Looking for something to watch during my far infrared sauna session, I stumbled upon The Glass Menagerie, based on Tennessee Williams's play.  I suddenly remembered that this play was referenced in Barbara Hort's book, Unholy Hungers, in the context of the feminine vampire archetype.  Although the label "vampire" may sound too drastic, it is actually very appropriate because the book is basically about psychic feeding dynamics.  After watching the movie, I felt compelled to review what was said in the book about the female vampire archetype. The book is probably one of the best psychology books I've ever came across with, so I'll include the relevant quote here related to the movie as food for thought:

The vampire in Williams's autobiographical work is Amanda Wingfield, a fading Southern belle whose husband has left her alone to raise their two children-the discontented dreamer, Tom, and Laura, his crippled,  reclusive sister. Although Amanda devotes most of her energy to feeding  on the resistant Tom, she achieves her greatest vampiric success with Laura. Bled to the point of transparency by her mother, Laura drifts through each day by playing with her glass menagerie, the little crystal animals that are as fragile and as translucent as Laura become in the grip of Amanda's vampiric "love."

Amanda clearly operates under her vampiric veil of vulnerability when she confronts Laura with her truancy from the secretarial school in  which Amanda has forcibly enrolled her: [Amanda leans against the shut  door and stares at Laura with a martyred look.]

One of the things I dread the most as a heart surgeon is... calcium.  Yes, severely calcified valves and arteries are probably my worst nightmare.  To remove the calcium, we have to use surgical instruments such as the "bone eater" - and even with that you struggle a lot!  Eventually the instruments end up losing their sharp cutting edge.  It is like cutting a rock, I kid you not.  Tissues that should be smooth and silky are calcified and have the consistency of a rock or a bone.  It has gotten worse over the years and there could be other factors involved as well, but magnesium is one of those things that is absolutely essential -and usually it shines by its absence in most therapies!

Magnesium helps to dissolve calcium; it becomes more water soluble.  So with foods artificially enriched with calcium, and the boom of calcium supplementation, there is never enough magnesium.  Already in 1936 in the US Senate, there were discussions about dangerous diet deficiencies due to mineral depleted soils.  Foods raised on millions of acres of land no longer contain enough of certain minerals, no matter how much of them you eat (and this was in the 1930's!). So usually there is always a constant deficiency in magnesium in most populations.  

If you don't have enough magnesium to help keep calcium dissolved, you end up with calcium-excess spasms, calcification of arteries, calcium deposits, kidney stones, spasms of your blood vessels (which can lead to heart attacks and angina), migraine headaches, broncospasm (asthma), arrhythmias, etc. Magnesium deficiencies are also seen in depression and anxieties!  

One of my most interesting readings as of lately is Where There is Evil by Sandra Brown which is the author’s account of a young girl's disappearance, Moira Anderson, from a small town of Coatbridge near Glasgow in 1957.  Sandra’s quest to find out what happened to Moira began nearly 30 years later, at a family funeral, when her father confessed that he had been involved in the girl’s disappearance. 

Sandra’s father was a pedophile whose activities were known by everyone, including the police!  After putting the puzzle together, she becomes totally certain that her father was indeed involved in Moira’s disappearance.