Masks of Sanity

Psychopaths are masters of deception

From the LA Daily News

So far I have summarized the first two groupings of attributes in the persistent predatory personality model. Group 1 (“Drive the agenda”) covers the PPP’s need for control in all situations, and their response to having that control challenged. Group 2 (“Motivated and operate differently and darkly”) highlights the exceptional differences from normal people—in terms of their sexual boundarylessness, low regard for laws and morals, and predatory and sadistic nature.

The next group of five attributes are grouped under the heading “The truth is not easy to distinguish and believe” and collect those features having to do with manipulation and lying—concealing the truth.

Attribute 11: Actively Cultivates Façade of Normal

This attribute emerged very strongly, which isn’t a surprise. Hervey Cleckley called his groundbreaking book on psychopathy The Mask of Sanity, after all. Dr. Mitchell breaks this attribute down into three subsections. PPP’s are like spies without a country. They try their best to blend in, tailoring their personae to their targets in order to get what they want.

People of DP Seem Like Any Other Person

Some people might assume that you’ll be able to spot a psychopath just by looking at them. In fact, chances are that when interacting with them, they’ll seem perfectly normal. As Mitchell puts it, “people of DP spend extensive amounts of time and energy creating and maintaining an image of ‘normal.’”

In this study, the attribute includes the subtle and relentless grooming of everyone around them to believe in the created public persona. Several representative phrases from the data include ‘upstanding citizen,’ ‘well respected,’ ‘he is above reproach,’ and ‘masquerade of decency.’

People of DP Use Charities, Marriages, Religion, Causes As Fronts

One way they do this is by adopting various “covers” that “allow them to lead their double life.” As one Category 4i participant put it, “Some are ‘pillars of society’.” There’s a more sinister method behind which cause some PPP’s engage in as cover:

higher functioning people of DP are likely to secure media or public attention for their acts of ‘goodwill’ The data also indicate people of DP choose charities or other causes to engage with that relate to their acts of nefariousness. For example, a person of DP who engages in domestic violence chooses a domestic violence charity to engage with. An academic or researcher who engages in paedophilia, chooses child sex abuse to research. By doing so, suspicion is averted and there is also an ability to control the narrative.

This ties into an attribute covered in the previous article: PPP’s are brazen. They can champion children’s safety while raping kids at the same time.

Polarisation

While their masks are well made and highly effective, they don’t work 100% of the time, and they don’t work on everyone. There’s usually at least one person who can see through the facade, while others are “captured” and “only see the image that the person of DP wants to project.” This causes a polarization of views on the PPP.

“Those who see only the façade, however, may increasingly try to defend the person of DP, believing they are being unfairly treated. They consciously and strategically transform their mannerisms and approach as they move in and out of different scenarios. They create different personas that are used interchangeably to manipulate people in different situations and contexts. Individuals often have completely opposed experiences of the same person and cannot even imagine what the other is experiencing if it is different from their own experience.” (Category 4i)

For those who have only ever experienced the persona, there may come a time when the mask is dropped and they see the “real” person. The response is one of shock, like encountering the DP’s “evil twin.” The person experiencing this has no way to reconcile the two completely different personas.

“The moment the mask dropped, his physical appearance, his face, his body, his body language, his stance everything about this man which I am so familiar with after 15 years altered to the point, he was unrecognisable.” (Category 4i)

This ability to create a complete (and completely false) persona shades into the next attribute.

Attribute 12: Chameleon-Like

Mitchell highlights two aspects of this attribute: personas/masks and demeanor/mannerisms.

Where there are multiple personas, each one is entirely different, and all are completely contrived. The findings outline that each persona may include gestures, dress, facial expressions, vocabulary choice, and accents. People of DP can switch between these personas.

And they can switch demeanors rapidly “depending on the person or people they are trying to influence or ‘groom.’” 

“The emotional manipulation also means that the DP is like a chameleon—moulding him/herself into various personas depending on what is required for a particular situation where they are pursuing their desired goal. It is like they groom their victims using whatever means necessary.” (Category 2)

Mitchell points out that we all change demeanors depending on context, but that the ways in which PPP’s do so are completely different. The closest analogue I can think of is something like multiple personality disorder, except in the case of the PPP each “personality” is a tool created in order to manipulate particular people; or perhaps what actors do. No normal person acts to this degree (and for such purposes) in ordinary life.

However, there are also PPP’s who don’t feel the need to adopt personas. For instance, highly placed PPP’s may feel they can just rely on their “seniority or position.” Also, criminals on death row may “drop their personas as they no longer have anything to gain.” When they do so, “What remains is ‘shallow affect.’” In other words, they are seen “flat,” emotionless, or expressionless. (“Dead eyes,” perhaps.) This is often interpreted as “calmness.” In fact, it’s simply that there’s nothing there.

