Michelle Belanger

“My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers

made me a stranger…”

--Lord Byron, Manfred

ichelle Belanger's childhood could be a story straight from Ray Bradbury's October Country. Her small Midwest town featured a haunted public library, and it celebrated the return of flights of turkey vultures every year on the Ides of March.

Her home life was stranger still. Raised by her maternal grandmother, psychic experiences and ghostly phenomenon were common occurrences in the Belanger household -- but were only discussed behind closed doors. Her estranged grandfather's family included healers, tea-leaf readers, and circus freaks who openly embraced their extraordinary gifts.

Afflicted with a life-threatening heart defect from birth, Michelle endured both out of body experiences and near death experiences before the age of five. Her mother believed that these traumatic brushes with death made Michelle more sensitive to psychic phenomenon. Michelle herself believes that her skills arise from a combination of genetics, environment, and fate.

Michelle's psychic inheritance manifested in a variety of ways, the most remarkable of which was psychic vampirism. Michelle identified and came to terms with this condition while still in her teens. Her pioneering work, The Psychic Vampire Codex (Weiser, 2004), details concepts and techniques that she learned through an intensive study of her vampiric experiences. All of Michelle's other works similarly benefit from her unique combination of personal experience, intellectual insight, and intensive research. A firm believer that psychic perceptions are something that anyone can cultivate, she teaches a variety of techniques based upon a fundamental perception of psychic energy.

Michelle is a prolific individual involved in a number of areas of creative expression. Her non-fiction works include the best-selling Psychic Vampire Codex, (Weiser, 2004) Sacred Hunger, (Dark Moon, 2005) and Psychic Dreamwalking (Weiser 2006), The Psychic Energy Codex (Wesier 2007), Vampires in Their Own Words (2007), and The Necronumina (Llewellyn, 2008). She is co-author of The Vampyre Almanac (Sanguinarium Press, 2000), and V: the Book of the Strigoi Vii, (Aangel Publishing, 2003). Her fiction includes The Enchanted Wood with artist Kimberlee Traub (Shadowfox, 1996), The Jewel of Desire (Incubus Chronicles, 2006) and a collection of supernatural short fiction, These Haunted Dreams (Dark Moon, 2006). She is also working on a Tarot deck with artist Jackie Williams, release to be announced.

A talented vocalist, Michelle can also be heard on URN's Desecrated Ashes (2003) and Dancing with the Demigods (2006), Nox Arcana's Winter's Knight (2005), Xyla's Esoterica (2007) and the solo album, Blood of Angels (2006). She wrote the lyrics to several URN songs, Esoterica's "The God Within," and for all nine tracks on Blood of Angels.

Michelle has been involved in a number of television shows and films documenting the vampire subculture. She can be seen on the History Channel's special Vampire Secrets as well as A&E's special The Secret Life of Vampires. She has also gained notice in France thanks to Laurent Courau's book and documentary Vampyres: When Reality Goes Beyond Fiction. Other credits include Night Bites: Women and Their Vampires on WE! and American Vampires on Britain's XYTV. She also been consulted for projects on SciFi, and her work was referenced in an episode of CSI. Her radio appearances include the X-Zone, Peter Anthony Holder's Soul Call, and Coast to Coast AM.

A skilled energy worker, Michelle is the founder of House Kheperu, a magickal society with a unique style of energy work detailed in The Psychic Vampire Codex. Michelle teaches classes around the country on dreamwalking, energy exchange, spirit communication, and many other fascinating topics. Her latest releases include "The Psychic Energy Codex," an energy work omnibus for students and teachers alike, and "Vampires in Their Own Words," a fascinating look into the modern vampire community.

Michelle on the Web:

House Kheperu:

The House Kheperu website went live in 1998 and was originally hosted by Homestead.com. From that time to the present, the site has hosted an extensive archive of useful articles on magick, energy, and vampirism. Over the years, the site has become one of the most respected resources on psychic vampirism online, and new articles are added every few months as Michelle’s time allows. Go to kheperu.org

Michelle on MySpace:

Michelle maintains two accounts on MySpace. Her general account, featuring news and updates about her writing and travels, can be found under the ID sethanikeem. In MySpace music, Michelle has a page devoted to her CD Blood of Angels, featuring sample tracks from this haunting and timeless collection of original songs. See Blood of Angels on MySpace.

Sacred Texts:

When Michelle’s best-selling book, The Psychic Vampire Codex was released by Weiser in the fall of 2004, it was not the first version of this text to see print. The Weiser edition of the Codex was the culmination of over a decade of work. In that time, many versions of the Codex saw limited release, mostly within the ranks of House Kheperu. One of these versions, published on the original House Kheperu website, has become known as the Online Codex and it has been used as a resource by countless vampire groups. See the Online Codex at Sacred Texts.