by Paul Sharp
History of the Study of Dark Psychology
The two social scientific trends which have shaped modern-day dark psychology are arguably abnormal psychology and individual psychology. Abnormal psychology is the branch of psychological study concerned with patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior that are associated with mental illness. These thoughts, emotions, and behavior may precede a mental illness and are generally regarded as abnormal. As psychology (and especially psychiatry) does attempt to erect a fairly rigid dichotomy of normal and abnormal behavior, abnormal psychology would fall under the scepter of abnormal or atypical types of behavior in opposition to behaviors that are regarded as falling in the normal range.
Individual psychology is the school of psychological thought developed in the early 19th century that is focused on human behavior is motivated by purposive action as opposed to underlying motivations of libido and sex that characterize Freudian psychoanalysis. Although we have discussed in some detail already the extent to which human actions are not intentionally motivated and therefore may be construed as non-purposive, individual psychology does allow for unconscious or subconscious motivations, it just tends to regard them as non-Freudian, benign, and perhaps not always really unconscious.
For instance, Alfred Adler focused a lot of his writings on inferiority complexes as a motivator for action. He believed that individuals who behaved in angry or otherwise non-benign ways were generally motivated by a sense of inferiority, which caused them to “act out” in a sense. Now an inferiority complex as a motivator may lie below the surface in some people, although others may be entirely conscious that they have an aspect of themselves that they are not entirely satisfied with and which they are attempting to compensate.
When constructing dark psychology as an extension of individual psychological concepts as opposed to Freudian psychoanalytical concepts, it is perhaps simplistic to say that human beings generally behave with conscious, intentional motivations in contrast to being subconsciously motivated by sexual desires, like the well-studied Oedipus complex (the desire for a man to murder his father and to sleep with mother). In order to fully understand the historical development of dark psychology as an area of study, it is important to recognize that individual psychology theory does allow for the type of not-completely conscious motivations that are necessary to understand why human beings appear to behave in such a wantonly cruel way. Even so, dark psychology theory supposes that human beings are capable of dark singularity, engaging in actions that are harmful and which have no purpose whatsoever.
As a field of study, the study and treatment of abnormal behaviors have been around since at least the Ancient Egyptians. We have more records from the Greek period, in part because we are closer in time to the Ancient Greek period than we are to the Egyptians, and this group seemed to approach the idea of pathology (including mental pathology) with an avidity that is rather fascinating. The study of what we call today abnormal psychology was present in the 18th century and earlier in the form of the asylums and sanatoriums that treated men and women with abnormal conditions of the mind, but the field as we recognize it today really dates from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Indeed, before the 19th century, the usual treatments for abnormal disorders of the mind were exorcism, trepanation, and being burned at the stake as a witch. Trepanation refers to boring a hole in the skull in order to release malign spirits from their hold on the mind, and it is believed by some to be the oldest surgical procedure of which we have archaeological evidence. Trepanation was still practiced in the 19th century, and there are even advocates for the practice today, although their entreaties generally fall on deaf ears.
Exorcism really gets at how abnormal behaviors and thoughts were perceived prior to the modern era. Indeed, up until the 1960s, many behaviors that we consider to fall within the range of normal today were considered to be mental illnesses. Exorcism, although perhaps less violent than trepanation, embodied the perception that the individual possessed of the strange thoughts and behaviors was inhabited by an evil spirit or demon. All this really did was transfer the malevolent motivation from the individual to something else, whether that something else was an agent of evil (like a demon or spirit) or the agent of evil (i.e. Satan).
One school of thought sees Satan as the embodiment of the capacity for human beings to behave in a way that is “strange” or, more specifically, malicious or cruel. It is difficult to say whether their ideas of demons, ghouls, spirits, or of Satan himself represent a true belief that human beings were made to commit acts because of possession or if they might be better characterized as stories designed to frighten children or teach them important life lessons about good and evil. Certainly, exorcisms still take place today, and there are people who do truly believe that acts of the evil stem from possession.
If it is your belief that the evil that humans commit stems from a source outside of the human being (such as possession by a demon or the Devil) then dark psychological theory as it stands today may be somewhat at odds with what you believe. A crucial concept in dark psychology is this idea that human beings are capable of behaving in a remarkably cruel and violent manner without purpose, merely as an extension of something dark that dwells within us. Whether you choose to attribute this type of behavior to Satan as a part of your religious beliefs is up to you.
Of course, the abnormal psychologists of the 19th century and later did not fully accept this idea of an external source for the conditions that they were seeing, and so treatments like trepanation or exorcism would have been baffling or at the very least pointless to them. As we touched on earlier, this was a period in which scientists began to move away from the doctrinaire ideas that characterized their professions, doctrines which often had more to do with religion than with the factual compendia of the professions itself. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with religious doctrine, but a physician who is unfamiliar with human anatomy because he is not allowed to dissect q cadaver is likely practicing a doctrine that is not beneficial to himself (or herself) or to you.
