Important Notes on Psychopathy

Laura

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Extracted from The Psychopath: The Mask of Sanity

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 betwen 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] (highly recommended)
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. This book is no longer available. We have it scanned and our team of researchers spent two weeks going over the text carefully to eliminate text conversion errors. You may download the entire book FREE as a PDF from the link at left, top. (Read A Sample Chapter of The Mask of Sanity)

"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.

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."

DOWNLOAD the entire book: The Mask of Sanity

Extracted from [url=file:///F%7C/!!cassiopaea2004/cass/adventureindex.htm]Adventures with Cassiopaea


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]
Again, 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.

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.

We understand this phenomenon from direct personal experience. The above case is almost an item by item mirror of our interaction with Maynerd Most. After questions were raised about his credentials, side by side with our observation of his many activities consisting of vociferously blaming the victims (us) for refusing to be further victimized, we became acutely aware of his capacity for lying. It was, in fact, his publicly posted lies that we, and many others, who had been witnesses to things that Maynerd Most (and others in his gang as well) was clearly and obviously lying about that clued us in to his true nature. Had he behaved otherwise, he would be well on his way to more and better con-jobs with our blessings, given out of ignorance. However, by noting the nature of his written discourses, the endless lies stacked on lies, naturally led to the idea that maybe everything he says is a lie, including his credentials. This observation turned out to be correct, but it didn't seem to matter. Surprisingly, (to us, at least) there was no lack of people who were willing to compare Most to Abraham Lincoln because of his "genuineness, integrity, and devotion to duty." And that factor, of course, is what contributes to the success of the psychopath.

We observed this for some months, shaking our head in wonder at how many people seem to WANT to be duped, to be made fools of, and that is partly why we undertook to study the phenomenon more deeply. We wanted to know 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." We have experienced this first hand also with both Frank Scott and Maynerd Most, as well as others, as will be seen further along. And we were, indeed, interested to discover that we weren't the only ones. 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 -flicking-g 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]
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, they 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.

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 [Control System] 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 are here for an altogether different reason. And somehow, someone or something is trying to make sure that its 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.

The 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.

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, Obssesive- 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."
And we have come full circle. 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 energeticaly speaking. [Thank you S.M. for such a clear explicaton!]
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 program 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 about the problem (though he was unable to identify it as psychopathy):

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.
Carlos Castaneda struggled with it as well and put the following words into the mouth of his semi-mythical 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]
Gurdjieff also saw the problem:

"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 quoted by Ouspensky]
Intolerance and cruelty are NEEDED to guarantee the "cover-up" of the take-over of humanity by Pathocracy. A certain kind of "human being" acts on behalf of this cover-up. And in this sense, psychopaths, as Reaction Machines are the playing pieces in the Secret Games of the Gods.
 
wow, that information about the indigo children is very interesting, I had no idea about the colombine and McVeigh links. I joined up with the indigo adults mailing list some years back that Wendy Chapman hosted and for a while I got sucked into it. Of course in hindsight now I see its designed that way! I felt at the time I fitted most of the criteria and felt that I was one of the first wave of indigos here to help the children adjust as Wendy put it. But after been a part of the threads for some months I began to see the cracks in the whole scam she had set up. Wendy called herself an angel, and always signed off her posts with namaste and a little angel sign, for some reason that set off alarm bells with me. I instinctively got to know that she was not been genuine. I got a growing awareness that she was scamming. I started to get quite opinionated about certain topics, like the war in Iraq and my posts about the american government, most specifically the neo-cons were not tollerated well by her. I repeatedly got told I was skewing things and she made various quite angry attacks at me and my thinking even though I was been very polite in my opinions i thought. Every 4-5 months or so like clockwork Wendy would come up with some excuse (that sounded contrived) that she was out of money and that the site was in desperate need of funding, and she would send a group email out to everyone requesting quite firmly that if support was not forthcomming everything would be shut down. She would weekly send out advertisements for her distance-attunements and various angelic quazi-metaphysical attunements and assension training that she would perform on a persons behalf for a set fee. This all just smacked of a scam to me and when i suggested such things as nicely as i could i was banned from the site and could no longer post. Some time later I signed up under a new name and just quickly posted a warning to others to be aware and think about what they were involved with etc, and then i leaft it at that, i never went back to check on it, I still kinda believed the whole indigo thing, but i felt that she was a scammer taking advantage. Her whole site was a money making scam (with fake distance-attunements been the main seller), I wonder how many people got fooled into thinking they were now a better person due to the attunement, and even convinced them selves that they could feel the change, ah ...the power of wishfull thinking!
I wonder how many hundreds of poor parents were fooled into giving their cold 'difficult child' so much love and energy from the work of Wendy Chapman. I wonder if shes still running this indigo site, think i might look it up and see.... laters
J
 
elevate you might want to check out the thread at http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2729 which is exactly the same initial post but it has more of a follow up ...
 
