#forempath

28. he sees himself as a predator

And I still consider him otherwise...

But this said, he is not totally wrong. He lurks here, in the bushes, hunting the empath without conscience or remorse for the pain he could cause. He needs to eat energy! And to him it is only nature’s order that the strong are the hunters when the weak are the hunted.

But the laws of the jungle are antithetic to civilization and progress. Political parties founded exclusively by his kind always talk about going backwards, to a time when it felt good living at others’ expenses. With his Neanderthal mind, dooming the weak to an early grave, he is a hindrance to progress. Because the physically weak or the person born on the wrong side of the railroad, can easily be the smarter, the inventor, the creative mind, the genius, the spiritual guide, the wise... the one who will have humanity go forward with him.

If we succeeded in getting out of the Middle-Age it is in spite of the manipulator. Not thanks to him.

And it’s no coincidence, to my mind, if, since he has made a huge comeback these last thirty years, we turn back to the good old days of economic servitude and pandemic. Because too many manipulators in power means a massive return of corruption, incompetence, entitlement, lies and exploitation.

The manipulator sees us as preys and underestimates us. Underestimates the courage and abnegation of those who can fight for a cause bigger than themselves or who fight for those they love.

A difference between the manipulator and the predator, though, is that the manipulator prefers to stay in the shade, when the society isn’t favourable to his kind. Whereas a tiger doesn’t hide his stripes. In North Korea or other China, on the contrary, I imagine it’s party time everyday for a manipulator. And I can’t fathom the hell it must be for the minority of empathetic people there.

But if I’m right about the world’s evolution, this hiding won’t last long. And the sooner the better, because if 100% of manipulators know their “eat and be eaten” game, a very few percentage of good people are aware of the fight and what is at stake. Most of the time, this minority is composed by ex-victims.

Quite easy and no sport, then, to hunt when the antelope doesn’t know her life is on the line.

Once you know where to look, on the contrary, it’s often child play to detect them.

29. he has a paranoid tendency

Well of course, just imagine! We all have this tendency to put our own way of thinking is the other’s mind. And this makes us, empathetic people, more prone to naivete, jumping bambis in the sunset and in the crossfire of automatic guns.

But this makes him paranoid. Others want to rob him, have no conscience, will betray him, will cheat on him...

The world is full of bad guys, he knows it. And the manipulator only sleeps with one eye open. Or can’t sleep at all.

30. he doesn’t like rules

Rules are for the weak, he thinks. If he can despise or rape them, it’s fine. If he can change them in his own interest, it’s better still.

There are too many times when he must pretend to respect the rules. And it’s exhausting.

31. he is greedy and confuses success with financial success

Of course! For him everything turns around looks, power and money. And what is dangerous is when the way he feels become the dominant philosophy. I guess there is only a certain amount of manipulators a society can bear at its head, in companies and politics, before we spiral down in a vicious circle. Because the manipulator will change the mentalities to favour his kind, making it easier for others manipulators to climb, who in turn will aggravate the mentalities...

For ten years, I have this feeling that the world is going faster and faster in manipulation land. Which means darker and darker. And I fear we’ll have to touch the bottom before it gets better.

This overwhelming mentality contributes to the fact that so many good people feel bad, can feel like  they are failing if they concentrate on being a good parent, or a just teacher or a faithful spouse. Hit again and again by these golden and superficial lives on the social media, most good people can get depressed.

The manipulator is also greedy. His overinflated ego is always whispering him he deserves more. And this answers the question I had, as a good naive empathetic person: why would a billionaire choose to paint his tenth swimming pool with god instead of raising wages?

Because he deserves it and the others don’t deserve anything more than the bare minimum to survive and be able to work for him.

So of course, to avoid the possibility that poor people get to the pitchforks and attack his bunker, he’ll give to charities, elegant way of talking with his social peers about the wellness of the peasants around appetizers. And also, to save taxes. And the rich manipulator will always prefer this way of giving money, which allows him to control where it goes, preferably in causes more glamour and selling than repairing roads and will also allow him to build a nice philanthropic image for himself. Also, it will help sustain an economic system that favours him. Because in reality, a good economic system, in a rich democracy, is the one where everybody pays his just amount of taxes and everybody can earn a fair wage, one that you can live on. Where, in fact, nobody should need charity.

