It’s my understanding that the story of Sekhmet attacking disobedient people and “drinking their blood” was more so symbolic of the violence of the attack and not her drinking their blood for sustenance. But I’ve heard multiple people refer to spirits such as her and Kali as vampiric spirits. Are they simply misunderstanding the stories? Or has anyone connected to the vampiric side of Sekhmet? If so, what was it like?
They are misunderstanding the mythology. A lot of people are so obsessed with the modern fairytale of vampires so they like to paint any deity involved with the drinking of blood with that brush, even if the actual story has no such connection. There are many reasons why a deity was said to drink the blood of their enemies that have nothing to do with the idea of vampirism.
Sekhmet has no vampiric side. Her blood lust is simply because she’s a war goddess who revels in slaughter. She is the vengeful manifestation of Ra’s power, and the only myth that even mentions her drinking blood is where she went on a rampage of slaughtering mortals and to stop her, Ra tricked her with a lake of beer made to look like blood which she drank and got drunk on (she’s apparently a peaceful drunk, not an aggressive one).
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Ok, thank you!
Before following the UPG of others, it can be helpful to first read the mythology and see how the people who worshipped that deity actually saw them. A lot of modern occultists and fantasists like to push their own peculiar ideas about spirits that have no relation to the real myths. A lot of it is pure fan fiction and wish fulfilment.
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@wecarealot In mythology Kali did drink blood BUT she did it to vanquish a nearly invincible demon (one who, if you don’t object to using a modern term, one who grew duplicate clones of himself from every single drop of blood that fell onto the ground). If his blood fell to the ground a duplicate of himself (the demon) sprung up from it making more and more copies of him to fight. 1 becomes 2 , 2 becomes 4 and so on. By drinking the blood before it hit the ground he couldn’t clone himself and eventually was beaten. She didn’t drink it for vampiric reasons she drank it because it was the only way to stop the demon (in mythology).
As to Sekhmet she does have the forming a Lioness and is a goddess of war. Lions do eat meat and in doing so consume blood m. It’s not vampiric. To simply a version of Sekhmets myth, humans rebelled disobeyed ridiculed and disrespected Ra. She initially went to punish and destroy those who did that, got battle lust from slaying and started to proceed to try and wipe out humanity and drinking the blood of her vanquished enemies as per her carnivorous nature as a lioness goddess trying to wipe out humanity as a whole which was not what was supposed to be done only some those that disrespected the deity were supposed to be punished So to stop her from destroying all humanity knowing the soporific effects of alcohol the god Ra made a lake of beer look like blood and she drank and became pacified (unsaid but presumably Ra made it taste like blood magically in order to trick her so she’s drink and become pacified).
No one said myths have make perfect sense or be logical to all cultures throughout all of time .
Add: I’m not the best at summarizing myths but I hopeYou can see neither Kali nor Sekhmet are Vampire spirits although they did drinkblood. Vampires drink blood in mythology to sustain themselves or strengthen themselves not to wipe out humanity or stop demons from conquering and destroying the universe.
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