Psychopathocracy: forget the NWO, it's psychopaths who run our world

I have to say that this is one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking articles I've read in years.

In a nutshell, the thesis presented is that psychopaths--people who are incapable of feeling for their fellow humans--have taken over the world. Psychopathy is a clearly defined form of mental deviancy, though the psychopath is often difficult to detect in society. Psychopaths are estimated at representing 5% of the general population; with males outnumbering females 10 to 1.

Because the psychopath is driven by pure calculation lacking emotion, he is an excellent mimic and thus often passes unrecognized in normal society, and uses the natural goodwill of others to his advantage. His egotism and calculation lead him to seek positions of power, and his heartlessness and skills aid him to achieve his goals. Once in place, he attracts other psychopaths and enablers to him, and over time infects, dominates, or numbs others to his worldview by exercising his power ruthlessly.

The following excerpts are from an interview with the editors of the book Political Ponerology, A science on the nature of evil adjusted for political purposes by Andrzej Łobaczewski. The author, a 90 year old Polish researcher who has spent his life studying and compiling the research of others upon the nature of psychopaths, wrote this work to explain the psychopath's profound influence upon society, focusing upon the political and economic spheres.



Laura Knight-Jadczyk and Henry See are the editors who are quoted below; the author was to frail to participate in the interview.

The full article, The Trick of the Psychopath's Trade: Make Us Believe that Evil Comes from Others, is quite long and detailed and I highly recommend it be read in its entirety, as it is a very broad and detailed discussion of the subject.

...the influence of psychopaths and other deviants isn't just one of many influences working on society, but, under the appropriate circumstances, can be the primary influence that shapes the way we live, what we think, and how we judge what is going on around us. When you understand the true nature of that influence, that it is conscienceless, emotionless, selfish, cold and calculating, and devoid of any moral or ethical standards, you are horrified, but at the same time everything suddenly begins to makes sense. Our society is ever more soulless because the people who lead it and who set the example are soulless - they literally have no conscience.

When you come to understand that the reins of political and economic power are in the hands of people who have no conscience, who have no capacity for empathy, it opens up a completely new way of looking at what we call "evil". Evil is no longer only a moral issue; it can now be analyzed and understood scientifically.


When psychopaths are the policy makers in government and the CEOs of big business, the way they think and reason - their 'morality' - becomes the common culture and 'morality' of the population over which they preside. When this happens, the mind of the population is infected in the way a pathogen infects a physical body. The only way to protect ourselves against this pathological thinking is to inoculate ourselves against it, and that is done by learning as much as possible about the nature of psychopathy and its influence on us. Essentially, this particular 'disease' thrives in an environment where its very existence is denied, and this denial is planned and deliberate.

The system that is in place is a pathological system that is at odds in a very profound way with the being or nature of most people. People of conscience are being ruled by people with no conscience. This fact is the primary injustice and is the basis for the other ills of society.

For many years this system has been covert because there were still people in high positions with conscience, but over time, they have all been replaced or disposed of in one way or another, and now the pathology of the system is out in the open, but nobody cares. If you look back over the history of the past fifty years or so, you will find that nearly every public figure who has died tragically was one who had conscience, concern for people, and influence enough to make waves against the pathological types.

in a society dominated by pathological values, if one can call them that, the existence of a small group of conscienceless people promoting a culture of greed and selfishness creates an environment where the pathological becomes the norm. In a society, such as the United States today, where the president can lie with impunity on matters of life and death, a pathological environment is created where lying becomes acceptable. Violence is acceptable. Greed is acceptable. It is part and parcel of the ideology of the American Dream, that anyone can be a success no matter who you have to hurt to do it. And, it is in what they must do to actually succeed that the seeds of pathology are sown. In that environment, people of conscience who are weak and easily influenced take on the characteristics of the pathological in order to survive and succeed. They see that their leaders lie and cheat, and they figure that if they want to get ahead, then they can lie and cheat as well.