Also, the internal vacuum of the manipulator is a bottomless pit that encourages him to get always more. The manipulator isn’t Iron Man, the philanthropist superhero but Pac Man: always hungry, never satisfied.

And he doesn’t care if the planet would die of it. Because as the delectable Duchess of Windsor would have said: “one is never rich enough”.

32. he divides and conquers

He is a master of triangulation, this art which consists in using a third person in the toxic relations he has with you. He will use this other person against you, having told him lies where he is the victim. Or have you understand that this person thinks you are wrong. And have you hate him in the process.

On his chess board, he is the king or the queen and others are pawns.

His hot-air-balloon ego is fragile and he is a coward in confrontation where the adversary isn’t weak and could fight back He will, in this case, send somebody else to do the dirty job.

In some extreme cases, the manipulator can cut you totally from your friends and family. He’ll act like it’s you and him in a fortress, having you believe that everybody else is mean. Enclosed in the tower, the victim is more powerless than ever.

And with that in mind, I choose to be indulgent with myself.

For my classification of negative profiles based on energy, I simplified, on purpose, to three main categories.

But I could as well have chosen to identify four categories, as when a person is a -6 or -7 on my Geiger counter of negativity, he or she is what I called an “intense narcissist”. Which is to say a very manipulative person, potentially as toxic as a psychopath but without the restraint imposed by the plottings of the Machiavellian mind. And dominated by immediate impulses.

In fact, a sociopath.

I had chosen at first not to use this term as the science of the psychology, so far, is arguing that one becomes a sociopath when one is born a psychopath. As if, born with the evil genes, a baby would also conveniently get the cleverness to handle it. But I’m convinced, on the contrary, that nobody is born a psychopath. That it is a choice, albeit sometimes an unconscious one, or an evolution progressive enough not be felt as such.

The neurologic science that is aiming to prove that a psychopaths is born this way uses the fact that his adult brain, seen through a scanner, isn’t built the same way as the brain of a balanced adult. And as one is delivered with a brain… bam, programmed from birth.

I remember quite well, as an aside, of a psychopathic family member, who when ill, adamantly refused a brain scanner to know what the illness was…

When I was a teenager, also, I often outraged my “father” who was a doctor, when I told him that modern medicine doesn’t take enough into account the very real impact the mind has on the body. Many doctors would admit, though, the mind’s importance on your health, but it is to relegate it, with a despising smile, in the psycho-somatic bag, when a person, in their eyes already potentially hysterical, would be “inventing” his own illness. Always useful when said doctor can’t explain what’s happening.

But there is also, another scientific trend, as some neurologists have discovered that before he is even six months old, a baby will recognise, depending on the response of the people around him to his cries, if he is in a favourable environment or not. And that his brain will connect in function of this data. A brain that adapts to the needs? This disproves the theory that it would be necessarily preprogrammed for evil and is the force deciding for us. We forge our brain, not the other way around, it would seem.

But as far as I can tell, the psychopath is very happy to think that he has been built this way, and that he is, therefore, superior to the sociopath. Because he seems to believe that a deus ex machina that wouldn’t be a God of love, evidently, would have built him this way to dominate the world. Of course, whispers the ego, this would assure him that he is not unbalanced but a superior being…

Coming back to the sociopath, he is this intensely narcissistic person, you’ll thus find in my -6 or -7 of my energetic scale. Without a strong enough intelligence, he’ll get stuck there, unable to plot complex machinations, instinctively destructive, having more and more dangerous tantrums and rages.

There are doves, a herd of doves turning around my house, when their owner lets them free, usually in the shadowy light of early evening or after a storm.

The work of Miss Austen is especially fascinating for the psychological description she paints of the "good" society of her time. With a precise, cutting, humorous and cynical brush.

Of course, when I first discovered this author, I loved her for the romance and Mr Darcy, but now that this coronavirus has me reread my books, I also re-discovered "Persuasion" with a new eye and have been struck by all the negative characters in this story.

