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

Such a person is forced by some internal causes to make an

early choice between two possibilities: the first is forcing other

people to think and experience things in a manner similar to his

own; the second is a feeling of being lonely and different, a

pathological misfit in social life. Sometimes the choice is either

snake-charming or suicide.

Triumphant repression of self-critical or unpleasant con-

cepts from the field of consciousness gradually gives rise to the

phenomena of conversion thinking, or paralogistics, paramoral-

isms, and the use of reversion blockades. They stream so pro-

fusely from the mind and mouth of the spellbinder that they

flood the average person’s mind. Everything becomes subordi-

nated to the spellbinder’s over-compensatory conviction that

they are exceptional, sometimes even messianic. An ideology

emerges from this conviction, true in part, whose value is sup-

posedly superior. However, if we analyze the exact functions of

such an ideology in the spellbinder’s personality, we perceive

that it is a nothing other than a means of self-charming, useful

for repressing those tormenting self-critical associations into

the subconscious. The ideology’s instrumental role in influenc-

ing other people also serves the spellbinder’s needs.

The spellbinder believes that he will always find converts to

his ideology, and most often, they are right. However, they feel

shock (or even paramoral indignation) when it turns out that

their influence extends to only a limited minority, while most

people’s attitude to their activities remains critical, pained and

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PONEROLOGY

disturbed. The spellbinder is thus confronted with a choice:

either withdraw back into his void or strengthen his position by

improving the effectiveness of his activities.

The spellbinder places on a high moral plane anyone who

has succumbed to his influence and incorporated the experien-

tial method he imposes. He showers such people with attention

and property, if possible. Critics are met with “moral” outrage.

It can even be proclaimed that the compliant minority is in fact

the moral majority, since it professes the best ideology and

honors a leader whose qualities are above average.

Such activity is always necessarily characterized by the in-

ability to foresee its final results, something obvious from the

psychological point of view because its substratum contains

pathological phenomena, and both spellbinding and self-

charming make it impossible to perceive reality accurately

enough to foresee results logically. However, spellbinders nur-

ture great optimism and harbor visions of future triumphs simi-

lar to those they enjoyed over their own crippled souls. It is

also possible for optimism to be a pathological symptom.

In a healthy society, the activities of spellbinders meet with

criticism effective enough to stifle them quickly. However,

when they are preceded by conditions operating destructively

upon common sense and social order; such as social injustice,

cultural backwardness, or intellectually limited rulers some-

times manifesting pathological traits, spellbinders’ activities

have led entire societies into large-scale human tragedy.

Such an individual fishes an environment or society for

people amenable to his influence, deepening their psychologi-

cal weaknesses until they finally join together in a ponerogenic

union. On the other hand, people who have maintained their

healthy critical faculties intact, based upon their own common

sense and moral criteria, attempt to counteract the spellbinders’

activities and their results. In the resulting polarization of so-

cial attitudes, each side justifies itself by means of moral cate-

gories. That is why such commonsense resistance is always

accompanied by some feeling of helplessness and deficiency of

criteria.

The awareness that a spellbinder is always a pathological

individual should protect us from the known results of a moral-

POLITICAL PONEROLOGY

157

izing interpretation of pathological phenomena, ensuring us an

objective criteria for more effective action. Explaining what

kind of pathological substratum is hidden behind a given in-

stance of spellbinding activities should enable a modern solu-

tion to such situations.

It is a characteristic phenomenon that a high IQ generally

helps a person to be more immune to spellbinding activities

only to a moderate degree. Actual differences in the formation

of human attitudes to the influence of such activities should be

attributed to other properties of human nature. The most deci-

sive factor in assuming a critical attitude is good basic intelli-