Psychopathy is an adaptive life strategy that is extremely successful in American society, and thus has increased in the population. What is more, as a consequence of a society that is adaptive for psychopathy, many individuals who are NOT genetic psychopaths have similarly adapted, becoming "effective" psychopaths, or "secondary sociopaths." In other words, in a world of psychopaths, those who are not genetic psychopaths, are induced to behave like psychopaths simply to survive. When the rules are set up to make a society "adaptive" to psychopathy, it makes psychopaths of everyone.

[edit on 19-2-2009 by gottago]

I’d be willing to bet a lot of officers and politicians are psychopaths. They crave power and pick the perfect positions to give them the power and respect they believe they deserve, both are positions that you can get away with a lot in. Also we’re taught from a young age to avoid questioning certain forms of authority; not questioning teachers or cops is drilled into your head. I think there are plenty of people who take advantage of that mentality.

[edit on 19-2-2009 by rapinbatsisaltherage]

Absolutely on the money. More interestingly, psychopaths are ultra violent and in perpetual fear of being found out for what they are. As individuals, psychopath will try to eliminate anyone who perceives true their nature and any institution that is dominated by them will also reflect these characteristics.

reply to post by masonwatcher


Very true--"the paranoia runs deep." One very telling detail they mention: the author had a real shocker when he tried to find texts on psychoapthy in Poland toward the end of the communist era--most of them had been removed from the important libraries!

Star&Flag.

This is the most important topic (and, by extension, thread) On ATS.

The psychology, and possibly even physiology, of the people who tend to float up into the positions of power will typically favour cold, callous individuals. This goes a long way into explaining why things go so terribly wrong with politics when most people can see the solutions are easy.

Take for example the housing credit crisis. Why not just pay everyone's mortgage, it was a fraction of the bailout? Because the psychos who control the system had other, self serving, plans. This psychology explains our entire economic problems, our entire social panorama imo. It explains why we will always use technology that is profitable for the few instead of good for the many. And, we normal people are in part to blame, because our tendency to seek good makes us turn our back on evil, and that makes us vulnerable to it. Because these people want to stab us in the back, it's their nature. Betrayal for profit is their MO.

I would add that this is possibly a genetic trait and probably goes further to explain the bloodlines of power than the illuminati type conspiracy theory. We are parasited by family lines of psychopaths who see control as a survival mechanism.

I don't think it's accurate to say they are devoid of emotions, I think it's more a case of them being fear based emotional beings, that tend to gravitate to negative energy. Perhaps with a touch of sadism, which could be seen as a misswireing of the pleasure centers in the brain. What they are, for sure, is emotionally atypical, the very far end of the bell curve of human emotional development.

I just wish this thread gets the atention it deserves, because unless the majority of the population realises this problem we will never be able to solve it and setup the checks and balances needed to prevent it.

Bravo.

Thank you Zepherian for your insightful post and support of this thread; I have to agree I find this thesis absolutely compelling.

Originally posted by Zepherian
And, we normal people are in part to blame, because our tendency to seek good makes us turn our back on evil, and that makes us vulnerable to it. Because these people want to stab us in the back, it's their nature. Betrayal for profit is their MO.

We truly aren't to blame, as we are being lied to, but we must become aware as a society of the danger of psychopaths in power; education is key. Problem is, as the article makes clear, people do not understand the psychological mechanisms used against them on the one hand, and a good percentage of the population--they estimate about 20%--are complicit by taking up psychopathic traits and thinking themselves, "normalizing" it.

I would add that this is possibly a genetic trait and probably goes further to explain the bloodlines of power than the illuminati type conspiracy theory. We are parasited by family lines of psychopaths who see control as a survival mechanism.

You are absolutely right; psychopathy is indeed mainly inherited and runs in certain families, and you give an extremely perceptive analysis. However, some psychopaths are created by extreme childhood traumas and actual physical traumas to the brain.

I don't think it's accurate to say they are devoid of emotions, I think it's more a case of them being fear based emotional beings, that tend to gravitate to negative energy. Perhaps with a touch of sadism, which could be seen as a misswireing of the pleasure centers in the brain. What they are, for sure, is emotionally atypical, the very far end of the bell curve of human emotional development.

