Ghost of a Soul (Part Four of Four)

Charles Manson

The integration of mind, body, and soul is the business of growing up human. Our notions of right and wrong become established as our conscience develops in childhood. The Golden Rule of  "Do unto others - as you would have done unto you" travels well across many religions and cultures around the globe. This may be the guiding principle that grounds us to society and binds us to other people.

Dr. Martha Stout, Ph D, a clinical psychologist and faculty member in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has convincing data to support her belief that ninety-six percent of the population has a conscience and some attachment to other humans. Fully four percent of the population are not inhibited or encumbered by conscience and suffer from attachment disorder - the inability to relate to people in meaningful and lasting ways. These people go through the motions of life without fully participating in it. It is as if they are absent from their own lives.

Their emptiness gnaws away at them from the inside. Unexposed, it is fed by a need to dominate and control others to meet their egocentric ends. Life becomes a power play where "winning" means everything. Dr. Stout makes the keen observation that "If all you had ever felt toward another person were the cold wish to 'win,' how would you understand the meaning of love, of friendship, of caring?"

Ted Bundy

Sociopaths are preoccupied with themselves. Their narcissism is compounded by their lack of feeling for other people. Their social detachment can range from callous indifference to protracted dehumanization. They may play on our pity when the occasion calls for it, but their game is not getting our sympathy, it is drawing us into their web of influence to accomplish their own ends. 

Being master manipulators, when they have their prey in their clutches, the demon in them is aroused and all Hell breaks loose where they play out their God or Satan fantasies of omnipotence.
 
Dr. Stout's book, the sociopath next door (sic), suggests ways people - young women in particular - should deal with the sociopathic personality. I have adapted them below to reduce her list of thirteen to ten.

1. Accept that some people literally have no conscience. It's not your fault!
2. Don't let preconceived notions of people's roles (doctors, teachers, clergy, policemen, family, etc) interfere with your instincts. Listen to your inner voice. If something doesn't seem right or feel right about a person, don't ignore it.
3. A series of broken promises, neglected responsibilities, or misunderstandings are warning signs. Strike three and you're out!
4. Question authority! (related to #1) Blind obedience is dangerous. Dr. Stanley Milgram from Yale University conducted the famous "Authority Compliance" study in 1961-1962. He discovered that "at least six out of ten people will blindly obey to the bitter end an official looking authority in their midst." In this case, a "researcher" in a white lab coat clutching a clipboard.
5. Suspect over-exaggerated flattery or concern for others called "counterfeit charm." It often signals an "intent to manipulate."
6. Don't play their game. Avoid contact or communication with them and document everything.
7. Question their appeals for pity, and curtail your need to be polite or to speak with everyone. 
8. Don't try to save them. Their behavior is not your fault, unless you enable them.
9. Never be a party to a sociopath's deceptions or help him/her conceal their true nature. If you do, from that moment on, you are ensnared in their web.
10. Defend your personhood and your mental health. People who seek to diminish you have an infinite capacity to inflict harm and damage at your expense. Get some help!

John Wayne Gacy

Ted Bundy's Ghost

Over twenty-three years after his execution, Ted Bundy still appears to have the ability to animate himself in the minds of people who have fallen under his spell. In the link below, Katherine Ramsland makes the point that Bundy remains the most popular serial killer in American history, who continues to inspire numerous ghost sightings across America which adds to his legend.

Bundy's reaction to guilty verdict.

More Americans today believe in ghosts and angels than believe in scientific fact. The inability of many people in our culture to distinguish between fantasy and reality goes much further that the willing suspension of disbelief. For too many people, delusional behavior forms the basis of their elemental certitudes about life. It informs every decision and judgement they make.

Serial killers are deranged individuals who fascinate many people, but to create folklore and urban legends about these psychopaths only obscures their wanton disregard for human life and sensationalizes their depravity. There has been no shortage of Bundy ghost sightings since his electrocution in a Florida state prison on January 24, 1989.

In doing research for my book on John Norman Collins, for example, I came across a novel called Archetype, about an Eastern Michigan University student who falls under the spell of the John Norman Collins mystique. He researches the murders and tours the body drop sites.

Soon after, the "voices" of the victims begin to talk to him and urge him to solve their murders and answer their question, "Why". A few weeks later, the tormented student obsesses and decides to murder seven women of his own to stop the voices. He sets about killing innocent EMU coeds with impunity, and then the book ends abruptly with him getting away with it and no point being made. Perhaps the author intended to write a sequel.

Dead Bundy.

This is the only book I've ever read where the publisher includes a disclaimer: "At the specific preference of the author, Publish America allowed this work to remain exactly as the author intended, verbatim, without editorial input."

It is my belief that mixing true-crime and the paranormal only obscures the facts and sensationalizes the crimes of these inhuman monsters. My true-crime book on the John Norman Collins murders, In the Shadow of the Water Tower, will endeavor to give the facts of this case and tell as accurate a portrayal of the events of those terrible days as I possible can. 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/shadow-boxing/201210/ted-bundys-ghost/comments