Four to five percent of the population is born without a capacity for empathy. It is a neurological lack. A psychopath may be a genius and become a multimillionaire, but he will never be able to understand empathetic values. In fact, because of the grandiosity of these personalities and consequent intense denial they have toward their shortcomings, they are arguably less capable of understanding empathy than a congenitally deaf person is of understanding music. Their minds are closed. Psychopaths treat the empathetic majority as the defective ones and seek relentlessly to remake the world in their own image, to proselytize their viewpoint and values and to "teach" their "defective" empathetic fellows to think like them.

Unfortunately, they can. A psychopath can never learn to think like an empathetic person. The functioning brain tissue is just not there. But people with a normal capacity for empathy can turn off that capacity and think like psychopaths.

To a certain extent, the empathetic do this as a matter of evolution. As studies of war, racism and genocide indicate, humans draw what Martha Stout called circles of empathy. They behave empathetically toward those in the circle and psychopathically toward those outside the circle. However, we are not hardwired for xenophobic violence like chimps. For us it is a function of learning and culture.

Human relationships are plagued by fear. This cycle all too often begins in our first relationship with our parents. Too self-absorbed to recognize what their child truly requires of them, many parents betray their own child's weakness and dependency on his caregivers - his emotional need for comfort, security, trust, and the loving acceptance of those closest to him. Having missed out on these important periods of growth, this boy, now a parent himself, may come to feel threatened by the emotional needs of his own child, becoming dependent on his own children and spouse to provide what he never had. The vicious cycle spirals on, and in turn, his own children learn to stifle their needs, deny their own feelings, and live as hollow reflections of the needs of their father. When a child must meet the emotional needs of a parent, and not the other way around, the parent-child relationship is inverted. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman and Robert Pressman call this the 'narcissistic family dynamic', and the problems it causes are directly relevant to the vast geopolitical problems the world currently faces.

Such children, like their parents, seek some source of comfort, some sense of security, but not knowing where to look and what to look out for, they often find it in all the wrong places: their own children, their lovers, their work, some religious or political cause. As much as they may deny it, they are motivated by the very fears they experienced as children - afraid of being alone, not belonging, uncertain, unloved, confused, abandoned. They find shelter from the pain in some literal or symbolic arms of embrace, yet it is incomplete in some way, like the 'security' of a sinking ship or of a castle built on foundations of sand. Not wanting to let go, and face that pain again, they shore up their defenses - a rallying of troops to give 'the people', their own fragmented personalities, a sense of security. But such a cover-up is built upon and dependent on lies, things half-seen through the lens of denied and distorted emotion. We may be denying that we are in a relationship with a psychopath, someone who, despite the abuse and mental torture they subject us to, offers us some sense of comfort and stability in life. Or we may deny our own betrayal of our loved ones' emotional needs: the child we criticize and deform according to our own twisted ideals or the lover we demand to be someone they are not.

Before their research into corporate psychopathy, Paul Babiak and his colleagues raised several questions in need of answers. They are equally relevant to the study of political psychopathy and can be rephrased as follows:

- How could a psychopath outshine other candidates and achieve success in politics?
- Why would a psychopath want to enter politics?
- How long could a psychopath successfully operate in such an environment?

Jim Kouri, who served on the National Drug Task Force, has trained police and security officers throughout the United States, and is currently the fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, answers the first question in an editorial for examiner.com:

Quite simply, most [psychopathic] serial killers and many professional politicians must mimic what they believe are appropriate responses to situations they face such as sadness, empathy, sympathy, and other human responses to outside stimuli. ... If violent offenders are psychopathic, they are able to assault, rape, and murder without concern for legal, moral, or social consequences. This allows them to do what they want, whenever they want. Ironically, these same traits exist in men and women who are drawn to high-profile and powerful positions in society including political officeholders.

A three-year-old has mysteriously picked up an addiction to smoking cigarettes and downing beers after surviving a road crash.

Ya Wen has been smoking up to a pack a day since the accident last year when she was hit by a speeding van.

Her parents say that her personality has changed since leaving hospital, where she recovered from five days in a coma and severe injuries.

Her mother Gao said she has started acting like an adult.

'She likes drinking,' she said. 'Three glasses of beer is no problem to her.'

Her mother, who collects rubbish to sell in Huizhou, China, said she found her daughter hiding in a toilet and smoking her father's cigarettes.

Contrasting Several Evolutionary Hypotheses

The psychopath is a unique and quite dangerous subgroup within our species. He, or she, is capable of deadly manipulations executed with unbelievably cold, calculated intellectual and emotional maneuvers. Charming, lacking in empathy, guilt, responsibility and the normal range of human emotion, they move among us with an often impeccable mask that makes them virtually undetectable. There are several evolutionary hypotheses which attempt to explain their behavior, however the best fit is that they represent a cheating reproductive strategy, one geared towards the production of many offspring for which they afford no long term care.

Support for this thesis comes in a various forms. We know that psychopaths are callous, deceptive, promiscuous, and egocentric (Cleckley, 1941: 337-364). They are also mostly male: almost four times as many more psychopathic men then women (Sigvardsson, et al, 1982). This makes them ideal for mating with many women and then leaving them subsequently, once the deed is done, so to speak. It also confers a psychological advantage in that they have the ability to manipulate women by mimicking emotional attachment, or deceiving them about resources they can offer. The same is also true for female psychopaths, who can often create the impression of being in distress which elicits more financial and physical support from the men they mate with. There is a genetic basis to the trait, demonstrated in many twin adoption studies (Viding et al, 2005 & Larsson et al, 2006: 221-30).

