Seeing Through Psychopathic Smoke and Mirrors.
The word psychopath is derived from the Greek words, psyche meaning “mind” or “soul” and path, meaning “sickness”. An encounter with a psychopath certainly leaves one feeling sickened. Scars from psychopathic encounters leave a person and community indelibly traumatized and transformed as the contagion reverberates through the social fabric and forward through time.
Anytime a person or community is shaken to the core, the human mind tries to recreate order, to make sense out of the experience and to protect itself from ever encountering such a disruption again. Mythology, as an attempt to explain what cannot be understood, was the perfect vehicle for primitive peoples to illustrate the destructive effects of psychopathic behaviors.
Mythological or Psychopath?
In Daniel Brinton’s, American Hero-Myths, there are several myths about an Aztec god named Tezcatlipoca. While many mythological creatures fit the profile in Dr. Hare’s PCL-R list, the myths about Tezcatlipoca are striking in how well they detail a psychopath’s modus operandi.
Tezcatlipoca means Smoking Mirrors — which is a tell in itself, since psychopaths are all about deception. In pictures, he is depicted with an obsidian mirror on his breastplate and a missing foot (Yes, he has a limp just as many other mythological characters do). The foot is often replaced either by a mirror or a snake.
Tezcatlipoca is a tempter who urges humans to do evil, a deceiver and a trickster. The god of material things, he was known to give wealth and then take it away. Psychopaths exert control by being the giver and the destroyer of wealth as part of the roller coaster ride of ups and downs they create. They understand that the lows feel much lower after a ride to the top.
He has many names including, Necoc Yaotl, the “Enemy of Both Sides”. Psychopaths are liars, betrayers and loyal to none. They enter ALL relationships with the express intent of betrayal. During any negotiation, they are a double or triple agents, lying to each side for the purpose of being the only one who is not deceived. They use deception for control.
Another name is Titlacauan, meaning “We are his Slaves”. Psychopaths see humans as their slaves. They take away autonomy. Most of all they take your personhood and your purpose. They subjugate you to their own purpose – which is only to gain more power.
Another name for Tezcatlipoca: Moyocoyatzin, a name which was given to him because “he could do as he pleased no one could prevent him”. Psychopaths are the epitome of willful. If you ask him why he would want to hurt others, his answer will be “because I can.”
In one myth, Tezcatlipoca plots to disgrace and depose his brother, the beneficent god Quetzalcoatl. First he approaches Quetzalcoatl with a mirror wrapped in a rabbit skin, promising to show him “his own flesh”. When Quetzalcoatl sees his reflection he is mortified by how he looks to others. He is ashamed but Tezcatlipoca promises to fix all that. Some green and red paint on Quetzalcoatl’s face and some green feathers for a beard, seem to do the trick. But Tezcatlipoca isn’t done yet. He persuades Quetzalcoatl that he has brought him medicine but it’s actually an intoxicant. When Quetzalcoatl drinks the intoxicant, he rapes his own sister and is shamed into abdicating his throne. Psychopaths always enjoy bringing about the shameful down fall of those in high places. Ingesting the drink and breaking the incest taboo is an analogy to internalizing the shame of crossing boundaries .
In another myth, Tezcatlipoca appeared in the market place of the mythic city of Tollan in the disguise of a naked foreigner. When the king’s virgin daughter sees him naked it causes her to be love-sick for him. This was his plan so that she would marry him and he would become a prince. Psychopaths commonly use sex and love in their pursuit of power. The myth describes the king’s daughter as being ill from longing for this foreigner because she saw him naked and desired him. In fact, psychopaths do create an “addiction-like” feeling of longing more intense than a normal romantic love. The myth specifies though, that the princess’ desire was for sex with the foreigner. Sex for a psychopath, is one method of creating addiction to them because of the bonding hormone, oxytocin, released in a normal person’s brain during sex. Though psychopaths feel nothing at all, they are very aware of the emotions they elicits during sex. They are obsessed with human emotions. Eliciting emotions is how they feed their need for power.
After his marriage to the princess, Tezcatlipoca throws a big party and invites everyone to celebrate with him. The crowds joined him in swarms of intoxicated revelry. Psychopaths can be as charming and irresistible to the masses, as to the individual. At midnight, still dancing and singing, Tezcatlipoca led the crowd over a bridge which he had “secretly destroyed”. The bridge collapsed and the revelers fell into the river, turned into stone and sunk out of sight. It is significant that the bridge destruction was done in “secret”. This implies sabotage. Sabotage is what psychopaths do, in every sense of the word. They create a perfect façade which inevitably fails at a critical moment because it was sabotaged from the inside. Sabotage can be done on your confidence, your career, your reputation, your economy, your car or your aircraft. Anything that you depend on to keep you functional will be sabotaged if a psychopath has anything to do with it. The bridge failure was particularly apt because the result was a fall from a high place. Psychopaths will kill literally in the same manner in which they kill metaphorically. The sabotage of the bridge was the biggest red flag that a psychopath was at the center of this story.