Actually, the lack of empathy is the defining trait of the psychopath. He does have emotions, of course, but they are selfish ones: greed and self-gratification are paramount. The psychopath lives in the now, and seeks power and gratification. He has no morality; lies are effortless. Clearly, since psychopaths can be created by physical trauma to the brain, as well as the trait being passed genetically, it is indeed a neurological disorder.

[edit on 19-2-2009 by gottago]

I have noticed that in most positions of power on whatever level the behavior is sociopathic in nature. I wonder if it is possible that this set up is deliberate. Is it possible that TPTB have set up the system to generate so much negativity that is is sociopathic. The system is set up to be competive and based on scarcity.

Originally posted by gottago
Thank you Zepherian for your insightful post and support of this thread; I have to agree I find this thesis absolutely compelling.

You're more than welcome, it's rare to see such a focally important insight on such a massively big problem. This should be the focus of all conspiracy theory from now on, the backdrop to it.

Originally posted by Zepherian
And, we normal people are in part to blame, because our tendency to seek good makes us turn our back on evil, and that makes us vulnerable to it. Because these people want to stab us in the back, it's their nature. Betrayal for profit is their MO.

We truly aren't to blame, as we are being lied to, but we must become aware as a society of the danger of psychopaths in power; education is key. Problem is, as the article makes clear, people do not understand the psychological mechanisms used against them on the one hand, and a good percentage of the population--they estimate about 20%--are complicit by taking up psychopathic traits and thinking themselves, "normalizing" it.

Many people are aware of this evil, it is part of popular culture, especially in latin countries that have a distrust of authority. Old cultures are aware but still complicit. Most people don't want to look at the "dark side". Which is to say deal with psychopaths. I can't say I blame us, although I originally did say that...

I would add that this is possibly a genetic trait and probably goes further to explain the bloodlines of power than the illuminati type conspiracy theory. We are parasited by family lines of psychopaths who see control as a survival mechanism.

You are absolutely right; psychopathy is indeed mainly inherited and runs in certain families, and you give an extremely perceptive analysis. However, some psychopaths are created by extreme childhood traumas and actual physical traumas to the brain.

Yes, it's not a one dimensional phenomena, there is plenty of variations, although the lack of empathy as the main symptom feeds into a stable dynamic.

I don't think it's accurate to say they are devoid of emotions, I think it's more a case of them being fear based emotional beings, that tend to gravitate to negative energy. Perhaps with a touch of sadism, which could be seen as a misswireing of the pleasure centers in the brain. What they are, for sure, is emotionally atypical, the very far end of the bell curve of human emotional development.

Actually, the lack of empathy is the defining trait of the psychopath. He does have emotions, of course, but they are selfish ones: greed and self-gratification are paramount. The psychopath lives in the now, and seeks power and gratification. He has no morality; lies are effortless. Clearly, since psychopaths can be created by physical trauma to the brain, as well as the trait being passed genetically, it is indeed a neurological disorder.

[edit on 19-2-2009 by gottago]

I maintain there are only two basic emotions, fear and love, with all the others originating from them, more complex variations of them. Greed and self gratification would fall into the fear based emotional profile, and so does the lieing, as the psychopath is, in essence, scared of the truth. The quotation about creators of history shows this. These people are not really aware of what reality is, because if they were forced to see reality they would have to see their own perverse nature, which is something they are scared with. Their hedonistic nature, their unmitigated search for self gratification could also help explain their lack of consciousness and empathy, as any emotions they do have in this sense, will be repressed under fear of the bad feelings they would cause. To feel pain for another to them is "bad" because it feels bad, while to us is good because it keeps us in stable social dynamics with people that like us. That said, nobody really seeks this empathy, we all tend to shy away from pain.

Note that the fear of the psychopath could be subconscious, it could be a reflex mechanism that does not even register as a conscious emotion, and as such is interpreted as a lack of emotion, when it could be in fact a hardwiring of the brain to function in a more reptilian manner. I would not be surprised to see studies of psychopathic brains resulting in them having a less evolved neurology, in their structure being more primitive at some level.

But yes, the article establised various types and degrees of psychopathy and of course there is the people who just acquire psychotic behaviour patterns and repress emotions, so I won't pretend to have all the answers, although I do think the fear based emotion angle could use some investigation.