Attribute 13: Dishonest (Including Lies)

Another attribute that should come as no surprise, and for which Mitchell procured lots of data. PPP’s have an amazing facility for lying. They can spin plausible sounding narratives and lies in the moment, when most people would stammer or struggle. They even have the “ability and willingness to weave a web of lies that can reach over years.” They have what seems like an innate sense of the art of the lie. They know just what details to change, omit, or emphasize. In doing so, they are able to portray themselves as the victims “when in fact they are the perpetrator.”

“Even in the context of people who lie, for whom morality is not high on their agenda, the level of untruthfulness is really breathtaking in dark personality.” (Category 4iii)

“The family law system is a perfect platform for master manipulators. They produce fictitious narrative in legal letters, making claims of wrong-doing, abuse of children for example, they produce copies of said letters and quote them in their own sworn affidavit material, they then get cross-examined on the content of the affidavits, thereby perjurious material is placed twice into evidence.” (Category 4i)

“My ex [the DP] would tell other people, just subtly drop in things about me being difficult or me being a liar. The case against me, an untruthful web of lies, was being made before we even split up.” (Category 4i)

“Their lying is incredibly believable. It is usually built on a real situation with just one detail changed for greater realism. They never miss a beat in the delivery of the lie. They know which lies to use to manipulate those they want to manipulate too, what appeals to the value set of the person they are manipulating.” (Category 4ii)

Attribute 14: Devious and Manipulative (Including Calculated) and Involving Consciously Misleading Others to be Inadvertently Complicit

All that lying is not just a nervous tic. It has a purpose: manipulation.

people of DP consciously and deliberately exploit, mislead, and manipulate extensively and frequently. This includes complex manoeuvring, telling different people conflicting narratives, and ensuring these people are kept apart or do not believe the credibility of the other so the truth is not exposed.

“They are manipulating every interaction they have with people.” (Category 3)

As with their lies, these manipulations are complex and strategic in nature. PPP’s know exactly what buttons to push. And just as they can weave effortlessly from one lie to another, they often switch up their manipulation strategy when necessarily, “making it hard for others to keep up, expose or win.” They put a lot of energy into this, “positioning their manipulative behaviours in a way that may be innocent and does not leave evidence.”

“The ability of DP to change swiftly according to the chess moves they see way ahead is incredible. It is very difficult to ‘fight them’ as they can anticipate one’s next steps so easily. It is not the usual forward movement that one expects from an adversary.” (Category 4ii)

“They can compel people to believe things where there is evidence to the contrary and do things they would not usually do.” (Category 4i)

Incidentally, this is one of the reasons Lobaczewski advocated for reforming justice systems to take into account psychopathic manipulation as a mitigating factor. Mitchell calls it “secondary manipulation,” when “people are manipulated or used to impact the target/victim on behalf of the person of DP without any knowledge of their involvement.”

The propensity is to influence others to unwittingly accomplish their ill-natured deeds for them and without knowledge of this.

“DP do not engage in manipulation of the victim directly, they engage in manipulating someone else to damage the victim and the manipulated person will have no idea they are in fact harming the victim, inadvertently punishing the victim, or presenting something that is triggering to the victim.” (Category 4ii)

“Those that are groomed are often manipulated into believing they are doing a good thing or the right thing.” (Category 4ii)

Attribute 15: Unwillingness to Accept Responsibility for Negative Impacts They Cause

Finally, this one seems to me both an attribute as well as an example of the previous two attributes (lying and manipulation). Specifically, “people of DP do not take ownership for their role in causing harm, suffering, and/or distress in others.” They use a number of tactics to avoid responsibility, including “deflection, denial, blaming, minimising, blocking, lying, attributing their actions to the victim, bringing in supporters, bribery, coercion, threats, intimidation, and/or causing contention.”

One specific example that came up frequently was “DARVO”—deny, attack, reverse victim and offender.

Whatever is raised they deny, they then deflect and start attacking their victim, and will switch roles to appear that they are the victim. (Category 4i)

Some of the tactics used to avoid accountability and culpability outlined in the data are so bizarre and so cruel and self-focused as to seem improbable, which is why targets/victims often have difficulty being believed, particularly where the person of DP is an ‘upstanding citizen,’ and there is no evidence of the tactics being used.

This also has political and military applications, e.g. the so-called false flag. But in ponerology it has an even greater significance. As Lobaczewski points out repeatedly, all pathocracies must adopt a macrosocial “mask of sanity/normality.” They use ideology to achieve this. And the purpose is to conceal the truth and to avoid a “diagnosis” of the system as pathological—a persistent predatory sociopolitical structure. If such a diagnosis were widespread, people would see behind the mask and be horrified at the pathocrats’ predatory nature (attribute group 2), and the pathocrats’ grasp on control (attribute group 1) would be threatened.