Psychopaths
 
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Psychopaths are predators. People who fall prey to psychopaths are always damaged. It may take a very long time to recover. It is worth taking a little time to learn who and what they are to avoid the pain. Psychopaths are not understood by people who are relatively reasonable and responsible citizens because most do not have a view that a psychopath is that much different from themselves or other people they know. Psychopaths catch people unaware because most people are not out seeking to harm others as are psychopaths. Most people do not understand the damage that psychopaths do to others; most people have grave difficulty understanding what happened to them and why after they encounter a psychopath who damages them, often forcing people to spend a life time attempting to recover from the encounter.
Up until people actually encounter a psychopath, they are fascinated with the psychopath. People are curious: What makes them tick? Why do they do the things they do? How do they get away with that stuff? After the encounter, most people are hurting, determined never to repeat the experience.
Psychopaths are proficient in reading people. They know how people will react to them. They push all the buttons. One psychopath said in a rare moment of honesty:
"It's so easy!"
He meant that it is so easy for a psychopath to manipulate people, to do whatever the psychopath wants to do to others. Professional researchers doing studies on psychopaths, knowing that the person they were researching really was a psychopath, have fallen into the trap of cooperating with the psychopath. Their lives have been ruined, and they knew better. Psychopaths are persuasive because they not only read a person's desires, their body language, the speech patterns, the psychopath can pinpoint a person's weaknesses and exploit them for all they are worth. Psychopaths are experts on techniques of seduction.
To simplify the basics of what a psychopath is, the following are the characteristics of a psychopath:
True psychopaths also have a poor integration of the two hemispheres of their brain. Dr. Hare also noted that the psychopath does not have human brainwave patterns. For functional purposes, psychopaths could very well be considered not human. At the very least, they do not have any value systems akin to that of humanity. Psychopaths can be determined by both contextual behavior and by physiological components of the brain. Psychopaths generally come to full flower in the last years of adolescence. Some researchers believe that a component of negative stressful personal experience is needed to set the personality of a psychopath. Poor behavioral controls mean that a psychopath will do pretty much whatever he thinks to do: The only reason he does not kill you today is that it does not appeal to him. If a psychopath wants to do something, he goes and does it and has little or no self-control.
Narcissistic behavior means that usually a psychopath is looking for a narcissistic source. The psychopath is generally quite possessive about his narcissistic source. This is found in evidence with the girlfriend of a psychopath who is generally regarded by the psychopath as his property, in the same way an inanimate object is a possession. A psychopathic cult leader views his followers as his property. Any interference by an outside force that would remove the "possession" of a psychopath is met with extreme hostility, usually accompanied by corresponding extreme force.
The psychopath can never be expected to be reasonable. As a narcissist, he does not care about other people's feelings. Although a psychopath may be able to read and manipulate the emotions of other people, the psychopath--just as the narcissist--can never feel one real shred of empathy for anyone else but himself. For this reason, there are no emotional repercussions for a psychopath to lie, cheat, steal, practice deception, murder, slander, libel, rape, distress, oppress, enslave, victimize, abuse, assault, neglect or break promises. The psychopath follows no rules but his own and sees other people as objects to use as his own personal property as it suits him. Most people cannot understand this aspect of the psychopath. It is this lack of understanding that makes people so vulnerable to the psychopathic predator. Be aware that if you do any of those things to him, the psychopath will stop at nothing to exact painful revenge on you. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord", and the psychopath is the Lord.
Psychopaths like to take chances--for example, taunt investigators with risky behavior which may result in their discovery and capture--because it stimulates them. Most psychopaths also seem to have a high tolerance for pain.
While there are some female psychopaths, the predominance of the population of psychopaths is male. Many people may be wondering at this point about how to deal with the psychopath. Conviction and execution are good, although few psychopaths commit outright cold blooded murder, again, only because it doesn't appeal to them at the time of opportunity. The truth is that there are only two truly effective means to deal with a psychopath:
Most people do not have sufficient force to influence a psychopath. Implied threats toward a psychopath will only leave him with the accurate belief that you are weak. Most people cannot outsmart a psychopath because of the willingness of the psychopath to get their way, not because of superior intellect or wit: The means justifies the end and any and every means will be employed to achieve that end.
