from
Cassiopaea Website
Spanish version
Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of
guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the
well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members.
Imagine no
struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what
kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.
And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as
a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.
Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people
that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since
everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings,
hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.
You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you
are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in
your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal
experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.
In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your
unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is
conveniently invisible to the world.
You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the
majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most
likely remain undiscovered.
How will you live your life?
What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the
corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?
The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be,
because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are
not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not -
favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild
ambitions.
Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are
dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There
are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by
blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]
Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.
If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and
you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of
deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people.
With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit
back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]
Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the population....
The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43
percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction
lower than the rate for antisocial personality.
The high-profile disorders
classed as schizophrenia occur in only about 1 percent of [the population] -
a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial personality - and the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer in the
United States, considered "alarmingly high," is about 40 per 100,000 - one
hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial personality.
The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on
the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have
not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4
percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our
self-esteem, our very peace on earth.
Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they
do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers, serial
killers, mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken the law many
times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death
by our legal system.
We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number
of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant
lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little
defense.
Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic
genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one's boss about a coworker. But the
psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and
profound, the link is the absence of the inner mechanism that beats up on
us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral,
unethical, neglectful, or selfish.
Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the
kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically
set about to hurt another person.
Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether
they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.
The presence or absence of conscience is a deep human division, arguably
more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender.
What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one
who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary
robber baron - or what makes the difference between an ordinary bully and a
sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect,
blood lust, or simple opportunity.
What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly
empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all
humanizing functions. [Martha Stout, Ph.D.,
The Sociopath Next Door]
***
For those of you who are seeking understanding of psychopathy, Hervey
Cleckley's book
The Mask of
Sanity, the absolutely essential study of the psychopath who is
not necessarily of the criminal type.
"Likeable," "Charming," "Intelligent," "Alert," "Impressive,"
"Confidence-inspiring," and "A great success with the ladies": These are the
sorts of descriptions repeatedly used by Cleckley in his famous case-studies
of psychopaths. They are also, of course, "irresponsible,"
"self-destructive," and the like. These descriptions highlight the great
frustrations and puzzles that surround the study of psychopathy.
Psychopaths seem to have in abundance the very traits most desired by normal
persons. The untroubled self-confidence of the psychopath seems almost like
an impossible dream and is generally what "normal" people seek to acquire
when they attend assertiveness training classes.
In many instances, the
magnetic attraction of the psychopath for members of the opposite sex seems
almost supernatural.
Cleckley's seminal hypothesis concerning the psychopath is that he suffers
from a very real mental illness indeed: a profound and incurable affective
deficit. If he really feels anything at all, they are emotions of only the
shallowest kind. He does bizarre and self-destructive things because
consequences that would fill the ordinary man with shame, self-loathing, and
embarrassment simply do not affect the psychopath at all.
What to others
would be a disaster is to him merely a fleeting inconvenience.
Cleckley also gives grounds for the view that psychopathy is quite common in
the community at large. He has collected some cases of psychopaths who
generally function normally in the community as businessmen, doctors, and
even psychiatrists.
Some researchers see criminal psychopathy - often
referred to as anti-social personality disorder - as an extreme of a
"normal" personality dimension (or dimensions).
We would characterize criminal psychopaths as "unsuccessful psychopaths."
The implication, of course, is that many psychopaths may exist in society
who cope better than do those who come to the attention of the judicial and
welfare systems.
Harrington goes so far as to say that the psychopath is the new man being
produced by the evolutionary pressures of modern life. Other researchers
criticize this view, pointing out the real disabilities that the clinical
psychopath also suffers.
The study of "ambulatory" psychopaths - what we call "The Garden Variety
Psychopath" - has, however, hardly begun. Very little is known about
subcriminal psychopathy. However, some researchers have begun to seriously
consider the idea that it is important to study psychopathy not as an
artificial clinical category but as a general personality trait in the
community at large.
In other words, psychopathy is being recognized as a
more or less a different type of human.
One very interesting aspect of the psychopath is his "hidden life" that is
sometimes not too well hidden. It seems that the psychopath has a regular
need to take a "vacation into filth and degradation" the same way normal
people may take a vacation to a resort where they enjoy beautiful
surroundings and culture.
To get a full feeling for this strange "need" of
the psychopath - a need that seems to be evidence that "acting human" is
very stressful to the psychopath - read more of
The Mask of
Sanity, chapters
25 and 26.
Also, read
Cleckley's speculations on what was "really
wrong" with these people. He comes very close to suggesting that they are
human in every respect - but that they lack a soul. This lack of "soul
quality" makes them very efficient "machines." They can be brilliant, write
scholarly works, imitate the words of emotion, but over time, it becomes
clear that their words do not match their actions.
They are the type of
person who can claim that they are devastated by grief who then attend a
party "to forget."
The problem is: they really DO forget.
Being very efficient machines, like a computer, they are able to execute
very complex routines designed to elicit from others support for what they
want. In this way, many psychopaths are able to reach very high positions in
life.
It is only over time that their associates become aware of the fact
that their climb up the ladder of success is predicated on violating the
rights of others.
"Even when they are indifferent to the
rights of their associates, they are often able to inspire feelings of
trust and confidence."
The psychopath recognizes no flaw in his psyche,
no need for change.
Psychopaths In the New Age
At the present time, there is a veritable explosion of reports from our
readers about their experiences with individuals they have encountered in
the "alternative research" fields, as well as in general interactions of
their lives.
What is so shocking is the number of such individuals that must
exist, based on these reports. This is not just an occasional event, it
seems to be almost a pandemic!
Our research team and e-group have been engaged for some time in researching
and analyzing these interactions and the characteristics and the dynamics
and the personalities. Our research has led us to identify them with
"Psychopaths."
They can also be Narcissists since Narcissism
seems to be merely a "facet" of the psychopath or a "milder" manifestation.
You could say that the Narcissist is a "garden variety psychopath" who,
because of his or her "social programming," has less likelihood of running
afoul of the law. In this way, they are very efficient "survival machines,"
living out their lives doing untold damage to their families, friends and
business associates.
It is only when a person takes a long and careful look at the full-blown
psychopath - a sort of exaggerated Narcissist - that they are able to see
the caricature of the traits that then make it easier for them to identify
the "garden variety" psychopath - and/or the Narcissist.
Our world seems to have been invaded by individuals whose approach to life
and love is so drastically different from what has been the established norm
for a very long time that we are ill- prepared to deal with their tactics of
what Robert Canup calls "plausible lie."
