Vampires do exist. They are called psychopaths or sociopaths (the words are interchangeable) and are in a true sense the undead. They appear to be very vivacious but this is an illusion. They draw their energy from those around them, especially their victims.
They have no consciences. Their characteristics include extreme manipulativeness, total egocentricity, shallow emotions, fearlessness, callousness (they lack 'warm' empathy but have 'cold' empathy, meaning they are very good at reading others' emotions), superficial charm, charisma and antisocial behaviour.
I came to know at least two of these perverse and dangerous people in Romania. Both were good-looking and highly intelligent women. One of them, let us call her Paula, matched President Mitterand's description of Mrs. Thatcher - 'the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe'.
The eyes are significant - the penetrating and prolonged psychopathic stare is part of the way in which they mesmerise their victims, while spinning lies or playing games. Another is by conversational hypnosis. They have soothing and caressing voices which enable them to lull their victims into acquiescence and even to implant ideas (commands) into the victims' minds, although when they are not using this mode their voices are very cold and tellingly ugly. Voices, unlike physical appearance, are, by the way, one of the best ways of reading people.
Psychopaths like positive people because they need to find sources of energy. People without power or energy are of no use to them.
For psychopaths most of mankind are zombies. Ayn Rand, whose philosophy is pure psychopathy, expresses the psychopath's contempt for the mass of humanity:
One characteristic psychopaths have which has not, to my knowledge, been remarked on is that they find their lives very tiring. It is draining to be a psychopath, constantly manipulating, lying and simultaneously juggling mind games with various people on various levels. Like autists, psychopaths often have photographic memories and minds that work very quickly and this too is tiring. My two psychopaths looked young and seemed vivacious both admitted that they tired very quickly and I came to realise that they were very old in their hearts. Undead. This is why, unlike the vampires of myth, both liked early nights.
Psychopaths are so good at reading and manipulating people that I finally concluded that it is about more than lightning-quick intellects: they have psychic powers, as many people do. They get into the minds of those they interact with. Paula told me that she sometimes had prophetic dreams and always knew if she was going to get her way at an encounter before it began. She could usually read people perfectly. She only failed, she told me, with stupid people and with 'a few people who wouldn't let me in at all and all of those, I discovered later, hated me. Not for any reason', she added, unconvincingly. On one of the first occasions when I met Paula, I had a psychic experience myself. I saw a black aura around her, blotting out the sunlight from a summer evening at the Marriott Hotel.
A down to earth material explnation, on the other hand s that is the psychopath's inability to feel stress which lets him see calmly and unemotionally. Psychopaths and Tibetan monks, who learn calm from meditation, detect deep emotions that are invisible to others, according to the author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths, Kevin Dutton.
Psychopaths cannot be bargained with or trusted under any circumstances. Psychopaths are dangerous and should be steered very well clear of. Apart from the harm that they delight to inflict on those around them, if they judge it safe and politic to do so, they carry around with them black clouds which occlude the happiness and joy of life. They feel savage glee and rejoice in tricks and lies but the happiness they obtain from life is most of the time thin. They are black holes. Carlyle said that 'In the moments of our greatest happiness there is something that prevents us being wholly happy. That something is nothing other than the shadow of ourselves.' That shadow makes up the psychopath's whole existence.
Dr. Martin Israel, the author of a leading work on pathology, who went on to become an Anglican priest and a famous authority on psychic forces, believed that psychopaths are:
Israel goes on to say:
This detail from Bosch's curious painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Paula's favourite painting, reminds me of her (she is, like most psychopaths, very promiscuous). The penetrating beak, the huge mouth, the underbelly being feasted on by hommes moyens sensual who are on their way to self destruction and, especially, the grasping hands.
The picture, Paula said, is 'as much about contemporary New York as Holland centuries ago. I have stared for hours at every detail trying to imagine the story behind each figure.' No doubt she did so to learn as much from it as she can, because psychopaths are only interested in knowledge they can use.
What did she learn from it? Everyone in the painting is suffering or will suffer as a result of their weaknesses, except the pitiless satanic creatures who efficiently administer the punishments and are enjoying their task.