Never buy into the "innocent" act of a psychopath. They are method actors who can slip into their role of looking benign as easily as changing underwear. They will cock their head and knit their eyebrows as if to say, "What are you talking about!?!". They know very well. They are chameleon crocodiles who seem to blend in with sane reasonable people. They are nothing of the kind. Don't be fooled by their "I'm just one of you" acts. You will regret it. They have no understanding of empathy and don't really know what other people are feeling--and they don't even care, but they are really good at artificially simulating it. Never expect to be treated fairly: It's not in them any more than a cobra knows how to treat its prey with caring outgoing concern. They have an agenda and if you are a part of it, you will be forced into your role of completing whatever it is the psychopath has in mind.
Psychopaths will create out of thin air anything they need to invent to achieve their desired effect and make it seem reasonable. It may be completely crazy, psychotic, self-conflicted, absolute twaddle, but to the unwary it will be clear, neat, logical [and completely wrong]. We are not to be ignorant of Satan's devices, but most of us seem to be when it comes to psychopaths. As soon as you realize you are dealing with a psychopath, it is time to run for cover and sever yourself from their sphere of influence. The alternative is to stay with them to be a toy for their private amusement.
Dr. Stanley Bing in his book, What Would Machiavelli Do? tells how to "get what you want when you want it whether you deserve it or not. Without fear. Without emotion. Without finger-wagging morality. "The following are some of his exhortations:
These are all part of narcissistic behavior.
The psychopath pursues his drama in three acts:
Assessment begins immediately to determine if each person in the environment is a
During the Assessment phase psychopaths look for:
Manipulation builds and maintains the environment:
Abandonment ensues when the psychopath
Be aware that a psychopath holds everyone in contempt: There is no way to win honor because the psychopath sees himself or herself far superior to everyone else.
The lesson of the book, Snakes in Suits, is that psychopaths always win. It is well to keep that in mind. One arena which no one has really addressed is the religious cult leader psychopath. This may be a very difficult concept for some to grasp, but many cult leaders of the past and present are psychopaths. For those inclined to religious and spiritual pursuits, it is very important that they not permit themselves to be warped, deceived and subjected to distorted perceptions. The Biblical advice from the Apostle Peter to "be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour" is worth following. The Apostle Paul made the observation in Scripture, "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices". Alas, most religious and "spiritual" people are horribly devoid of any view to the devices of the Devil. Psychopaths should be considered the Devil incarnate for they follow all the practices of Satan. Jesus said of Satan, according to Scripture:
Any religious leader who practices deceptions, lies and exhibits murder in his heart through hatred, is of a Satanic mindset. Anyone to follow such a leader thinking that the leader will bring them closer to God is seriously mistaken.
Unfortunately, the psychopathic religious cult leader knows already the weaknesses of the would-be follower and is ready to give an answer to sate the fool: A fool listens only to what he wants to hear. The psychopath knows that and will tell his mark exactly what that mark wants to hear. The psychopathic religious cult leader will convince the would-be follower that he will attain the greatest of love to become part of the herd in the corral of the cult leader. It looks and sounds right to the would-be follower. Like every excellent predator, the psychopathic cult leader knows how to turn off the early warning radar of the prospective prey. The psychopath knows how to woo his prey.