The goodhearted people are an absolute minority and I find here a confirmation about my estimation on the current "elite". Who I believe to be composed by an horrific majority of negative people, more than three quarters.

The summit of the hierarchical pyramid hasn't changed its essence, it would seem. Only its appearance.

And to come back to this book, with a few exceptions, quite all the characters of the story can be credited with obscure and sneaky intentions.

The culture of the time, which gave a woman no other mean of survival than get herself the richest husband possible, being the prettiest and the most vapid, did in fact, favour superficiality and cunning.

Also, the abyssal vacuum in people, thinking doing nothing more of their time than putting new clothes on five times a day, added to their conviction that being well born was paramount could enable monstrous egos to revolve around one's navel. In perpetuity.

It's quite a miracle, then, that we could escape this moral abomination.

As for this book, as I won't be describing the too numerous disagreeable characters, I'd like to describe three archetypes, that could illustrate my own classification of negative people. First, there is the father and the oldest sister of the heroine, Sir Walter Elliot ans Miss Elizabeth Elliot. They are introduced, at the beginning of the book, as the absolute worst in the heroine's life but they are, in fact, no more that horrid selfish people. There is no manipulation in these two, so exclusively occupied at loving and pleasing themselves, telling whatever goes through their head. As they make no effort to be agreeable to others, the fact that they don't care for the heroine is clear to everyone, herself included. And it would be easy to loath them but the selfish person is the least dangerous among the negative profiles. As they don't wear any mask, we aren't fooled about the goods. Its the selfish person, on the contrary, that could get manipulated by meaner people : and it is precisely the case in this book.

In a more negative category, you have the other sister of the heroine, a Mrs Mary Musgrove, which is the name she got after her marriage. At first, the heroine declares she prefers the way this sister treats her, as an useful object or a servant : she finds it more gratifying. But I beg to differ. And you have here the faulty and classical reasoning of your typical good person, always happy to be useful, always in danger of becoming the handy saviour of everyone, except herself. Distributing empathy, love and affection, forgetting to take care of herself. And being abused in return. This isn't at all healthy. So this sister, an obvious narcissist, with a poor cleverness, is always wailing and playing the victim to have others do exactly what she wants. And gets it, most of the time. People in these days were so polite and respectful of manners... She always wants to be the centre of everybody's attention and sees everything through the prism of her own advantage. And if the heroine finds in this sister the ephemeral pleasure of being of some use, she would, without any other interference, have finished her life being the unpaid servant, little more than a slave, in someone else's hoe, raising her nieces and nephews, entertaining the family, with Hartshorn at the ready for an ever swooning sister.

There is also a psychopath in this book. Well, there is at least one, as I suspect more but this one is clearly denounced as one: William Elliot, the heir of the heroine's father. He is known at the end of the story as cold-hearted, ruthless and manipulative. Along the way, he was already seen to be adapting to people, lying and using his charm. And this, here, is the most dangerous negative profile because this people are the cleverest and adapt their appearance and behaviour to their objectives and targets. At a time when marriage was unbreakable and women had no more right than chattel, the fate of an innocent young women glued to the toxic charm of this kind of man, would have been dire, indeed. And the author has us know, in fact, that the first wife of this man had been very unhappy and died young.

If there is one force I have experimented, again and again, it's this mirror effect that our planet Earth has on our emotions, and most notably, on these two powerful and rather negative emotions that are anger and fear. And this force is as powerful as gravity, only less visible.