As he demonstrates, this philosophy
of the "plausible lie" has overtaken the legal and administrative domains of
our world, turning them into machines in which human beings with real
emotions are destroyed.
The recent movie, "The Matrix," touched a deep chord in society because it
exemplified this mechanistic trap in which so many people find their lives
enmeshed, and from which they are unable to extricate themselves because
they believe that everyone around them who "looks human" is, in fact, just
like them - emotionally, spiritually, and otherwise.
Take, for example, the "legal argument" as explicated by
Robert Canup in his work on the "Socially
Adept Psychopath."
The legal argument seems to be at the
foundation of our society. This amounts to little more than con-artistry:
the one who is the slickest at using the structure for convincing a group of
people of something, is the one who is believed. Because this "legal
argument" system has been slowly installed as part of our culture, when it
invades our personal lives, we normally do not recognize it immediately.
Human beings have been accustomed to assume that other human beings are - at
the very least - trying to "do right" and "be good" and fair and honest.
And
so, very often, we do not take the time to use due diligence in order to
determine if a person who has entered our life is, in fact, a "good person."
And when a conflict ensues, we automatically fall into the cultural
assumption that in any conflict, one side is partly right one way, and the
other is partly right the other, and that we can form opinions about which
side is mostly right or wrong.
Because of our exposure to the "legal argument"
norms, when any dispute arises, we automatically think that the truth will
lie somewhere between two extremes.
In this case, application of a little
mathematical logic to the problem of the legal argument might be helpful.
Let us assume that in a dispute, one side is innocent, honest, and tells the
truth.
It is obvious that lying does an innocent person no good; what lie
can he tell? If he is innocent, the only lie he can tell is to falsely
confess "I did it." But lying is nothing but good for the liar. He can
declare that "I didn't do it," and accuse another of doing it, all the while
the innocent person he has accused is saying "I didn't do it," and is
actually telling the truth.
The truth - when twisted by good liars, can always make an innocent person
look bad - especially if the innocent person is honest and admits his
mistakes.
The basic assumption that the truth lies between the testimony of the two
sides always shifts the advantage to the lying side and away from the side
telling the truth. Under most circumstances, this shift put together with
the fact that the truth is going to also be twisted in such a way as to
bring detriment to the innocent person, results in the advantage always
resting in the hands of liars - psychopaths.
Even the simple act of giving
testimony under oath is useless. If a person is a liar, swearing an oath
means nothing to that person. However, swearing an oath acts strongly on a
serious, truthful witness.
Again, the advantage is placed on the side of
the liar.
[Robert Canup]
This highlights one of the unique things about the psychopath: their seeming
inability to conceive of the abstract idea of "the future."
It has often been noted that psychopaths have a distinct advantage over
human beings with conscience and feelings because the psychopath does not
have conscience and feelings. What seems to be so is that conscience and
feelings are related to the abstract concepts of "future" and "others." It
is "spatio-temporal."
We can feel fear, sympathy, empathy, sadness, and so
on because we can IMAGINE in an abstract way, the future based on our own
experiences in the past, or even just "concepts of experiences" in myriad
variations.
We can "predict" how others will react because
we are able to "see ourselves" in them even though they are "out there" and
the situation is somewhat different externally, though similar in dynamic.
In other words, we can not only identify with others spatially - so to say -
but also temporally - in time.
The psychopath does not seem to have this capacity.
They are unable to "imagine" in the sense of being able to really connect to
images in a direct "self connecting to another self" sort of way.
Oh, indeed, they can imitate feelings, but the only real feelings they seem
to have - the thing that drives them and causes them to act out different
dramas for effect - is a sort of "predatorial hunger" for what they want.
That is to say, they "feel" need/want as love, and not having their
needs/wants met is described as "not being loved" by them.
What is more, this "need/want" perspective
posits that only the "hunger" of the psychopath is valid, and anything and
everything "out there," outside of the psychopath, is not real except
insofar as it has the capability of being assimilated to the psychopath as a
sort of "food." "Can it be used or can it provide something?" is the only
issue about which the psychopath seems to be concerned.
All else - all
activity - is subsumed to this drive.
In short, the psychopath - and the narcissist to a lesser extent - is a
predator. If we think about the interactions of predators with their prey in
the animal kingdom, we can come to some idea of what is behind the "mask of
sanity" of the psychopath.
Just as an animal predator will adopt all kinds
of stealthy functions in order to stalk their prey, cut them out of the
herd, get close to them and reduce their resistance, so does the psychopath
construct all kinds of elaborate camouflage composed of words and appearances
- lies and manipulations - in order to "assimilate" their prey.
This leads us to an important question: what does the psychopath REALLY get
from their victims?
It's easy to see what they are after when they lie and
manipulate for money or material goods or power. But in many instances, such
as love relationships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what
the psychopath is after.
Without wandering too far afield into spiritual
speculations - a problem Cleckley also faced - we can only say that it seems
to be that the psychopath ENJOYS making others suffer. Just as normal humans
enjoy seeing other people happy, or doing things that make other people
smile, the psychopath enjoys the exact opposite.
Anyone who has ever observed a cat playing with a mouse before killing and
eating it has probably explained to themselves that the cat is just
"entertained" by the antics of the mouse and is unable to conceive of the
terror and pain being experienced by the mouse, and the cat, therefore, is
innocent of any evil intent.
The mouse dies, the cat is fed, and that is
nature. Psychopaths don't generally eat their victims.
Yes, in extreme cases the entire cat and mouse dynamic is carried out and
cannibalism has a long history wherein it was assumed that certain powers of
the victim could be assimilated by eating some particular part of them. But
in ordinary life, psychopaths and narcissists don't go all the way, so to
say. This causes us to look at the cat and mouse scenarios again with
different eyes.
Now we ask:
-
Is it too simplistic to think that the
innocent cat is merely entertained by the mouse running about and
frantically trying to escape?
-
Is there something more to this dynamic
than meets the eye?
-
Is there something more than being
"entertained" by the antics of the mouse trying to flee?
-
After all, in terms of evolution, why
would such behavior be hard-wired into the cat?
-
Is the mouse tastier because of the
chemicals of fear that flood his little body?
-
Is a mouse frozen with terror more of a
"gourmet" meal?
This suggests that we ought to revisit our ideas
about psychopaths with a slightly different perspective.
One thing we do
know is this: many people who experience interactions with psychopaths and
narcissists report feeling "drained" and confused and often subsequently
experience deteriorating health.