Psychopaths also know how to wreck credibility. They can turn around opinions so fast that their victims don't know what hit them. Once a congregation member understands that the leader is a psychopath, the psychopathic leader senses it immediately and sets forth to turn everything around so that the congregation believes that the member is the bad guy. The member will be discredited and made a pariah, assigning attributes possessed by the leader to the hapless victim who is innocent of wrong doing. Every evil the psychopath does, he manages to pin on the victim instead. The victim is cut off without any hope of validation or even having a chance to offer a defense--usually for things he never did, but was accused of. Know too that the psychopath knows the weaknesses of those around him and will publish them when it suits him. This will add a thin venire of credibility to the very thin case against the innocent when he is convicted in a kangaroo court or just ejected without any formalities at all. The psychopath exacts his revenge by continuing the harangue through a campaign of impugning the victim with slander and libel, usually inventing credible sounding plausible garbage. The victim is also isolated. With credibility smashed, no one will listen to the one who has been thus treated to the treachery of the leader and his ever so willing cooperative accessories in the crimes. If any protests are lodged in a public venue, the psychopath will sue and threaten to sue. This is a bully with no conscience, after all, who has no qualms about ruining someone at their own expense without recourse. With the psychopath, there is no such thing as justice. If there are any rules concerning a situation, you can be certain that the psychopath will use them to his advantage and will tacitly discard them when it suits his needs, proclaiming loudly that "We have a Constitution!". Yes, a Constitution with about as much force as a third world dictatorship--and in the same sense. The cult becomes "a one man show" under the psychopath who believes he owns anything and everything in his cult without any accountability whatsoever. To request any accountability is to make yourself a target. Rules are for everyone else except for the psychopath. The psychopath follows his own rules to suit his own tastes. This is yet another reason that it is utterly impossible to deal with a psychopathic cult leader: He holds all the cards and you always lose, even after you escape his clutches. People often find the psychopath has quite a long reach, aided and abetted by laws that are broken, twisted and bent by the psychopath.
Ridicule is one of the most effective weapons in the arsenal of the psychopath. The psychopath can take carefully documented exculpatory explicit finely honed facts and turn them to mush in an instant through ridicule. Any valid points are rendered instantly moot. Effective arguments are headed off at the pass with well placed ridicule operating in an environment already prone to paranoia and suspicion. The psychopath integrates the carefully groomed paranoia and suspicion and delivers the death blow to credibility by making fun of the seriousness of the facts brought to bear, rendering them ineffectual and useless. The psychopath doesn't defend himself, he actively aggressively advances menacingly to conquer his enemies with fear heightened by the knowledge that they have lost support from everyone they ever trusted and rendered ineffectual by unfair underhanded dirty practices the victim feels ill equipped to counter and would never use himself. Being ethical becomes a serious flaw in an inequitable war on an uneven playing field tipped to the advantage of the psychopath. It's a no win, lose-lose uphill lost battle. Most of the time the best the innocent victim can do is minimize the loss of gushing blood as everything around him goes black. Remember: If you are the victim, it's going to be your blood, not a single drop of the blood of the psychopath. He brandishes the Bible as a two-edged sword to hack and hew to pieces, just to add insult to injury. He judges you from Scripture just for effect--not that he'd ever follow any of it himself except to his own advantage.
Hypocrisy abounds. The double standard lives and breathes life to the fullest. The psychopathic cult leader doesn't really follow the precepts of his own religion, but convinces everyone else to and convinces them that he does. His credibility is unassailable, even though he has deep dark secrets hidden played incredibly close to the vest. For example, he may eat donuts and drink coffee on the Day of Atonement [a fast day where nothing is consumed], only to come out to give the sermon. His lieutenants with which he surrounds himself will protect behavior like this and fully excuse it, while being certain to enforce exactingly the prescribed behavior of the membership while tolerating the proscribed behavior of the cultic psychopath. It's OK to cheat on the United States Internal Revenue Service to break the rules, but perish the thought that a lowly member be allowed to do so. The psychopath manages to avoid all appearances of evil while merrily performing laps in the cesspool of his own making. There are few parallels to this foul creature even in the animal kingdom. Creatures of the wild obey the natural laws of the Universe while the psychopath perversely commits unnatural acts against nature, all the while making it look respectable. Each religious psychopath is a triumph of image over substance and often substance abuse.
Psychopathic cult leaders are often drug abusers, with the drug of choice being mainly alcohol. Psychopathic cult leaders often drink a lot because they can hold their liquor and because they are more often than not alcoholics to boot. Ironically, the alcoholic psychopath cult leader insists that his congregation drink in moderation--whatever that means, while he, himself, has two to three full glasses of wine for his own edification, just for starters. If you watch closely, you may find it difficult to find out just how many glasses he really did have--often a nice little game for couples who have spent the evening with their cult leader. Also it is fun for couples to speculate on whether he takes a cold shower so he won't steam up the mirror.