Sociopathy, as defined in the book Snakes in Suits

In the book "Snakes in Suits, when psychopaths go to work" (by Babiak and Hare) the authors devote about a page to explaining the difference of psychopathy, sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder.

In Without Conscience, Hare talk briefly about the same:

Hare said:
[about the use of psychopathy vs sociopathy]
In many cases the choice of the term reflects the user's views on the origins and determinants of the clinical syndrome or disorder described in this book. Thus some clinicians and researchers- as well as most sociologists and criminologists- who believe that the syndrome is forged entirely by social forces and early experiences prefer the term sociopath, whereas those-including this writer-who feel that psychological, biological, and genetic factors also contribute to development of the syndrome generally use the term psychopath. The same individual therefore could be diagnosed as sociopath by one expert and as a psychopath by another
After reading the "Without Conscience" book I got away with the impression that it was a matter of "school of thought", and by that I mean nature vs nurture, but that the characteristics of the psychopath/sociopath were the same.


Now I am reading the Snakes in Suits book where on page 19 the authors say the following:
Babiak&Hare said:
...
Psychopaths are without conscience and incapable of empathy, guilt, or loyalty to anyone but themselves.

...
Sociopaths may have a well-developed conscience and a normal capacity for empathy, guillt and loyalty, but their sense of right and wrong is based on the norms and expectations of their subculture or group.
...
Sociopaths can have a conscience? This is new to me.

Given that there is a decade between Without Conscience and Snakes in Suits (the latter being more recent), is this is a newer understanding of sociopathy based on current research?

I did some searching on the web, but I couldn't find a statement like the authors make.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Dominique.
 
Sociopathy, as defined in the book Snakes in Suits

Just off the bat I would say that, if you look closely, the same thing is being said in both cases.

First:

>>Psychopaths are without conscience and incapable of empathy, guilt, or loyalty to anyone but themselves.<<

OK. That seems pretty clear.

Then:

>>Sociopaths may have a well-developed conscience and a normal capacity for empathy, guilt and loyalty, <<

At first sight a different animal. But it goes on:

>>but their sense of right and wrong is based on the norms and expectations of their subculture or group.<<

Ahh. The same animal.

Isn't conscience a subjectively experienced objective emotion/evaluation? Possessed - where it is possessed - by an individual?

Does not an individual and developed conscience cry out - at times with great personal risk - against the injustices it sees being carried out "based on the norms and expectations of their subculture or group."

And do not the psychopaths "without conscience and incapable of empathy, guilt, or loyalty to anyone but themselves" hide themselves precisely within behaviour which they contrive to appear as being "based on the norms and expectations of their subculture or group."

Same animal.

Do not George Bush and the Gang appear suitably saddened and filled with pity on September 11 each year? Do they not make fine speeches about 'our boys' ... especially the ones brought home in body-bags.

They act precisely in accordance with "the norms and expectations of their subculture or group."

And carry on as usual - "without conscience and incapable of empathy, guilt, or loyalty to anyone but themselves."

I sometimes think these fine word games and definitions are very dangerous. They obscure our natural ability to see real danger and make real spot-on judgements.

Or, possibly, 'normal', un-psychopathic human beings want to give every chance and excuse possible to their dangerously deranged brethren. They want to believe that the 'psychopath' is really NOT 'pure evil'. That maybe he is a slightly less dangerous entity - a 'sociopath' - who can still adhere to the norms of his peer group. Like enthusiastically melding with the "norms and expectations of their subculture or group" in Germany in 1939 and murdering Jews.

Seeing 'evil' is, in my opinion, an innate survival ability in all normal humans ... until it is confused and perverted by too much 'wiseacring!'

When we see evil let us not be afraid to register precisely that. Evil.

