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[lilaetleloup]

And with that in mind, I choose to be indulgent with myself.

I’ve believed for a long time, that some people close to me were strong because they never really broke down, when in fact they were so weak that they chose, when they were kids, to cut themselves from their difficult emotions, instead of facing them.

[lilaetleloup]

sociopathy and psychopathy

For my classification of negative profiles based on energy, I simplified, on purpose, to three main categories.

But I could as well have chosen to identify four categories, as when a person is a -6 or -7 on my Geiger counter of negativity, he or she is what I called an “intense narcissist”. Which is to say a very manipulative person, potentially as toxic as a psychopath but without the restraint imposed by the plottings of the Machiavellian mind. And dominated by immediate impulses.

In fact, a sociopath.

I had chosen at first not to use this term as the science of the psychology, so far, is arguing that one becomes a sociopath when one is born a psychopath. As if, born with the evil genes, a baby would also conveniently get the cleverness to handle it. But I’m convinced, on the contrary, that nobody is born a psychopath. That it is a choice, albeit sometimes an unconscious one, or an evolution progressive enough not be felt as such.

The neurologic science that is aiming to prove that a psychopaths is born this way uses the fact that his adult brain, seen through a scanner, isn’t built the same way as the brain of a balanced adult. And as one is delivered with a brain… bam, programmed from birth.

I remember quite well, as an aside, of a psychopathic family member, who when ill, adamantly refused a brain scanner to know what the illness was…

When I was a teenager, also, I often outraged my “father” who was a doctor, when I told him that modern medicine doesn’t take enough into account the very real impact the mind has on the body. Many doctors would admit, though, the mind’s importance on your health, but it is to relegate it, with a despising smile, in the psycho-somatic bag, when a person, in their eyes already potentially hysterical, would be “inventing” his own illness. Always useful when said doctor can’t explain what’s happening.

But there is also, another scientific trend, as some neurologists have discovered that before he is even six months old, a baby will recognise, depending on the response of the people around him to his cries, if he is in a favourable environment or not. And that his brain will connect in function of this data. A brain that adapts to the needs? This disproves the theory that it would be necessarily preprogrammed for evil and is the force deciding for us. We forge our brain, not the other way around, it would seem.

But as far as I can tell, the psychopath is very happy to think that he has been built this way, and that he is, therefore, superior to the sociopath. Because he seems to believe that a deus ex machina that wouldn’t be a God of love, evidently, would have built him this way to dominate the world. Of course, whispers the ego, this would assure him that he is not unbalanced but a superior being…

Coming back to the sociopath, he is this intensely narcissistic person, you’ll thus find in my -6 or -7 of my energetic scale. Without a strong enough intelligence, he’ll get stuck there, unable to plot complex machinations, instinctively destructive, having more and more dangerous tantrums and rages.

The sociopath is stupidly violent, stupidly evil. An intense but crude manipulator. Without the ultimate maleficence of the psychopath who knows whose deus ex machina he’s fighting for.

[lilaetleloup]

the six voices

These are not, of course, voices with different tonalities and sources that would give us the impression that someone else is living with us in our head and Napoleon wants to talk to us. Of course not!

It’s just that as time went by – too much of it!- and maturity is coming upon me, with, I hope, the least possible wrinkles, I tried to identify the source and pertinence of each of my thoughts… And I felt we could attribute each one of them to six different voices.

The easiest one to notice, for example is the voice of intelligence. It’s the one that thinks, counts, evaluates

And we feel its cogs turning. As it’s the voice going through every possibility, it’s also the one which is scared. When you board a plane, for example, and your frenetic thoughts are showing you every chance this could go wrong ? Till the tiniest duck who could tickle the turbines? Well, this is your cleverness going on overdrive.

Being smart enables you to find solutions, but by showing you all the possible disastrous outcomes, it also prevents you from acting, simmering as you are, in a soup of fears.

And I find intelligence is a little over-evaluated in school. The smartest among us are not necessarily the ones who will succeed better, if they haven’t managed to subdue their fear to act.

Dumb people dare anything, I’ve been told. And clever ones don’t dare enough.