Does this mean that part of the dynamic,
part of the explanation for why psychopaths will pursue "love relationships"
and "friendships" that ostensibly can result in no observable material gain,
is because there is an actual energy consumption?
We do not know the answer to this question.
We observe, we theorize, we
speculate and hypothesize. But in the end, only the individual victim can
determine what they have lost in the dynamic - and it is often far more than
material goods.
In a certain sense, it seems that psychopaths are soul
eaters or "Psychophagic."
Conscience seems to depend on the ability to imagine consequences.
But most
"consequences" relate to pain in some way, and psychopaths really don't
understand pain in the emotional sense. They understand frustration of not
getting what they want, and to them, that is pain.
But the fact seems to be that they act based
solely on a sort of Game Theory evaluation of a situation: what will they
get out of it, and what will it cost? And these "costs" have nothing to do
with being humiliated, causing pain, sabotaging the future, or any of the
other possibilities that normal people consider when making a choice. In
short, it is almost impossible for normal people to even imagine the inner
life of the psychopath.
This leads us to what psychopaths DO have that is truly outstanding: an
ability to give their undivided attention to something that interests them
intensely.
Some clinicians have compared this to the concentration with
which a predator stalks his prey. This is useful if one is in an environment
with few variables, but most real life situations require us to pay
attention to a number of things at once.
Psychopaths often pay so much attention to
getting what they want that they fail to notice danger signals.
For example, some psychopaths earned
reputations for being fearless fighter pilots during World War II,
staying on their targets like terriers on an ankle.
Yet, these pilots
often failed to keep track of such unexciting details as fuel supply,
altitude, location, and the position of other planes.
Sometimes they
became heroes, but more often, they were killed or became known as
opportunists, loners, or hotshots who couldn't be relied on - except to
take care of themselves.
[Hare]
It should be emphasized that psychopaths are
interesting as all get out - even exciting!
They exude a captivating energy that keeps their
listeners on the edge of their seats. Even if some part of the normal person
is shocked or repelled by what the psychopath says, they are like the mouse
hypnotized by the torturing cat. Even if they have the chance to run away,
they don't. Many Psychopaths "make their living" by using charm, deceit, and
manipulation to gain the confidence of their victims.
Many of them can be found in white collar
professions where they are aided in their evil by the fact that most people
expect certain classes of people to be trustworthy because of their social
or professional credentials. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, politicians,
psychiatrists and psychologists, generally do not have to earn our trust
because they have it by virtue of their positions.
But the fact is:
psychopaths are found in such lofty spheres also!
At the same time, psychopaths are good imposters. They have absolutely no
hesitation about forging and brazenly using impressive credentials to adopt
professional roles that bring prestige and power. They pick professions in
which the requisite skills are easy to fake, the jargon is easy to learn,
and the credentials are unlikely to be thoroughly checked.
Psychopaths find
it extremely easy to pose as financial consultants, ministers, psychological
counselors and psychologists. And that's a scary thought.
Psychopaths make their way by conning people into doing things for them;
obtaining money for them, prestige, power, or even standing up for them when
others try to expose them. But that is their claim to fame. That's what they
do. And they do it very well. What's more, the job is very easy because most
people are gullible with an unshakable belief in the inherent goodness of
man.
Manipulation is the key to the psychopath's conquests.
Initially, the
psychopath will feign false emotions to create empathy, and many of them
study the tricks that can be employed by the empathy technique. Psychopaths
are often able to incite pity from people because they seem like "lost
souls" as Guggenbuhl-Craig writes. So the pity factor is one reason why
victims often fall for these "poor" people.
Psychologist Robert Hare cites a famous case where a psychopath was "Man of
the Year" and president of the Chamber of Commerce in his small town.
(Remember that
John Wayne Gacy was running for Jaycee President at the very
time of his first murder conviction!)
The man in question had claimed to
have a Ph.D. from Berkeley. He ran for a position on the school board which
he then planned to parlay into a position on the county commission which
paid more.
At some point, a local reporter suddenly had the idea to check up on the guy
- to see if his credentials were real. What the reporter found out was that
the only thing that was true about this up and coming politician's "faked
bio" was the place and date of birth. Everything else was fictitious. Not
only was the man a complete impostor, he had a long history of antisocial
behavior, fraud, impersonation, and imprisonment.
His only contact with a university was a series
of extension courses by mail that he took while in Leavenworth Federal
Penitentiary. What is even more amazing is the fact that before he was a
con-man, he was a "con-boy." For two decades he had dodged his way across
America one step ahead of those he had hoodwinked.
Along the way he had
married three women and had four children, and he didn't even know what had
happened to them. And now, he was on a roll! But darn that pesky reporter!
When he was exposed, he was completely unconcerned.
"These trusting people
will stand behind me. A good liar is a good judge of people," he said.
Amazingly, he was right. Far from being outraged at the fact that they had
all been completely deceived and lied to from top to bottom, the local
community he had conned so completely to accrue benefits and honors to
himself that he had not earned, rushed to his support!
I kid you not! And it wasn't just "token support." The local Republican
party chairman wrote about him:
"I assess his genuineness, integrity, and
devotion to duty to rank right alongside of President Abraham Lincoln."
As
Hare dryly notes, this dimwit was easily swayed by words, and was blind to
deeds.
What kind of psychological weaknesses drive people to prefer lies over
truth?
This may have something to do with what is called Cognitive Dissonance. Leon Festinger developed the theory of
Cognitive Dissonance in the 50's when he
apparently stumbled onto a UFO cult in the Midwest. They were prophesying a
coming world cataclysm and "alien rapture." When no one was raptured and no
cataclysm he studied the believers response, and detailed it in his book
"When Prophecy Fails."
Festinger observed:
A man with a conviction is a hard man to
change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or
figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to
see your point.
We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong
conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in
his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with
which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed
through the most devastating attacks.
But man's resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief.
Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose
further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken
irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented
with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is
wrong: what will happen?
The individual will frequently emerge, not only
unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever
before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and
converting other people to his view.
It seems that part of the problem has to do with
ego and the need to be "right." People with a high "need to be right" or
"perfect" seem to be unable to acknowledge that they have been conned.
"There is no crime in the cynical American
calendar more humiliating than to be a sucker."
People will go along with and support a
psychopath, in the face of evidence that they have and ARE being conned,
because their own ego structure depends on being right, and to admit an
error of judgment would destroy their carefully constructed image of
themselves.
Even more amazing is the fact that when psychopaths do get exposed by
someone who is not afraid to admit that they have been conned, the
psychopath is a master at painting their victims as the "real culprits."