The Bush-Blair-Olmert 'axis' is evil. It brings only pain and suffering to the world. Palestine is a field of the most appalling carnage and horror that would turn the stomach of the 'average American' who actually saw it!

And think, by way of contrast, what could be done with a truly positive and life-enhancing attitude from the USA-UK-Israeli alliance, with all their combined wealth and technical achievement. Why, the unhappiness and misery, want and deprivation within our world would have ceased to exist within a decade at most.

But no.

So why the continual pressure to suffering, misery, pain, terror and war?

EVIL.

And call those who channel it psychopathic, sociopathic or demonic. Call them Noddy or Big Ears if you want.

They remain the same animal.

StarFraction
 
Sociopathy, as defined in the book Snakes in Suits

Domvir said:
Given that there is a decade between Without Conscience and Snakes in Suits (the latter being more recent), is this is a newer understanding of sociopathy based on current research?

I did some searching on the web, but I couldn't find a statement like the authors make.

Can anyone shed some light on this?
It might be wise to take the ponerization of society into effect, especially the accleration over the last ten years. If you combine the general ponerization process with the fact that the psychogical sciences were long ago influenced by psychopaths to make sure they kept the definitions, and thus, the issue blurred - you might start to get an idea that generally accepted definitions of what is and what is not a sociopath or psychopath are skewed to make sure it stays in the realm of theory and 'not quite sure' definitions.

However, here we see something different,

StarFraction said:
Do not George Bush and the Gang appear suitably saddened and filled with pity on September 11 each year? Do they not make fine speeches about 'our boys' ... especially the ones brought home in body-bags.
Rest assured that just because you see tears in their eyes or sad expressions on their faces, it does not mean that they experience any depth of real emotions - especially of the compassionate kind. Having practiced from childhood to appear normal and like the other kids, to show emotion when it is appropriate for the people around them to see emotion - they are masters at appearing 'human'. Unfortunately it is all theatre and there is no depth of emotion there, no compassion, no conscience, no empathy - they know what these things are only in theory and as they are exhibited by normal human beings, so even at times when they are displaying the outward signs of compassion, there is still nothing really going on inside.

So - while there does seem to be a qualitative difference between the psychopath and the sociopath, saying a sociopath has compassion is rather off the mark, or so it seems.
 
Sociopathy, as defined in the book Snakes in Suits

The problem appears to lie with the non-definitive use of the word "sociopath".

Babiak & Hare said:
Sociopaths may have a well-developed conscience and a normal capacity for empathy, guillt and loyalty, but their sense of right and wrong is based on the norms and expectations of their subculture or group.
This definition could apply to a ponerized normal human and not a type of psychopath.

Then in "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout, which is a very good book, the term "sociopath" is used to describe what we would call a psychopath.

Ideally, there would be a common language, where say, everyone used the definitions derived from Ponerology since it provides definitions for the different types of deviant.
 
Sociopathy, as defined in the book Snakes in Suits

Maybe they are trying to describe the difference between a psychopath that is born without a soul/conscience and a "souled psychopath" such as Hitler; one who has CHOSEN evil.

A psychopath that is born that way really can't choose to be other than they are and, in a sense, are to be pitied for the tragedy of being born looking human but not BEing human.

But one that has the capacity to be human, to feel empathy, and chooses otherwise, is an altogether different critter.

So maybe it is this that Hare and Babiak are trying to get to in this distinction?
 
Sociopathy, as defined in the book Snakes in Suits

Darren said:
Then in "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout, which is a very good book, the term "sociopath" is used to describe what we would call a psychopath.
I read that book as well and I agree with your statement.

The authors also mention the following:

Hare&Babiak said:
Sociopathy is not a formal psychiatric condition. It refers to patterns of attitudes and behaviours that are considered antisocial and criminal by society at large, but are seen as normal or necessary by the subculture or social environment in which they developed.
After reading this again, maybe Babiak and Hare tried to seperate psychopaths into different categories: sociopathic and non-sociopathic?
 
Sociopathy, as defined in the book Snakes in Suits

Browsing the posts has got me thinking.

Hypothetically, I wonder if the psychopaths, being true to their sort, influence somewhat non-thinking/critical persons and infest them with similar traits - and the sociopath is born. The numbers of Sociopaths increase as their psychological pressures build among their own peer groups and thus the number of sociopaths continue to (theoretically) increase.