Abnormal psychologists began to wonder why human beings were motivated to behave in abnormal ways, and the Devil or demons were not wholly acceptable answers to them. Most of these researchers in abnormal psychology were psychiatrists and psychoanalysts (as they would be called today) who were undertaking detailed studies on these subjects based on a new, freer understanding of medical matters. Although the term dark psychology did not appear until later in the 20th century, even in the 19th-century studies of narcissists, sociopaths, and others that we would describe today as having personality disorders were being undertaken.
Abnormal psychology of the time would have followed the pattern of what we now know as Freudian psychoanalysis, with the writings of Alfred Adler representing one of the first major departures from Freudian theory. Although Adler is a relatively obscure figure today, his writings from the years 1912-1914 formed the basis of much of the ideas that permeate the field of psychology today. His writings were translated into English in 1925, and his beliefs about personality and where it stems from predominate in modern psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.
Adler focused on compensation, resignation, and over-compensation as the three external factors shaping personality development. His theories paralleled those of another important psychologist, Abraham Maslow, who recognized the influence Alder had on his own work. Although Adler himself did not write on “dark psychology,” his theories helped form the development of this subject as a departure from preexisting psychoanalytical theories.
Dark psychology study may be recent but it represents a range of behaviors that have been present with human beings from the very beginnings. Indeed, the dark psychology field gives the impression of a realm of study in transition, as the term and the concepts associated with it become more readily known to the public. This has made dark psychology into a subject that exists somewhat below the radar of many who might be the target of actors using its tools
to damaging effect. Dark psychology is an unusual field in that it encompasses both those practitioners who teach its art as a series of tools that manipulators and narcissists can use and those minds who attempt to arm the potential victims in defense.
Famous Manipulators throughout History
History is rife with the examples of men and women who used what we now know today as dark psychology to exert great influence over others and to harm them. In reality, these arts are so widespread and so old that perhaps the most adept practitioners must always remain nameless. While the narcissist may attempt to advertise the great damage they have done to others as a way of flaunting their own greatness, an individual acting with dark singularity, or a person who is skilled enough at dark psychology to know when to be silent about their tactics, these individuals will generally not be known to the public.
But it does help to understand how dark psychological tools can take their effect by examining those who have used them and those who have fallen victim. Names of these practitioners are numerous and easy to cite although one can fall into the pitfall of reducing complex individuals into one-trick ponies with the label “narcissist” or “sociopath.” For instance, surely Grigorii Rasputin was a manipulator and practitioner of the dark psychological art par excellence, but he was also a “mystic,” “holy man,” “lover,” and perhaps one of the most interesting people to ever have lived in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia.
Of course, Rasputin is an interesting case study because he was not personally responsible for the sort of newsworthy death tolls that a Ted Bundy or a Jim Jones is. Some are inclined to draw publicity to dark psychology by pointing out men like these as examples of the art because it helps draw interest in the subject. Most people are interested in learning how society produces men like Ted Bundy and Jim Jones. Ted Bundy himself famously said that men like him were all around as brothers, husbands, sons, and the like. This is the sort of statement that is designed to send chills down the spine of Americans who have come to see the world outside their window as fraught with every sort of danger.
In truth, the world is fraught with danger, but it is just this sort of paranoia that the manipulator wants to imprint in your mind. As we stated in our exploration of the psychological underpinnings of dark psychology, the practitioner of this art may have a purposeful desire to ruin you or they may be acting from a deep well of destructive tendencies. Whatever their motivation is, instilling a paranoia so deeply in the victim that the victim sees every encounter as a dangerous or threatening one and every person as an enemy is one of the most effective tools in the manipulator’s toolkit.
This tactic works so well because every encounter is a potentially threatening one and every person one meets may be an enemy waiting to strike, but this is a paranoid idea that not only does not originate with the target but is detrimental to the target. Being prepared to defend oneself from dark psychological tactics does not mean behaving as if you have post-traumatic stress disorder or another debilitating condition of anxiety. If you behave this way, then the predator has won. They have turned you into prey who’s every thought and action stem from fear. They can sense this fear on you and they love it.
Grigorii Rasputin was believed to have the ability to hypnotize and the ability to heal. He was able to heal the Tsarevich Alexey of his hemophilia merely by laying his hands on the boy. Although some historians have disputed that Rasputin actually possessed this ability, others have argued that he might very well have possessed the capability to hypnotize and that he might have placed the prince into a sort of trancelike state that caused relaxation and essentially represented mind control. Because of his ability to heal the hereditary affliction of the heir to the throne, Rasputin was able to gain an influence over the Russian Government during the darkest periods of Russian imperial involvement in World War I. As the Tsarina may have regarded herself as responsible for her son’s hemophilia as she had passed the gene to him through her Hanoverian ancestors, she would have been especially vulnerable to the manipulation and mind control tactics used by the former monk.