In past times of great personal pain due to the pain or death of others I did find myself repressing that empathy and those emotions out of fear, and I have noticed that this tendency, over time, lead me to develop character traits which, while certainly not psychopathic, were a bit borderline, and I was aware of the ability to rationally manipulate others that were themselves in normal emotional patterns. I didn't do it, and eventually got over my own fear of the emotions provoked by empathy, although I am a bit cold headed I can feel other's pain, but I was aware that a rational mind in an emotional context has leverage. Psychopaths probably live by this mantra. At least for me this awareness was born of fear.

What prevented me from falling into the mindset was an acute tendency for self examination, autocriticism, something which also seems to be lacking in the studied personality types. It's not such a fine line, with study and publication an effective system of diagnostic could be setup to catch the 6% mentioned in the article before they get to do sistemic damage.

Starred and flagged.

I 100% agree with this topic.

In a society that is dominated by the merciless, the greedy and the ruthless, anyone who exists within that society has to put up their guards (which takes energy) or adapt to the reality.

This is why ruthless people make great business men, why liars make great salesmen, why violent people dominate the weak.

Because our laws, our boundaries of existance are at the fate of those in control. Our violent and greedy leaders.
I don't believe everyone is psychopathic though, although the qoute about people acting psychopathic to adapt is correct.

Unfortunately these rules are ingrained at educative levels of learning experience and free thinkers amd creative people usually have to hide their potential until sometimes it's too late.

But, one cannot be too negative, as i say... Not everyone is psychopathic and one also has to realise that generally the nature of the common person is good. It's social structuralism that can change the 'mood' of a person, as some societies lean towards peace, you will find it's usually 'outside' elements that choose or desire to destory such beliefs.

I also believe somwhow (i don't know why), that harbouring ill thought can be toxic for the human body (soul?)...... Even the most determined of evil people will harbour slight guilt, which i think will nag and nag and nag the soul. Only those truly sick will not understand the emotion of guilt.

Guilt is natures way of culling the evil. If such a beast exists with no concept of guilt (say a paedophile) then society will use the psychopathic law against them in the form of a vigilante mob.... Sometimes evil is used against itself.

As i say, just a theory of mine. Hope i've made sense.

peace

Great thread and spot on the money (so to speak)...

This is why systems such as capitalism are dangerous, it's a system in which we are expected to have faith and hope that those who are in control are not psychopaths...

Why do you think the 'hope and faith' aspect of western religion is so conditioned into us?

Their 'power' is an illusion, and only exists as long as no one questions it.

Well look. Someone wrote a book on what I've been thinking for a while now.

Yes, I agree. Many people in leadership positions are sociopaths.

Even when people KNOW that someone is a sociopath, for sure and certain, they often STILL defend the person and their behaviours.

So while I would love it for people to understand that sociopathology has an immense and disproportionate amount of power in our cultures and societies, I would still be disappointed in them if they did know. Because they still wouldn't care. Cultures and religions would still tell women to bow before the sociopath. They would still give the man that is a sociopath ultimate power and back him up. People around the sociopaths would still defend them, and even get mad at others who question that. EVEN when that sociopath is doing/did horrible things to them.

The real problem is very deep, and people would need to look closely at themselves and the cultural/religious trappings they cling to and defend and rout out the features that elevate the sociopaths and encourage others to be enablers.

People don't like that. At all. You tell someone that what their pastor/rabbi/imam/cleric/guru is saying is essentially enabling abusive sociopaths, and everyone in that sect will cry about it. You tell someone that their cultural stereotype of a man is damaging to boys' psyches by encouraging to either be sociopaths or enable and admire sociopaths - people will cry about it.

People LOVE their cultures and their religions and their memes MORE than logic, more than they love themselves and their children. They equate looking that deeply at their fundamental memes as worse than death.

But it would be the only way to rout it out. Because it is rampant in all cultures and societies.

[edit on 2009/2/20 by Aeons]

This is a great thread.

Kudos.