At a certain point, which maybe already reached here in the states, then they are able to commit a great divide, perhaps as they intend to, or excuse me, maybe not they, but the psychopaths. With enough thoughtless, lower and non-compasisonate, people civil war or marshal law becomes easier to invoke and sustain?

I guess what I am saying is that - 6-9% are, as pointed out in political ponerology, are psychopaths - ?10-15?% percent are easily dupable, unthinking, automatonic (maybe/ or likely a greater percent) people who can influence the thinking (?patterns?) of other more normal - healthy minded people, and you could have great division as was semi-pointed out about nazi germany's birth.

For myself I'm rather talking in parables and I am sorry. I kind of am from the benefit of the doubt school, ya know, "of course he feels sympathy, empathy, human emotion and all that ignorance, my upbringing has helped me to strap on like baggage. Getting beyond that is still a sore spot on my security bubble, but from what I've read, there is no way to deny that such (psycho/socio) beings exist.

Is there a rift in the United States itself, or is it between the United States and the world or both? Could the divide which obviously exists to me here in the US and if that is the case is the divide based between the feeling and the semi-feeling(?) sociopaths and the psychopaths? Very interesting thread.
 
Sociopathy, as defined in the book Snakes in Suits

Laura said:
Maybe they are trying to describe the difference between a psychopath that is born without a soul/conscience and a "souled psychopath" such as Hitler; one who has CHOSEN evil.
Hi Laura. How can one conclude that anyone is a souled psychopath who chose evil or a born psychopath? How do we know that Hitler was not a born psychopath? I had him as my major example of a psychopath when reading about psychopathy. If this matter has been researched/discussed before, which i obviously missed, i'd appreciate anyone's pointing out. Thanks.
 
Laura said:
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 are here for an altogether different reason. And somehow, someone or something is trying to make sure that its offspring are well cared for, and that a lot of psychopaths grow up without being identified as what they are.
I've never realized much about the Indigo Children/Psychopaths. I've seen alot of these talks/discussion about Indigo being "spiritual masters" and such on myspace groups and bulletins. I didn't take much stock into it or try to apply myself to that "title." I, myself, encountered/noticed some of the students that might fit the description of "Indigo" person at my colleges. Actually, one of them killed a girl in a dorm by strangulation and he later killed himself by jumping off the second floor in a suicide watch prison.

elevate said:
I felt at the time I fitted most of the criteria and felt that I was one of the first wave of indigos here to help the children adjust as Wendy put it. But after been a part of the threads for some months I began to see the cracks in the whole scam she had set up.
When I was looking into the criteria of "Indigo," I seemed to fit it as well but I felt uncomfortable about it and couldn't put my finger on it. Something was fishy about it. So, I left it alone.
 
I think the whole designation of an "indigo child" is meant to increase one's self importance and decrease the work on changing our machine. I mean, if someone is "special", then why would they need to do anything to alter that? The whole indigo idea seems to try and trap the people who do not fit in to regular society. I know when looking at the "traits" of an indigo I saw a lot of myself there, but so what? I'm still a machine whether or not I am resistant to authority or creative or whatever. I always thought of the indigo distinction as a cop-out.
 
Laura, that was a really frightening essay. How does one cope? Especially over a medium such as the Internet. Who are we to trust, how are we to tell the Psychopath from the non Psychopath? I copied the article below from the Prison Planet website, I presume we can safely say that the speaker has psycopathic tendencies.


Top Scientist Advocates Mass Culling 90% Of Human Population
Fellow professors and scientists applause and roar approval at elite's twisted and genocidal population control agenda

" Dr. Eric R. Pianka who gave a speech to the Texas Academy of Science in which he advocated the need to exterminate 90% of the population through the airborne ebola virus.

Standing in front of a slide of human skulls, Pianka gleefully advocated airborne ebola as his preferred method of exterminating the necessary 90% of humans, choosing it over AIDS because of its faster kill period. Ebola victims suffer the most tortuous deaths imaginable as the virus kills by liquefying the internal organs. The body literally dissolves as the victim writhes in pain bleeding from every orifice.

Pianka also stated that China's one child policy and its accompanying police state was the perfect model for the rest of the world to follow.

Such chilling comments, and their enthusiastic reception underscore a long term agenda to enact horrifying measures of population control."
 
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