Normal people know something is terribly wrong in the world yet they haven't been able to completely identify it nor effectively do anything about it, resulting in frustration and confusion over what's happening, such as the decline of a superpower like America. A book written decades ago but kept from public release until 2006 offers a welcome reprieve from the confusion. Political Ponerology is the first book to adequately explain man's repetitive inhumanity towards man and to provide tools to end such destructive cycles. (Ponerology is a division of theology dealing with evil; the name is derived from the Greek word 'poneros' or evil).

During the oppressive regimes of Nazism and Communism, Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski and colleagues studied how negative ideologies infected entire nations through individuals with various pathologies, mainly psychopathy (absence of a conscience or empathy). Discard your programmed view that serial killers are the only psychopaths, for psychopaths tread heavily upon your life every day. Modern psychologists posit that one in 10 men and one in 100 women are psychopathic.

Lobaczewski says that for centuries, evil has been regarded with a moralistic interpretation that did nothing to help humanity counteract it. His scientific study led him to observe that "evil" acts were most often perpetrated by psychopaths, essentially those with mental diseases, causing him to study evil as a disease not a concept surrounded in moral fluff.

According to Lobaczewski, a small percentage of psychopaths has the ability to infect certain personalities within populations to go along with their deviant worldview by manipulating them with propaganda and "patriotic buffoonery."

Causing a sort of neurosis within such personalities, psychopathic regimes - whose desire is to rule and be served - have used these pawns to inflict enormous suffering on the majority of "normal" people throughout history. Lobaczewski calls this "macrosocial evil' where large scale evil overtakes whole nations affecting social, political and religious movements time and time again.

According to the book's editor, the "They hate us because of our freedoms," Bushism is a perfect example of "selection and substitution of data in reasoning," or more simply, elaborate propaganda that is happily accepted as an explanation by the susceptible public because of deficits in critical thinking, reasoning and criticism.

How this work saw the light of day is a miracle bearing mention. From the book:
"The first manuscript of this book went into the fire five minutes before the arrival of the secret police in Communist Poland. The second copy, reassembled painfully by scientists working under impossible conditions of repression, was sent via a courier to the Vatican. Its receipt was never acknowledged, no word was ever heard from the courier - the manuscript and all the valuable data was lost. The third copy was produced after one of the scientists working on the project escaped to America in the 1980s. Zbigniew Brzezinski [Polish-American political scientist and National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter] suppressed it."

Completed by Lobaczewski in 1985, no publisher would touch it. It sat for 20 years until the now elderly author stumbled upon Laura Knight-Jadczyk's web pages on psychopathy. A writer and amateur historian, Knight-Jadczyk came under attack from nefarious individuals causing her to research the bizarre behavior she was experiencing, eventually leading her to study psychopathy. Lobaczewski sent her the manuscript and the endlessly suppressed book was suppressed no more when Knight-Jadcyk's independent Red Pill Press published it in 2006.

Initially, I resisted a book by an academic, but his writing style is not so technical so as to cause complete disengagement; however, it requires focused attention and thought. The editor's superb preface and footnotes assist with needed explanations while providing alarming examples of the 'ponerization' process the editors believe is occurring in America.

As I pondered the material within the context of historical and current events, I knew I was gaining important knowledge that was painstakingly acquired and then suppressed for the power it holds to turn the course of humanity toward a more positive and "normal" progression. Could this be the most important book you ever read? Absolutely. Lobaczewski believes that awareness and understanding of the phenomenon as well as pre-screening for pyschological defects of those who could rise to powerful influence would greatly benefit societies.

The biggest fear of the pathocracy (a small pathological minority controlling a society of normal people) is to be discovered; to have its mask removed and be rendered powerless. Is it too late to recover from damage already inflicted, or can we utilize this remarkable science to create a world normal humanity dreams of and knows is possible? It's time to wake up or risk succumbing to a path Lobaczewski says was chosen for us by powerful forces.

All of Lobaczewski's associates and contacts became "inoperative" due to secret arrests, repression, persecution, death or from being ponerized themselves. Perhaps it was due to divine intervention that the aging psychologist's work has at long last been brought to light as a beacon of hope in a world teetering on the abyss yet again.

Political Ponerology is available at redpillpress.com.

~ Keaven is a freelance writer, professional administrator, activist, animal advocate and outdoors enthusiast. She resides in Donner Lake with two adorable cats and a number of spiders who enjoy catch and release status. She welcomes your comments at kittykabin@cebridge.net.