Faith, hope and FOMO

Missing out on seeing her favourite band's first live gig provides Mica Gray a lesson in doubt and faith.

Mica Gray

Mica Gray is a wellbeing practitioner working in adult mental health. She is training to be a counselling psychologist.

A singer stands beside musical instrument behind pink frosted glass on the front of a stage.

SAULT's first gig.

The morning found me sat upright at my work desk between two tasks. One half of me was talking to my colleague and the other was debating the ticket prices on my computer screen. My favourite music group SAULT had just announced their first ever live show and I was one of the lucky ones who had managed to fight through the ticket queue to get to the point of purchase. The group had put out nine studio albums in the past four years and had never given a single interview nor put out a piece of promotional material that would reveal their identities. I was excited like so many others to finally get a glimpse behind the veil.

The only problem was that the ticket price was high. Yes, it was my favourite band, but they had never done a live show before. How could I be sure it would be worth the expense? Across social media others were expressing similar doubts. SAULT had never played a live show before. The venue they’d chosen was an abandoned IKEA - hardly the Roundhouse or the Royal Albert Hall. There would be no alcohol at the venue, how were gig goers supposed to have fun? Given that the band's lyrics often focus on spiritual themes, and that high ticket price, was this another case of a religious group trying to financially exploit their followers. While SAULT have not professed to be a Christian band, a lot of their lyrics focus on spiritual themes and reference God as Lord. The show itself was called ‘Acts of Faith’ after all. By the time I had deliberated and decided that I would take the chance and get the tickets they were gone. The show had sold out.

Three days later, footage from the show began to circulate online. Videos revealed elaborate stage designs, dance sequences, choir performances, a full orchestra, exhibitions, fashion shows and so much more. Testimonies flooded the timeline with “it was the show of the year” being a common refrain. Many of the doubters came back to say how wrong they were, how the show was worth so much more than the price. How the artists behind SAULT were seasoned professionals and this was anything but an amateur performance. How the venue was perfect, and any other place would not have worked. How the lack of alcohol didn’t matter because there was such a ‘heavenly’ atmosphere.

Scrolling through all the content I realized how perfect the title ‘Acts of Faith’ was for this show. Were there was no assurance that the cost of the show would be worth it, it would have been an act of faith to trust the artists and buy those tickets anyway. It would have been an act of faith to trust their choice of venue, of making it an alcohol-free event. I imagine it would’ve been an act of faith for the artists themselves too - an act of faith to step out and produce such an elaborate show for the first ever live event. An act of faith to pour all their effort into it without any experience to say that it would work out the way it did.

Those SAULT fans who saw the doubts and uncertainties and still decided to act in faith were able to witness something magical.

As I watched this all unfold, I couldn’t help but think of how much courage it takes to step out in faith in these ways. As a trainee psychologist, my studies tell me that faith is a subset of hope. One which is associated with positive mental health and wellbeing, resilience, coping with anxiety and healthy relationships. Faith tends to have an additive impact on our lives.

Doubt on the other hand, is a protective mechanism that helps us to minimize risk so that we can preserve ourselves, others or our resources. Doubt often works by integrating our past experiences into our present. For instance, those who shared their doubt about the quality of SAULT’s first live show did so for good reason. Many first artist shows are underwhelming for fans. Spiritual leaders and groups have exploited followers in the past. An old IKEA hasn’t historically been the best venue for esteemed musicians. On that evidence, attending the show seemed like it would have just been a loss. However, what actually happened was quite the opposite. Those SAULT fans who saw the doubts and uncertainties and still decided to act in faith were able to witness something magical. It reminded me of John, one of the followers of Jesus, who wrote: ‘blessed are they who have believed but not seen’. Sometimes, we want to see the evidence of our faith so that we can believe we have good grounds on which to make a decision, and that is wise. But sometimes, faith asks us to go beyond our wisdom, to go beyond our lived experiences and to be open to something new that we haven’t seen yet.