After the bridge collapse, Tezcatlipoca tells the crowd that he was the cause and that they must stone him to death to prevent this from happening again. So they stone him and a sacrificial ritual is established.
All Myths Are Lies With a Grain of Truth.
Girardian Theory interprets this myth as all myths, as being about mimesis, crisis and a sacrificial victim. Girard’s theory asserts that there actually was an incidence of violence and the story is told in symbolic language to disguise the reality of the scapegoat mechanism. In other words: smoke and mirrors disguise the truth. The important elements in Girardian interpretation is that there was chaos, as symbolized by the revelry and by the water, and it ended in the stoning death of the scapegoat. Somebody was held responsible for the chaos and scapegoated. The ritual of sacrificial victims is not just a commemoration but also a reenactment to polarize the mimetic violence of the community toward one responsible victim.
To this Girardian interpretation, I would add that it is the story of psychopathic influence on an entire community. The myth describes not only the chaos, but also how he operates and what he did to bring about the chaos.
Tezcatlipoca brings about Quetzalcoatl’s disgrace by showing him a mirror after unwrapping it from a rabbit skin. All psychopaths mirror their victims. As they approach they wrap themselves in the guise of a harmless being. A psychopath I knew wore a sheepskin coat without any shirt underneath. Was it a tell?
Tezcatlipoca’s manipulation of authority and his climb up the hierarchy using sex, illustrates his lack of boundaries. Psychopaths are obsessed with authority and like to start at the top, they don’t care how they get there. Shame as a tool for overturning power is another classic psychopathic maneuver. Confusion, illustrated by the drunken revelry of the crowd is another tool of the psychopath.
The Victor Gets to Write History.
The psychopath is found in every myth because they are agents of change. Always bored and unhappy with the way things are, they REQUIRE drama and upheaval. They have no limits about what they will do because they are unbound by social convention or morality. They don’t care about human suffering except to revel in it as proof of their power to manipulate.
A traumatizing event will spawn stories for generations as the community seeks to reassure itself that it learned its lesson and will never suffer such a catastrophe again. The myth is a warning so that it will never again be caught off guard by a psychopath. And yet, the story repeats, in myth and in life. The psychopath makes his appearance over and over again. Why can’t humanity learn to recognize and avoid these mythological creatures?
In seeking to understand how the psychopath could have so much power over the community, the myth explains that he must be a monster or a god with superhuman powers. It seems the only way to explain how he transforms and performs.
Likewise, a psychopath seems to have superhuman abilities to charm, mesmerize, convince and connive. Their self-confidence is magnetic and sex with them is hypnotic.
What humanity has to recognize is that when a psychopath says, “because I can” he means, “because you let me.” We give away our power to the psychopath when we don’t want responsibility. The psychopath gladly takes the power and we assume that he will also take responsibility, but he doesn’t. Psychopaths always slither away from responsibility. It’s never their fault or their problem. They couldn’t care less about you and when it comes time to pay, you are left holding the bag with all the responsibility and no power to pay the price. The psychopath left with your power.
The Truth About Denial: It Comes off in Layers
Here is where Girardian Theory offers an intriguing answer: The key is responsibility, which is the antithesis of scapegoating. Becoming an individual is the process of accepting responsibility for yourself and the things you can control. It involves setting boundaries so that your power and your responsibility stay connected and balanced. Each grows as the other grows. Never let power separate or become unbalanced from responsibility.
Ancient myths give us clues about how to recognize evil but fail to teach us how to deal with it. Instead they reinforce the human tendency toward denial and the refusal to see any reality that is too painful to see. Evil gains power when it is denied. Rene Girard explains that only in the stories of the Gospel is the hidden scapegoat mechanism unveiled for what it is: Denial of our own responsibility for allowing evil to prosper.
Copyright © 2012-2013 Skylar
Interestingly, since my last encounter with a psychopath I made the connection between personal power and responsibility, and a life well-lived. Previously, I had not wanted to take much responsibility for myself, for my life, for the outcomes of my choices. I was so resentful at how crappy my childhood was, and how much dysfunction and personal growth I was left to accomplish, that I vacillated between trying hard to become aware, and then throwing my whole life ‘to the wind’; enter the psychopaths…..
For me, personally, I think much of my dysfunction came from the ‘original’ predators in my life: my grandparents, one step father, and my mother. They were my personal myth-makers, ‘normalizing’ psychopathic behavior, and encouraging my failure. I wonder if I didn’t ‘revisit’ these types, time and again, still waiting for the fulfillment my original tormenters ‘promises’: to take care of me (not neglect me), to love me (not use me for their own gratification), to assure my ability to become a responsible adult (not disable my growth process).
And though I made strides during my life, in becoming a happy functional adult, I continued to throw my progress away, periodically entangling myself with The Highly Dysfunctional.
But after this last go ’round I came to understand that if I continued to relinquish my personal power, boundaries, and choices, I would surely be attracted to another charismatic type. Why? Because I found information about personality disorders, and the malignantly narcissistic (thanks to my therapist). Once I understood WHAT I was attracted to and could connect this to my past experiences/childhood, a light flooded me (after a rather acute grief period, accompanied by depression and despair…..). It felt like once I had this information my personal growth rapidly moved forward.
