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PTS and SP, as concepts

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
I'm not an expert on psychopaths but I remember reading, amongst other books on the subject, Harvey Cleckley's "The Mask Of Sanity" and Alan Harrington's book "Psychopaths" a while back. If they and others (such as Elton MacNeil, who also wrote about a sociopath he knew) are right, psychopaths would be a very bad bet to have on your side because they have no conscience or sense of loyalty. They'd sell you out the first chance they got.

Yep. The defining characteristics of the psychopath are that (1) he cares only about himself, and (2) he is totally willing to harm anybody else if it benefits him, or allow harm to anybody else if intervening would not personally benefit him.
 

Cat's Squirrel

Gold Meritorious Patron
Yep. The defining characteristics of the psychopath are that (1) he cares only about himself, and (2) he is totally willing to harm anybody else if it benefits him, or allow harm to anybody else if intervening would not personally benefit him.

Yeah. I saw a TV program about psychopaths once and a psychologist on it offered a very succinct definition of psychopathy, which I think is worth repeating; "total identification with the predator."
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
Yeah. I saw a TV program about psychopaths once and a psychologist on it offered a very succinct definition of psychopathy, which I think is worth repeating; "total identification with the predator."

Yep. That defines the psychopath. He is just pure predator, and sees regular people as prey. There's a checklist of tendencies for the psychopath.

The next step beyond that would be the person who gets pleasure from causing harm and pain to others. The regular psychopath may harm you in order to get what he (or she) wants, but if you're not in his way, you can be relatively safe. The sadistic psychopath, on the other hand, gets pleasure from causing pain in others. You have the obvious ones like the killers of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. You have the less-obvious ones like the teenage girls who just enjoy making vulnerable girls suffer psychological pain. But they are out there.
 

Leon

Gold Meritorious Patron
I would be grateful if you would, please, cite a single mainstream psychology text, just one, in which criticising Scientology and/or L Ron Hubbard equates to an act of sociopathy.



Gosh no - I don't know of any such. I doubt that it exists.
 

Leon

Gold Meritorious Patron


Lol! I think I get your point Leon ... Tubs hubbard was a true socipath/SP (and a bit of a shit too) ... amirightorwot?




:whistling:



He was a dyed in the wool "Do what thou wilt" chap. He had the view that ANY restraint placed on his actions by ANYBODY EVER was a gross violation of his personal integrity.
 

JustSheila

Crusader
Yep. That defines the psychopath. He is just pure predator, and sees regular people as prey. There's a checklist of tendencies for the psychopath.

The next step beyond that would be the person who gets pleasure from causing harm and pain to others. The regular psychopath may harm you in order to get what he (or she) wants, but if you're not in his way, you can be relatively safe. The sadistic psychopath, on the other hand, gets pleasure from causing pain in others. You have the obvious ones like the killers of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom.

He was a dyed in the wool "Do what thou wilt" chap. He had the view that ANY restraint placed on his actions by ANYBODY EVER was a gross violation of his personal integrity.

Leon, is there any difference between what you are describing and what Enthetan describes as "the regular psychopath"?
 

Leon

Gold Meritorious Patron
I don't know. I suppose there may be a difference on the direction in which they apply their "do what thou wilt" beliefs. It can be done for good or ill. Whether Hubbard was a sociopath or not - I leave that unanswered.

And even then:

"There is so much bad in the best of us
And so much good in the worst of us
That it ill behooves any of us
To criticize the rest of us."

Take what you like and find useful in Hubbard and scrap the rest.
 

Leon

Gold Meritorious Patron
Thus, sociopath SP. I knew you'd get there. Well done.

I think all sociopaths are SPs but all persons declared to be SP by the CofS are certainly not sociopaths.

So sociopath = SP, but SP does not = sociopath.

I present myself as an example of this. And probably most others on this board.
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
I think all sociopaths are SPs but all persons declared to be SP by the CofS are certainly not sociopaths.

So sociopath = SP, but SP does not = sociopath.

I present myself as an example of this. And probably most others on this board.

I think that what Infinite was getting at, is that the term "SP" is a label to stick onto anybody that Scn Management doesn't like, and has nothing to do with whether the person was really a sociopath.