It's no coincidence, then, if two of the five Reiki principles are about them: - today, please, if you can, try not to be scared - today, please, if you can, try not to be angry And these, by the way, are the two principles I have the hardest time to comply with : to control one's emotions is no easy task. I've discovered when I was around twenty years old that I have this ability to canalize a powerful energy: this is a gift I finally tried to work with these last few years. And this has multiplied the impact of my emotions and forced me to face its consequences with a dazzling rapidity. The first times, as I am a good rational French girl, I thought it was coincidence. But as the response was more and more automatic, the mathematics science touched its limits. For example - an example among thousands - as I have vertigo, I won't advise to take a cable-car with me: it systematically stops on the ride. Pure happiness. And its the same effect for anger: it generates other anger and leads to confrontation. Sometimes, for me, it’s quick, it's a cupboard's door which gives me a hit and a hint And has me calm down. This is what I call the mirror effect, when it concerns emotions. That some religions may include in karma. To me, karma is only about actions. Karma answers to actions. It is an educational force - Earth is a planet school - that has us face the responsibility of what we do. Again and again. Until we understand. And when the coronavirus has shown its tentacles, I couldn't not see karma's touch. First as is appeared via an open market where all sorts of animals, more or less alive, more or less well treated, where in display for human consummation. And I'd imagine that cruelty against animals is not seen with equanimity by the universe. More to the point, karma is a neutral force: bad attracts bad, it's like a boomerang. The aviary or porcine flu and other crisis of the mad cow should alert us on this fact but - hey ! - humanity as a whole is more stubborn in its ways than a five years old kid. And less prone to learn. Then, this precise virus has appeared in China, country which has brought back an intensive use of concentration camps for its Muslim citizens. And uses them as organs reservoirs for other citizens, deemed more deserving. I try not to think too much of this, it has me fall on my knees. But I find it difficult to believe it's a coincidence when a virus is attacking the body of people whose government is committing crimes against humanity in the name of their superior right to health. As it's logical to think that the universe also doesn't favour cruelty against others. There are so many layers of karma in what's happening right now that I quite forgot to mention this one: capitalism gone rogue. It's been some decades now, that man is intensely abusing the planet and his fellow-men for the more and more exclusive wealth of some. With the talent and genius enabled by research and education for some fifty years, we should have found now, and maybe we have, some greener alternatives to the use of petrol.

And for all this time, scientists and ecologists have warned us about the peril we are in whereas manipulators of this planet, far from holding their frenetic greed back, have seem, on the contrary, to be accelerating their grasp on power and money, on a last bid to enjoy it all before their commune activity forces them to isolate in some bunker in New-Zealand. The coronavirus, when forcing this now inhumane economy to take a break, when imposing the world leaders to realize that the people who make it work are more important than insane profits... is having each country face its own responsibilities. And each country is facing the consequences of this pandemic with an intensity enhanced by this karmic factor: if it has favoured man above the economy or the other way around.  The economy must serve the people. And both, people and economy are in danger when they don't respect the planet.

How can one be so stupid as to saw the branch he's sitting on ? As to sabotage the boat we are all passengers of . There is the manipulator for you, not looking further than his nose, his next power shoot and his ego. "You, you, you, you are the most important", his ego whispers. To him, the rest can very well sink. And the powerful manipulators of this planet, who don't put the climate change as a top priority, still running like hamsters in their avidity wheel, are enabling the Poles to melt. And some see it as an opportunity to drill !

And thus accelerate the process... So if you enjoy right now the thrill of isolation and overall panic, just imagine the happiness we will share when meaner virus will be freed from the permafrost. If all this wasn't enough, also, it's been a while, nine years to be precise, that I feel the world energies taking a plunge on the negative side. That I feel fear and anger taking hold of more and more people. Fear is making us weaker, has us take the wrong decisions and attracts what it's most scared about. Invaded by fear, more and more people have made the choice to retract in the past, behind a wall or borders, rejecting others, choosing hate.

33. the devil hides in the details

Because the cleverest of manipulators, which are, incidentally, the most toxic of them, will talk positively ninety five percent of the time and hide the toxic bomb in the other five.

Some examples?

It's this Reiki master who told me I shouldn't feel fear because fear came in direct line from the one with horns, living underground.

Clever this, very clever.

He didn't say, as the five principles of Reiki advise though to "try today, not to worry", which keeps in mind the fact that human nature isn't perfect, that the most important is to try and that sometimes, it's just normal to feel fear. Or panic. An encounter with a crocodile comes to mind.

And we shouldn't feel ashamed for that, nor drowning in culpability but still try to keep fear at bay if we can the next day.

No, this Reiki master says "fear comes from the baaaaaaaaad one" with the hint that when you are afraid you are on an evil path.

Would you be, by chance, attracted by the dark side?