Money is the thing, though. If the love of money is a root of all evil, then psychopathic cult leaders certainly have a lot of black roots: A little travel with trips around the world in five star hotels (not that there are members there); a nice home built on tithe money declared to be "world headquarters" while in truth there's really no need for it; back payment for work rendered years before there was a flow of money--with people wondering just what is the meaning of forgiving debts in the seventh year, when the church has to pay back an unowed debt to a psychopathic cult leader. Eating the finest red meat available is part of the picture. Violation of all temperance is standard in a psychopath since they firmly believe that they are the center of the Universe and nothing can harm them--they have the circle of God's protection, which, alas, does not extend to their competitors who are psychopathic cult leaders of a different group.
Mania is rampant in these little groups of people attempting to make sense out of a dysfunctional environment replete with extremely weird bizarre distorted perception. People work hard to make the unworkable work, often encouraged by the psychopath to "get back on track". It is an impossible track to try to track. Everything in one of these groups absorbs a great deal of resource, attempting to overcome the persistent crushing entropy created from violating the laws of the Universe in order to manipulate the environment to create something quite beyond the realm of possibility. These are the dreams and visions of the psychopath: Extreme effort with no payoff for anyone but him.
The life of the religious psychopath is filled with curious contradictions. He has no respect for others, yet it is commanded of him in Scripture. He preaches that his members love one another, but has no evident fruit of the spirit in his own life. Those around the psychopath are clearly not thinking clearly. The invisible things of the psychopath are clearly seen from the evidence of his creations of every wicked and evil deed.
Litigatinous psychopaths are often sue happy: They employ attorneys with gay abandon, willing to bankrupt their little cult if there is even a hint at a chance of making an enemy suffer. They don't care. It's not their money. It is an inexhaustible replenishable supply from their membership money machine. A psychopath doesn't care: He doesn't have to. Remember that the psychopath views others with nothing but contempt and disdain. The psychopath always expects to win. The psychopath has no fears. The psychopath believes that God is always on his side. He believes that everything will work to good. One must ask the question, if that is so, then why must the religious cult leader psychopath have to put so much faith in lawyers instead of God? Doesn't God take care of that sort of thing without our having to fight the battle with a bevy of counselors carrying their briefs into the courtroom? Isn't that insulting to God, particularly when the psychopath puts his faith in man rather than in his Creator? The answer is that the psychopath has another god--the god of this world, often in the form of money.
The psychopath often gets his followers to concentrate on really big issues by focusing their attention on world news and global conditions. This may be in part because mentally ill people are prone to be attracted to such people who seem to have such power and be bigger than life. Such people are concerned about truth and justice and become easily distracted and fully engaged in projects and experiences bigger than themselves. It gives them soul. It gives them purpose. It gives them something to focus on. The psychopath knows how to use such people by exploiting their weaknesses. He will draw them in to show them just how bad things in the world really are. He convinces them that he has all the answers. He is the one who knows the solutions to all the problems and the formula to get there. He projects care about the conditions of the less fortunate. Watch carefully the prestidigitation: He also tells his congregation to let the dead bury their dead and denies that his church should concern themselves with the lost souls of sinners who have suffered the wrath of God. The psychopath transforms himself into an angel of light while not caring one whit about anyone but himself. He oppresses the fatherless and widow and robs them of their due. The only angel of light that the psychopath transforms himself into is Lucifer.