The voice of your cleverness has no empathy for others and will clinically analyse situations and people, the better to help you deal with them or manipulate them.

Luckily, this side effect has begun to be more and more taken into account recently and more and more schools give importance to the emotional intelligence.

This emotional cleverness is what I call the voice of the heart.

Which I find, as well, easy to identify because it’s the one that has you feel: love for others, an animal or an activity, compassion for the suffering of others – not to be confused with the compassion some have for themselves which has them drown in everlasting victimhood -, empathy…

The third voice is one that has also been more and more acknowledged lately: the voice of intuition, that is also called sixth sense. Or gut feeling for the less spiritual among us who think with their stomachs. Happens to me when I’m really hungry, though.

This voice is the one that I have the worst trouble identifying when it’s so important to: it’s the wise one, the one that is never wrong. It’s the one you should listen to, for example, when it disagrees with your intelligence. Your brain is whispering all the horrible ways you could die in a plane? Your intuition is assuring you that you’ll arrive safely. And it knows best.

Because the voice of intuition is connected.

To the collective unconscious, the energies, and, for those who believe in them – and it’s my case – to invisible presences.

After some decades on this earth, I only begin to perceive its peculiar tone: it’s much wiser than I would be on my own, it points to a luminous evidence and it’s so immediate, you know you hadn’t the time to think.

When I ask myself something, and in the following silence an immediate answer comes to me and feels right? Most of the time, it’s intuition.

The fourth voice is the ego voice. And this, I also find easy to identify.

It’s the “me me me voice” that rings when it feels someone is walking on your turf and his. It surely has been created, this voice, out of a primitive need to defend you in an hostile world. To give you the impulse to fight, because you deserve everything, and to forbid compassion for others and the lion who would eat you because, poor animal, you feel he’s hungry. He’s hungry, hears the ego? “It means he is feeble. Eat him.”

Your ego thinks you are more important than this lion, the savanna and the whole planet. You are just what has been the most important creation so far. The greatest. Number one.

And to give you the best survival chance, it’s the ego that will blow on the fire of your temper.

Your divine rights have been trampled on? Aux armes! No pity for this fool who hasn’t understood your rightful place in the universe, right in the centre.

The ego voice begins to make itself heard, when a baby realizes that he has a distinct identity from his mother. The famous temper of a two years old? For something or nothing and a toy that has been refused? Ego. And the most part of the education we give a kid, to enable him to be an emotionally balanced adult, is to teach him that no, the stars don’t gravitate around his navel. And no, neither does the moon.

And this voice, made at first for you, to enable the carcass to survive, can drag you easily on the narcissism path. Mainly because to give you self-confidence, it will flatter you shamelessly. The ego voice is also the one to always compare. Do you have more than the neighbour? Less than your sister? No? Yes? Beware, the ego knows you deserve better!

And he will find here another reason to defend you and get annoyed in the process. Why you? Why me? To him, you are obviously a victim of an unjust situation. And that alone should  give him all leeway to change matters. Too bad if others must suffer in the process. “It doesn’t matter, says the ego, you are the most important.”

We all have an ego. Some chose to self-isolate in mountains and pray to get detached from it To dissolve it in a superior energy. Well, I’m not there yet.

Another simpler solution, which I favour, doesn’t include so much meditation: it’s to balance the ego voice with the voice coming from the heart. Which has you think something like this: ” yes, you are important, also imperfect, and this other human being is important too. And so is this animal, and this tree…”

But if Ego, looking for a co-conspirator, despising the heart, finally meets Intelligence, bam, nitro has found glycerine. More often than not, it’s Intelligence, hypersensitive, full of doubts and easily scared that runs to Ego, to have him protect her.

Well yes, now Intelligence is a she when Ego is a he: I’m French and we put a gender on anything.

But whoever went in search of the other, a person, when dominated by these two, permanent victim of some real or imaginary wrongdoing, has now the means to get revenge, to manipulate and obtain everything ego wished. Honours, money, power, disciples, electors, victims, kids, family… he’ll get his fill. Hello, there, psychopaths!

In the process, he’ll have strangled the fifth voice, the voice of the conscience.

