ENERGY
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GAIN ENERGY
APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
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THE
ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
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THE
KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS
APPRENTICE
LEVEL3
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MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS
TANTRA
APPRENTICE
LEVEL4
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2005 AND 2006 |
PsychopathTHE MASK OF SANITYSection 2: The MaterialPart 2: Incomplete manifestations or suggestions of the disorder23. The psychopath as gentleman
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23. The psychopath as gentleman This man, whom for convenience we may call W. R. L., first came to my attention professionally when seen strapped down during hydrotherapy in a continuous tub. There, surrounded by dozens of the most complete madmen an imaginative layman could conceive, he strained, cursed, bellowed, and hurled defiant imprecations at all about him. Having seen him in the past occasionally at balls or garden parties in a southern city famous for the amenities of life, I was astonished at the spectacle he now presented. He literally raved as he twisted and spat, damning his wife especially but sparing no one. Though quieter and less dramatic when he believed himself unobserved, he gave at this moment as good a superficial impression of honest madness as any of the psychotic patients among whom he writhed. After a few minutes he quieted down enough to speak with some relevance and made it plain in vigorous terms that he held his wife entirely responsible for his plight. He admitted drinking; this was his wife's fault. He had, to be sure, derided and fought with the policemen. This would never have happened had his wife not called them to him for no good reason. This man, 43 years of age, had been through several dozen such episodes during the last ten years. Belonging to a family widely known for its wealth since colonial times, his direct paternal ancestors included a general in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and two governors of a proud Southern state. His maternal background included a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Confederate brigadier celebrated for his dashing and urbane personal qualities no less than for his valor at Antietam and Gettysburg. W. R. L., when glimpsed at a garden party or when hailed in the street, seemed a proper and impressive scion of two such splendid strains, uniting in his person, it might be said, the rarest culture of two states. His courtesy was not only warm but distinguished, his manners so cordial that one felt better after greeting him. His general bearing combined the utmost dignity with perfect spontaneity, giving a deep conviction of one sophisticated, mellow, and commanding. But there were times when this impressive mask dropped and our gallant gentleman took on quite another color. One of these incidents immediately preceded his admission to the hospital. After having eschewed strong drink utterly for a year and maintained, on the whole, his fine superficial front, he suddenly and for no discernible reason got pretty generously full. A bit wobbly but fired with 200 THE MASK OF SANITY energy, he burst into the house, roundly cursed his wife, smashed a few vases, threatened to give her a thorough mauling, and departed for a road. house. Here he reveled for a few hours with more belligerence and buffoonery than gaiety or eroticism, then swept back in a passion to his house. He shook his wife out of bed, accused her of ruining his life and of unfairly taking possession of money which he had earned through shrewd speculation, and demanded a check for thousands. Actually he had for many years been sustained financially by his wife's father, a high official in banking circles who not only kept his son-in-law employed in a respectable position at a local bank which he controlled but also furnished from time to time relatively stupendous sums to cover rash and disastrous losses at gambling and in speculation. The patient's wife had a fairly large estate held in trust. The income from this was, however, not enough to cover the wants of the husband. W. R. L., at the time he married, was by no means dependent on his inlaws. His father had built up a stockbroker's business that fluctuated in value between one and several millions. W. brought his bride to a great Georgian mansion surrounded by takes and gardens where a dozen servants often maintained scores of guests in spectacular comfort. Even before the death of the father, himself a rash but remarkably intuitive market plunger, the son had made heavy inroads into the family fortune. Afterward the other beneficiaries drew out their interests and stood aside while he doubled, halved, tripled, and finally lost outright his entire holdings. While gaining and while losing, he spent money with equal lavishness, chartering airplanes to fly to mistresses halfway across the continent, casually sending emeralds to chorus girls, or buying a yacht to cruise off the Florida keys. Penniless, he resented bitterly the unwillingness of his father-in-law to let him throw his wife's fortune also into speculation. Stormy wrangles had been almost constant during the early years of this marriage. W., at intervals of a few weeks or a couple of months, went on hard sprees during which he sometimes tore off his wife's clothes or burst in on his father-in-law to threaten and to arraign him as the cause of his own financial decline and the common marital strife. The father-in-law, a man of much dignity and