Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes - Andrew Lobaczewski

goods or power. But in many instances, such as love relation-

ships or faked friendships, it is not so easy to see what the psy-

chopath is after. Without wandering too far afield into spiritual

speculations - a problem Cleckley also faced - we can only say

that it seems to be that the psychopath enjoys making others

suffer. Just as normal humans enjoy seeing other people happy,

or doing things that make other people smile, the psychopath

enjoys the exact opposite.

Anyone who has ever observed a cat playing with a mouse

before killing and eating it has probably explained to them-

selves that the cat is just “entertained” by the antics of the

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

23

mouse and is unable to conceive of the terror and pain being

experienced by the mouse. The cat, therefore, is innocent of

any evil intent. The mouse dies, the cat is fed, and that is na-

ture. Psychopaths don’t generally eat their victims.

Yes, in extreme cases of psychopathy, the entire cat and

mouse dynamic is carried out. Cannibalism has a long history

wherein it was assumed that certain powers of the victim could

be assimilated by eating some particular part of them. But in

ordinary life, psychopaths don’t normally go all the way, so to

say. This causes us to look at the cat and mouse scenario again

with different eyes. Now we ask: is it too simplistic to think

that the innocent cat is merely entertained by the mouse run-

ning about and frantically trying to escape? Is there something

more to this dynamic than meets the eye? Is there something

more than being “entertained” by the antics of the mouse trying

to flee? After all, in terms of evolution, why would such behav-

ior be hard-wired into the cat? Is the mouse tastier because of

the chemicals of fear that flood his little body? Is a mouse fro-

zen with terror more of a “gourmet” meal?

This suggests that we ought to revisit our ideas about psy-

chopaths with a slightly different perspective. One thing we do

know is this: many people who experience interactions with

psychopaths and narcissists report feeling “drained” and con-

fused and often subsequently experience deteriorating health.

Does this mean that part of the dynamic, part of the explanation

for why psychopaths will pursue “love relationships” and

“friendships” that ostensibly can result in no observable mate-

rial gain, is because there is an actual energy consumption?

We do not know the answer to this question. We observe,

we theorize, we speculate and hypothesize. But in the end, only

the individual victim can determine what they have lost in the

dynamic - and it is often far more than material goods. In a

certain sense, it seems that psychopaths are soul eaters or “Psy-

chophagic”.

In the past several years, there are many more psychologists

and psychiatrists and other mental health workers beginning to

look at these issues in new ways in response to the questions

about the state of our world and the possibility that there is

24

EDITOR’S PREFACE

some essential difference between such individuals as George

W. Bush and many so-called Neocons, and the rest of us.

Dr. Stout’s book has one of the longest explanations as to

why none of her examples resemble any actual persons that I

have ever read. And then, in a very early chapter, she describes

a “composite” case where the subject spent his childhood blow-

ing up frogs with fire-crackers. It is widely known that George

W. Bush did this, so one naturally wonders...

In any event, even without Dr. Stout’s work, at the time we

were studying the matter, we realized that what we were learn-

ing was very important to everyone because as the data was

assembled, we saw that the clues, the profiles, revealed that the

issues we were facing were faced by everyone at one time or

another, to one extent or another. We also began to realize that

the profiles that emerged also describe rather accurately many

individuals who seek positions of power in fields of authority,

most particularly politics and commerce. That’s really not so

surprising an idea, but it honestly hadn’t occurred to us until

we saw the patterns and recognized them in the behaviors of

numerous historical figures and, lately, including George W.

Bush and members of his administration.

Current day statistics tell us that there are more psychologi-

cally sick people than healthy ones. If you take a sampling of

individuals in any given field, you are likely to find that a sig-

nificant number of them display pathological symptoms to one

extent or another. Politics is no exception, and, by its very na-

ture, would tend to attract more of the pathological “dominator

types” than other fields. That is only logical, and we began to

realize that it was not only logical, it was horrifyingly accurate;

horrifying because pathology among people in power can have

disastrous effects on all of the people under the control of such

pathological individuals. And so, we decided to write about this

subject and publish it on the Internet.

As the material went up, letters from our readers began to

come in thanking us for putting a name to what was happening

to them in their personal lives as well as helping them to under-

stand what was happening in a world that seems to have gone

completely mad. We began to think that it was an epidemic,

and, in a certain sense, we were right. If an individual with a

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

25

highly contagious illness works in a job that puts them in con-

tact with the public, an epidemic is the result. In the same way,

if an individual in a position of political power is a psychopath,

he or she can create an epidemic of psychopathology in people

who are not, essentially, psychopathic. Our ideas along this line

were soon to receive confirmation from an unexpected source:

Andrew !obaczewski, the author of the book you are about to

read. I received an email as follows:

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen.

I have got your Special Research Project on psychopathy

by my computer. You are doing a most important and valu-

able work for the future of nations.[…]

I am a very aged clinical psychologist. Forty years ago I

took part in a secret investigation of the real nature and psy-

chopathology of the macro-social phenomenon called “Com-

munism”. The other researchers were the scientists of the pre-

vious generation who are now passed away.