It’s the one who reminds me, when I reproach something to somebody – often my husband – that I did the same. This traitor doesn’t like bad faith and can pitch for the other camp.

This voice also tells me to be more understanding, doesn’t appreciate it when I’m angry. He wants me to be a better person. And he is so annoying!

But it’s his job. And I forgive him because I know it’s for me, in a broader sense: to enable me to become the best version of myself.

And the sixth voice?

Well, it’s simply the one from your soul or your personality. The one that is uniquely yours. The paradox being that ego could never be that, as it’s the same in everyone.

Mine has a ferocious sense of humour that prevents me to be too serious about myself and loves having fun.

And when we harness cleverness and its fears, calm ego and its volatility listen to our heart and conscience and learn to recognize our intuition, we can finally become who we were destined to be.

[lilaetleloup]

They stage an inverse reality, where they are the good guys and the victims of your villainy.

[lilaetleloup]

This ordeal can enable us to learn from our mistakes and build a better world. But a negative person won't ever so it: he will never take his responsibilities.

It will fall on us, then, positive people, to take care of it.

[lilaetleloup]

Between the good and the bad, there is a border: the one of our intentions.

[lilaetleloup]

dangers of relativism

Manipulators will try to have us think that nothing is completely good or bad. That everything is in 50 shades of grey. That generosity is just well thought self-interest.

That everybody does the same. So why not him? If not him, somebody else would have done it anyway.

And you are no better.

And remember, by the way, you are not the victim, he is (womp womp).

As a matter or fact, truth doesn’t exist, and there are always “alternative facts”.

The end justifies the means…

This is all pure BS to muddy the water, to create chaos, to generate a smoke screen behind which he can operate.

And the danger would be to believe him.

Because Good does exist even when perfection doesn’t.

It’s what I tell my kids: “I’m not perfect but I have good intentions”.

Good intention, good faith, good will. That is the key. Afterwards, we fail, we get angry, we are sometimes unjust be at least we try.

Which is just NEVER his case.

[lilaetleloup]

And what is true for mountaineers is true for socialites.

Because if there is "only" one third of negative people in democracies (more like 50% in France), it's a totally inverse proportion as you climb the social ladder. From a certain hight, you just can't breathe.

[lilaetleloup]

my classification of negative people

And now is as good a time as ever for the usual disclaimer: I'm no psychiatrist, nor have I had any formation in psychology. Drinking too much is bad for your health. And so is war. But the science of conscience is, in comparison to humane existence, quite recent and contrasted. And is in constant evolution. So well...

My personal interest, though - and most emphatically my survival interest - had me read a lot on the matter, and in different languages. And this complicated somewhat my understanding as definitions are not 100% similar, as far as I understood, in French or English.

On the subject of psychiatry, I'm a distinguished and knowing amateur but, as a Reiki master, I'm a professional - with embossed diploma! - about energies. The good and the bad ones.

And I can therefore establish a very clear and distinct limit between the positive and the negative people: the positive persons know how to generate their own energy and share it, whereas the negative ones have lost the means to do so and only know how to take. On this simple basis, I established a simple criteria that enables me to evaluate the energy of my fellow humans and to link it to a psychological profile I determined. Which is inspired, a lot, of what I read on the matter but remains personal and has no aspiration to be related to any previous research. Friends of Hippocrates, don't shoot on the ambulance...

I have thus chosen to simplify the terms, tired of having to pick the nuances between the French and English definitions. For example in France, the term "sociopath" is attributed to the same profile of people, just different with a "psychopath" in that the person became thus after a late traumatism. When the psychopath has been his evil self since his birth or infancy.

I have an innate reticence to put people in boxes and my personal classification is taking into account that a person can choose to change. Although, quite frankly, I find it nearly impossible to come back from an evil path. Also my classification describes a psychological and energetic state but doesn't analyse character. As I have been raised as a good catholic girl, it's only fair I should believe in redemption.

And after all these precisions, let's attack the subject matter.

On the positive side, nothing quantic, you are going to find positive people, those who can feel the related emotions and on the negative side, well... the others.

