Maidenfear...perhaps it sounds a bit frightening and yet somehow alluring at the same time. It is an idea that captures--at least in part--the essence of that which is vampire. "Maidenfear" is a literary device meant to convey the nerves of a new virgin bride going to the marriage bed for the first time...or really the giddy anxiety of anybody about to taste love for the first time. The Order was so named in 1970 after this romantic idea of mixing pleasure with fear of the unknown.
What is a vampire? There exists an entity of living energy all around us and in the universe. This energy is both alive itself and imbues all things with life of one degree or another. A vampire is an adept at energy play, an adept at tapping into this living energy for self-benefit. For some this is achieved through drinking blood, for others it is a matter of psychic living energy. A vampire knows how to take what energy they want and need and use it for their own purposes.
Over the years the vampires of the Order of Maidenfear have discovered many kinds of vamprism which overlap and compliment each other into a larger vampiric practice. Vampirism is the practice of one, or all of these devices, or of something entirely different, in order to make a circuit between ourselves and the object of energy, be it a donor or the living force of a wind gust.
The Order was founded in the practice of pranic vampirism. What is pranic? The word comes from the Sanskrit prana, meaning lifeforce. The pranic vampire is a creature who absorbs the energies of the living world--a creature of energy play. Blood is most often associated with vampires, and is of course a strong source of prana. But there are other ways of being a pranic vampire too, methods that involve the mind and mental ability.
Maidenfear does not claim to have the only true vampire way. The secrets you find will be secrets hidden within yourself. We do not claim exclusivity to the term "pranic". Vampires are a free breed, and the Order of Maidenfear supports this independence by offering a gentle society for those of a like mind.
If it seems difficult to be a vampire in this day and age, imagine how things were for our founder, Anne de Molay (1930-2002). She claimed descent from the infamous last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, and all documentation supports her claim that Anne de Molay was in fact her birth name.
In an era of horror film schlock, Anne investigated the archetype of the vampire and came to the conclusion that vampirism was a very real interaction with life energy that could benefit the practitioner. Having shared her vision, Anne was able to form a group of like minds and established the Order of Maidenfear in 1966.
Why "Maidenfear"? Why use a word with no obvious associations with vampirism to communicate the Order's existence to the world? Anne wrote, "I came upon this term, and for some reason it struck me deep, it resonated within me. What a perfect concept, the nervous excitement of fear and desire captured in a single word. For me, this word was so replete with energy itself that I could see nothing else but to apply it in my own form of vampirism."
In 1970, Anne inherited a generous amount of money after the passing of her father. She was about to turn 40, she was a history teacher, she had decided against having a family, and her one absorbing passion was the Order of Maidenfear. Anne invested in the future of her Order by buying a large Victorian house in Philadelphia, the building that became House Maidenfear. Dedicated to Anne's vision of the vampiric life, vampires from the city and the Eastern seaboard came to live in House Maidenfear.
In council on the Summer Solstice of 1970, the Maidenfear vampires wrote and approved the Maidenfear Entente, a document which would be the constitution of Order operations. Additionally, a special shrine to the universal guiding force, called Raven, opened within the house. For the next twenty years, House Maidenfear and the Order operated in relative obscurity. After all, this was not a philosophy that everyone was ready to hear. Like minds found and joined the order.
Anne de Molay was the first Grand Master and remained in that position until 1987.
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