spirit, urged his daughter to leave W. and even threatened at times to cut off the ample income which he chiefly furnished them. After particularly outrageous episodes, the wife often agreed to quit, but W., once sober and aware of what he stood to lose, had no difficulty in appearing so earnest and penitent that he won her back. For a considerable time, pride kept the wife, the father-in-law, and others concerned from calling in policemen THE MATERIAL 201 to quell the tempestuous and clamorous tumults that W. raised. Finally this step was taken, and it has now in fact become habitual. On the occasion under discussion, Mrs. L. succeeded, after a struggle with her husband, in reaching headquarters by telephone. When the police arrived, they found her locked for protection in a downstairs room. W., boasting that he could not be taken alive, had knocked the wooden sup. ports from the banister railings and piled these, with chairs, coffee tables, and other furniture, into a barricade on the stairway. Half naked above in the bathroom behind additional defenses, he challenged the law with magniloquent mock heroics to take him. For a while he waved a revolver as he hurled his obscene threats. Seeing that the policemen, who knew him well, came on despite his gestures, he laid this aside. Though making no serious attempt to injure his besiegers sufficiently to provoke painful retaliation, he wrestled with them, clawed with a fine show of violence, and was taken off cursing, grunting, and kicking. Since short sojourns at the barracks in the past had done so little good, the family arranged to have him sent that very night as an emergency case to the psychiatric hospital. They probably had vague hopes that some remediable illness might be found as a cause for his conduct, but the stronger motive was hope that finding himself in what he regarded as the lunatic asylum might give him food for thought and possibly a taste for mending his ways. After settling down sufficiently to permit an interview, he showed no ordinary evidence of a psychosis. He was charming superficially, dismissed his own deeds with lordly insouciance, bewailed his plight, for which he still blamed his wife, though he now spoke of her always with a show of gallantry and implied that her father and other relatives were responsible for her causing him all this trouble. Though fundamentally childish and full of puerile self-pity, he was on the surface one of the most delightful persons I have ever seen. Something inimitably well-bred in his manner, a gracious and warming geniality which seemed, surely, to overlie great dignity and pride, caused all the personnel on the ward to treat him with particular deference. He all but became the pet of the hospital. He immediately assumed that the physician was chiefly concerned in helping him get back into the good graces of his wife, who at present refused to accept him. He would have left the hospital at once but his inlaws and members of his own family had agreed for the police to take him if he did. Persuaded by his apparent sincerity, his wife agreed after two days for 202 THE MASK OF SANITY him to come home on a pass for a few hours. She soon called the hospital and asked for attendants to be sent. He was brought in, mean and vehement, from a barroom where he had already drunk to excess after first creating a shocking uproar at his house. The next day he agreed that he had conducted himself unwisely but laid his actions chiefly to his wife's failure to show complete confidence in him. Not a trace of anything like shame or remorse was discernible. Somewhat alarmed now that his wife might actually be persuaded to leave him, he bent all his efforts toward winning her over. She refused to visit him for several days. He spent hours writing letters to her. These he read proudly to his physician. They were of rather far-fetched eloquence and extravagant sentiment, and he read them with much oratorical gusto: "What does any misunderstanding weigh against the immortal love I bear you? The carping and misguided influence of others should not be allowed to come between those united in such devotion as is ours, My darling! My sweetheart!" Wasn't this the best note to strike? he asked his physician. A politely subdued twinkle of pride and canniness came into his glance. He had succeeded so often that he was already confident. Nevertheless, he showed great vexation and restlessness at the delay, sighed and held his head in his hands, swearing that he could not stand it another hour. He very plainly showed and stated that he felt even one day in the hospital too severe a measure to take against such trivial indiscretions as his. After three or four days his wife, a highly intelligent person, though far from confident that he would not continue in his ways, was won over sufficiently to take him home. When last heard from several months later, he had given no further serious trouble. It is quite possible that he may continue the appearance of a fairly good adjustment for a year or two, but it must be remembered that he is supported in this by financial aid and by strong moral efforts on the part of his wife, his father-in-law, and others. His history shows that he has remained as long as two years sober, fairly industrious, and nearly always in his mask of the grand and charming gentleman. It is important, however, not to give him access to substantial sums of money. Eventually, despite all efforts to protect him, his psychopathic tendencies come forward and he repeats with ingenious variations the theme of the episodes here described. |
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Psychopath The Mask Of Sanity
Section 2, Part 2
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