From 0 to +3, it's the empathic energy of people who know how to walk in others' shoes and feel positive emotions. Emotions for oneself like hope, enthusiasm or passion for a project or positive feelings for others like love and compassion.

From +4 to +7, it's the generous energy of people who, more than empathetic to others' life, will naturally want to give. Without thinking about what this generosity could bring them back.

And from +8 to +10, its the altruistic energy of people who, more than being empathetic and generous, will have this automatic impulse to help, get engaged and try to save others, animals and the planet.

Let's go now on the other side of the pie. Where you'll find those, who, listening to their ego, and cut from all positive emotions, will only think about themselves.

From 0 to -3, it's the energy of selfish people. These persons will find it natural to be at the centre of everyone's attention and will let you know it. They only give when they think they'll get something in exchange, you being grateful, at the very least. For them, true generosity doesn't exist, it's only about strategy. As they don't hide and don't manipulate, they are fairly easy to notice. They are the big spoilt baby.

From -4 to -7, it's the energy of the narcissists. And here we enter in the group of manipulators. These people are conscious of the energetic vacuum the have inside (the hatred, anger, bitterness and envy don''t produce anything interesting) and conscious they need your energy, that they are energy vampires. In order to get it, they want your attention, the more the better, your love and compassion and if possible your adulation. But they feed as well on your anger and your fear. Depending on their talent, they can be very charismatic. The paradox being that, in order to get the compassion of others they present themselves as victims. Their ego doesn't allow them to take any responsibility, either way. So one stone, two birds. They won't necessarily aim to hurt you - also some will enjoy it -, but, without any conscience or heart, burnt a long time ago on the fire of their personal interest, they won't hesitate one bit to walk on you, if this is what is needed. Or, in the case of a politician, point the finger to a lambda scapegoat for the adoring mob to lynch.

From -8 to -10, we enter the field of the perverse manipulators, the Machiavellian, the psychopath. As for narcissists, they'll know how to take your energy with delectation. They relish your fear and anger. They see themselves as predators and I see them differently... They are a lot cleverer than narcissists, which fuels their arrogance. Some, to feed their hatred and desire to hurt will violate the law. All will wreak havoc. All the more difficult to denounce when it's psychological. This is an intensely destructive manipulation and the problem is that these people will sometimes choose a mask to show themselves in the opposite light of who they really are : perfect mother, lawyer defending human rights, doctor, priest, humanitarian... the best job being the one giving him at the same time an air of sainthood and access to vulnerable people.

In an humanitarian association, then, you'll find true altruists rubbing elbows with psychopaths.

And it makes it so much more difficult to know the good guy from the bad guy. 

Because a talented manipulator will seem to be equilibrated and compassionate, will listen to you, the better to hook you, when a true good-hearted person, sometimes affected by his personal experience, lost in past emotions of a non-rosy past, will give you a first bad impression.

There are, I estimate, roughly one third of negative people in most democratic countries. But this varies from a country to the other.

And I hope this article will help you understand them better.

[lilaetleloup]

the manipulator during the epidemic

I wrote an article I have not yet published that explains how good guys underestimate the amount of bad guys. And that bad people reveal themselves a lot more in times of crisis. I thought about wars or revolutions. But the current crisis is also accurate.

My estimation, based on books, observation, logic, history and, dare I confess, clairvoyance, is that there are around 35% of negative people in most democracies, the countries where we are less traumatized and thus, not pushed into survival mode.

In non-democratic countries, where this survival instinct has been activated, it has also the side effect to have people put the best of humanity aside, compassion and love, and it's my belief that in Russia and China, for example, the positive citizens are a minority. And it must be hell for a person with empathy, I feel, to live there.

Among this negative people, there are roughly 30% of selfish persons, who do not manipulate and can still have some conscience wake-up calls, 40% of narcissists who are manipulators without conscience but less Machiavellian cleverness than the other 30% of psychopaths or sociopaths. And this is to bring back to the total. In any given democracy, it means there would be roughly 10% of psychopaths.

And in peace time, this little world of egotistical people is more or less hiding behind the social norm of our "modern" times. But when there is a crisis, they clearly enjoy being themselves.