I have encountered MANY psychopaths throughout my life. It burns deep down, to see how far our society (US) has adapted these traits. I see it everywhere. I can even feel it in how people drive. Must be faster than everyone else. Must cut this person off. Must, must, must...now, Now, NOW!!!

A few years ago I encountered a very charming, highly intelligent psychopath. I value intelligence, and spiritual matters. He was very knowledgeable so I gravitated towards him. The tricky part about psychopaths, that took me forever to learn, is that they'll tell you 99 truths just to implant 1 lie.

This guy "taught" me for about a year. By the end of it, my psyche was so jumbled up, I went into a fit. I was living with this guy at the time. Locked myself in my room for 3 days straight. When I came out, I knew it was him. I knew he was a psycho. I left and never talked to him again.

Last year I reacquainted myself with an old friend. We used to hang back in the rave days, and would party all night. I became aware, shortly into this relationship, that she was lying to me. She would spout out nonsense, and expect me to gobble it up.

I called her out, stating that friendship is based around trust and respect. How could I have either for her, if she continuously lied to me. She refused to accept that she lied, even when it was incredibly obvious.

The last straw was when she insisted her babies-daddy stole $60 from her, and she needed it or her dad would flip. I gave it to her. She basically kicked me out right after, ignored me for two days, then called me upset because she'd been high on speed for two days, and she "said" she felt bad.

In reality, she just wanted me to come over with a J.

Psychopaths will lie, cheat, steal, and seriously, for real, THINK NOTHING OF IT. They will become upset if you try to figure them out. They will ditch you like that, and will be upset if you try to contact them again!!

They are TRULY wired differently.

If you encounter someone, who is charming, and intelligent, be careful. Not all will be psycho's, but I bet many of them are.

I've thought for the longest time that the people at the top are all psychos. It just makes sense.

This is what we're truly up against. Conscienceless, short-sighted, inhumane scum, that don't care about us in the least. This is why I see no other solution, besides beheading those b&$tards.

I think you guys are right ,I've thought about this before in a Darwinian kind of way ,when I see how the human race periodically gets culled of all free thinking dissenters and Horrible word Socialists

Seems Psychopaths like sheeple because they are easy to exploit and control,the list of past world leaders who are nothing more than serial killers with a license to kill is to long to relate

I'm sure all of you can supply a name off the top of your heads

Hitler
Stalin
Pol Pot
Kim Jong Ill
oh just a whole bunch

and they seem to target ,those who stand for life love and equality,how screwed up is it that we allow this?

reply to post by invisiblewoman


Yes, it's quite obvious, once you "get it," to identify psychopathic behavior in world leaders. Your list is the most obvious ones in recent history. But if you look at post-WW II US history, you have to single out the Nixon and Bush II administrations as being the most compelling examples.

One of the most telling anecdotes about Bush II was a reporter who drove with him while he was still gov. of Texas, and asked him about an appeal from a woman on death row who'd been born again; whether he'd give her clemency. Bush's reply was something to the effect of, "Oh, please don't kill me, boo-hoo," followed by his famous smirk and a laugh.

When you look at the administration, you can single out Cheney, Rumsfeld, Woo, Wolfowitz, Addington, Feith and Wurmser in particular, the PNAC and Neocon crowd, and you can then look at their cheerleaders--Fox News is basically a den of psychopaths, as well as Rush Limbaugh and the whole lot of hate-spewers on talk radio. And about Limbaugh, right now on ATS is a thead reporting that he has linked liberals to rapists and murderers. Well well.

So basically you had a knot of psychopaths making policy--first strike, GWOT, the plot to invade Afghanistan before 911, likewise Iraq, the NSA wiretapping, Patriot Act, Katrina, and on and on.

Then, of course, Enron is a perfect example of a corporation built and run by psychopaths--they thought nothing shaking down California for all it was worth, before TSHTF and they bailed out, leaving their emplyees and shareholders royally--well, we all know the word.

Well, it all seems obvious in hindsight, doesn't it?


