I found this on CNN.com...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/03/11/o.energy.vampires/index.html

Her take on "energy vampires" as she calls them seems a bit reminiscent, if not a tad watered down.

This article was written in Oprah's magazine by Dr. Judith Orloff. Not Oprah herself.

Apparently this "Doctor" is basically taking the term which Dr. LaVey coined "psychic vampire" and replacing the word psychic with energy, along with adding symptoms and rules to make it appear that he came up with the term.

Since he is a "doctor" and he has an article in O, The Oprah's Magazine, that alone gives him "credential".

This may be a case of, "It takes one to know one."

Lovely. No wonder Ellen is running circles around Oprah.

This, coming from a woman who stole her magazine's title from a German fetish publication.

Jesus Jumping on a pogo stick! Might as well stick your head in the sand with this line of thinking? I have come across some very obnoxious Psychic Vampires as termed by Doktor LaVey, and going this route as quoted below does not work, now walking away or showing indifference toward their empty mind games really pisses em off, though not this kind of clap trap non sense.

"You can also use some of your own subtle energy to counter the effects of an energy vampire. Visualize a protective white light around you: an energy shield. You can still hear the person who's yelling at you or blaming you or pushing herself into your sphere, but she won't cut into you so viscerally anymore. You've created a buffer zone, where her negative influences can dissipate."

Would not just a pop in the mouth, or the good ole American free bird finger work just as good?

As I see it, this is just another invitation to the reader to "suffer fools gladly". To me it reads like "there you go, now you have this nice white light around you, now you don't have to face up to the fact that this person is an idiot".

This reminds me of the kind of people who will keep trying to make a meaningful relationship with alcoholic or abusive parents or spouses to try to prove something to themselves.

But getting back to the original question "Oprah reads the Satanic Bible?!". No, I don't think she does. I think that some of the shrinks and therapists she surrounds herself with may have, but more likely their research have led them down a path that may have led them to the conclusions that Dr. LaVey drew, if they were prepared to apply a more harsh world view to the problem at hand.

Some eight or nine years ago she started having these people like John Grey, Dr. Phil and Gary Zukav on the show and I would always wonder because their ideas of self-improvement sounded ok'ish to me, because there were some things in my life that I wanted to change. However the person that would result in following their line of reasoning never seemed to be me. It took a lot of time for me to finally turn it all on its head - keeping my own centre and then applying whatever would still work from their ideas.

So hopefully the people reading this article will at some point realize that the white light bubble won't help them, but that the original problem still is there and that the term "vampire" is not wrong, it's just that the solution should be sought elsewhere.

Then again - by then most of them have probably moved on to the next "new" therapy that O Magazine throws at them.

I wonder if her autobiography will be called "The Story of O"?

What if I want my light to be dark red? Wait, can I add tentacles to it? Ooooh! Ooooh! Nice big black tentacles with spines and razor sharp claws that lash out at the idiot! You get a shield and a weapon!

Yeah, look at my genius, I should be on Oprah now.

Maybe it's worth trying. My oh-so-lovely manager falls into the psychic vampire category, along with about a dozen other unpleasantries. With the set up of our shop, I spend 8 hours a day within 3 feet of him, so getting away from him is not much of an option. I agree I would rather pop him in the mouth, the company would probably not appreciate that. So, I'll try this protective bubble today. I'm a very visual person, maybe the imagery will be enough to help me stay calm and not take his remarks personally.

Oprah's problem is not giving credit where it is due. If she did so, one might even take a step back and wonder if she is honestly Satanic. In many areas of her career and empire she "borrows" (or more appropriately, rips off) past orthodoxies and repackages them for her throng of fans to eat right up. This is but one example that we have taken the time to notice ast he subject resonates with us. However, it's far from the first time.

HS!
~Storm

Well I would definately read Oprah's magazine if it had latex fetish bondage in it. Hell, seeing Oprah in a leather catsuit would even get me to watch her show!

She should look into doing more segments on the virtues of nude vac-bed sensory deprivation instead of shmendricks imagining themselves in pale white bubbles. With a slight modification they could imagine themselves inside a bland white square that remarkably resembles the cubicle they most likely work in...

You will have to forgive me if I fail to see the connection you seem to be proposing.
One is a quote from a magazine geared toward those who have nothing better to do with their afternoons than seek out televised self-help gurus. I am sure that even imagining a protective white light is an improvement for them.
The reference to psychic vampires comes from a completely different source, written for those who have better things to do.

Please, do not take that to be a disparaging remark aimed at you…it is not.

And, you get to keep your all important good guy badge!

That's just silly! Everybody knows the best protection against an energy vampire is a tin foil hat filled with garlic!

If anyone was wondering, I don't really think Oprah reads from TSB. As mentioned earlier, this article wasn't even written by her, but a Doctor who probably wishes his name was Phil McGraw.

In addition, I realize that if you chose to consider the ideas in this article similar to LaVey's ideas on psychic vampires it would be a given, considering the source, that they would most certainly be morally sanitized for mass consumption.

I merely posted this for a chuckle.

Gotcha!