It could have been arrogance or it could have been a tough childhood that had the manipulator cut himself form a good part of his emotions. Notably the best part: at the bottom of his Pandora box, there is only pleasure left.

And with this spectrum of emotions which has him feel more like a stone than a human, it will be so much easier for him to adapt to social distancing - doesn't know anguish, nor depression - and to boast, from this "moral" point of view, that it's very easy to cope with the stuff, that you "just" have to lounge on a couch, or "just" have to watch TV.

And when, on Instagram, some people expect followers to admire their example, telling them that you "just" have to push on your internal happiness switch, as if we were all just clocks, I would bet a lot, that they are manipulators. And more so when this advice is written under a selfie.

The manipulator doesn't fear much but he fears being discovered, getting old, getting sick and death.

Not for those he loves, of course, he loves nobody but himself. Or yes, sometimes, those he sees as a projection of himself. His survival is essential to him, it may have been the reason he chose to cut himself from emotions. I do not mean here, that we, positive people, have reached a Buddhist detachment but that we are able to take risks for others and believe in something or someone more important than we are. For the manipulator, his own end is the end of the world. And the spectre of this Coronavirus has him lash out; anger is one of the emotions he has left. I'm  not surprised, then, when I read that conjugal violence is rising. As do divorces. And racial crimes.

Some negative people, in France, will harass medical staff, putting messages in mailboxes, asking nurses to think about their health - the nerve! - and move. Some owners will even put an end to rental contracts without notice. And I dare say it's not even legal.

Without a spouse or a scapegoat, you can always lash out on Twitter or from a window. Lynching and stoning is a group pleasure no negative person could refuse. And social media, in our “civilized” times is quite as good as the real thing. "Stay home" will he shout without bothering to know what the purpose of the walk is. The good old mask of virtue and common good allows some to express anger and hate with impunity.

The solitary walk in a forest is, it would seem, after the masturbation, the least dangerous activity in these dangerous times and it has been, within limits, authorized in France. And this hasn't prevented some, there, on Twitter, to clutch their pearls and threaten to shoot the walker. I even saw a picture of a tarpaulin under which the would-be-murderer claimed he wished to put his future victims. Murdering someone or talking about it, in the name of an hypothetical common good, in general, is a good indication of hypocrisy or manipulation. Torquemada comes to mind, who, in his own time, would have had the reputation of a saint, taking care of others’ souls, while enjoying the legal torture. Or Robespierre, claiming that in the name or purity and the good of a whole country, he was ready to behead half of it. And would have done so if he hadn't succumbed to his own tool first.

And it will be the same profile, and even the same person, who will walk his dog ten times a day or rent one, still clothed with the same respectability cloak, because in this case, you use the basis of the law, if not the spirit.

There is also some anger that can at least express itself in some French regions when they slash tires or damage the paint of cars that seem to come from other counties, worst of all... from Paris! They can at last show what they really think about the loathsome Parisian. And certainly, some people who have run to their secondary house when travelling was forbidden and they knew the consequences on the local community, may have been negative people. But it was not necessarily the case of those who had this reflex at the beginning of everything when they had no apparent symptoms. If I had been living in a flat at the time, in the absence of rules and thorough information on the matter, honestly, I don't know what I would have done. And the good people who indiscriminately damage others' cars (one local doctor whom it happened to, had a borrowed car with a "foreign" license plate ) should think that they should take care of their reputation. Because it would have an impact on tourism and their future prosperity.

When, in front of the crisis, and in the absence of any possible panic attack, so many citizens are hoarding toilet paper or disinfectant, hurting others who will have none, this lack of solidarity, this selfishness can also be the sign of someone being negative. Some go farther still, selling this stock at higher price: taking advantage of chaos and others is so manipulator 101.

In the united States, we have the selfishness and narcissism of young people who don't want to skip Spring Break and party on the beach before coming home and redistributing generously the virus among their families. The youngest among us are also those with the less symptoms and I hope they'll think twice before kissing their grand-mother. As, in a recent post, I spoke about this possible tendency, for older persons, to worry more and feel bitterness, I can as well have all generations hate me, telling that there are negative people of all ages.