Of course, not all acts of faith work out the way that SAULT’s first show did. Sometimes we step out in faith and rather than having our hopes realized, we are met with disappointment. We are met with our fears coming true and met with risks that become real losses. Though those moments can be deeply painful, we can at least be glad that we had the courage and ability to hope at all. Those moments remind us that sometimes the act of faith is the end in itself, they remind us that it is not about the reward of faith, but about keeping the flame of hope alive underneath it.

Though I won’t be able to look back years from now and say I was at SAULT’s first show as I would’ve liked to - thanks to the password I couldn’t recall, I can look back and say that morning where I was sat at my desk between the faith and doubt taught me a valuable lesson: faith is not the absence of doubt, but the ability to see beyond it - to choose beyond it. In 2024, I think that’s a lesson worth holding on to.

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17 October 2024

6 min read

Bled dry: some red flags for those who hope to date a vampire

A philosopher's guide to undying love.

Ryan Stark

Ryan is the author of A Guidebook to Monsters: Philosophy, Religion, and the Paranormal.

A modern vampire stairs at the face of his girlfried.

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in Twilight.

Lionsgate.

Writing from his new book, A Guidebook to Monsters, Ryan Stark delves into humanity’s undying passion for all things gothic. In the first of a two-part series, he asks what is so irresistible about vampires, what do we want from them, and what’s the deal with the armadillos?

Historians point to John Polidori’s The Vampyre as that vital moment in Western vampire lore when the grisly undead creature becomes instead a Casanova. London, 1819. Lord Ruthven, the suave vampire in question, seduces young women and orchestrates chaos in the lives of others—all for his own carnal pleasure. Importantly, he does this by way of persuasion, not rote coercion, which illustrates a key aspect of the modern vampires’ modus operandi. They prefer romance to compulsion, seduction to force. They prefer thrall, almost to the end, at which point the monster fully emerges and the victims fully grasp that their good senses have been compromised. But by then it is too late.

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free,” Goethe once observed. Similarly, none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who believe themselves to be dating vampires.

To resist, however, is easier said than done. Even Buffy the vampire slayer succumbs to thrall, so much so that she invites Dracula to bite her. And he happily obliges, if “happily” is possible in the mind of a vampire. Later, having sobered up from the ordeal, Buffy stakes the villain, but we are nonetheless left with an uneasy feeling. Despite all her experience, despite all her kung-fu knowhow, Buffy still crumbles in the wake of thrall, at least temporarily, putting herself in grave danger and eliciting from us a pressing set of questions. How could this have happened so easily? Will this happen again? Are women attracted to men in capes?

Much like kryptonite, vampire magic also affects Superman. Two vampires have so far succeeded in hypnotizing him. Crucifer, not fortunate in name, enthralls our protagonist and sends him on several errands, until the Man of Steel has a moment of clarity, as the alcoholics call it, at which point he punches the ancient vampire through the heart. Dracula, too, disguised as an aristocrat named Rominoff, charms our superhero rather easily and then bites him on the neck, only to explode—hilariously—on the premise that Superman’s blood is tinged with sunlight. A moment of dream logic used to subvert the expectation that superblood might somehow benefit the Count.

Lord Ruthven of Polidori fame also wanders into the DC Comic Book Universe and, per usual, charms his way through problems, until he inadvertently skewers himself on a war memorial. Before this happens, however, we get the strong impression that Ruthven could beguile Superman with ease, if given the chance: that pens are mightier than swords and always have been.

On the contrary, vampires have a long history of not pointing to Heaven. Instead, they gild the lily. In their attempt to out-gothic the gothic, they turn their style inwardly upon themselves.

Psychoanalysts observe that to empathize with sociopaths is to negate the self most dangerously. They are right, I think, and right—too—that self-erasure proves difficult to recognize at times, because it feels like love. Such is the predicament of those who hope to rendezvous with vampires. Perhaps they have a death wish, some will say, or maybe a savior syndrome, as if they are to save the brooding scoundrels. As if they can. Regardless, the monsters have another plan entirely. As an early church father once explained, those who dine with the devils should bring long spoons.