The Satanic agents in the Garden of Earthly Delights are the only pure figures. They are like psychopaths, in fact, for psychopaths are curiously inhuman. They are evil yet not corrupt, are in fact incorruptible, although possessing all the deadly sins themselves. Psychopaths feel emotions such as savage glee, lust, greed, and most of all contempt and boredom but their emotional range is very limited and they do not have normal feelings, especially not feelings of affection, or consciences which derive from such feelings. They are the proof that Aristotle and Kant were wrong to think that virtue proceeds from reason, for psychopaths are very sane and completely rational. Conscience and virtue are functions of love not reason.
Psychopaths, when they let down their guards, seem like creatures from outer space, not humans at all, though Diana, the second psychopath I knew, said to me once that 'I still hope somewhere in me is a little shred of humanity'. I felt sorry for her, which seemed absurd. Diana also said to me, while listening to a Bach concerto: 'This was written from pure hatred.'
Psychopaths, by the way, also seem oddly to transcend their nationality, social class and even their sex. Paula and Diana, for example, in many ways seemed like homosexual men in women's bodies.
I asked Paula what this detail from the Bosch painting meant to her, but all she said was, in the dreamy voice she affects:
There seems to be a genetic basis, although this is not certain, to psychopathy. Psychopaths' brains when scanned differ from those of normal people, but brains develop in childhood, just as personality traits do. One interesting fact is that psychopaths are more likely to have blue or green eyes than the general population. If this is true then Romania has fewer psychopaths per capita for blue and green eyes are rare in this country of brunettes. But I wonder.
For more about psychopaths by me please click here and here.
Note: I have come across this interesting blog on the subject by the well-known Romanian-American novelist, Claudia Moscovici.
They have no consciences. Their characteristics include extreme manipulativeness, total egocentricity, shallow emotions, fearlessness, callousness (they lack 'warm' empathy but have 'cold' empathy, meaning they are very good at reading others' emotions), superficial charm, charisma and antisocial behaviour.
I came to know at least two of these perverse and dangerous people in Romania. Both were good-looking and highly intelligent women. One of them, let us call her Paula, matched President Mitterand's description of Mrs. Thatcher - 'the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe'.
The eyes are significant - the penetrating and prolonged psychopathic stare is part of the way in which they mesmerise their victims, while spinning lies or playing games. Another is by conversational hypnosis. They have soothing and caressing voices which enable them to lull their victims into acquiescence and even to implant ideas (commands) into the victims' minds, although when they are not using this mode their voices are very cold and tellingly ugly. Voices, unlike physical appearance, are, by the way, one of the best ways of reading people.
Psychopaths like positive people because they need to find sources of energy. People without power or energy are of no use to them.
For psychopaths most of mankind are zombies. Ayn Rand, whose philosophy is pure psychopathy, expresses the psychopath's contempt for the mass of humanity:
Do you ever feel as if the world is full of zombies? Mindless people who merely obey the dictates of society and their own emotions, showing no sign of rationality, letting others decide who and what they’re going to be in this life, regurgitating moral nostrums as if they were pearls of the highest wisdom, attacking those who are not like them and wanting desperately to turn all outsiders into exact replicas of themselves... ?
One characteristic psychopaths have which has not, to my knowledge, been remarked on is that they find their lives very tiring. It is draining to be a psychopath, constantly manipulating, lying and simultaneously juggling mind games with various people on various levels. Like autists, psychopaths often have photographic memories and minds that work very quickly and this too is tiring. My two psychopaths looked young and seemed vivacious both admitted that they tired very quickly and I came to realise that they were very old in their hearts. Undead. This is why, unlike the vampires of myth, both liked early nights.
Psychopaths are so good at reading and manipulating people that I finally concluded that it is about more than lightning-quick intellects: they have psychic powers, as many people do. They get into the minds of those they interact with. Paula told me that she sometimes had prophetic dreams and always knew if she was going to get her way at an encounter before it began. She could usually read people perfectly. She only failed, she told me, with stupid people and with 'a few people who wouldn't let me in at all and all of those, I discovered later, hated me. Not for any reason', she added, unconvincingly. On one of the first occasions when I met Paula, I had a psychic experience myself. I saw a black aura around her, blotting out the sunlight from a summer evening at the Marriott Hotel.