And freedom, this right this country holds dear shouldn't be a right to be selfish.

Because those of us with a conscience know that our freedom stops where the others' begins.

We witness also, in the same country, the most extraordinary protests of negative people: a collective of Trump fans who protest in compact groups during a pandemic, against the closing of shops and stay at home orders. In the name of extreme individual freedom, the one that has no respect whatsoever for others' and is just selfishness in disguise. What I find interesting is that what I've seen written the most on their placards, is a demand to go to the hairdresser, which is plain shameless narcissism. The faces are scary masks of hatred and anger, the talk without any empathy, nor ambiguity: "these people will die anyway". No matter the number of deaths among others, as long as I can have my my my haircut. A speedy class on the sense of priority of negative people.

The most odious is when these people harass or insult medical staff that work day and night to save others, risking their mental and physical health. So, of course, there are also negative people among the medical staff, - I've been raised among them, I should know - but I can't imagine the anguish and sadness for the positive ones among them who work to save others. The horror.

The manipulator, the negative one, reveals himself in time of crisis.

And I think about my fellow good people who take risks to help others, without judging or condemning those who wouldn't be as exceptional. For example, this doctors who will maybe have to cure some of these protesters with nice haircuts who spit on them the previous day.

I think about my fellow empaths who, as well as having to fight against their own stress and fear, will be enclosed with a negative person focused on draining their energy. Who will suck them, and unload on them and generally show the whole range of his toxicity off.

The only good side of this is to have to toxic ones reveal themselves. Also their values and influence on a world and a destructive economy.

And when the worst will have gone, they will have learned nothing and won't have changed.

We will have to be the ones to learn from it and fix the mess.

[lilaetleloup]

And in the absence of real political conviction, they'll just choose the most opportunistic program, do their show and seduce their electors.

There are still a few good apples, politicians with true concern for others, and it's more and more important to spot them.

[lilaetleloup]

I was helping my son with his divisions for his home-schooling this morning.

And I injected some politics/economics in the mix...

"Well, son, the division has us distribute the same amount of money among people. It's a mathematical utopia. Unfettered capitalism, on the other hand, lets one greedy villain have it all and despise others from his new wealth height!".

Be safe ❤

[lilaetleloup]

Clouds, far away, cuddle a round mountain surmounted by cute little curly trees. And I think about Avalon.

I travel in magical land...

Wishing you, wherever you are, outside our inside, a beautiful day of the Earth.

Take care ❤

[lilaetleloup]

manipulators and the "elite"

The two greatest talents of manipulators are their acting and psychological abilities. And it's also the reason why they are so dangerous.

Because most of us will imagine the bad guy as someone overtly nasty. Preferably ugly, with greasy hair. When, in fact, it's all the contrary.

The more powerful evil is, the more enticing he will seem. The more fascinating he will look. The more charismatic he'll be.

He'll polish his appearance to the best of the possibilities offered to him by medicine, make-up and sport. He'll deliver your dream on a golden tray, you just won't believe your eyes. Your so far dull life will suddenly bloom with hope and colours. You will be dazzled.

This feeling the world suddenly sparkles is called gas-lighting, and it’s intentional to hook you. It can feel like you are falling in love, on a cloud, breathing pure oxygen... until the illusion disappears. And then, you'll feel like this cartoon coyote, running after the big bird and discovering himself above an abyss.

You are an anti-abortion Christian? What a coincidence, he is too. You are an advocate for ecology and social rights? Marvellous, so is she. The manipulator has no conviction, other that he deserves everything. And it could be the same person who, years later, will present completely different views, adapting to his goals. He'll tell you he has changed. Or that he has grown up. When growing up and changing is impossible to him. He would have to be able to question himself first...

Your eyes full of stars, your dream in the flesh in front of you, it will be nearly impossible then for you to see the hard truth about the person who cynically targeted you.

And this acute sense of psychology allows the manipulator to be a talented writer.