Hare cites a case of the third wife of a forty
year old high school teacher:
For five years he cheated on me, kept me
living in fear, and forged checks on my personal bank account.
But
everyone, including my doctor and lawyer and my friends, blamed me for
the problem. He had them so convinced that he was a great guy and that I
was going mad, I began to believe it myself.
Even when he cleaned out my
bank account and ran off with a seventeen-year-old student, a lot of
people couldn't believe it, and some wanted to know what I had done to
make him act so strangely!
Psychopaths just have what it takes to defraud and bilk others: they can
be fast talkers, they can be charming, they can be self-assured and at
ease in social situations; they are cool under pressure, unfazed by the
possibility of being found out, and totally ruthless.
And even when they
are exposed, they can carry on as if nothing has happened, often making
their accusers the targets of accusations of being victimized by THEM.
I was once dumbfounded by the logic of an inmate who described his
murder victim as having benefited from the crime by learning "a hard
lesson about life."
[Hare]
The victims keep asking:
"How could I have been so stupid? How could
I have fallen for that incredible line of baloney?"
And, of course, if
they don't ask it of themselves, you can be sure that their friends and
associates will ask,
"How on earth could you have been taken in to that
extent?"
The usual answer:
"You had to be there" simply does not convey
the whole thing.
Hare writes:
What makes psychopaths different from all
others is the remarkable ease with which they lie, the pervasiveness of
their deception, and the callousness with which they carry it out.
But there is something else about the speech of psychopaths that is
equally puzzling: their frequent use of contradictory and logically
inconsistent statements that usually escape detection.
Recent research
on the language of psychopaths provides us with some important clues to
this puzzle, as well as to the uncanny ability psychopaths have to move
words - and people- around so easily. […]
Here are some examples:
When asked if he had ever committed a
violent offense, a man serving time for theft answered, "No, but I once
had to kill someone."
A woman with a staggering record of fraud, deceit, lies, and broken
promises concluded a letter to the parole board with, "I've let a lot of
people down… One is only as good as her reputation and name. My word is
as good as gold."
A man serving a term for armed robbery replied to the testimony of an
eyewitness, "He's lying. I wasn't there. I should have blown his fucking
head off."
From an interview with serial killer Elmer Wayne
Henley:
Interviewer: "You make it out that you're
the victim of a serial killer, but if you look at the record you're a
serial killer."
Henley: "I'm not."
I: "You're not a serial killer?"
H: "I'm not a serial killer."
I: You're saying you're not a serial killer now, but you've serially
killed."
H: "Well, yeah, that's semantics."
And so on.
The point that the researchers noted was that psychopaths
seem to have trouble monitoring their own speech. What is more, they
often put things together in strange ways, such as this series of
remarks from serial killer Clifford Olson:
"And then I had annual sex with her."
"Once a year?"
"No. Annual. From behind."
"Oh. But she was dead!"
"No, no. She was just unconscientious."
About his many experiences, Olson said,
"I've got enough antidotes to fill five
or six books - enough for a trilogy."
He was determined not to be an "escape goat"
no matter what the "migrating facts."
[Hare, Without Conscience]
Those of us who have had experiences with
psychopaths know that the language of the psychopath is two-dimensional.
They are, as someone once said, as "deep as a
thimble." An analogy is given of the psychopath as a color blind person who
has learned how to function in the world of color by special strategies.
They may tell you that they "stopped at a red light," but what it really
means to them is that they knew that the light at the top means "stop," and
they stopped. They call it the "red" light like everyone else, but they have
no experience of what "red" really is.
A person who is color blind who has developed such coping mechanisms, is
virtually undetectable from people who see colors.
Psychopaths use words about emotions the same way people who are color blind
use words about colors they cannot perceive. Psychopaths not only learn to
use the words more or less appropriately, they learn to pantomime the
feeling. But they never HAVE the feeling.
This quality of the mind of the psychopath has been extensively tested with
word association tests while the subjects are hooked up to an EEG. Words
that have emotional content evoke larger brain responses than do neutral
words which is apparently a reflection of the large amount of information
that can be packed into a word.
For most of us, the word cancer can instantly
bring to mind not only the description of the disease, but also fear, pain,
concern, or whatever, depending upon our experiences with cancer - whether
we or someone we love has had it, or if it had some impact on our lives, and
so on.
The same is true with many words in our collective and individual
vocabularies. And, unless we had a traumatic experience with it, a word such
as box or paper will be neutral.
Psychopaths respond to all emotional words as if they were neutral. It is as
if they are permanently condemned to operate with a Juvenile Dictionary.
Hare writes:
Earlier I discussed the role of "inner
speech" in the development and operation of conscience.
It is the
emotionally charged thoughts, images, and internal dialogue that give
the "bite" to conscience, account for its powerful control over
behavior, and generate guilt and remorse for transgressions.
This is
something that psychopaths cannot understand.
For them, conscience is
little more than an intellectual awareness of rules others make up -
empty words. The feelings needed to give clout to these rules are
missing.
What is more, just as the color blind individual
may never know he is color blind unless he is given a test to determine it,
the psychopath is unable to even be aware of his own emotional poverty.
They assume that their own perceptions are the
same as everyone else's. They assume that their own lack of feeling is the
same for everyone else. And make no mistake about it: you can NOT hurt their
feelings because they don't have any!
They will pretend to have feelings if
it suits their purposes or gets them what they want. They will verbalize
remorse, but their actions will contradict their words. They know that
"remorse" is important, and "apologies" are useful, and they will give them
freely, though generally in words that amount to blaming the victim for
needing to be apologized to.
And this is why they are so good at using Game Theory. And unless we learn
the rules of how they think, they will continue to use it on us with
devastating results. Normal people HURT when treated cruelly and
insensitively. Psychopaths only feign being hurt because they perceive hurt
as not getting what they wanted, and tried to get by manipulation!
In the book Violent Attachments, women and men have noted the particular
stare of the psychopath - it is an intense, relentless gaze that seems to
preclude his destruction of his victim or target.
Women, in particular, have
reported this stare, which is related to the "predatorial" (reptilian) gaze;
it is as if the psychopath is directing all of his intensity toward you
through his eyes, a sensation that one woman reported as a feeling of "being
eaten." They tend to invade peoples' space either by their sudden intrusions
or intimidating look-overs (which some women confuse for sexuality.)