A down to earth material explnation, on the other hand s that is the psychopath's inability to feel stress which lets him see calmly and unemotionally. Psychopaths and Tibetan monks, who learn calm from meditation, detect deep emotions that are invisible to others, according to the author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths, Kevin Dutton.
Psychopaths cannot be bargained with or trusted under any circumstances. Psychopaths are dangerous and should be steered very well clear of. Apart from the harm that they delight to inflict on those around them, if they judge it safe and politic to do so, they carry around with them black clouds which occlude the happiness and joy of life. They feel savage glee and rejoice in tricks and lies but the happiness they obtain from life is most of the time thin. They are black holes. Carlyle said that 'In the moments of our greatest happiness there is something that prevents us being wholly happy. That something is nothing other than the shadow of ourselves.' That shadow makes up the psychopath's whole existence.
Dr. Martin Israel, the author of a leading work on pathology, who went on to become an Anglican priest and a famous authority on psychic forces, believed that psychopaths are:
especially powerful mediums of destructive cosmic forces, and their power is related to their intelligence and their ability to communicate on a psychic level with other people. The murderous type of dictator, so common in our century, typifies this trend to its most devastating extent.
This, I believe, is exactly right. Stalin is a very good example.
Israel goes on to say:
The end of the powers of evil, wherever we may place their origin, is world domination. But behind this outer desire for conquest there is a hidden, deeper lust for total destruction. The evil impulse looks for the death of all life, the corruption of all beauty and the perversion of all truth and justice.
Female psychopath |
The picture, Paula said, is 'as much about contemporary New York as Holland centuries ago. I have stared for hours at every detail trying to imagine the story behind each figure.' No doubt she did so to learn as much from it as she can, because psychopaths are only interested in knowledge they can use.
What did she learn from it? Everyone in the painting is suffering or will suffer as a result of their weaknesses, except the pitiless satanic creatures who efficiently administer the punishments and are enjoying their task.
The Satanic agents in the Garden of Earthly Delights are the only pure figures. They are like psychopaths, in fact, for psychopaths are curiously inhuman. They are evil yet not corrupt, are in fact incorruptible, although possessing all the deadly sins themselves. Psychopaths feel emotions such as savage glee, lust, greed, and most of all contempt and boredom but their emotional range is very limited and they do not have normal feelings, especially not feelings of affection, or consciences which derive from such feelings. They are the proof that Aristotle and Kant were wrong to think that virtue proceeds from reason, for psychopaths are very sane and completely rational. Conscience and virtue are functions of love not reason.
Psychopaths, when they let down their guards, seem like creatures from outer space, not humans at all, though Diana, the second psychopath I knew, said to me once that 'I still hope somewhere in me is a little shred of humanity'. I felt sorry for her, which seemed absurd. Diana also said to me, while listening to a Bach concerto: 'This was written from pure hatred.'
Psychopaths, by the way, also seem oddly to transcend their nationality, social class and even their sex. Paula and Diana, for example, in many ways seemed like homosexual men in women's bodies.
I asked Paula what this detail from the Bosch painting meant to her, but all she said was, in the dreamy voice she affects:
'It's so enjoyable to be eaten'.She added:
'Victims want to be victims. I really believe that.'And on this occasion she was telling the truth. This is, curiously, what all psychopaths believe and perhaps at a deep level they are often right.
There seems to be a genetic basis, although this is not certain, to psychopathy. Psychopaths' brains when scanned differ from those of normal people, but brains develop in childhood, just as personality traits do. One interesting fact is that psychopaths are more likely to have blue or green eyes than the general population. If this is true then Romania has fewer psychopaths per capita for blue and green eyes are rare in this country of brunettes. But I wonder.
For more about psychopaths by me please click here and here.
Note: I have come across this interesting blog on the subject by the well-known Romanian-American novelist, Claudia Moscovici.
Mitterand's quote on Mrs T having the body of Marilyn Monroe almost stopped me getting to the end of this great post! What was the heck was that man on???
ReplyDeleteSair Jay
Actually I got it wrong. Mitterand is supposed to have said the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe. And according to the very reliable Charles Moore her official biographer what he really said was ‘the voice of Marilyn Monroe and the eyes of Stalin.'
ReplyDeleteMrs Thatcher's official biographer not MM's.