The methods psychopaths use:
It should be clear that as long as a psychopath is involved, you will never get a clear shot at being successful at what you set out to do because you will always have interference which will cause what you are doing to get off track. You will spend a lot of time dealing with obstacles set up by the interference of the psychopath forcing you to constantly compromise while the psychopath gets away with fouling up your plans. The goal here is to utterly compromise you so you never achieve what you set out to do. Everything will be in chaotic confused disorder until you rid yourself of the scourge. Most of the time, things won't work together properly and you and others will be forced to continue to work on projects which never really come to an end and are poorly done as they progress slowly. Planning becomes irrelevant as everyone escalates innovation to mitigate ever more weird bizarre circumstances. As projects are continually and continuously reworked again and again, the lack of planning brought on by forced circumstances becomes more and more evident. At the same time, the whole mess is always covered up, often accompanied by glowing progress reports that are deceptions, if not outright lies. In the end, there is never time to do it right, only time to do it over. And over. And over. Psychopaths are notoriously unreliable, so don't bother to believe a word they say. If you depend on what they say and act on the word of a psychopath, be informed that it will come back to bite you. Case HistoriesPsychopaths are not always about Ted Bundy type serial killings. Sometimes it's just plain annoying or dangerous but not fatal. Case #1: The trailer park owner
Case #2: The cult leader
Case #3: The Violent Assault
Case #4: Another Man, another church and a fake Maserati
Case #5: Just smile and do nothing
Case #6: Because I can
Honesty is the best policyNot only is honesty the best policy, it is the only policy. The only people who will come close to "winning" are truly straight-arrow honest people. No one else even has a chance.
The psychopath will pick up instantly on whether or not you are telling the truth. He can instantly tell whether you are for real or just making threats. After all, that is the stock in trade of the psychopath and no one should expect to beat him at his own game.
Tolerance doesn't cut it. It makes a person look exceedingly weak to the psychopath.
Psychopaths live on compromise. If they can get you to give even a little, they win, take you over and walk off with all the booty. They just love to get people in a compromising situation. An example is the Dr. Hare book, where a prisoner pulls a knife. The doctor has the unpleasant choice to either call the guards or tolerate the weapon to gain credibility with the prisoners. It's a deal with the Devil. Nothing is ever gained by giving in. If you aren't 100% squeaky clean honest, the psychopath can pull that kind of junk. Honesty and integrity is the only way to go. Making promises to support someone against a psychopath and then breaking them is a formula for disaster down the road.
As long as people are willing to play along with a psychopath in the mistaken belief that it will some how be better, they will reap what they have sown. Psychopaths love games. It is a nifty challenge to them. Honesty is one of the weapons of superior force because it is something that a psychopath does not own and does not understand. One man dealing with psychopaths had a stare down with one and simply looked the psychopath in the eye and shouted at him, "Cut that out!". Resist the Devil and he will flee from you, but you have to have righteousness and integrity on your side or you will end up as shredded meat from that roaring lion snake.
If we all insisted that all the rules were followed without exception honestly, we would not have the same problems we have with psychopaths today. The truth is that police, sheriff's deputies and even FBI Agents don't want to deal with them and will do so only when the stakes are high enough to threaten the populace. Don't count on duly appointed governmental officials for any help with psychopaths even if you have all the proof you need to prove your case. You are on your own.
Always remember that you can't get something for nothing. That is what the psychopath has to offer you: Something for nothing. If you don't buy that, you probably will survive the psychopath. Survive. Not prosper. It would be well to consider just who benefits. If it is just one man at the top of the group and no one else, it is time to consider that the cult leader may be a psychopath.
Normally, if you do the same things under the same conditions, you will get the same results. In the presence of a psychopath, you can do the same things under the same conditions and get wildly differing results. Expect the strange. Expect the weird. Expect the bizarre.
As you move away from the psychopath, you will find that conditions will return to near normal, normally, very slowly. Be aware that you may never be the same, but at least you can count on process once again. |
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Snakes
in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Dr. Paul Babiak and
Be coldhearted: Replace decency and thoughtfulness with insensitivity
and hardheartedness.
Work hard to become bad: Most people aren't naturally horrendous. . .
but with work we can improve.
Be narcissistic: View others solely as a function of your needs . . .
You have enormous selfishness within you . . . Let it out.
Be unpredictable: Very nice. Very mean. Big, big swings. Gigantic
pleasure. Towering rage.
Be ruthless: For your competitors and those who would bring you down,
"Crush them. Hear their bones break, their windpipes snap."
Assessment
Manipulation
Abandonment
Benefit
Threat
As police chief of the Tacoma Police
Department, David Brame had excessive control over not just the department,
but had influence in the city government as well. A deputy was 30 days from a
promotion which would have significantly enhanced his retirement. David Brame
told him to retire or he would be fired. The man pleaded that he be given just
the thirty more days.