Another extremely interesting study had to do with the way psychopaths move
their hands when they speak. Hand movement can tell researchers a lot about
what are called "thought units." The studies indicate that psychopaths'
thoughts and ideas are organized into small mental packages.
This is handy
for lying, but makes dealing with an overall, coherent, integrated complex
of deep thoughts virtually impossible.
Most people are able to combine ideas that have consistent thought themes,
but psychopaths have great difficulty doing this. Again, this suggests a
genetic restriction to what we have called the Juvenile Dictionary. Not only
are they using extremely restricted definitions, they cannot, by virtue of
the way their brains work, do otherwise.
Virtually all of the research on
psychopaths reveals an inner world that is banal, sophomoric, and devoid of
the color and detail that generally exists in the inner world of normal
people.
This goes a long way to explain the
inconsistencies and contradictions in their speech.
The situation is analogous to a movie in
which one scene is shot under cloudy conditions and the next scene -
which supposedly takes place a few minutes later - is shot in brilliant
sunshine. […]
Some moviegoers - the victims of psychopaths - might not
notice the discrepancy, particularly if they are engrossed in the
action.
Psychopaths are notorious for not answering the
questions asked them.
They will answer something else, or in such a
way that the direct question is never addressed. They also phrase things so
that some parts of their narratives are difficult to understand. This is not
careless speech, of which everyone is guilty at times, but an ongoing
indication of the underlying condition in which the organization of mental
activity suggests something is wrong. It's not what they say, but how they
say it that gives insight into their true nature.
But this raises, again, the question: if their speech is so odd, how come
smart people get taken in by them? Why do we fail to pick up the
inconsistencies?
Part of the answer is that the oddities are subtle so that our general
listening mode will not normally pick them up. But my own experience is that
some of the "skipped" or oddly arranged words, or misused words are
automatically reinterpreted by OUR brains in the same way we automatically
"fill in the blank" space on a neon sign when one of the letters has gone
out.
We can be driving down the road at night, and
ahead we see M_tel, and we mentally put the "o" in place and read "Motel."
Something like this happens between the psychopath and the victim. We fill
in the "missing humanness" by filling in the blanks with our own
assumptions, based on what WE think and feel and mean.
And, in this way, because there are these
"blank" spots, we fill them in with what is inside us, and thus we are
easily convinced that the psychopath is a great guy - because he is just
like us! We have been conditioned to operate on trust, and we always try to
give the "benefit of the doubt."
So, there are blanks, we "give the benefit of
the doubt," and we are thereby hoisted on our own petard.
Psychopaths view any social exchange as a
"feeding opportunity," a contest or a test of wills in which there can
be only one winner. Their motives are to manipulate and take, ruthlessly
and without remorse.
[Hare]
One psychopath interviewed by Hare's team said
quite frankly:
"The first thing I do is I size you up. I
look for an angle, an edge, figure out what you need and give it to you.
Then it's pay-back time, with interest. I tighten the screws."
Another psychopath admitted that he never
targeted attractive women - he was only interested in those who were
insecure and lonely. He claimed he could smell a needy person "the way a pig
smells truffles."
The callous use of the old, the lonely, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised,
the marginalized, is a trademark of the psychopath. And when any of them
wake up to what is happening, they are generally too embarrassed to
complain.
One of the chief ways psychopaths prey on others is to make use of the
normal person's need to find meaning or purpose in life. They will pose as
grief counselors, or "experts" of various sorts that attract followings of
people who are looking for answers.
They are masters of recognizing "hang-ups" and
self-doubts that most people have, and they will brazenly pander to them to
gain a follower to use later. Hare tells of a staff psychologist in a mental
hospital whose life was destroyed by a psychopathic patient.
He cleaned out her bank account, maxed out her
credit cards, and then disappeared. How did he get to her? She said that her
life had been "empty" and she had just simply succumbed to his sweet words
and verbal caresses. As we already know, such words are cheap legal tender
to the psychopath. They can say "I'll pray for you," or "I love you" just to
create an impression. It really, really doesn't mean a thing. But some
people are so lonely and so desperate that even imitations are better than
nothing.
Then, of course, there are people who are just simply so psychologically
damaged themselves that the psychopath is the obvious choice for a partner.
They may have a need to be treated badly, or a
need to be excited by danger, or a need to "rescue" or "fix" somebody whose
soul is in obvious peril.
In a book about
Richard Ramirez, the
Satan-worshipping "night Stalker," the author described a young coed who
sat through the pretrial hearings and sent love letters and photographs
of herself to Ramirez.
"I feel such compassion for him. When I look at
him, I see a real handsome guy who just messed up his life because he
never had anyone to guide him," she is reported to have said.
[Hare]
Sadly, as we see, psychopaths have no lack of
victims because so many people are ready and willing to play the role.
And in many, many cases, the victim simply
refuses to believe the evidence that they are being victimized.
Psychological denial screens out knowledge that is painful, and persons with
large investments in their fantasies are often unable to acknowledge that
they are being deceived because it it too painful.
Most often, these are
women who rigidly adhere to the traditional role of the female with a strong
sense of duty to be a "good wife." She will believe that if she tries harder
or simply waits it out, her husband will reform.
When he ignores her, abuses her, cheats on her,
or uses her, she can simply just decide to "try harder, put more energy into
the relationship, and take better care of him." She believes that if she
does this, eventually he will notice and will see how valuable she is, and
then he will fall on his knees in gratitude and treat her like a queen.
Dream on.
The fact is, such a woman, with her fierce commitment to such a man, her
dedication to being a proper wife, has allowed such fairy tales to distort
her sense of reality. The reality is that she is doomed to a lifetime of
abuse and disappointment until "death do us part."
One of the basic assumptions of psychotherapy is that the patient needs and
wants help for distressing or painful psychological and emotional problems.
The psychopath does not think that they have any psychological or emotional
problems, and they see no reason to change their behavior to conform to
standards with which they do not agree.
They are well-satisfied with themselves and
their inner landscape. They see nothing wrong with they way they think or
act, and they never look back with regret or forward with concern. They
perceive themselves as superior beings in a hostile world in which others
are competitors for power and resources. They feel it is the optimum thing
to do to manipulate and deceive others in order to obtain what they want.
Most therapy programs only provide them with new excuses for their behavior
as well as new insights into the vulnerabilities of others. Through
psychotherapy, they learn new and better ways of manipulating. What they do
NOT do is make any effort to change their own views and attitudes.
One particular psychopath studied by Hare and his team of researchers was in
a group therapy program in a prison.
The prison psychiatrist had written in
his record:
"He has made good progress… He appears more
concerned about others and to have lost much of his criminal thinking."