[edit on 20-2-2009 by gottago]

Good to see this thread take off somewhat, as the topic really is that important. This deserves to stay on the frontpage of ATS for a while, so call your friends

I think the only real long term solution to this problem is for humanity, if we can as a species become aware of psychopathocracy, to deinvest ourselves progressively from vertical control structures and into a more networked peer based model. Tomorrow's nations should not have power figures, we need to function more as a colective, in some form of participative democracy. This has to also happen on the corporate side of things, so that we can inject some truth and ethics back into the system instead of just submitting to psychopathic control systems. Family businesses would be great to build a free economy on, and corporate growth has to be limited so there are less control positions for psychopaths to aspire to.

The majority has to change the system, we will never solve the problem by focusing on the psychos, as, with a 6% percentile talked about, we will never be rid of them, since power is centralized so much that most power structures control way more than 100 people, which gives the psychopaths a clear shot at power.

This will probably not be an easy or short process. Interesting times.

This is a very interesting thread to me.

I had one of those "interesting" childhoods, and around age 15 the day after my birthday, apparently overdosed on years of trauma and a big highlight of it, I woke up and literally my first thought was "everything is different now." I laid in bed thinking about it, but I couldn't really put my finger on what it was. But something inside me was.

It took quite awhile to understand that I had lost my emotions. I could feel them, as distantly as a dream you still remember from when you were about 5, but that was all. I felt nothing. After awhile I started thinking this was a great evolution on my part; I still lived in hell, so it was... helpful, not to live in terror and grief all the time. It made me feel tougher. I wasn't weak anymore, you couldn't hurt me anymore.

But it was more than that. I'd always had a very good mind, and my memory verged on photographic and audiographic, I read ridiculously well and was very multitasking and in general, was not brilliant but felt confident of myself in this regard. But much of that... expanded. I don't mean I got smarter, it was more like I got... more 'aware'. It was an increase more in quality than quantity, a bit ineffable and difficult to explain. But mostly it was in relationship to a kind of extreme paranoia. I felt as if 'pieces of me' existed in 'levels' and during an emotional event for example, they would all be narrating to me what was going on. (I dont' mean I heard voices. I was just 'aware of the awareness of parts of myself that seemed to have a different perspective'.) Immense "powers of observation" is mainly what I mean, making me aware of the motivation of others, of behaviors so subtle most poker players would miss it.

When I was about 17 I had been studying (on my own) hypnosis, cult psychology and some other topics of interest (stemming, I think now, from vividly remembering a very close-up UFO experience with my best friend when I was 8; but at the time I didn't connect the timing of that). I had pretty quickly learned that in simple conversation I could bring anybody to any conclusion I wanted and they would think it was their doing; I could do it while seemingly arguing the opposite point, which I found amusing to do for awhile. Later when introduced to NLP I began to understand a lot more of that.

And I began to realize that I was changing in some odd ways. The first way was that thanks to my loss of emotions, it was getting a lot easier to deal with people/things that upset me in a peaceful way. But it wasn't that I felt peaceful. In fact, my inner rage seemed to have amplified by several orders of magnitude. The smallest insult brought a 3 second visualization of the most gory murder of the person imaginable, but it was all mental--not emotional--and my behavior was more calm than ever.

I read some book around that time that mentioned sociopathy and it occurred to me that I was like this fictional character in the book; I seemed so harmless on the outside, but I was a monster on the inside. I thought about this a lot for awhile.

Then I read a magazine article one day about some study done on sociopaths in prison. It talked about brain chemicals and other issues. It basically said -- or this is what I remember getting from it -- that humans beings need to feel like they need to eat or have vitamin C. If you don't get that, you start getting side effects, deformations, and eventually when it becomes critical, all kinds of extreme behaviors take over. They described visualizations seeming to be much more extreme for these people at first, as if their mental temper was way out of control, though their physical temper was almost nonexistent. This was the mind's way of attempting to create feeling in the person via "shock value".

(continued in next)

Starred and flagged also.

That the leaders in politics and business are psychopaths is not really a great question to me. I think it is clear that they are.

The movie the Corporation laid this case out years ago.



The question I have is what does that say about us? They did not gain power, nor could they have maintained it without our consent. Either explicit, or tacit.