Not that vampires are particularly good at banquets. They inevitably exaggerate, like the Macbeths as they welcome King Duncan to the castle: “All our service,” the lady says, “in every point twice done and then done double.”

Or recall the embroidered hospitality of Bela Lugosi’s 1931 Dracula, caught between silent film and sound: “I bid you welcome,” he says, acting out the part as if the audience must see the motive on his face. A perfect moment when the silent cinema and talking pictures conspire to produce the quintessential vampire ethos, an overstated affectation framed for the modern age. The bow of pretended humility, the elongated gesture, the monumental gravity. The outfit.

Some speculate that if vampires were able to see themselves in mirrors, they would reconsider their wardrobes. We have reason to think otherwise. Of course, the true gothic is not the vampire aesthetic, because the true gothic always points to Heaven, as in Notre Dame Cathedral, for instance, or Westminster Abbey. On the contrary, vampires have a long history of not pointing to Heaven. Instead, they gild the lily. In their attempt to out-gothic the gothic, they turn their style inwardly upon themselves, incurvatus in se, which signals not grandeur but rather self-apotheosis. In essence, vampires are their own cathedrals, and with this premise proceed accordingly, candelabras in tow.

Longinus, in On the Sublime, uses the term “frigidity” to describe the emotional effect produced by such false grandeur. He means to convey both rhetorical and metaphysical coldness, as does Dante, who places the Devil in a block of ice at the Inferno’s gaudy center. As does Stanley Kubrick, too, who freezes the possessed Jack in the maze at the end of The Shining. And somewhere near the frozen middle of Hell we find the vampires, those who betrayed the strangers in their midst and preyed upon the lonely and the desperate. But now they only devour themselves. We are punished by our sins, not for them.

On a side note, and concerning the vampire’s many choristers, the opening scene of Lugosi’s Dracula features three armadillos. They wander about the castle and mind their own business, it seems, as wolves howl and spiders weave their webs. On how they got there we do not know, but the armadillos further confirm Longinus’s additional point that the ridiculous and the sublime bear a family resemblance.

What, then, are we to make of the vampires who sparkle and the vampires with souls? Or, if not in the direction of the dreamy, then in the theater of the absurd: Count Chocula, the mascot for a popular breakfast cereal, or the puppet Count von Count from the children’s program Sesame Street, who teaches viewers how to add and subtract—hitting all the numbers with his heavy Transylvanian accent. We might deem these manifestations too unserious to be taken seriously, but in fairness to the spirit of Count Chocula, perhaps something else happens here. Namely, we find more variations upon the culture-making effort to rehabilitate the demonic, and the almost demonic, as the case might be.

If the vampire could only find pleasure in chocolate, if he could laugh with children, if he could be loved like Bella loves Edward in The Twilight Saga, then maybe there is hope enough in the world for all of us. Indeed, maybe some vampires have grown tired of being vampires. That said, we do well to heed the old Transylvanian proverb, lest we over-empathize with the villains: the sane would do no good if they made themselves monsters to help the monsters.

A recent meme depicts the real Dracula in the company of Count Chocula, Count von Count, The Twilight Saga’s Edward, and several other less-than-scary princes of darkness, at which point Dracula laments that the vampires have lost their edge.

And, true, I have yet to comment on psychic vampires and flaming extroverts, which is an oversight to be sure. As a corrective, and by way of conclusion, I observe the following: for twenty-seven dollars, one can buy a beaker of psychic vampire repellent from Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop Store in Beverly Hills, California. The Paper Crane Apothecary makes the product, which—with an essential blend of rosemary, lavender, and juniper—protects against the fiends who corner people at parties. At present, however, shipping will be difficult: the website tells me “This item is sold out.”

From A Guidebook to Monsters, Ryan J. Stark. Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.