In an environment where somebody can compel a young SO girl to abort a baby she desires, and be considered a valuable exec, while if the girl runs off and refuses to return, then she's labeled an SP, the label has no valid meaning.
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
I'd agree that Hubbard had this habit of redefining words and concepts. And that CofS - and LRH when he was around- affixes that label to anyone they're pissed at. Mostly because anyone who's declared SP cannot be in contact with members in good standing so that's really handy for them. Makes the person a nonperson and places them in exile and is an effort- often successful- to neutralize that person and anything they would want to say.
 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
I don't think all psychopaths are predators, exactly. I think some don't bother. It's not their thing. But what I think is that all of them do not see people as people. I think that when they look at another person, they don't see Judy or Sam or Joe or whomever- they see some construct in their own (the psychopath's) mind. And that construct is quite one dimensional. So they don't see people as they really are and they lack empathy. People do not matter, they're almost like things to a psychopath.

SPs supposedly are like that, according to Scn theory. However, one of the areas where Scn theory differs from psychopathology's theories on the subject is how they got that way. An "SP" is supposed to be stuck in a "mad howling moment" of yesteryear. And that's what made them that way. Now, I have run into that concept elsewhere than in Scn ("Dexter"!!) but it, by no means, is a constant or a tenet held by the mental health profession as to the real reason. A doctor would tell you that some people have a chemical imbalance. Others got a blow to the head that changed their brain patterns. Others- no one knows why. And others will debate nature vs nurture. But a Scientologist will tell you that it's always the person being stuck in a mad howling moment of yesteryear.

Another thing I've noticed is that Scientologists imbue an almost magical mystique to "SP"s. I remember talking to someone about the movie A Few Good Men. The friend was attributing an almost demonic and powerful m.o. and way of being to the Jack Nicholson character. That's not the only time I noticed such an attitude.
 

Leon

Gold Meritorious Patron
yes, I agree with all this.

Except for the chemical imbalance bit. That makes no sense to me. When did they ever test the guy to see what the chemical composition of his brain is exactly and what it is supposed to be? Never. They just toss that out as a shore story to tell people and it had now gained a life of its own.

By that same argument everything is a "chemical imbalance" - headaches, tummy aches, too much cholesterol, not enough cholesterol, leprosy, Downs' syndrome, - it's all a "chemical imbalance".
 

I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
He was a dyed in the wool "Do what thou wilt" chap. He had the view that ANY restraint placed on his actions by ANYBODY EVER was a gross violation of his personal integrity.


Yep, and he also had the view that he had every 'right' to restrain others ... and frequently did so ... then encouraged others to do so if and when it served his agenda.

Personal integrity was not something hubbard was familiar with, he behaved like a spoiled brat throughout his adult life and taught others to 'duplicate' his behaviour.

Hubbard was a sleezeball ... quite a clever sleezeball and probably ahead of his time (for the first few decades of scientology), though I believe much of what he achieved was based on pure luck and by that I mean that he attracted people willing to be dominated by him so had himself a cult fairly quickly and (more importantly) an income source, and now his legacy lives on and is being played out by other (needy/attention seeking/desperate?) sleezeballs who have been trained to believe that restraining people at will, trashing family's, stalking (sometimes with cameras nailed to their heads), financially devastating people and generally behaving like the criminals that they have become is completely acceptable and even something to be proud of.

Let's call it what it is ... and stop trying to pretty things up to justify our own (past?) naïvety and stupidity.

Scientology (and therefore the tek) is a successful con job which like all con jobs has elements that appear to be (or actually are) 'good' ... none of which justifies the rest.


:)

The above isn't 'aimed' at you BTW Leon ...








 

Claire Swazey

Spokeshole, fence sitter
There are absolutely no absolutes- LOL

Leon,

I surely don't think mental illness is always due to a chemical imbalance, but I think there are times when that is the reason.

I think there are such things as chemical imbalances and that they can affect behavior and reasoning skills. This has been proven in some cases. But there are plenty of people with disorders who have no chemical imbalances or any neurological or physical problems that anyone can find.

It's what I've been saying on fora like this all along (to the delight of many-- y'all know who you are and can blow me if you don't like it) - black and white thinking does not work. Psychosis is not always caused by chemical imbalances or brain injuries. Psychosis is not always the result of an emotional problem rooted in an earlier trauma. Same with Scn techniques. They are never completely bad and ineffective, and they are never completely good and effective. One can do very well without Scn. But some do very well with it.

Same with mental health treatments, the alternative and the accredited. Some work for various people, some don't.

And, contrary to what I was taught in Scn- and in psychology classes and in traditional religion- sometimes there just isn't an answer. Some people don't respond to a damn thing. And sometimes we just don't know why and cannot know why.
 
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