As will be explored further in the next chapter, individuals who are in a weak state are at risk of attack from a narcissist or manipulator who is able to accurately size a man or woman up. Although we may not think of narcissist, psychopaths, or manipulators as emotionally intelligent people, these sorts of individuals do possess emotional awareness, which permits them to be attuned to the subjective emotional states of others. What these individuals lack is emotional self-regulation and empathy. It is this lack of empathy that prevents the narcissist, Machiavellian person, or psychopathic person from identifying with you in a meaningful way. This emotional barrier allows them to see you as prey for their attack.
It is critical to understand that prey in the dark psychological game is just that prey. Just as a lion, gorilla, or other wild animal prey on individual members that are young, weak, wounded, or otherwise at a disadvantage, so too does the manipulator learn to detect these aspects of other people and to use them in their determination of who would make good prey and who would not. In the end, the relationship here is clearly one of predator and prey. Although one may be inclined to regard others that one meets as individuals who harbor a benign interest in you (or disinterest), the predator sizes you up during these encounters to determine what measure of prey you make and how best to strike.
There is a question about whether Rasputin truly was a manipulator or if he has been unfairly maligned by history. It was believed by figures close to the Russian Government that Rasputin had inappropriately close access to the Romanovs and was privy to information that someone in his situation – that is, a civilian with no government role – should not be privy to. Rasputin ended his days by assassination at the hands of Prince Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, a cousin of Tsar Nicholas II. Though Rasputin was likely a hypnotist, narcissist, and generally unsavory person, history may never know whether he ever influenced others to behave in a sinister way or himself tapped into the well of dark singularity.
There are others for whom this assessment is less confused. Jim Jones, who inspired his cult followers into an act of mass suicide, is considered to be a powerful manipulator and narcissist who perhaps represents the type of narcissism that is regarded as Machiavellianism. The Machiavellian type believes that he or she is above the ordinary cut of human beings and therefore the rules do not apply to them as they would apply to someone else. This is the Napoleonic type who is often possessed of great intelligence and ability and therefore believes that they have been entrusted by fate with the power of reshaping the world or life in some way.
These individuals are particularly dangerous because their ability, intellectual powers, or charisma can cause them to have followers who behave as they bid without really understanding that these leaders are actually narcissistic or antisocial people who are inspired on a certain level by motivations that are clear only to them. This is one of the conundrums of dark psychology, an area that perhaps those studying it in the future well shed more light on. An individual who is inspired to manipulate others or coerce them into harmful acts is behaving with volition, not with the destructive energy that dark singularity represents. But the people who follow them often are motivated by the dark energy that they have tapped into, so the evil actor becomes possessed of a different type of evil than his or her agents. Which type of evil is worse?
Examples of dark psychology abound and listing them all would be outside the scope of this book. A dramatic example out of Hollywood reveals that dark psychological practices are common albeit well hidden. A group in California called NXIXM in which the leader coerced and manipulated women to compensate him financially, have sex with him, and even brand themselves has been referred to as mind control. As this book will explore later, sometimes willful deeds can be labeled as mind control after the fact by individuals motivated to distance themselves from controversial acts. What is clear is that there were elements of narc
issism and Machiavellianism involved. These two members of the dark triad are important in the study of dark psychology, and an important aspect of this field is helping men and women to identify people like this.
Chapter 3: Basics of Manipulation
When some people imagine dark psychology and its practitioners, images of men like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer come to mind, but the alarming idea of this dark art is that the capacity to engage in it lies in all of us. The adherents of dark psychology might be your coworkers, your significant others, your family members, or even your friends. And this fact does not refer to individual narcissists behaving with a desire to do harm. An essential idea in dark psychology is that people on a group level can be motivated to behave with destructive energy for no reason at all.
We have seen this aspect of dark psychology from a historical perspective. We have seen how human societies of the past tapped into the dark tendencies of human beings, and how more modern societies brushed these tendencies under the rug or turned them into skeletons in the closet liable to pop out when least wanted or expected. Indeed, in the first chapter, we argued that this hypocritical approach to dark psychology is probably one of the major reasons why men and women tend to fall prey to its tactics. When we say that human beings are good and only evil men like Ted Bundy do bad things, then that opens you up to being prey for an ex-lover who wants to manipulate you into ending your life, or co-workers who turn the entire office against you merely because they can.
In order to guard against manipulation, you need to understand that anyone can be a manipulator. As loaded and maligned as the term manipulation may be, it can be considered the most basic form of dark psychology. Some books about manipulation begin by attempting to sanitize the word, convincing the reader that manipulation is just “persuasion” as everyone engages in it. Although it may be true that everyone engages in manipulation it is not necessarily true that manipulation is generally something basic or harmless that everyone does. As you will see, or may already know, the manipulator is capable of doing great harm.