I think I HAD to come to terms with the existence of truly immoral and soul sick human beings. And I had to understand what my personal ‘myths’ were around these types.
Not to sound too goody-two-shoes…but now I embrace my responsibilities, my ability to make my own choices, and my boundaries. They mean different things to me now. They bring me happiness and a sense of having a ‘solid self’. One I can rely on. I no longer invite abusers into my life. I have no lasting affinity for them.
Hi Slim,
Intellectually we can learn about these types, then we have to internalize it so that we have the right emotional responses. This is where I still have trouble, so it really helps to hear that someone else has been able to accomplish that. I would hate to think that I’ll never get there because my programming is “set” at an early age. Spaths can’t change so it’s scary to think that maybe we can’t either. Your story gives me hope.
Still I’d like to see more progress for myself. The last spath I met was a guy who I hired to help work on my house. He was asking me out within 20 minutes and then explicitly suggested we go to his place for sex. At one point he accused me of wanting to rape him. Projection? This was a young man! young enough to be my son. I immediately recognized that he was a spath who felt the need to dominate, so I very delicately brushed him off by laughing at his “jokes”. What struck me though, was how magnetic and charismatic he seemed to me. Rather than be offended, I actually liked him. Why is that? Is it a trauma bond, I use to protect me from actual physical danger?
It’s only because of my learning about spaths that I’m able to see past my own emotional reaction to perceive the core of other people. The cog/dis is perturbing.
Skylar I think this is key.
It involves setting boundaries so that your power and your responsibility stay connected and balanced.
This is so, so true.
Athena
I also think charisma and magnetism ARE emotionally attractive. I still have emotional responses to these types. Sometimes I admire them their drive, and the ‘focus’ they show when marketing themselves.
Kathy Hawk wrote about this on another blog, in response to a psychopath posting a letter about the ‘positive’ impact these types have on the world. She said she initially found herself ‘liking’ the guy. He was strong, decisive, and sure of himself. Things she reported she admired and responded to. She also wrote that in the end she understood him to be an ‘over developed half person’. But her initial emotional response was ‘I like this guy!’. Just like you.
I don’t think NOT being offended makes you ‘damaged’ or defective in some way.
I think we will have certain emotional responses, that seem incongruous with what we know about ppaths. I think that is a definite possibility. We are hard wired to physically/emotionally respond in particular ways. AND it’s a good thing we have intellects to round out the picture.
It would be nice if our feeling bodies and our intellectual bodies were ‘in line’. But I am not sure how likely that is.
I think one of the major things ‘wrong’ with ppaths is they have ‘wrong thinking’, and they don’t change that (or can’t. I don’t know). WE, on the other hand, CAN change our thinking…..This seems to be crucial to why we can readily change, and they are SO fixed in their syndrome.
Just thoughts…..take care, Slim
Slim,
I remember that post from Kathy and I was surprised to read that. I found nothing attractive about that “unique individual”. So, you’re right, we all have different reactions.
Yes, it’s true that a confident individual is attractive, so maybe that was part of it, yes definitely, it was. But at the same time, his comments were extremely inappropriate, I recognize that too.
As long as we engage our minds and don’t rely only on our emotional responses, I think we will make the right choices.
Athena,
I’m still learning where to set boundaries. It helps to see that they encompass the limits of my power.
Sky,
I think that is totally right. We have to engage our whole being to be awake and have ‘healthy’ responses to any situation.
If we leave any part of the equation out (body/mind/feeling) we are at a disadvantage. I am heavy on the feeling part. So I have had to focus on developing my awareness of what I experience in my body, and paying attention to what I KNOW, rather than emoting my way through every situation.
It IS difficult to do, when our modus operandi is more heavily focused in one direction. It is also interesting how my feelings can be contrary to what my body is telling me and what my mind knows. I don’t exactly get why that happens….but I have experienced it many times.
Slim
Slim,
yes, I’m heavy on the thinking and ignore my emotions so I’ve had to learn to watch for signs of them. Fear is suppressed for me.
I think psychopaths can see these imbalances in us and exploit them. Perhaps they look for out strengths and instinctively know that our weaknesses will be found at exactly 180 degrees.
Hi Skylar
Here is a good link to reinforce your theories.
http://www.yorku.ca/rweisman/courses/sosc6890/pdf/meloypaper-psychopathy.pdf
STJ
xxx
STJ,
WOW! Awesome paper. It covers the gamut and explains spaths to a TEE.
Thanks.
It’s very clinical and detailed so probably best taken in chunks if you’re new to psychopaths, but for us old timers, it completely verifies everything we experienced. The shame and envy, the infantile emotional process, the splitting and projection, and everything else is right there in the paper, explained and elaborated.
It took me a while, but I read the whole thing. That’s a keeper that I’ll be referencing again.
I stumbled across it, and was amazed at how much they say about them is what you have always maintained. It verifies everything that you have written about them.Couldn’t wait to show you 🙂
STJ
xxx