Toxic People, A Handbook by Martha Stout: “Who is the devil you know?” via Moving On Up A Little Higher

The Sociopath Within by Martha Stout, Ph.D.

While it may be your “karma” to meet up with certain people in this lifetime, it is best to move toward {those who have spiritual} beauty within and away from toxic people … In fact, there are times when it is vital to your survival, physically as well as spiritually … whether you plan on merely living in this material world or “living in and spiritually transcending” the world … Toward this end, I offer this, from a post from independent Scientologist Marty Rathbun’s Moving On Up A Little Higher http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/recommended-reading/

“Stout is a clinical psychologist who specialized for twenty-five years in helping the victims of sociopaths.   The first half of her book shares her real life observations about sociopaths and the effects they have upon social personalities.  Her observations are remarkably parallel to {L. Ron} Hubbard’s description of the Suppressive Person.   Note, modern accepted characteristics of the sociopath very closely align with Hubbard’s descriptions of the emotional tone level of Covert Hostility and of the Suppressive Person.  This is so much the case that I {Note: This is Marty speaking, and I agree. — Theta Networker} have taken to using the terms ‘suppressive person’ and ‘sociopath’ interchangeably.

“But, Stout’s first and foremost marker for the sociopath is more complementary of Hubbard’s work than it is duplicative.  Per Stout, the sociopath first and foremost lacks conscience {Italics mine}.  It is a very useful and workable observation she shares.

“Stout’s second chapter, Ice People: The Sociopaths, provides an actual case history …

“Later in the book Stout gives another common denominator of sociopaths that again insightfully adds to one’s arsenal against being ruined by one, the pity play:

“The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.

“Stout describes how good, intelligent people wind up doing the bidding of a sociopath.

“Excerpt:

Why are conscience-bound human beings so blind? And why are they so hesitant to defend themselves, and the ideals and people they care about, from the minority of human beings who possess no conscience at all?  A large part of the answer has to do with the emotion and thought processes that occur in us when we are confronted with sociopathy.  We are afraid, and our sense of reality suffers.  We think we are imagining things, or exaggerating, or that we ourselves are somehow responsible for the sociopath’s behavior.”

Thanks, Marty, for calling attention to this.

I will never forget that, on August 18, 1983, a dear friend of mine was murdered by a bigamist who, among other things, had played on her sympathy for “the sad time” he had had previous to meeting her … {Note: I do not choose to detail what occurred back then, in this post, on this blog.}