I think that seeing them for what they are is important, but I think that more important is that we realize that those we elevate to positions of power and whom we allow to remain there, says something very disturbing about us collectively as well.



[edit on 23-2-2009 by Illusionsaregrander]

(continued)

Eventually it got into their behavior and anything from child molesting to axe murdering eventually occurred and it wasn't that they were angry, or did it over drugs or a woman; it was more like some deep part of them needed so profoundly to FEEL that they would do just about anything to FORCE feeling. Which often meant the most horrifying extremes; it took a lot to get through to them, to make them feel even briefly.

If you nutritionally deprive a person in certain ways, they will eventually do all kinds of crazy stuff to get what they need (modern dieting examples this beautifully). It's a physiological thing that becomes a psychological thing.

I decided that I was a closet sociopath. I was smart enough to understand that this was a side effect of my charming childhood and that if I ever wanted to be truly happy, I was going to have to fix myself somehow. Fortunately I was deep in hypnosis studies and that seemed like the one thing that had the potential to help me, that I could do on my own, that I could afford, that wouldn't take until I was 72.

I was around 17 then. I started making up hypnosis tapes that would take me through positive emotions and would say, "I love you!" to myself with a smile like a loving mother (my mom died when young, if that's relevent) and was surprised at how it made me feel when in really deep trance. I wasn't healed, but I was working on it. I eventually made a lot of decisions in my life that focused on trying to "get my head straight" rather than other things I wanted to do also, since it seemed like a priority.

After years of that, and other things, one day I was house sitting at my parents around age ... 24 maybe, don't recall exactly. I was watching this movie 'Peggy Sue Got Married', where Kathleen Turner looks back at her teens, and how she ended up in her situation, and thought, if she knew then what she knew now, everything would be different. The movie's about seeing her 50's teen era (Nicolas Cage is great in that) through her adult eyes and I rather like it. At the end she realizes that she makes the same decision she did back then, and there's a 'touching' part, and I started crying. I hadn't cried in longer than I could remember.

I couldn't stop. I cried hysterically and then I laughed maniacally until I passed out, exhausted. I woke up and did another cycle of crying and laughing until I passed out again. I did this off and on for a couple of days. It was really something.

And I woke up, and I thought: everything's different now. And I remembered having that exact thought when I was 15, and I understood that somehow, I'd unlocked it, it had worked.

For years I cried at the drop of a hat over everything. I felt "bubbly and turbulent and fragile" inside for a couple years. To this day I cry over commercials, anything, I have a 12 year old who laughs at me about it. A couple of things were side effects of that ~7 year period:

(continued)

(continued)

First is that the day after the laughing/crying thing had passed, when I woke up knowing everything was different, later that afternoon I realized I was really, REALLY different, and it took me awhile to figure out what had changed in me. I'd spent years working on self hypnosis so I knew myself pretty well but this was different. I finally realized that about 60% of what you might call my intelligence, memory, observational skills, etc.--which had so amplified when that circumstance came about--had vanished. I kind of giggled at that (which caused a new crying spell) thinking that I had gotten suddenly stupider and the really funny part was that I didn't care. I sort of understood, on some level, that those "qualities" were there in part to protect me, because I thought I needed them, that they took an immense amount of energy (paranoia-based energy) to maintain, and that I didn't need all that anymore.

The other thing was that around age 25, I realized that I was about emotionally 15, if that. I literally had ceased to develop during that time, and now I was in a world of adults and wasn't really up to it. To some degree I suspect I am still (at age 43) a little behind on this, but particularly in my 20s and early 30's. I was especially oblivious (ironic, given my previous awareness of people's motivations) to things like sexual come ons; people could literally be taking off my clothes before I realized they were not just REALLY friendly!

When I was 17, I came very close to that archetype: of stabbing my stepmother about 82 times and then writing bad names on the wall in her blood. She was an undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic greatly responsible for getting me to that situation, and honestly, I understand that is an illness and she just needs treatment, but if anybody ever deserved such a horrible fate . . . anyway, I resisted not for the slightest feeling of concern or shock about it, but because I loved my (never-present) father and I didn't want to hurt him, and because I reasoned that having spent much of my life imprisoned on 'room restriction', for years and years, that spending my adult life in actual prison would be so very unfair. One day she said something to me and I looked at her, and the look on her face was priceless. I realized at that moment, that all of me--my complete sociopathy at that point, and that her continued breathing was at great risk--must have just suddenly become clear to her. She was openly afraid of me from that time and actually didn't bother me much after that. Not long later -- when she no longer had me as a point of torture -- she freaked out and my father and she separated.

