Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
Recently a reader wrote asking this question regarding evil and sociopaths. Have you considered exorcism as treatment for psychopaths/narcissists? I have come to firmly believe these people – even the ones under-the-radar legally- are effected/infected by evil. As a practicing Catholic, I feel as if I have been targeted specifically. I realize you do not know me and that such claims are bizarre, but I know you have called psychopathy evil-so I wonder if you have considered what can be done spiritually?
There is no doubt in my mind that the Bible makes references to sociopaths. The Bible warns, “Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing!” There is no better metaphor for a sociopath. However, I think before we ascribe a supernatural cause to an occurrence we are obligated to fully investigate if that occurrence can be explained by other means.
I would like to share with you two excerpts from my books. The first is from Just Like His Father? The second is from my new book about sociopathy, which will be available soon.
Speaking as an armchair philosopher, I think that when we study antisocial personality disorder and how it develops, we are actually studying the means by which evil enters our world. Since we are physical beings, living in a physical world, evil has to be a physical condition. Is there any evil that is not caused by some combination of callousness, poor impulse control and faulty moral reasoning? If through more effective parenting practices, we were able to reduce the prevalence of antisocial personality traits and addiction in our society, the effect would be a reduction in the amount of evil in the world.
This is from the introduction to my next book:
This book is dedicated to the many readers who have asked us “Would somebody please tell me why s/he did this?” Reading Without Conscience by Robert Hare will give you a good idea what a psychopath is. This book explains why we use the word sociopath to describe the group of people who have invaded our lives and injured us. This book also explains why sociopaths do what they do.
After figuring out that my ex-husband and the father of my son is likely a sociopath, I realized I had to become an expert in the disorder. Recent studies reveal that this disorder is genetically transmitted in families. As a psychiatrist I already knew the diagnostic criteria, what was missing was the why. Why do sociopaths exist, how do they develop, and what causes their destructive behavior? For me to know and recite the criteria was not enough to prevent the disorder from developing in my baby, I had to learn ALL the whys.
It was with this goal that I studied the scientific literature for knowledge of this disorder and how it develops. I report to you that although our understanding is incomplete, we know enough to answer the why question. I report these answers to stop our readers from feeling baffled. There is really nothing baffling about sociopathy. I also report these results to put a stop to the cult of awe and even admiration that surrounds many sociopaths. Because people do not understand sociopaths, there is a tendency to imbue them with special powers. They have become mystical demonic beings in the minds of many. While I am not disputing that the disordered neurodevelopment that produces a sociopath may give rise to a spiritual disorder, the whys of sociopathy are fully explained by natural causes. There is no need to evoke the supernatural.
The reason I have not yet finished my next book is that I am considering how detailed I should be in explaining the biological underpinnings of sociopathy. I have written the book for those with no more than a high school biology background. I would appreciate any comments regarding whether you would want to read a complete summary of the biology of sociopathy.
I married a sociopath before I knew what that was. Raised a Catholic didn’t help matters much as it entailed a old tradition of taking care of your man no matter what. Prayer helped for a while, being quiet helped for a while to keep the peace in the home, but, in the end it damaged me and the children. Thank God there was time to take care of ourselves and heal. Never married again…dated…or should I say was persued by sociopathic men in sheeps clothing, with lying matipulating lingo for the last time. Fortunately the last one, who used a date rape drug on me to get control, decided to be somewhat human and not kill me. I read some years ago when I was working in my church with a anti Porn group to protect the neighborhood school zones from the trash, that a local psychitrist reported that the rise in anti social behaviors was on the rise due to the lack of an imbeded empathy and moral disposition in the youth. Well he was right wasn’t he. We have so many more today to deal with. When are they dangerous and when are they not? Who knows….is it the luck of the draw? I believe personally that these are perople who have not had a instaliation of a moral disposition as the above professional stated…they ….also are mentally and emotionally missing something somewhere….and lack responsibility for one reason or another. In the end THEY need to be held accountable for their actions and behavior, be it criminal or not….and when is it not criminal? I also believe they need to be delivered from demonic activity within them…..by command of God Himself….the work of the church is to set the captives free!
I, for one, would appreciate the complete summary, but an abbreviated summary would be fine if it means we can read the book sooner! I want to know why and what caused my husband to be so “messed up” mentally. His ex girlfriend told me the whole family was strange, so that would seem to point to genetic reasons in that family.
Liane I read your post with interest and humor. Shortly after I was left to sift through the ashes of my psychopath relationship ending I was about to celebrate my 50th birthday. One option I would lightheartedly put out to my friends (I still had a few at the time) was we should have it in the church. We could drink the communion wine, hire the choir to sing, snack on the communion wafers and have the priest perform an exorcism on me while everyone prayed for me. I meant that the psychopath changed me. Left a part of me so very different that still exists today that I would still want exorcised out of me. Like a vampire/mosquito who drained the lifeblood out and in doing so left a little of the numbing venom behind. It’s a maddening itch I can’t scratch and it manifests itself in ways that are less than desirable like anger, depression and negativity.
With regard to how technical should you be when writing to a certain level of audience I certainly have my thoughts. I will start by saying I love the details. I am fascinated by the way our bodies, minds and spirits merge together supported by eons of evolutionary cause and effect that make us who we are. I like to think of myself as an armchair anthropologist.
