If you're in the countryside you garden. In the city you fundraise. Things only really get interesting when they bring in the blood. First timers often gag. But so do children with mushrooms and teenagers with cigarettes. Even cognac tastes like petrol the first time you try it. And cognac’s no blood. You can live on blood. If you could sell it on the open market Karl Largerfeld would drink it and an entire industry would be created. Naturally people would be up in arms. There are a hundred and one reasons why blood remains contraband. Vampire is just a medieval term for its consumer. They don't fly around and sleep in coffins. They just have beautiful complexions. The age defying advantages of drinking blood and moisturizing with semen are tremendous. A vampire is not immortal. The myth is an embellishment. They just take such good care of themselves that even old they look young. Vampire is just another word for the über vain.

It doesn't take long to soften up to. Very few never take to it at all. With every sip you are acutely aware that you are ingesting the very life-essence of man. It aides in the sort of mental conditioning that high level athletes and fighters employ. Every mouthful convincing you of your strength, your skill, your power. And a cult is only ever about power. About exceeding ones limitations. About pushing oneself to ones edge. A vampire is someone who has pushed itself to its edge to such an extent that it no longer has one. No one can do anything to a vampire that it has not already done to itself. And so it is invulnerable. It has, as we say, no reflection. Because a man’s greatest threat will always be his reflection. Indeed to go on as he is he must remain blind to it. Acknowledge only the smallest portion of it. A man has no choice but to hide from it. A vampire has gone beyond it.

When you arrive they size you up over dinner. Physically you’re expected to be in shape. But they’re not checking your muscles. They’re watching your eyes. There’s a depth to eyes that have seen things a man shouldn’t. There’s a certain weight to them. And though they smile and laugh, they all have it. And when they ask if you’d like something to drink, you see it.

Dinner is nothing special. Tenderloin is served. Potatoes. Greens. And they’re polite of course. They offer you wine. They ask questions. They take you for a blabber mouth if you say more than necessary. For they believe man is a nervous creature, always in need of unloading onto someone else. Of dumping his problems onto others in order to feel a relief that he has not yet found alone. They want to see if you know it. It doesn’t take them long. They’re fully aware that they’re not seeing the real you. That you’re not this calm. This secure. That you don’t speak this concisely, normally. They know that a tremendous force of sheer will is taking place to bring across this projection of stability. They don’t buy it.