ReplyDeleteArcane, literate and always engaging blog. Alex Woodcock-Clarke
ReplyDeleteI can attest that this article is excellent and accurate in the general description of the traits of the psychopath, below: "They have no consciences. Their characteristics include extreme manipulativeness, total egocentricity, shallow emotions, fearlessness, callousness (they lack 'warm' empathy but have 'cold' empathy, meaning they are very good at reading others' emotions), superficial charm, amounting sometimes to a kind of charisma, and antisocial behaviour."
ReplyDeleteAlso, the description of the psychopaths' hypnotic, mesmerizing approach is also very accurate. They have amazing hypnotic abilities, by repetition, telling you what you want to hear, distraction techniques from the lies, and intense, predatory focus. So, in short, an excellent article!
Fascinating article and I wonder where you found out so much about this subject...My only question is this: are you sure a sociopath and psychopath are the same things? I'm not so sure
ReplyDeleteWell definitions differ - psychopath is a word whose meaning is agreed on but conjures up misleading images of violent criminals - most psychopaths go to the office each morning. Some people get very heated about the putative distinction between sociopaths and psychopaths but I contend that there is no difference - both suffer (but suffer is the wrong word since they revel in it) from what was once called moral insanity.
ReplyDeleteI've written a lot about this issue and you can learn more about the distinctions between psychopathy and sociopathy (and ASPD) at the link I've put...
Deleteas well as a lot more about psychopathy and its potential influence with many resources on it.
'Officially' psychopathy and sociopathy are both just ASPD = Antisocial personality disorder
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of alcoholics and drug addicts: before I started working with them I thought they were the crazed drunks and crashing boors one comes across on the streets. Some are like that and others are holding down a job.
ReplyDeleteYou must read The Shining. I was surprised how brilliant it is. It is a careful analysis of the slow breakdown of a good man into psychopathy (I was particularly interested as it's also about his descent into relapse; the main character is an alcoholic)
It would add to your insight
I do not believe you can break down into psychopathy - except - but this is doubtgul - in childhood. Psychopathy is NOT a mental illness in any way but a way of being. Maybe compare it - though it is very different - with autism.
ReplyDeletepsychopathy and the color of the eye - that sounds almost corny.. :)Sorry, this article is written for people hardly waiting to get scared of something, just anything... Yes, I might sound like a psycopath now (you said psycopatchs have no fear), don't mind that anyway :)
ReplyDeleteI meet such kind of woman, she destroyed me and let me in the shit for 10 years. She took a lot of good success from me, she is now marketing manager @ orange romania.
ReplyDeleteThe 48 Laws of Power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_48_Laws_of_Power
ReplyDeleteWouldn't have thought to look for Conversation among the demons of Bosch, or for any other beloved character, for that matter - the painting always seemed cartoonish [if in the best sense of word].
ReplyDeleteWouldn't have thought to look for Conversation among the demons of Bosch - or for any other deeply ingrained pleasure, for that matter.
ReplyDeleteThe 48 Laws of Power is taught in business management classes and is one of the most requested books in American prison libraries.
ReplyDelete=))
For those readers interested in American politics, Diana was a huge admirer of Mr Bush for starting a war in which so many died. Paula very much likes Mr Romney, from a mixture of self-interest and desire to see Darwinian principles triumph. But psychopaths come in various political hues. While it is true that most British criminals vote Conservative, many serial killers read The Guardian. Psychopaths are not usually racist, though they may pretend to be for various reasons, including as an excuse for violence. Abstractions like race, nationality or class do not usually interest them very much except where they are useful to them. Paula, for example, once said to me, 'I am not racist at all. I love black people, so long as they are rich and powerful black people. It's only black people who aren't rich and powerful that I hate.' She feels exactly the same about white people.
ReplyDeleteCan you explain in more detail why she liked Mitt Romney? What do you mean 'to see Darwinian principles triumph' ?
DeleteOh man!!!!!! very dark indeed.
ReplyDeleteCrikey, Thanks Paul. As i was so disturbed out by my ex's aura,
ReplyDeleteI went to see a medium who said that these people home
in on trusting people like you. She likened it to radar detection.
The reference to the black cloud or shadow, I have seen and felt this around my psychopathic ex.
ReplyDeleteI can only liken it to a really evil haunting. I'm sometimes feel it now and again
Yes.