I will contrast this by something I read recently that Alan Alda said. He is involved with a CBS science production and has an obvious interest in that sort of exploration. He was quoted saying that the scientific establishment should speak to each other in detail using all the obligatory vocabulary they please. When talking to the public they should speak in the same complete detail but use the layman terms that exist for the scientific terms instead. He went on to provide an example; He was somewhere in South America for the show and became terribly ill. He was put in a rickety ambulance and taken to the nearest South American hospital. The Brazillian doctor told him that they needed to operate immediately and cut out a portion of his intestine that had gone bad or he would not live. Once they had eliminated the bad part they would sew the two good parts together and he would be fine.
His point was the doctor didn’t leave any details out. He said exactly what he was doing and what would happen if he didn’t. Perhaps you can leave the details in just use non scientific terms where you can. You might use the top level medical term but go on to explain and define it in layman’s english. Or footnote a reference or have a terminology definition in the back of the book should you feel compelled or the reader desire to understand it from the technical perspective. As they say the devil is in the details isn’t he? I look forward to you publication of the book. It sounds just like my cup of tea. And, I for one am thirsty for this kind of information. Best, Lillian
My exspath who was born and raised as a young child in ElSalvador during the war told me a few times that when he was younger his mother and grandmother had a religious member perform an exorcism on him on more than one occasion. Just reading this article sparked that memory in me.
I am an Athiest and don’t believe in possession and do believe science has an explanation and therefore told him in my opinion it was stress caused by trauma of the war, but he swears to this day that he had a demon inside of him and never felt like it was released. And any MENTION of the word hell or demon throws him into a defensive frenzy…..
I feel he blames his neurological disorder on a demon and therefore won’t take responsibility for his actions is what I’m trying to get at….
Just thought it was interesting that he said this had happened to him….
I’m not sure what the significance of this is, but my husband seldom watched anything but the Sci-Fi channel with supernatural beings and violence. When I kicked him out, I had found some porn DVD’s of demons whipping and having sex with tied up females. He had a sick fascination with this type of stuff. I was raised to believe that some people do invite bad entities into their lives.
Whatever was going on with him, he did become a darker, more twisted person under the influence of the demonic movies.
I was told that after he watched enough sadistic violence towards women, he might want to try what he saw and I was wise to get him out of the house as he could become dangerous.
ImarriedIt,
You are correct in saying that the choices one makes in entertainment can “invite bad entities into our lives”.A personal experience that happened during my first separation from spath was the first time I was an eyewitness to this.I had gone out for a few hrs,leaving my 2 teenage daughters home.In the meantime one of their girlfriends came over.They got bored and decided to borrow some movies from someone they knew.Atleast one of them had to do with a young girl being exorcised of demons.I WOULD NEVER HAVE ALLOWED THAT MOVIE TO BE VIEWED IN MY HOME!My girls and their friend knew this,but thought since I wasn’t there,they’d watch it before I got back,and I’d never know.It just so happened I got back before they returned the movies.They knew they were in for some words from me!But they didn’t know what else they were in for(neither did I)!I had washed dishes before leaving and left them draining on the counter.I had some nice thick glass glasses among the dishes.All but 1 were picked up and dashed to the floor where they broke!I was calm as I realized what was happening.But the girls were screaming and crying!After cleaning all the glass up,I called my husband who lived 20 mins away,and we spent the night there…no one would have slept in my apt after those glasses broke!
I just wanted to add that one very important consideration in leaving my husband this time,being concious of evil increasing all the time,I didn’t want to stay around for him to to possibly receive the strength from these evil entities to do something really horrible and brutal to me!
Blossom, that experience really blows me away! How much of the evil, cunning. hurtful behavior is genetic, and how much is due to influences they attract into their lives which may cause them to become interested in sadistic evil things? This is just a hypothetical question. My husband started out with run of the mill porn (if we can call it that)when I first became aware of it, and it just got more depraved, like I said, deteriorating into sadistic sex with demons and bound up females. He became more angry and cunning with me, deceitful, lying, weird behavior. I’m not drawing conclusions; it’s just something I noticed, yet there was a huge personality change in him over the years. This could also just be his mask slipping. What do you think?
ImarriedIt,
I don’t doubt that there are genetic and environmental reasons as to why sociopathy has increased through the decades.But the presence of evil entities should never be discounted;and is a major reason for the increase.
If you’re a Bible reader,you’re probably familiar familiar with the account at Genesis 6:1-6.That’s when the angels began to notice the daughters of man,that they were good-looking and “forsook their proper dwelling place”(Jude 6) and went taking wives for themselves.That in itself was a form of perversion.The offspring of this perversion was the Nephilim.They caused alot of violence in the world during Noah’s time.Ever since this,there have been different and worsening types of depravity and pervasion-showing it’s origins!These angels that were perverted did not die at Noah’s flood like the rest of flesh that wasn’t in the ark;since they were angels they became spirits again-but now they were EVIL SPIRITS,better known as demons.They were in heaven until the war occurred which is recorded at Revelation 12:7-12.Now they are in the vicinity of the earth causing much trouble.
Blossom, I am familiar with those passages, and find it interesting that the demons were so sex obsessed and porn is so rampant in the world today. Now even porn depicting sex with demonic creatures is available. I don’t know why my husband was drawn to this,unless he’d run out of new porn to look at.
I understand sociopathy is thought to be genetic, and that sociopaths lack the ability to feel empathy but I don’t quite grasp how that makes them actively seek to hurt and do evil things to people. Can genetics account for all their delight in hurting others?
Once we were having problems with our neighbors. My husband said he was looking online for ways to get rid of obnoxious neighbors. He said, “I was thinking of going to the dark side for help” I told him never to do that; he would be inviting a world of trouble! He gave me a strange little smirk. Now I wonder what else he’d got involved in.
I always said that I felt like I slept with Satan. I swear mine sold his sole to the devil and was acting out the devils work.