The profound study of the nature of psychopathy, which

played the essential and inspirational part in this macro-social

psychopathologic phenomenon, and distinguishing it from

other mental anomalies, appeared to be the necessary prepara-

tion for understanding the entire nature of the phenomenon.

The large part of the work, you are doing now, was done in

those times. …

I am able to provide you with a most valuable scientific

document, useful for your purposes. It is my book “Political

Ponerology – A science on the nature of evil adjusted for po-

litical purposes”. You may also find copy of this book in the

Library of Congress and in some university and public librar-

ies in the USA.

Be so kind and contact me so that I may mail a copy to

you.

Very truly yours!

Andrew M. !obaczewski

I promptly wrote a reply saying yes, I would very much like

to read his book. A couple of weeks later the manuscript ar-

rived in the mail.

26

EDITOR’S PREFACE

As I read, I realized that what I was holding in my hand was

essentially a chronicle of a descent into hell, transformation,

and triumphant return to the world with knowledge of that hell

that was priceless for the rest of us, particularly in this day and

time when it seems evident that a similar hell is enveloping the

planet. The risks that were taken by the group of scientists that

did the research on which this book is based are beyond the

comprehension of most of us.

Many of them were young, just starting in their careers

when the Nazis began to stride in their hundred league jack-

boots across Europe. These researchers lived through that, and

then when the Nazis were driven out and replaced by the

Communists under the heel of Stalin, they faced years of op-

pression the likes of which those of us today who are choosing

to take a stand against the Bush Reich cannot even imagine.

But, based on the syndrome that describes the onset of the dis-

ease, it seems that the United States, in particular, and perhaps

the entire world, will soon enter into “bad times” of such horror

and despair that the Holocaust of World War II will seem like

just a practice run.

And so, since they were there, and they lived through it and

brought back information to the rest of us, it may well save our

lives to have a map to guide us in the falling darkness.

Laura Knight-Jadczyk

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

In presenting my honored readers with this volume, which I

generally worked on during the early hours before leaving to

make a difficult living, I would first like to apologize for the

defects which are the result of anomalous circumstances. I

readily admit that these lacunae should be filled, time-

consuming as that may be, because the facts on which this

book are based are urgently needed; through no fault of the

author’s, these data have come too late.

The reader is entitled to an explanation of the long history

and circumstances under which this work was compiled, not

just of the content itself. This is, in fact, the third manuscript I

have created on this same subject. I threw the first manuscript

into a central-heating furnace, having been warned just in time

about an official search, which took place minutes later. I sent

the second draft to a Church dignitary at the Vatican by means

of an American tourist and was absolutely unable to obtain any

kind of information about the fate of the parcel once it was left

with him.

This long history of subject-matter elaboration made work

on the third version even more laborious. Prior paragraphs and

former phrases from one or both of the first drafts haunt the

writer’s mind and make proper planning of the content more

difficult.

The two lost drafts were written in very convoluted lan-

guage for the benefit of specialists with the necessary back-

ground, particularly in the field of psychopathology. The irre-

trievable disappearance of the second version also meant the

28

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

loss of the overwhelming majority of statistical data and facts

which would have been so valuable and conclusive for special-

ists in the field. Several analyses of individual cases were also

lost.

The present version contains only such statistical data that

had been memorized due to frequent use, or that could be re-

constructed with satisfactory precision. I also added those data,

particularly the more accessible ones from the field of psycho-

pathology, which I considered essential in presenting this sub-

ject to readers with a good general education, and especially to

representatives of the social and political sciences and to politi-

cians. I also nurse the hope that this work may reach a wider

audience and make available some useful scientific data which

may serve as a basis for comprehension of the contemporary

world and its history. It may also make it easier for readers to

understand themselves, their neighbors, and other nations of

the world.

Who produced the knowledge and performed the work

summarized within the pages of this book? It was a joint en-

deavor consisting of not only my efforts, but also representing

the results of many researchers, some of them not known to the

author. The situational genesis of this book makes it virtually

impossible to separate the accomplishments and give proper

credit to every individual for his or her efforts.

I worked in Poland far away from active political and cul-

tural centers for many years. That is where I undertook a series

of detailed tests and observations which were to be combined

with the resulting generalizations of various other experiment-

ers in order to produce an overall introduction for an under-

standing of the macrosocial phenomenon surrounding us. The

name of the person who was expected to produce the final syn-

thesis was a secret, as was understandable and necessary given

the time and the situation. I would very occasionally receive

anonymous summaries of the results of tests made by other

researchers in Poland and Hungary; a few data were published,

as they raised no suspicions that a specialized work was being

compiled, and these data could still be located today.

The expected synthesis of this research did not occur. All of

my contacts became inoperative as a result of the wave of post-

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

29

Stalin repression and secret arrests of researchers in the early

sixties. The remaining scientific data in my possession were

very incomplete, albeit priceless in value. It took many years of

lonely work to weld these fragments into a coherent whole,

filling the lacunae with my own experience and research.

My research on essential psychopathy and its exceptional

role in the macrosocial phenomenon, was conducted concur-

rently with, or shortly after, that of others. Their conclusions

reached me later and confirmed my own. The most characteris-

tic item in my work is the general concept for a new scientific

discipline named “ponerology” . The reader will also find other

fragments of information based on my own research. I also