In Aramaic lore there is a vampiric demon, an ephata, that appears as a shadow. It is formed when the body of a deceased person did not properly decay, forcing their spirit to stay with the body, bound to this world. At night, the spirit leaves the corpse and seeks out humans to drain of blood. If the corpse should ever be destroyed, then the ephata will be released to pass on to the next world.

Source: Cross, Phoenician Incantations, 42f; Donner, Kanaanaische, 44; Fauth, S-s-m bn P-d-r-s-a, 299f; Hurwitz, Lilith, the First Eve, 67

The peaceful Chewong tribe of Malaysia has in its mythology a vampiric spirit hound known as an eng banka. It hunts humans, ripping their souls from their bodies and devouring them. The victim of an eng banka attack will die within a few days.

Source: Curran, Vampires, 135; Howell, Society and Cosmos, 122

Both modern-day psychologists and self-help gurus have each subscribed to the idea of the existence of energy vampires, or EVs as they are often called. However, after that, their opinions on accounts, appearance, descriptions, and details tend to vary widely.

Essentially an EV is a being, human or supernatural, that feeds on the energy of another living being. This action can be accidental, conscious, willful, or uncontrollable. Many people interchange psychic vampire with energy vampires, but they are in fact two different beings. A psychic vampire is a vampire who has one or more psychic abilities, such as telekinesis or telepathy. A psi-vampire is an energy vampire, a vampire that feeds off the bio-physical energy of living beings.

Energy vampire is a very broad term. EVs need to feed off the energy they collect in order to survive, whether they are aware of it or not. The word vampire is used because historically it was well documented that they could drain the life and sexual energy from their victims. With no other being capable of such a method of feeding, it was most likely deemed appropriate when the terminology was developed.

Typically vampires drain life-energy or sexual energy, but that is not the only type of energy that can be tapped into. Depending on the type of EV, virtually any sort of energy can be drained: creative energy, fear, happiness, rage, suffering — any emotion that can be named.