Editor’s note: The following article refers to spiritual concepts. Please read Lovefraud’s statement on Spiritual Recovery.
By OxDrover
In the Bible the story of Adam and Eve living in the Garden of Eden, in perfect paradise, is a story familiar to most children who have gone to Bible school at one point or another in their lives. If you take that same story, though, and look at it through adult eyes, you can see that there is a great moral to this tale, whether you believe it as a “creation” story or not.
Before the “fall,” Adam and Eve had only dealt with a loving God/Creator who had given them a wonderful place to live in peace and plenty. They were naked and innocent in this paradise on earth. They were given an occupation of “dressing the garden” and only given one warning that they must not disobey, and that was to not eat from the tree of the “Knowledge of Good and Evil,” for if they did not heed this warning, they would die.
The original psychopath, Satan, in the disguise of a serpent, like all villains shows up on the scene. We know about psychopaths and we know that Satan personified this personality disorder, because he saw someone who was happy and prosperous, but naïve, and he wanted to bring about their downfall. Not for any gain or motive we can perceive on his own part, but simply to have someone else believe his lies and suffer for that belief. He wanted to enjoy the downfall of someone else. That was his “reward” for telling the lies to Eve, to get Eve to disregard the warning she had received from God ”¦ just as our psychopaths lie to us to get us to not heed the instinctive intuitive warnings we get when we catch them in a lie, or something doesn’t feel right.
How did Satan accomplish his task? The story tells us that Satan was “more subtle than any beast of the field.” ”¦ ”and he said unto the woman, ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'” Satan knew this was not true, but he was setting her up with a conversation starter he knew she would respond to.
The woman said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said ”˜Ye shall not eat of it’”¦or ye shall surely die.”
The serpent said unto the woman, “Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and she shall be as gods, knowing Good and Evil.” Here the psychopath, as they all do, tells Eve that the warning from God is for God’s benefit, because God wants to “keep the best stuff” for himself and that if she will just not heed the warning not to eat of the forbidden fruit, she will be equal with God.
Here Satan is creating a need in this woman, and holding the hope of accomplishing that need in Eve. Before Satan’s lie to her, Eve wasn’t unhappy, and she had no desires that weren’t met. She didn’t even desire to be “as gods,” but now she has started to desire something that Satan appears to be offering her.
How many times have our psychopaths held out to us a “prize” that we start to desire? A desire that they have created a fantasy of, and lied to us that they know the way for us to achieve this desire, our heart’s desire. Is it a perfect soul mate? A perfect love? A perfect marriage? A perfect business arrangement? A perfect child? The perfect restoration of something we have lost? What was the desire in you that the psychopath created with their lies?
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat.”
“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.”
Adam and Eve immediately knew that they had been had. They knew they were naked, and they did now know the difference between Good and Evil. They knew that they had been tricked, that Satan had done them in completely, and that there was no going back to naiveté. You can’t UN-ring a bell.
While Adam and Eve tried to find a way to hide themselves from God and the consequences of their disobedience and naiveté, Satan skipped off on his merry way, having accomplished what he desired, the destruction of human kind. The taking away of the innocence of humanity. The bringing of death to the world.
However, though Satan brought evil into the world of man, humanity also received the knowledge that will protect us in that fall from grace. We have the knowledge of Good and Evil. We can choose our path.
The psychopaths in our lives who have attacked us because we didn’t have a proper knowledge of their evil intentions when they started to destroy us for their own purposes, their own selfish games, have given us the same “fruit” that Eve in her naiveté ate, the wisdom of the knowledge of Good and Evil.
While Eve in the Bible story paid a stiff price for her knowledge by being cast from paradise into the world, we also have paid a stiff price for this knowledge, some of us in terms of money and property, all of us in terms of pain and emotional devastation. Just as Eve must have berated herself for being so naïve and stupid for doing something she had been told not to, we berate ourselves for being so naïve and stupid in ignoring the warnings we also generally had all along. Why did we not heed the warnings, just as Eve did not heed God’s warning not to eat the fruit?
Just as Eve, after the fall, had to learn to live in the real world, the world that is not paradise, that contains evil people, selfish people, even her own son, Cain, who killed her other son, Abel, we as former victims of the psychopath have to learn to live in the real world and to distinguish what is good from what is evil. We have to learn from our experience with our own personal version of Satan, and our own version of our fall from grace, to know what is truly important in life. To use this hard-won knowledge of Good and Evil to make us stronger and better people.
We are no longer naïve people who don’t know about red flags of warnings of psychopaths. We are no longer willing to trust others indiscriminately or lightly as Eve trusted the lying words of her own Satan. We are no longer willing to fail to listen to the instinctive cries of our own intuition about danger.
We have knowledge that we have gotten the hard way, and hard-won knowledge is a lesson that will stick to us forever. It is up to us to use this life’s lesson in Psychopath 101 for our own and others’ benefits.
Muldoon,
No, my dear, it isn’t that MEN are sociopathic to a degree it is that HUMANS are socipathic, selfish, egocentric, self centered and so on to a degree, ALL of us.
But some of the human race develops empathy, the ability to see another person’s point of view, to FEEL for them when they are happy or sad, to put ourselves in their shoes to a degree. BEcause of the empathy some of the human race develops we are able to restrain our selfish, selfcentered, egotistic desires for the good of others.
Some humans develop the ability to delay gratification. Some people are willing to do things for the good of others, not just themselves.