Having had this experince and recovered from it, I have a fairly good recognition of sociopathy in others when I see it. There is a surprising amount of it around. I do think that a full-on 'psychopath' is a specific label with specific traits, but I happen to believe that sociopathy is basically a gradient scale.

The first half of the scale is filled by normal people who are adapting to their environment. The second half is the range filled by people who have passed into actual sociopathy.

As an aside to all this, back in the 90's I saw this movie called "The Zero Effect" with Ben Stiller and Bill Pullman. I was convinced that Jake Kasdan, who wrote the screenplay, had to have known someone like me-- someone who actually had that experience, and his character in the movie -- an utterly screwed up, like emotionally a kid, unusually brilliant, overly paranoid person -- says the very thing -- "One day I woke up, and everything was different." I mused on that for awhile, thinking that there must be other people who have had that experience, that it found its way into mainstream media.

I believe a better understanding of this fundamental issue of human drive and behavior would radically change our perspective on everything.

PJ

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
The question I have is what does that say about us? They did not gain power, nor could they have maintained it without our consent. Either explicit, or tacit.

I think that seeing them for what they are is important, but I think that more important is that we realize that those we elevate to positions of power and whom we allow to remain there, says something very disturbing about us collectively as well.

I once wrote in a little fiction novel, around age 19, that the situation was not really that power corrupts. It was that only the corrupt have the stomach for power.

Which reminds me (speaking of psychopathy) that in the same novel I also had a line that said something like, "What does it mean that a man is good to those he loves? Capone was generous to his friends; Hitler loved his dog. The measure of a man is not how he treats his friends. It is how he treats his enemies." I used that as a tag line in the old KERMIT days (my god, I'm dating myself now).

I've thought about this a lot. I've thought about it in relationship to UFOlogy (I have a case study of a few years of "anomalous experences" I had, at www.bewilderness.com... ), that it appears we take the people who are the most shallow, unimaginative, personally limited, psychically obtuse (both in psi and in psyche) and then we make 'experts' out of them and our whole culture is run (and repressed) by this shallow scientism that renders human experience into irrelevency and mundane trivia into signs of expertise.

I've thought about it in relationship to politics as well, like in the case of feminism. I'm female, but in thought-process I think more masculine than most, if there is such a thing (for years my internet friends thought PJ was a man and they were astounded when I had a child. It had just never come up!). My exposure in early life to 'feminism' was something like, 'man hating butch psychos working a political agenda' and it really had nothing to do with 'women' except as a great doorway for all that venom. To me, nuns and housewives are just as equal as a business woman and anything that didn't seem even interested in that--as if having children and loving men was some kind of crime--well I had a problem with that. I often wondered, why did women do this? I could go into any crowd of women and find they all had opinions about it and maybe 1 in 50 actually agreed with the people attempting to 'represent women' and of those, only a few with even half the vociferous volume the NOW group pushed. They had 10K members and a tiny fraction voted; ok so maybe they weren't really qualified to 'represent' 150 million women in the USA, ya think. I never read it but I heard of a book title called "Who Stole Feminism?" or something like that, which seems perfect to me. Why do women LET those bozos 'represent' them?

But when I think of these things, I realize the problem is that only two forces drive people: love and fear. Love doesn't usually drive you to politics. Fear gives people immense bonding-against-common-enemy social power, and ever-driving-on persistance.

Normal people don't WANT to deal with it. We let stupid corrupt evil people govern us for the same reason we let our beautiful husbands, brothers and sons go to war: in order to 'deal with that' it would require we totally refocus our personality on that issue, become strident and driven, and it would change who we are.

We don't want to become them in order to fight them.

PJ


[edit on 23-2-2009 by RedCairo]