Studies in Psychopathy - Jay Weidner on Vincent Bridges

“Non-victims can’t understand this, but the psychopath really does suck the life out of a caring person. I try to think of them now as a slimy suckerfish right out of the swamp, vacuum-lips out and prowling for someone vibrant and attractive to con and eviscerate.”

If you are a good person you will meet many evil people in your life, you need to recognize them and their actions. More importantly you need to recognize which evil behaviors you have been conned into accepting as reasonable and to reject those behaviors - both in yourself and in others - as unacceptable.

The English language has a variety of terms for psychopaths, of which "bastard" is perhaps the most polite. They have always been with us, and despite their corrosiveness and rejection of social mores, they show no signs of going away.

Think you can spot one? Think again. In general, psychopaths aren’t the product of broken homes or the casualties of a materialistic society. Rather they come from all walks of life and there is little evidence that their upbringing affects them.

Most of the two million psychopaths in North America aren’t murderers. They’re our friends, lovers and co-workers. They’re outgoing and persuasive, dazzling you with charm and flattery. Often you aren’t even aware they’ve taken you for a ride – until it’s too late.

The problem of plausible lies is the most serious problem facing humanity today....Most good people are only aware of the least intelligent part of the evil distribution; those are the people who are obviously evil: criminals. The normal and intelligent ends of the evil distribution totally escape most good people's understanding.

Only as of late, with all the Enron scandals and related crimes, people are waking up to the fact that the most dangerous psychopath of all is the educated, socially adept psychopath, in fact, Dr. Hare recently said that he would probably be able to find many psychopaths involved in the stockmarket. It is time for American to "wake up" says Dr. Wolman, because we are being threatened by a serious epidemic of psychopathy.

The Psychopathic or Sociopathic Personality

Based on twenty-five years of groundbreaking research, WITHOUT CONSCIENCE is a fascinating journey into the minds of these dangerous individuals. Are they born unable to feel empathy, or are they created by circumstance? How and why do they get away with cheating, conning, and murdering? Are they mad or simply bad? In what Dr. Hare calls our "camouflage society," how can we recognize and steer clear of these predatory people?

WITHOUT CONSCIENCE explores their shocking patterns- and exposes one of the most frightening, often-hidden social problems affecting our lives today.

The Psychopath is much more successful than you and I because he is not hemmed in by all sorts of impediments or worries.

A discussion with Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig & James Hillman

“We fall prey to the seduction, it is irresistible. Then the nightmare of horror begins. The shabby treatment, the avoidance. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. He had been so sincere, so kind. It was Jekyl and Hyde.”

“They go for the strongest and the best, but preferably those who are something of rebels within the group...the LEAST controllable. Because if they can crush them, they crush most of the rest at the same time. If they start at the bottom, with the weakest, it’s a long way to work their way up…The ideal target is therefore, strong, smart, rebellious and vulnerable through previous abuse.”

“A favored technique is to debilitate your identity [personally, I hate the term self-esteem] by levelling false accusations and/or questioning your honesty, fidelity, trustworthiness, your “true” motivations, your “real” character, your sanity and judgement.”

“They are absolutely the world’s best manipulators, liars, and fabricators of truth. They do so convincingly because they believe their own lies. After all their life is nothing but a lie, a sham, how can we possibly assume they know anything different.”

“Others around me would get so tired of the whole thing and insinuate that I was perpetuating things. All I wanted was for him to leave me alone. Part of the hurt and damage was done because others could but would not see what was actually happening. He would always try to ingratiate himself to others it was sickening. Usually psychopaths put on the nicest act, and you look like the harpy and bitch, and so everyone takes their side, it is a horror story, a psychopath can be very charming, and manipulative and manipulate the smartest of people.”

“My biggest frustration and source of anger, is at those who have refused to take a stand when they see the abuse . No matter how outrageous his behavior others often stood by and inadvertently fuelled his grandiosity and denial... although denial is too mild a word for it.

“If a psychopath throws the “bad childhood” stuff at you, keep in mind he might be trying to get sympathy and make an excuse for his atrocious behavior towards you and/or others. If we let these people make us feel sorry for them, we ultimately end up in the submissive position again...just what they want. I can “pity” them yes...but I refuse to shed another tear over the tragedies suffered by who is now, only a shell of a person.”

Regarding a psychopath: Considering a longitudinal section of his life ...it is hard to avoid the conclusion that here is the product of true madness - of madness in a sense quite as real as that conveyed to the imaginative layman by the terrible word lunatic.