Maybe WE (those of us with empathy) are the “mutants,” I’m not sure.
Look at all the stories in history, religion, myth, Shakespeare, any drama—you see the “good, the bad and the ugly” the selfish and the givers. The Mother Theresas and the Hitlers. In humanity in general, there are the “saints and the sinners and the people in between.”
I remember a bit of poetry I memorized when I was a kid, I have no idea where it came from.
A mother, starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
Jesus upon the rod,
And the millions,
Who, humble and nameless,
The stoney hard pathway trod,
Some call it concecration,
Others call it God.
I don’t believe that everyone allows themselves to express our utmost EVIL, most people, many people at least, give more than they get, care more than they are cared for.
I just know that whatever money or fame the psychopathic people like Madloff get in this world with their EVIL, and I do believe they choose to be EVIL, I do believe they know right from wrong, but just don’t care what damage they do, or even enjoy the damage they do, like Satan apparently did, I know and believe that none of the gain they get gives them happiness, not true happiness. I think it is only what good we have done, what love we have shown to our fellows that in the end when we face the great leveler of all men, death, that makes a bit of difference in us.
I think that we are spiritual beings on a human journey, rather than humans on a spiritual journey. I would much rather be the victim of one of them than be one of them.
A picket frozen on duty–
A mother starved for her brood–
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood.
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight hard pathway trod–
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.
–WILLIAM HERBERT CARRUTH
In it’s entirety
Each In His Own Tongue
A fire-mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod, —
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high;
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the golden-rod, —
Some of us call it Autumn,
And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in:
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no foot has trod, —
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.
A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathway plod, —
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.
William Herbert Carruth (1859 ”“ 1924)
That would be a no Muldoon, not even close for most men or women. Most people do not even come close.
Estimates of psychopaths are roughly the same as for schizophrenia in the general population and roughly 15-25% (according to Hare 1996) of the prison population meet the criteria for being a psychopath. So even the majority of people in prison do not meet the criteria yet often in internet land I see people labeling someone a psychopath because he/she cheated on them or because the stole from them or because they were committed various crimes.
Now I disagree with Ox that all humans are sociopathic to a degree. I do agree that all humans can choose to act that way and have the ability to become sociopathic (not psychopathic) and that all humans can be selfish, self-centered and egotistical.
I also very much agree with Ox’s statement I would much rather be the victim of one of them than be one of them.
Oxdrover,
Thank you for such a great post. You seem to have such a wonderful way to put things into a perspective that makes us all feel better. You are indeed a wise & caring person.
Indi-
I’ll go for the beer & cigarettes, & we can all go live on Oxie’s ranch, & look out for each other, & farm for a livin’. -& Henry-we can set an acre aside to run a home for all the stray animals.
…I know, it sounds like an…”and they all lived happily ever after story.” Just wishful thinkin’ on my part. Have a good night, all. I gotta get up earlier than normal tomorrow, I better turn in.
W@OW! Southern man!!! Thank you!!!! I never could remember where I read or memorized that verse, and sometimes I forget a word or two here or there, but I am so appreciative of you telling me the whole poem and the author! THANK YOU!!! HUGS!!
BloggerT, I guess I phrased that wrong, what I meant is that we can all have some of the socipath’s traits of selfishness, and failure of empathy, but because we “over all” do have empathy, we tend to override the selfish instincts within is and act better than a sociopath would.
Just as a small child who has not yet developed empathy might hit another child or take a toy away (like 2 year olds play) but as they grow, are guided and develop a connection with others and empathy, their behavior improves.
Now that I’m 7 mos post-S, I’m starting not to take anything that the S did to me personally. I wasn’t the first and won’t be the last. He is just a woman hater. He said sin began in the Garden of Eden when Eve gave the fruit to Adam. Woman caused sin. He also believes that he is entitled to dominate women and they should submit because that is in the Bible too. He’s just sick. Mentally ill.
Southernman,
Loved the poem. I visited your myspace recently when I followed a link from an old thread… Your page was awesome and your pictures… well, I was shocked to know that Southernman was so CUTE! Did anyone else know that?! It was great to put a face to all the good wisdom and thoughts.
It has been three and a half years for me and I am feeling better and wiser… I took a lot of time off from dating. That is for sure! And I just wanted to share that I have been “found” by Bad Man’s ex-wife and oldest daughter through LoveFraud. They recognized details in the story and realized it was him. And so, they found me. It has been a gift to email with Bad Man’s ex-wife. She is a very kind lady. Of course, knowing what I know now, I didn’t expect anything different.
That’s it for now…. Aloha (I am still lerking in the shadows but I have three jobs right now and I can’t read all of this stuff anymore.. not enough time in the day.
:o)
Aloha
Dear Aloha,
Merry Christmas and Happy New year my friend! We have missed you, but glad you are lurking out there. Don’t work too hard, I’ve made that mistake all my life! I’ve bee reading the Betrayl Bond and realize a lot of things, one thing is depriving ourselves of care by caring for others, and not caring for ourselves. So please take care of YOU, Aloha! Happy holidays ((((hugs)))))
Dear Stiles,
That would be a lovely fantasy wouldn’t it be! We could be one great big “hippie” commune and all “love children”—-right now we would have to all snuggle up though, it will be 12 degrees out tonight—a three dog night for sure!
Nasty weather on the way too, so I’m staying inside in my wooly sockies! Think I will make me a cup of peppermint tea!