He will know best how to describe a character's personality. Notably villains. And when before the year 2000, when psychology wasn't so precise or known about narcissistic traits, you feel like the writer has read in the head of a psychopath, wonder no more: he found the inspiration in his own head.

The bad guy is mostly what makes a movie or a book interesting, what gives the hero the possibility to learn and be a better person. As my daughter told me once, when we had fun imagining a planet whose inhabitant were only good people, the one advantage of villains, is that they make fiction interesting.

But I'm nonetheless appalled when I read now the eyes of so many writers of romantic books and identify them for what they are: soulless. Above a magnificent cold smile. Writers of love story who don't even know how love feels? That's laughable and could also explain so many cliches you don't find in real life. And I'm quite offended these authors participated in the forming of my young romantic mind, fulling my head with dangerous expectations.

It's my conviction, now, that a majority of books and screenplay writers are manipulators.

And as we stay on the psychological ability, a good portion of psychiatrists psychologists or other psy...s must be too...

And its the same thing for actors: positive people are a minority there.

A good manipulator, especially a psychopath, will know how to perform to a level you just can't imagine. When he has no empathy, he'll seem compassionate. When he hates you, he'll look as if he cares.

A psychopath knows how to wear a daily mask that will seldom slip. You'll have to know him backstage, to see his meltdowns, to watch the volcanic explosions. The psychopath will be his true self in front of those he already has in his power, when no effort is needed. Or when the illusion wears him down.

The manipulator is already an actor. So doing it professionally is just the next logical step.

If he is successful, he'll have the people's admiration, undiluted narcissistic pleasure that will stroke his ego and save him from too frequent rages.

It's all the easier as a manipulator knows how to light the charisma on. This impression, when you meet him that he fills the whole place and sucks the air? He'll be happy with "just" your time, your attention and all your energy. The beast needs the fuel.

And for a talented manipulator without the good looks, the next best choice is to become a politician.

Without any real conviction, he'll choose the most opportunistic program, will make the show and seduce the public.

Of course, manipulators feel also at home with all jobs that have them manipulate people, like marketing or public relations.

And in anything focusing on appearances, without substance. As he lacks a heart and its depth, he'll work on the surface. It's something he has learned to do since he was a child.

So he'll flourish happily on social media, fashion, modelling, merchandising...

And then, his rage, his lack of scruples, his blind ambition and his political flair - walk on naive people, flatter the powerful, exploit the weak - will enable him to climb fairly quickly the hierarchical ladder of any company.

All the more as you have this to take into account: the manipulators know who they are and what their survival entails. Only the selfish, low level negatives, and the positive people don't encompass this human reality. And, mostly, don't know how to identify a predator.

The manipulators know perfectly how to do so. And at the highest levels of power, where they don't need the useful good and naive person, villains associations abound, that will allow only their kind on the pyramid summit.

That's the reason why you don't need to imagine some Illuminati conspiracy theory. They already have Davos, masonic or golf clubs. Or VIP spaces, cocktails, weddings...

And when you put all this put together, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that at least three fourth of what tabloids call the "elite", are in fact predators only interested in their power and concentrated on their greed.

And we wonder the world is not going as well as it should? They have moulded it in their image, superficial and empty. And this world depresses so much the good sensitive people, those with a soul, that the suicide rates or alcoholism or use of legal and illegal drugs have been skyrocketing. The same with what we call "mental illness". When a good portion of them comes from the difficulty people with the full span of human emotions have to adapt to this world of spoiled, heartless, rotten children.

The true mentally-ill person is the manipulator.

And he has made the "elite" in his image.

Upper-class people who haven't changed since Jane Austen, and have seen the world evolve in spite of  them. When they didn't see anything wrong in letting children die in their chimneys to clean them. And if the morals hadn't changed under the pressure of good people, the modern version of upper-class wouldn't see any problem with it.

There are more manipulators in power but, in democratic countries, there are more good people in general.

This has them make marketing efforts to look as if they care.

Let's continue to change the mentalities in a positive way.

And let's take the power back.

[lilaetleloup]

There are doves, a herd of doves turning around my house, when their owner lets them free, usually in the shadowy light of early evening or after a storm.