Two years later, Hare's staff member interviewed
the man.
At this point, it ought to be made clear that, in order to make the
research more accurate, the terms were that nothing said by the subjects to
Hare or his staff could or would be repeated to the prison authorities, and
they kept to their agreement in order to insure that the subjects felt free
to talk to them.
Psychopaths, if they know that they won't be
penalized for what they express, are very happy to boast about their prowess
in deceiving others.
The man, assessed above by his prison psychiatrist as
having made such remarkable improvement, was described by Hare's staffer as
"the most terrifying offender she had ever met and that he openly boasted
about how he had conned the prison staff into thinking that he was well on
the road to rehabilitation.
"I can't believe those guys," he said. "Who gave
them a license to practice? I wouldn't let them psychoanalyze my dog! He'd
shit all over them just like I did."
Psychopaths are not "fragile" individuals, as Robert Hare says after years
of research.
What they think and do is produced from a "rock solid
personality structure that is extremely resistant to outside influences."
Many of them are protected for years from the consequences of their behavior
by well-meaning family and friends.
As long as their behavior remains
unchecked or unpunished, they continue to go through life without too much
inconvenience.
Some researchers think that psychopathy is the result of some attachment or
bonding difficulty as an infant. Dr. Hare has turned the idea around, after
all his years digging into the background of psychopaths.
He says:
In some children the very failure to bond is
a symptom of psychopathy. It is likely that these children lack the
capacity to bond readily, and that their lack of attachment is largely
the result, not the cause, of psychopathy.
[Hare]
In other words: they are born that way and you
can't fix them.
To many people, the idea of a child psychopath is almost unthinkable. But
the fact is, true psychopaths are born, not made. Oh, indeed, there is the
psychopath that is "made," but they are generally different from the born
psychopath in a number of ways.
The fact is, clinical research clearly demonstrates that psychopathy does
not spring unannounced into existence in adulthood. The symptoms reveal
themselves in early life. It seems to be true that parents of psychopaths
KNOW something is dreadfully wrong even before the child starts school.
Such
children are stubbornly immune to socializing pressures. They are
"different" from other children in inexplicable ways. They are more
"difficult," or "willful," or aggressive, or hard to "relate to." They are
difficult to get close to, cold and distant and self-sufficient.
One mother said:
"We were never able to get close to her even
as an infant. She was always trying to have her own way, whether by
being sweet, or by having a tantrum. She can put on a sweet and contrite
act…"
The fact is: childhood psychopathy is a stark
reality, and failing to recognize it can lead to years of vain attempts to
discover what is wrong with a child, and the parent blaming themselves.
Hare writes:
As the signs of social breakdown grow more
insistent, we no longer have the luxury of ignoring the presence of
psychopathy in certain children.
Half a century ago Hervey Cleckley and
Robert Lindner warned us that our failure to acknowledge the psychopaths
among us had already triggered a social crisis.
Today our social
institutions - our schools, courts, mental health clinics - confront the
crisis every day in a thousand ways, and the blindfold against the
reality of psychopathy is still in place.[…]
The last decade has seen the emergence of an inescapable and terrifying
reality: a dramatic surge of juvenile crime that threatens to overwhelm
our social institutions. […] Children under the age of ten who are
capable of the sort of mindless violence that once was reserved for
hardened adult criminals. […]
At this writing, a small town in a western
state is frantically searching for ways to deal with a nine-year-old who
allegedly rapes and molests other children at knife point.
He is too
young to be charged and cannot be taken into care because "such action
may only be taken when the child is in danger, not his victims,"
according to a child protection official.
[Hare]
Why does it seem that we have a veritable
epidemic of psychopaths?
Sociobiologists are suggesting that increasing
psychopathy is an expression of a particular genetically based reproductive
strategy. Simply put, most people have a couple of children and devote a lot
of time and effort to their care. Psychopaths systematically mate with and
abandon large numbers of women.
They waste little of their energy raising
children, and in this way, psychopathic genes are being propagated like
wildfire.
The sociobiologists aren't saying that the sexual behavior of
people is consciously directed, only that "nature" has made them a certain
way so that it will happen effectively.
The behavior of female psychopaths reflects the same strategy. "I can always
have another," one female psychopath coldly replied when questioned about an
incident in which her two-year-old daughter was beaten to death by one of
her many lovers. When asked why she would want to have another child, (two
had been taken into protective custody), she said "I love children." Again
we see that the expressed emotion is in contradiction to the behavior.
Cheating skills seem to have an adaptive value in our society. The fact is:
psychopaths often end up on the top of the heap, John Forbes Nash, for
example.
At the present time, there is something very scary going on in the
metaphysical community: talk about the so-called "Indigo Children."
One of
the chief promoters of this idea, Wendy Chapman, writes:
Indigo Children are the current generation being born today and most of
those who are 8 years old or younger. They are different. They have very
unique characteristics that set them apart from previous generations of
children. [...]
These are the children who are often rebellious to authority, nonconformist,
extremely emotionally and sometimes physically sensitive or fragile, highly
talented or academically gifted and often metaphysically gifted as well,
usually intuitive, very often labeled ADD, either very empathic and
compassionate OR very cold and callous, and are wise beyond their years.
Does this sound like yourself or your child?
Indigos have come into this world with
difficult challenges to overcome.
Their extreme levels of sensitivity
are hard to understand and appreciate by parents who don't share this
trait. Their giftedness is unusual in such high numbers. Their
nonconformity to systems and to discipline will make it difficult to get
through their childhood years and perhaps even their adult years.
It is also what will help them accomplish
big goals such as changing the educational system, for instance. Being
an Indigo won't be easy for any of them, but it foretells a mission.
The
Indigo Children are the ones who have come to raise the vibration of our
planet! These are the primary ones who will bring us the enlightenment
to ascend.
Sounds like a severe case of denial and wishful
thinking, in my opinion.
But, as we already understand the psychological
reality is merely a tool for the Theological Reality, I suspect that the
reader already has jumped ahead of me here and realizes what a big snow-job
this "indigo children" deal is.
Ms. Chapman has kindly provided a check-list
to determine an "indigo child."
