This is the second in the series about Sociopathy based on the book by Dr. Martha Stout, The Sociopath Next Door.
The previous post is here: Sociopathy: What is a Sociopath?
The elements that are used to diagnose sociopathy/psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder are as follows:
Many mental health professionals refer to the condition of little or no conscience as “antisocial personality disorder,” a noncorrectable disfigurement of character that is now thought to be present in about 4 percent of the population – that is to say, one in twenty-five people. This condition of missing conscience is called by other names, too, most often “sociopathy,” or the somewhat more familiar term, psychopathy.
The clinical diagnosis of “antisocial personality disorder” should be considered when an individual possesses at least three of the following seven characteristics:
(1) failure to conform to social norms;
(2) deceitfulness, manipulativeness;
(3) impulsivity, failure to plan ahead;
(4) irritability, aggressiveness;
(5) reckless disregard for the safety of self or others;
(6) consistent irresponsibility;
(7) lack of remorse after having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person. The presence in an individual of any three of these “symptoms,” taken together, is enough to
make many psychiatrists suspect the disorder.
Certainly 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7 are apparent in the activities of Miscavige.
Dr. Stout goes on to describe one of the defining traits of the sociopath — superficial charm.
One of the more frequently observed of these traits is a glib and superficial charm that allows the true sociopath to seduce other people, figuratively or literally – a kind of
glow or charisma that, initially, can make the sociopath seem more charming or more interesting than most of the normal people around him. He or she is more spontaneous, or more intense, or somehow more “complex,” or sexier, or more entertaining than everyone else. Sometimes this “sociopathic charisma” is accompanied by a grandiose sense of self-worth that may be compelling at first, but upon closer inspection may seem odd or perhaps laughable.
I have observed this superficial charm in every one of the people I have known who were clearly sociopathic.
Another very noteworthy trait is their lack of real emotion or concern for the wellbeing of others, even their spouse, parents, siblings or children.
And sociopaths are noted especially for their shallowness of emotion, the hollow and transient nature of any affectionate feelings they may claim to have, a certain breathtaking callousness. They have no trace of empathy and no genuine interest in bonding emotionally with a mate. Once the surface charm is scraped off, their marriages are loveless, one-sided, and almost always short-term. If a marriage partner has any value to the sociopath, it is because the partner is viewed as a possession, one that the sociopath may feel angry to lose, but never sad or accountable.
His wife and even his children are meant for the eyes of the world. They are camouflage.
Where’s Shelly? While he still wears his wedding ring for public appearances. Remember Ron Miscavige, “Let him die.” Don’t believe anything a sociopath tells you or proclaims publicly — look at their actions and the reality of their lives.
Dr. Stout also notes how deceptive sociopaths can be. They can appear to be charming, generous and caring about the wellbeing of others. It is all an act to help them maintain their power and escape accountability. “How could such a great guy be guilty of doing such terrible things.”
For brief periods, any reasonably clever sociopath can act with saintlike niceness for his own manipulative purposes.
In one chapter, she describes Skip, a sociopath who has risen to great success as a businessman due to his lack of conscience, and describes why sociopaths often get away with their behavior for so long (there is another upcoming article in this series about “authority” which will go into more detail about this).
For even if you know about him, know what his heart is like, and have caught on to his modus operandi, how will you call him out? Whom can you possibly tell, and what will you say? “He’s a liar”? “He’s crazy”? “He raped me in his office”? “He’s got spooky eyes”? “He used to kill frogs”? But this is a leader of the community, in an Armani suit. This is Juliette’s beloved husband, and the father of two: This man is the CEO of the Arika Corporation, for goodness sake! Just what are you accusing him of, and what proof do you have? Who is going to sound crazier–chief executive Skip, or his accuser?
Beware getting caught up the world of the sociopath. It ultimately — whether in the short term or long — ends up in disaster and hurt.
Very enlightening and razor accurate (once the initial nausea wears off of inspecting some the people you have known and placed faith in or worse, became are a lot closer to you than you realized). I know this is a Scientology based blog, but this information spreads out way past explaining those destructive puppets lead by one of those sociopathic monsters. Going to have to get that book.
Geezers! It talks about the “present time” of 4% of people or if put in another, more scarier way, one in 25 people.
Explains a lot if one looks, especially at your own emotional responses one sort of learns to brush off so easily, but they do make you wonder sometimes what’s wrong with you. Hardest thing to grasp imo, is that you can’t logically, emotionally reason with someone who has no conscience, who just operates off a bunch of pat but socially convincing responses, except to gaslight yourself. Or per the old saying, “sell your soul to the devil.” Hell of a booby trap to walk into, especially if the stakes are high! Unfortunately, those personalities have no idea what remorse is…
Great educative line of posts Mike, miles better than Hubbard’s PTS bs.
The late Suzy Watson Taylor, in the tiny time I was in Author Services Inc, when Suzy was over getting LRH’s Battlefield Earth into a movie, my time in ASI was May 1992 until Dec 1995 only, and Suzy was very circumspect when she and then Marketing Dir ASI G.Lane would discuss the “hot” scene at Int Base, because sometimes G.L. would have to go uplines, G.L almost always got things easily approved by DM, and ASI did have to get approval to things by DM (there is some hidden reasoning to this, namely I witnessed personally DM retained his COB ASI logon and Shelly retained her COB ASST ASI logon, in fact I ensured their logons “worked” for them, weekly, part of my computer operator ASI weekly checklist).
To the point, Suzy Watson Taylor, the late, was extremely good with words, and could discuss when DM was going batshit on Gold staff, including, several times I inferred what she commented meant that DM was striking some people at Int Base, namely the “Gold” staff DM nastily got physical with, and this was in the 92 to 95 time slot. I think more after the IRS win, was when Miscavige went bonkers and got unrestrained in his misdemeanor battery of Int and Gold staff.