The criminal psychopath has been observed and studied for almost a century. But except for a short mention by Cleckley, the idea of a successful psychopath - ordinary by almost all external standards - has remained shrouded in that pervasive "conspiracy of silence". As this series progresses, it will become clear why this is the case and what exactly are the ramifications of such a dangerous gap in knowledge and awareness. So far the only in-depth presentation of the problem of successful psychopaths has been Paul Babiak's and Robert Hare's book Snakes in Suits, published in 2006. The book is essential reading, and has the potential to save your life, literally. The information it contains is universal and can be applied to interactions on any social level.

Babiak, as an industrial and organizational psychologist, encountered his first corporate psychopath in 1992. By studying operators like "Dave" in the corporate environment, Babiak not only brought into focus the methods by which psychopaths infiltrate and ascend the corporate ladder of success, he shattered previous illusions about what was and wasn't possible for psychopaths to accomplish. Many in the industry thought psychopaths wouldn't be able to succeed in business. They thought that psychopaths' bullying and narcissistic behaviors would be off-putting to potential hirers, and that their abuse and manipulations would inevitably lead to failure within the company. In fact, the so-called "experts" couldn't have been more wrong. They seemed to have neglected the uncanny ability of psychopaths to present an image of extreme normality, and even excellence, to their victims. And that is what we are to them: victims, potential "marks", suckers.

When Kerry Cassidy of Project Camelot stopped by to interview Laura Knight-Jadczyk in early February, we had our own cameras and microphones set up to record.

Laura shares a personal account of her search for the true nature of existence and her inquiry into the paranormal, past lives and the unknown, that has served as an inspiration for so many.

Investigative journalist and critic of the Israeli government Barry Chamish has recently published a strange and telling review of Andrew Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology. Chamish is best known for his UFO research in Israel and theory that Israel's former minister of Foreign Affairs, Shimon Peres, and the Shin Bet were responsible for the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, not the crazed Israeli "settler" Yigal Amir. He has also been highly critical of Ariel Sharon, the psychopath behind the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. And we at SOTT grew to appreciate his, as it appeared in the past, keen insight into the true nature of Israeli leaders.

But his recent review has caused the editors at SOTT.net to ponder some interesting questions.

Chamish begins his piece, "The Two Faces of Political Ponerology", with a poorly researched statement:

Ponerology is a term invented by the author and it means the study of the nature of political evil.

While Lobaczewki did invent the term pathocracy to describe a system of government saturated with psychological deviants, he didn't invent the term ponerology. Actually, as Lobaczewski makes clear in his book, ponerology is a theological term that means the study of evil. Lobaczewski adopted it for his own purposes in studying the nature of political evil, thus the title of his book: Political Ponerology. Chamish then writes:

Despite the best advice of the world's top experts, Australian documentary-maker Ian Walker was naive to think he could study a psychopath in the wild and not get hurt.

"I didn't really understand how manipulative a psychopath can be," the director of I, Psychopath now admits. "I thought it would be a fair fight. After all, the filmmaker has the power, really. The power of the camera and the edit."

But, as it turns out, Walker chose his subject well. 47 year-old Israeli-born Sam Vaknin is a former corporate criminal and a self-proclaimed master of manipulation and reinvention. Walker first interviewed him several years ago as the author of the book Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.

Walker was intrigued by a throwaway line where Vaknin professed he thought himself a "corporate psychopath". Afterwards, the film-maker spent several years researching the subject, but always wanted to make a film which might show psychopathic behaviour in action. Because of his narcissism, Vaknin was almost certain to say "Yes".

So, in February 2008, joined by Vaknin's long-suffering but ever-loyal wife Lidija, the threesome embarked on a diagnostic road trip to the world's top experts in psychopathy. Via a battery of psychological testing and brain scanning experiments, Vaknin becomes the world's first civilian to willingly seek a diagnosis for psychopathy.

A Wall Street Psychopath?

In 1960 Bernie Madoff founded his Wall Street firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. As chairman of its Board of Directors until his arrest in December of 2008, Madoff saw his firm (and himself) rise to prominence on Wall Street, developing the technology that became NASDAQ, the first and largest electronic stock exchange in America, in the process. A multimillionaire with over $800-million in shared assets with his wife and high school sweetheart, Ruth Alpern, Madoff was well-regarded as a financial mastermind and prolific philanthropist. He exuded an aura of wealth, confidence, and connections, and many trusted him as a pillar of the community. Sounds like a great guy, huh?

His humanitarian image was supported by his work for various nonprofit groups like the American Jewish Congress and Yeshiva University in New York, the various commissions and boards on which he sat, and the millions he donated to educational, political, cultural, and medical causes. As his firm's website made clear at the time (it has now been removed): "Clients know that Bernard Madoff has a personal interest in maintaining the unblemished record of value, fair-dealing, and high ethical standards that has always been the firm's hallmark." It's funny how things change with a little perspective and a pattern emerges only in retrospect. It wasn't until December of 2008 that the public became aware that this "personal interest" was anything but one of integrity, and that image stopped being taken for reality.