After learning what we have about psychopaths,
let's have a look at her list:
-
Have strong self esteem, connection to
source
-
Know they belong here until they are
told otherwise
-
Have an obvious sense of self
-
Have difficulty with discipline and
authority
-
Refuse to follow orders or directions
-
Find it torture to waiting in lines,
lack patience
-
Get frustrated by ritual-oriented
systems that require little creativity
-
Often see better ways of doing thing at
home and at school
-
Are mostly nonconformists
-
Do not respond to guilt trips, want good
reasons
-
Get bored rather easily with assigned
tasks
-
Are rather creative
-
Are easily distractible, can do many
things at once
-
Display strong intuition
-
Have strong empathy for others or NO
empathy
-
Develop abstract thinking very young
-
Are gifted and/or talented, highly
intelligent
-
Are often identified or suspected of
having ADD or ADHD, but can focus when they want to
-
Are talented daydreamers and visionaries
-
Have very old, deep, wise looking eyes
-
Have spiritual intelligence and/or
psychic skills
-
Often express anger outwardly rather
than inwardly and may have trouble with rage
-
Need our support to discover themselves
-
Are here to change the world - to help
us live in greater harmony and peace with one another and to raise
the vibration of the planet
What we see above is a list that includes
certain definitely psychopathic behaviors along with behaviors of gifted
children. We have to wonder at the attempt to weave the two together.
Where did this idea of "Indigo Children" come from? The phrase, "Indigo
child" was coined by Nancy Ann Tappe in her book Understanding Your Life
Through Color (1982) and refers to the color in these children's aura.
Ms. Tappe was interviewed by Jan Tober
for her book
The Indigo Children (1999) and said:
"These young children - every one of them
I've seen thus far who kill their schoolmates or parents - have been
Indigos."
That didn't stop Tober from writing her book and
declaring that these children are,
"Spiritual Masters, beings full of wisdom,
here to teach us a new way of being."
The way the followers of the idea justify the
fact that "not all Indigo children are filled with unconditional love,
tolerance and non-judgment," is by declaring that they require "special"
treatment and handling with kid gloves because they are so special and
delicate and sensitive.
In a pig's eye. They are psychopaths and they have an altogether different
agenda. And somehow, they are aware and seek to ensure that their offspring
are well cared for, and that a lot of psychopaths grow up without being
identified as what they are.
Nevertheless, there is no explaining the extremes that "true believers" will
go to in order to find excuses for inexcusable things.
Elizabeth Kirby, a businesswoman in
southern California, who has "studied and practiced metaphysics for the last
21 years," writes:
In hearing about the school shootings, I
knew Indigo children were pulling the triggers. The Columbine High
School shooting was so horrific it caught everyone's attention.
At the time my eldest daughter said to me,
"Because they (Eric Harris and Dylan
Klebold) were Indigos they wanted to do it, so they just did it. No
remorse, no guilt, they just went ahead and shot all those people
because they wanted to and felt they needed to."
Indigo children don't have guilt to keep
them in check and because they balk at authority they don't believe they
have to follow the rules.
Writers in mainstream America like Jonathan Kellerman are lumping the
Indigo school shooters with the psychopaths; the dark entities who are
bullies, con-men, stalkers, victimizers, serial killers and those who
kill for thrills. I don't believe these Indigo children who have taken
weapons to school to harm other children are psychopaths.
They have been bullied and teased and have
an avenger attitude seeking justice for injuries inflicted on them. They
aren't killing just for the thrill of killing. These kids know changes
have to be made within the school system and they chose violence to make
their statement, to give us a wake up call.
Some of these metaphysical
Indigo children are not hesitant about using violence to bring about
change, and to bring us to enlightenment.
Indigo violence is here and it will continue, at least with this present
generation of Indigo children.
We are seeing with the current Indigo
violence how the school system needs to be changed and how imperative it
is to address the issues of bullying and intimidation in school.
As the
Indigo children grow to adulthood, their agendas will move out of the
school system into our other systems, our social, political and judicial
systems for example.
Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber,
is an Indigo.
Amazing, huh?
Did you catch the remark: "Some of
these metaphysical Indigo children are not hesitant about using violence to
bring about change, and to bring us to enlightenment."
Don't we find that just a tiny bit contradictory? Aren't we stretching a
bit? How about diving straight into denial?
At the present moment in history, the appeal of the psychopath has never
been greater. Movies about psychopaths are all the rage.
Hare asks,
"Why?
What accounts for the terrific power that the personality without conscience
has over our collective imagination?"
One theorist proposes that people who admire,
believe, or identify with psychopaths, are partly psychopathic themselves.
By interacting with a psychopath, even peripherally, they are able to
voyeuristically enjoy an inner state not dominated by the constraints of
morality. Such people are enabled to enjoy aggressive and sexual pleasures
at no cost.
For normal people, such movies may serve to remind them of the danger and
destructiveness of the psychopath. They will shiver with the sense of
something cold and dark having breathed on their neck. For others, people
with poorly developed inner selves, such movies and glorification of
psychopathic behavior only serves as a role model for serious acts of
violence and predation against others.
Some psychologists propose rationalizations for psychopathic behavior,
suggesting trauma, abuse, etc. The problem is, that argument does not hold
up in case after case after case.
It seems that t he only difference that family background seems to make is
how the psychopath expresses himself. A psychopath who grows up in a stable
family and has access to positive social and educational resources might
become a white-collar criminal, or perhaps a somewhat shady entrepreneur,
politician, lawyer, judge, or other professional. Another individual with
the same traits, and a deprived background might become a common con-artist,
a drifter, mercenary, or violent criminal.
The point is, social factors and parenting practices only shape the
expression of the disorder, but have no effect on the individual's inability
to feel empathy or to develop a conscience.
Robert Hare once submitted a paper to a scientific journal. The paper
included EEGs of several groups of adult men performing a language task. The
editor of the journal returned the paper saying "Those EEG's couldn't have
come from real people."
But they did. They were the EEG's of psychopaths.
Some people have compared psychopathy to schizophrenia. However, there is a
crucial distinction as we will see:
Schizophrenia and psychopathy are both
characterized by impulsive, poorly planned behavior.
This behavior may
originate from a weak or poorly coordinated response inhibition system.
We tested the hypothesis that schizophrenia and psychopathy are
associated with abnormal neural processing during the suppression of
inappropriate responses.
The participants were schizophrenic patients, nonpsychotic psychopaths,
and nonpsychotic, nonpsychopathic control subjects (defined by the Hare
Psychopathy Checklist-Revised), all incarcerated in a maximum security
psychiatric facility. We recorded behavioral responses and event-related
potentials (ERPs) during a Go/No Go task.
Results: Schizophrenic patients made more errors of commission than did
the nonpsychopathic offenders. As expected, the nonpsychopathic
nonpsychotic participants showed greater frontal ERP negativity (N275)
to the No Go stimuli than to the Go stimuli. This effect was small in
the schizophrenic patients and absent in the psychopaths.