Take care ❤

[lilaetleloup]

"Persuasion" of Jane Austen could have been called "Manipulation"

The work of Miss Austen is especially fascinating for the psychological description she paints of the "good" society of her time. With a precise, cutting, humorous and cynical brush.

Of course, when I first discovered this author, I loved her for the romance and Mr Darcy, but now that this coronavirus has me reread my books, I also re-discovered "Persuasion" with a new eye and have been struck by all the negative characters in this story.

The goodhearted people are an absolute minority and I find here a confirmation about my estimation on the current "elite". Who I believe to be composed by an horrific majority of negative people, more than three quarters.

The summit of the hierarchical pyramid hasn't changed its essence, it would seem. Only its appearance.

And to come back to this book, with a few exceptions, quite all the characters of the story can be credited with obscure and sneaky intentions.

The culture of the time, which gave a woman no other mean of survival than get herself the richest husband possible, being the prettiest and the most vapid, did in fact, favour superficiality and cunning.

Also, the abyssal vacuum in people, thinking doing nothing more of their time than putting new clothes on five times a day, added to their conviction that being well born was paramount could enable monstrous egos to revolve around one's navel. In perpetuity.

It's quite a miracle, then, that we could escape this moral abomination.

As for this book, as I won't be describing the too numerous disagreeable characters, I'd like to describe three archetypes, that could illustrate my own classification of negative people. First, there is the father and the oldest sister of the heroine, Sir Walter Elliot ans Miss Elizabeth Elliot. They are introduced, at the beginning of the book, as the absolute worst in the heroine's life but they are, in fact, no more that horrid selfish people. There is no manipulation in these two, so exclusively occupied at loving and pleasing themselves, telling whatever goes through their head. As they make no effort to be agreeable to others, the fact that they don't care for the heroine is clear to everyone, herself included. And it would be easy to loath them but the selfish person is the least dangerous among the negative profiles. As they don't wear any mask, we aren't fooled about the goods. Its the selfish person, on the contrary, that could get manipulated by meaner people : and it is precisely the case in this book.

In a more negative category, you have the other sister of the heroine, a Mrs Mary Musgrove, which is the name she got after her marriage. At first, the heroine declares she prefers the way this sister treats her, as an useful object or a servant : she finds it more gratifying. But I beg to differ. And you have here the faulty and classical reasoning of your typical good person, always happy to be useful, always in danger of becoming the handy saviour of everyone, except herself. Distributing empathy, love and affection, forgetting to take care of herself. And being abused in return. This isn't at all healthy. So this sister, an obvious narcissist, with a poor cleverness, is always wailing and playing the victim to have others do exactly what she wants. And gets it, most of the time. People in these days were so polite and respectful of manners... She always wants to be the centre of everybody's attention and sees everything through the prism of her own advantage. And if the heroine finds in this sister the ephemeral pleasure of being of some use, she would, without any other interference, have finished her life being the unpaid servant, little more than a slave, in someone else's hoe, raising her nieces and nephews, entertaining the family, with Hartshorn at the ready for an ever swooning sister.

There is also a psychopath in this book. Well, there is at least one, as I suspect more but this one is clearly denounced as one: William Elliot, the heir of the heroine's father. He is known at the end of the story as cold-hearted, ruthless and manipulative. Along the way, he was already seen to be adapting to people, lying and using his charm. And this, here, is the most dangerous negative profile because this people are the cleverest and adapt their appearance and behaviour to their objectives and targets. At a time when marriage was unbreakable and women had no more right than chattel, the fate of an innocent young women glued to the toxic charm of this kind of man, would have been dire, indeed. And the author has us know, in fact, that the first wife of this man had been very unhappy and died young.

In this particular book, the heroine was cleverly distrustful of such an apparent perfection and the total absence of spontaneous emotions. And she was already in love of another. She was lucky enough to escape some traps and clever enough to avoid others. She got to marry the good man and together, they will have the chance, to build their own inner positive universe in this world of elitist heartless villains.

[lilaetleloup]

I come back in Europe, for a moment, to our modern times, when, from my terrace, I observe a tractor humming in the fields.

Take care ❤