You also read this undercurrent in the intensity of the eyes this guy is now focusing on you, as if he were trying to look in the deepest part of your soul, looking for the ugly seed.

And so, naturally, you doubt yourself, you wonder if you are truly a good person, you stagger, you are afraid to fail, you are afraid to be scared and to confront your own shadow and you feel you need even more the strong hand of a spiritual guide to help you walk straight.

And this here, having you scared and co-dependent, is intentional.

There is also this famous motivational and well-being guru who declares that you are one hundred percent responsible for what's happening to you.

That NOTHING is happening in your life that you didn't wish there.

Luck hasn't any say. Nor God, for those who believe in him. Or destiny.

Or the help of other people, the support of your family, the financial advantage you had at birth, or the fact you are living in a democratic country... the list of exterior factors is just endless.

And yes, I definitely believe one should take responsibility for one's choices, and one's actions but also be humble enough to know that we don't control everything.

This guru has conveniently convinced enough people to now be a millionaire and I guess his ego is overjoyed to be able to claim the entirety of this success. It must have him believe he is truly a superior being.

Everything he has achieved, in his mind, is thanks to him and he should feel no gratitude, I guess, for the spouse who helped him build his career. He so deserved it.

But the hidden toxicity here, it as follows: if you are responsible for everything that happens to you, absolutely everything, and you haven't succeeded as you would have wished, if you are unhappily single, don't earn enough money, having a hard time, feel over-weighted... it's because you are a loser. It's one hundred percent on you. And you have to wake up.

And you need a lot of help... maybe the guru's help? Buy more books, go to more conferences, participate to more motivational groups?

Of course!

As if it were that easy for everyone. Especially in a world where there are more and more trump cards (pun intended) in the deck. When some people are under daily bombing. Or a child is being destroyed by toxic parents. Or a single parent is fighting each month to put food on the table...

But you can always trust a manipulator to lack empathy.

And the "if he is poor, it's because he made the choice" is an age-old argument for rich people to enjoy their arrogance and avidity, without being bothered by a conscience twitch.

With its self-congratulatory corollary: "I'm rich because I deserve it, other people are just too lazy."

So you should pay attention to details, because it's where the manipulator hides the toxicity.

Those details you don't notice, at first, because the rest of the discourse, roughly, has sense, and can motivate you.

Especially when injected with a good dose of artificial energy and the charisma of a con man. Especially when you feel lost and you need help.

But these details are dangerous. Because there are grenades that explode everything else and have you feel worse and more dependent.

So, to conclude this eight articles series: the manipulator is very simple, when you think about it.

And this is so, however clever he might be. Which can be a good deal, indeed.

Because it's a person who hasn't developed the quality one has to, to be a complete human being, with a heart, a conscience and a sense of responsibility.

He stopped his emotional development, often because of fear, or because of anger, some other times because of pride. In this last instance, the mix of cleverness and the entitlement of a high social status can be very dangerous.

Because a kid, contrary to the rosy picture, from the moment he discovers he is not the extension of his mother he thought he was, around two years old, encounters his ego and has a ferocious wish to assert himself.

Or, as someone I knew who didn't want kids told me: " a child is an never-ending capacity of expansion".

Which makes him closer to savagery than to the natural kindness Mister Rousseau was so fond of.

I guess it's all in favour of the survival of the species. But it is our duty, as parent, to have a kid stop gravitating around his navel.

Because magic is outside the ego circle, in the sharing, the generosity, everything that goes beyond and is larger than us.

The manipulator has remained stuck in a primitive way of life, in the jungle.

And he is proud of it!

He shouldn't be.

24. he brings you down

For the pleasure, to have you in his power, to feed his fragile ego and to get from you the emotions he’ll use to feed himself or discredit you.

And also because, well, the manipulator secretly hates you: you have a heart and he hates you for it.

It can be difficult to differentiate between systemic depreciation and valid criticism.

Because everyone can be critical. And sometimes it’s warranted.

How then, can you know the difference ?

Quite simply: you have to ask yourself how you feel.

If you feel bad, that you lose progressively the trust you have in yourself, that you feel like a failure, never encouraged to do something or be yourself... you may have been under too much targeted criticism.