For the nonpsychopaths, the P375 ERP component was larger on Go than on No Go
trials, a difference that was absent in schizophrenic patients and in
the opposite direction in psychopaths.
Conclusions: These findings support the hypothesis that the neural
processes involved in response inhibition are abnormal in both
schizophrenia and psychopathy; however, the nature of these processes
appears to be different in the two disorders.
"More and more data are leading to the
conclusion that psychopathy has a biological basis, and has many
features of a disease," says Sabine Herpertz, a psychiatrist at the
RWTH-Aachen University in Germany.
The brain imaging techniques of positron
emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
provide the opportunity to investigate psychopathy further.
They might allow
researchers to discover whether psychopaths' physiological and emotional
deficits can be pinned down to specific differences in the anatomy or
activation of the brain.
Among researchers who are starting to explore this area, there are two main
theories of psychopathy. One, championed by Adrian Raine of the University
of Southern California in Los Angeles and supported by the work of Antonio Damasio of the University of Iowa, gives a starring role to a brain region
called the orbitofrontal cortex (see diagram, below).
This is part of an
area of the brain, known as the prefrontal cortex, involved in conscious
decision-making.
Approximate location of the
OFC shown on a sagittal MRI
Orbital surface
of left frontal lobe.
The other theory, promoted by James Blair of University College London,
holds that the fundamental dysfunction lies within the amygdala, a small
almond-shaped structure that plays a critical role in processing emotion and
mediating fear.
Recently, using PET scanning, Blair has shown that
activation of the amygdala in normal volunteers is involved in responding to
the sadness and anger of others, and he hypothesizes that amygdala
dysfunction could explain the lack of fear and empathy in psychopaths.
The two theories may not be mutually exclusive, Blair points out, as the
orbitofrontal cortex, which does the 'thinking', and the amygdala, which
does the 'feeling', are highly interconnected.
Following widespread concern that the criminal justice and mental health
systems are failing to deal effectively with dangerous psychopaths, there is
a movement in several countries to instigate fundamental legal reform.
The
most controversial suggestion is to make it possible for individual who have
severe personality disorders to be detained in secure mental institutions
even if they have been accused of no crime.
Although these particular
provisions have alarmed civil liberties campaigners, the raft of measures
also includes a major initiative within the prison service to improve the
handling of those with APD - including psychopaths.
According to one individual who suffered at the hands of a psychopath:
"The World has only one problem,
Psychopaths. There are two basic types of Psychopaths, Social and
Anti-Social. The essential feature of Psychopaths is a Pervasive,
Obsessive-Compulsive desire to force their delusions on others.
Psychopaths completely disregard and violate the Rights of others,
particularly the Freedom of Association which includes the right not to
associate and the Right to Love."
Over and over again we come up against that
little problem: religion and belief systems that have to be defended against
objective evidence or the beliefs of others.
We have to ask ourselves,
"where
did these belief systems come from that so evidentially are catastrophic?"
And then, we have to think about the fact that now, in the present day, when
many of these systems are breaking down and being replaced by others that
similarly divert our attention away from what IS, it becomes necessary to
"enforce" a certain mode of thinking.
And that is what Psychopaths do best.
Psychopaths dominate and set the standard for behavior in our society. We
live in a world based on a psychopathic, energy stealing food chain, because
that's just the way things are.
Most people are so damaged they no longer have
the capacity to even imagine a different system based on a symbiotic
network.
They are not only damaged by others, but
also by the thousand little evils they have done to others to survive.
For them to see the system for what it is, would require them to see the
part they have played in perpetuating it.
That is a lot to ask of a
fragile ego.
Also, those who are not psychopaths, still want to make
human connections but are afraid to, for fear of being taken advantage
of and stolen from energetically speaking.
With the brief historical review we have
examined, we are acutely aware that this is NOT a phenomenon confined to our
present "time."
It is a trans-millennial evolutionary strategy that, step by
step, has brought us to our present position. What emerges in the present
day is just Machiavellian diversion that focuses the attention of those who
are easily deceived.
This is reinforced by the "clappers" in the
audience, and there seems to be an entire army of psychopaths among us whose
job it is act as vectors of attention and direction. We hope that the
readers of these pages will give themselves permission to imagine, research
and implement a different way of being. And to stand up for themselves while
doing it.
As
Wilhelm Reich wrote:
Why did man, through thousands of years,
wherever he built scientific, philosophic, or religious systems, go
astray with such persistence and with such catastrophic consequences?"
[…]
The answer lies somewhere in that area of our existence which has been
so heavily obscured by organized religion and put out of our reach.
Hence, it probably lies in the relation of the human being to the cosmic
energy that governs him.
The same question is posed by
Castaneda's Don
Juan:
'I want to appeal to your analytical mind,'
don Juan said.
'Think for a moment, and tell me how you would explain
the contradiction between the intelligence of man the engineer and the
stupidity of his systems of beliefs, or the stupidity of his
contradictory behavior.
Sorcerers believe that the predators have given
us our systems of beliefs, our ideas of good and evil, our social mores.
They are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations and dreams of
success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed and
cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary, and
egomaniacal.
In order to keep us obedient and meek and weak, the predators engaged
themselves in a stupendous maneuver - stupendous, of course, from the
point of view of a fighting strategist. A horrendous maneuver from the
point of view of those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you
hear me? The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind. […]
Through the mind, which, after all, is their mind, the predators inject
into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them.'
[Castaneda,
The Active Side of Infinity]
The problem is also delineated by Georges Gurdjieff:
"So that in the actual situation of humanity
there is nothing that points to evolution proceeding.
On the contrary
when we compare humanity with a man, we quite clearly see a growth of
personality at the cost of essence, that is, a growth of the artificial,
the unreal, and what is foreign, at the cost of the natural, the real,
and what is one's own.
"Together with this, we see a growth of automatism.
"Contemporary cultures requires automatons. […] One thing alone is
certain, that man's slavery grows and increases. Man is becoming a
willing slave. He no longer needs chains.
He begins to grow fond of his
slavery, to be proud of it. And this is the most terrible thing that can
happen to a man.
[Gurdjieff, op. cit]
Intolerance and cruelty are NEEDED to guarantee
the "cover-up."
A certain kind of "human being" acts on behalf of this
cover-up. And in this sense, psychopaths, as Alien Reaction Machines are the
playing pieces in the Secret Games of the Gods.
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