IN hindsight, were I there, I’d have lost it, had I seen what I’ve heard of all this physical abuse, meaning I’d have walked off the base, gone to the police, and just pulled the plug.
I was a “wog” going into the Hubbard horrible Sea Org cult and I still believed, our police, and authorities, meaning FBI and authorities like prosecutors, were the “good guys” and always the ones ALL of society has to put their faith in.
Police, FBI, US Govt agencies, state and fed prosecutors, are the GOOD guys.
Cult nuts, and the Sea Orgers at Int Base under DM’s era, went nuts on each other, are legally liable, in the broad view.
I don’t think I’ve have survived long, without going to the police, had I witnessed the degree of the misdemeanor battery that went on at Int Base.
Miscavige is mostly to blame, but it turned into mob self dehuminization, and besides Miscavige, ULTIMATELY this Sea Org cult is L. Ron Hubbard’s baby.
L. Ron Hubbard’s writings allowed the vicious interpretations that turned into mob self battery between staff at Int Base.
It ought to have become a police matter, and stopped, and must be stopped IF it ever continues in ANY Sea Org unit anywhere in the world.
Hubbard’s writings open the door to letting sociopathic interpretations which cross the line lawfully, and need to become POLICE matters in the future any time misdemeanor battery staff to staff, occurs in the Hubbard Sea Org.
Hubbard deserves the most condemnation, but I never worked close enough to Miscavige’s lines, other than to get the stories third and sometimes second and a few times firsthand by those beaten, spit on, punched, by Miscavige, and when I reported it to the Riverside Country Police, they said people need to come report it. And other critics at the time, on A.R.S chat site said people with physical marks of the battery need first to go to Emergency Medical facilities and get their wounds recorded by medical, for evidence in the police work.
The psychological near-torture of the Hubbard rules when fascistically interpreted and applied inside Sea Org needs always be written about by ex Sea Orgers once they get their heads on straight and literate enough to express the horrible predicaments they were placed in.
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Hubbard’s confines within “official Scientology” will always be bad.
Only splinter Scientologists have the option to dispense with the Hubbard fascism.
And to outsiders, interested in the Scientology Hubbard soul theory stuff, it’s simple. Scientology is essentially pseudo-therapy delving into our supposed “past lives” accumulated “case” trauma, to supposedly defuse and “Clear” it. And then upper Scientology of modern official Scientology consists of 5 “upper levels” of exorcism/soul freeing of invisible souls which Xenu mass murdered in the 4th Dynamic Engram, and Xenu implanted these bodiless souls with the R6 nastiest implants, supposedly, and those R6 implanted souls infest all humans today requiring the five Hubbard exorcism/soul freeing “advanced” (aka exorcism) steps. Because those invisible souls LEAK the R6 implant material into our minds, supposedly, even if we are “Clear.”
The damned Hubbard never allowed what I said above to be simply explained, but that’s the extent of the “case” alleviation soul practices of Scientology.
I say skip it all, and only study under splinter decent personality “free zone” Scientologists, if you must do these soul pseudo-therapy and exorcism/soul-freeing practices of Hubbard’s.
The rest of Hubbard’s totalitarian nastiness, just never allow yourself to ever do it.
Xenu! He’s to blame as to make modern spiritual requirements the exorcism to free the stuck to us imprisoned souls. For a moment, I thought you would forget about them.
What you wrote reminded me when Madrid became “ideal” and the CoFolo EU couldn’t answer a DM question about renovations (which, by the way, were not CoFolo’s business) and ended up directly in the Rpf without even saying goodbye to his wife.
Meanwhile, they asked you to change Walter Kotric (CoCloEU) mind who, after being criticized and flattened by DM empaty, for I don’t remember what, wanted to quit and leave the SO.
I cannot make sense of your last paragraph – looks somewhat scrambled.
Kotric was or is married to Zara. In the mid 90’s they came to Int as command teams were being trained up for every continent. (Those command teams were the then envisioned solution to all the problems.)
Both were then sent to CLO EU: Copenhagen. And from what I recall Kotric always idolized Miscavige.
Walter running afoul of Miscavige at the Madrid ideal org is covered in my book.
What I meant to say is exactly what Mike is saying, where you see DM’s sociopathy in action. Of course, Kotric has always had an admiration/fearful reverence for DM. He ran like a rocket, and DM really liked that. After the dismantling of all the top execs in the early 2000s, for a certain period, Kotric seemed to receive orders directly from him.
As far as I know, at least until a few years ago, he was still married to Zara but is no longer the Co CLO and not even in SO for health reasons. It seems he’s returned to Austria and occasionally comes to visit her, who has become the CO NEP (CO New era pubs).”
… and on your blog:
https://www.mikerindersblog.org/miscavige-the-magnificent/
(I keep being amazed about the amount of details concerning the cult being available on the net.)
Interesting that Kotric is out of the SO. During his tenure as CO CLO EU he was detested by quite a number of the EDs in Europe.
The names of Walter and Zara appeared in a funeral notice concerning Alfred Kotric on April 18, 2014 in Spittal/Austria, aged 87. Probably his father.
“Interesting that Kotric is out of the SO. During his tenure as CO CLO EU he was detested by quite a number of the EDs in Europe.”
I found out he was out of the SO only a couple of years ago. It amuses me that you know he wasn’t liked by many European EDs. Indeed, even though he wasn’t their ‘senior’ (that was the Folo pgms chf), when he caught some EDs who were downstat or disliked by him, he treated them poorly and scolded them heavily in front of everyone. But no one ever dared to tell him anything. His position had nothing to do with leading the orgs; he often reminisced about the good times when he was in Russia or in the lrh house unit