And the true danger is that in living this alternative reality when you are constantly hit while he presents himself as the victim, you can end up doubting of yourself, of your own perceptions, your cleverness and your equilibrium.

Furthermore, one of his classic attack is to say you’re loosing the plot or your mind. That you’re inventing stuff, lying, imagining things, are hysterical, should calm down, are batshit crazy...

The easiest way to send the problem back in your turf as quickly as he possibly can.

And you can come to the point where you wonder if indeed you are still mentally sane.

If this happens, he’ll use it against you.

And will relish telling the world he was right all along.

25. special attention on the passive-aggressive

It’s a two time movement.

The manipulator will attack you verbally, without reason, preferably with innuendos you’ll be the only one to understand. This is the aggressive part.

The ideal is for you to react but for other people around, if there are, to not perceive the intensity of the attack. And therefore to not understand your logical reaction and think YOU are the aggressor.

Because once the aggressive part has been dealt, the manipulator will protect himself behind his victim mask, giving you the role of the bad guy. This is the passive part.

It’s the bully who hits you and then puts his false glasses on. You won’t be so mean that you’d hit someone with glasses, will you?

#bekind

The two movement can be in the opposite order when the manipulator will preemptively present you as the bad guy before going to your throat.

It can look like this: “You aren’t a nice person, you should be kinder, you ugly son of a bleep, selfish, jealous looser, get a life!”

Yes, I know, written like that it seems to be a caricature but just give a second look at the many comments on social media...

Because the manipulator, as I wrote before, can’t bear criticism and will, if submitted to one, bury you under recriminations, blaming you – the irony! - for not being kind.

Criticism is useful when it’s constructive or when there is a manipulator at the receiving end.

You shouldn’t let him be destructive without reacting. And I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the recent #bekind movement has partly been launched by one or more manipulators: it’s a virtual pair of glasses.

When they get low, he won’t let you go high, though: the manipulator will take it as encouragement and attack you until he hits the mark. He wants to prove you’re bad and meanwhile he can have fun. Pure happiness.

26. he doesn’t want your happiness

At all.

Without a heart, he can’t be happy and can only feed on you or on crowds.  Or know pleasure, this substitute promised to those who abdicated their conscience.

Your happiness is an insult to him.

He can’t bear it.

And then his ego whispers in his head that you have everything HE deserves. That you are robbing him. That you had everything easily when he’s slaving. That it’s soooooooo not fair.

He’s eaten by jealousy, bitterness, envy and hate.

If life hasn’t given him what he is sure he deserves, it’s because you have his job, especially if you are an immigrant. If you are happily married, it’s because you have his spouse. Or the kids she was supposed to give birth to. The money that should be in his pocket. His oxygen...

And he will try to kill your happiness.

27. you don’t feel good

You are depreciated, criticized, attacked, nothing you do is good enough and it’s always your fault.

Your emotions are dismissed, you are not respected.

And after the first love-bombing months, and the subsequent episodes he hopes briefer and briefer when he makes an effort to keep his hold on you, he will do everything in his power to have you feel unhappy.

If this wasn’t enough, the manipulator is an energy vampire.

And I would guess, an inspiration for the bloody one.

Energy is another vital force and as a Reiki master, I should know how important it is to your well-being.

If you live with a intense manipulator, you can feel drained, without enthusiasm, without desire, sad without cause, exhausted without knowing why, and sometimes without any more forces to resist.

The more toxic the manipulator, the more intense the symptoms.

Is the manipulator is only a low range narcissist, you could spend an entire life being slowly eroded,  sustaining him, trying unsuccessfully to please him: daily Sisyphus running behind your stone.

Some manipulators have taken the extra measure to isolate you.

And as you are alone, you feel worse and worse. It can raise to the physical level: you are more easily ill, you gain weight, loose hair...

In some cases, you can go through apathy periods. When you don’t even have the strength to get out of bed. It isn’t necessarily a depression, sometimes getting you out of the talons of the toxic person, can be enough for you to recover.

But it can get you to a true depression.

The manipulator won’t have any compassion for you and will take advantage, again and again, of your vulnerability.

Everything is in his interest and against you.