DeleteWell, I met some too, businessmen and politicians, male and female, vampires like you said. I stay away from biological characteristics, they always get you into trouble and they produced so much misery in history that.. These are just assumptions. But these people are real, and I think you are right, they believe victims want to be victims, and Rand is a perfect example into their world. I do not think they have cosmic powers, they are just cold manipulative and selfish people. Sorry about your experiences, Paul. Bianca Guruita
ReplyDeleteThanks, Paul, for a fascinating and haunting article. On the lighter side: the world's premiere authority on psychopaths, a Canadian professor, has said that if he were conducting research and needed to find a pool of psychopaths for study purposes, the first place he'd look would be in prisons; and the second would be the stock exchange!
ReplyDelete-Gregory Rogers
Could be.
ReplyDeleteFascinating article, Paul! Bravo! I wonder if true love wouldn't be able to break through to the souls of the psychopaths, or would even the most powerful love not suffice to change their nature? I wonder if the women you mention have families/children. Dana C.
ReplyDeleteI think nothing can change them except a miracle but they do love their children and parents in their strange way - that sort of love is instinctive and hard-wired I think. They also have infatuations - short-lived.
DeleteWhat exactly do you mean by cosmic forces?
ReplyDeleteI really do not know what I mean exactly. Martin Israel, a very interesting Anglican mystic, says this:http://www.martinisrael.u-net.com/exorcism/chapter7.html
Deletehttp://www.psychopath-research.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3673/all/www.psychopath-research.%20com
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Why describing this human type without conscience, manipulative, without "warm empathy," but full of "cold empathy" and with green or blue eyes, seems so familiar? .. Does pshychopathy and sociopathy are not the actually diseases, but natural manifestation of another species, barely concealed among us, humans, living on our expense? .. rhetorical questions.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good description of psychopaths. The one description that I find valid is that they don't have a mental illness as such, but what you say a moral insanity. Claudia
ReplyDeleteI've found another description (besides the one given by a man in 12th century China that I posted a while ago) of psychopaths in a 'traditional culture':
ReplyDelete'Psychiatric anthropologist Jane M. Murphy describe Inuit concept of kunlangeta, which refers to a person whose “mind knows what to do but does not do it.” Murphy writes that in Northwest Alaska, kunlangeta [psychopath] “might be applied to a man who, for example, repeatedly lies and cheats and steals things and does not go hunting, and, when other men are out of the village, takes sexual advantage of many women.” Inuits tacitly assume that kunlangeta is irremediable. And so, according to Murphy, traditional Inuit approach to such a man was to insist that he go hunting, and, in the absence of witnesses, push him off the edge of ice.'
Here's the link: http://simonarich.com/what-you-should-know-about-psychopaths
Two random things that I've noticed about psychopaths: most of them don't enjoy getting massaged and the seaside. I wonder why.
ReplyDeleteRebecca from the novel 'Rebecca' is a psychopath too. I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned by anyone until now.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article. I've always felt this painting to be quite symbolic of modern society and the realities we live in. As you noted, "The upside-down postures mean that morality itself has been turned on it's head, trapping the deceived." We live in a society that has thoroughly undergone the satanic principle of inversion; lies are truth, enslavement is freedom, evil is holy.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying psychopaths don't have psychic powers, but is it also possible some are reading the most micro of micro-cues given in verbal and non-verbal language as to their victim's state of mind?
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right.It's awfully tempting to believe that they have psychic powers and I am sure psychic powers exist but there is in fact no need to use psychic powers to explain their ability to read people. They have much less to think about than other people (how much of our mental energy emotions take up!). They are very calm and extremely observant.
DeletePsychic powers don't exist. James Randi (retired stage magician and escape artist) offered millions of dollars to anyone who could prove any such powers under test conditions (no magnets, earpieces, etc). Any competent stage magician can easily create the illusion of having psychic powers, based on his knowledge of a few shortcuts in human perception. I personally know many magicians and mentalists, and if they had any degree of psychopathy, they would easily be able to start religions or cults. That they don't use their knowledge to such ends shows their deep humanity.
DeleteAre you sure those two women weren't just trying to act interesting, to impress you? Romanian women have been known to do that sort of thing around foreigners, especially tall British men...
DeleteI am sure.
Delete