With the further consideration that all this skein of apparent madness has been woven by a person of (technically) unimpaired and superior intellectual powers and universally regarded as sane, the surmise intrudes that we are confronted by a serious and unusual type of genuine abnormality.

Not merely a surmise but a strong conviction may arise that this apparent sanity is, in some important respects, a sanity in name only. We find instead a spectacle that suggests madness in excelsis, despite the absence of all those symptoms that enable us, in some degree, to account for irrational conduct in the psychotic.

Only very slowly and by a complex estimation or judgment based on multitudinous small impressions does the conviction come upon us that, despite these intact rational processes, these normal emotional affirmations, and their consistent application in all directions, we are dealing here not with a complete man at all but with something that suggests a subtly constructed reflex machine which can mimic the human personality perfectly.

So perfect is this reproduction of a whole and normal man that no one who examines him in a clinical setting can point out in scientific or objective terms why, or how, he is not real. And yet we eventually come to know or feel we know that reality, in the sense of full, healthy experiencing of life, is not here.

“Leaving is hard because of all that goes along with the going. It is not just the person you have to give up but your hopes and dreams and fantasies. It only happened for me in increments and I cried UNCLE often thinking if I gave it one more go I’d break through. It wasn’t until I really knew that no matter what I said or did or didn’t do this person could never love me or anyone.”

“The fantasy was exactly that, a FANTASY, that he created for himself, and presented to me as reality. My head said the fantasy wasn’t valid. I kept reminding myself: if the fantasy was real, I wouldn’t be treated like dirt, and feel like shit!”

“I have finally come to the conclusion that they cannot change, so all we can do is to refuse to participate in their sick drama and leave the stage.”

Cleckley: [T]he familiar tendency to disintegrate, against which life evolves, may be regarded as fundamental and comparable to gravity. The climbing man or animal must use force and purpose to ascend or to maintain himself at a given height. [...] Whether regression occurs primarily through something like gravity or through impulses more self-contained, the backward movement (or ebbing) is likely to prompt many sorts of secondary reactions, including behavior not adapted for ordinary human purposes but instead, for functioning in the other direction. The modes of such reactivity may vary, may fall into complex patterns, and may seek elaborate expression. [...] People with all the outer mechanisms of adaptation intact might, one would think, regress more complexly. [...] In a movement (or gravitational drift) from levels where life is vigorous and full to those where it is less so, the tactics of withdrawal predominate. [...] The psychopath as we conceive of him in such an interpretation seems to justify the high estimate of his technical abilities as we see them expressed in reverse movement.

Organic Portals: The Answer to Psychopathy?

"Alien reaction machines" in human form describes individuals with Anti-Social Personality Disorder (APD), Sociopaths, and Psychopaths.

The material presented in the linked articles does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the editors. Research on your own and if you can validate any of the articles, or if you discover deception and/or an obvious agenda, we will appreciate if you drop us a line! We often post such comments along with the article synopses for the benefit of other readers. As always, Caveat Lector!

An Open Letter From Jay Weidner
About Vincent Bridges

This page was formerly occupied by an "open letter from Jay Weidner written on December 15, 2001, approximately two weeks after Mr. Weidner became aware of Vincent Bridges' "shady background" as a result of our investigative report which has become part of our case studies in psychopathy.

Mr. Weidner seemed to be sincerely anxious to "make amends" for having been manipulated by Bridges" to think that we had "shafted" him in regards to the Zaca Lake conference. He was also apologizing for several vicious emails he had sent us which he stated had been as a result of being misinformed about the conference by "Vincent Bridges". He also seemed to be sincerely interested in getting to the truth and assisting in revealing "Vincent Bridges" history of conning others so as to make the information available to others who might be similarly targeted by Bridges" in the future.

Jay wrote to us telling us that he was under the impression that the event at Zaca Lake was "sponsored" by Ark and Laura in conjuction with Vincent Bridges - obviously, what Bridges" wanted him to believe. As we have stated elsewhere, Bridges presented this conference as a big affair for which he already had a large audience. It was only when we cancelled that he informed us that WE were the "main attraction" and that most of the attendees were being drawn from our readers. We then realized that we were being used to attract the attendees, that he really did not have a large audience already. In short, the whole affair took on the appearance of a con job for the purpose of making money using us.

Mr. Weidner then stated that he was so irate because he thought we had "screwed Zaca Lake Charity out of $8,000.00." We are uncertain as to how this was possible since we don't think that there were enough attendees signed up for the conference that, after deducting expenses, there would be eight grand left. Also, Vincent Bridges had clearly stated that any monies left over after expenses would accrue to himself, and he would see to it that we received an "honorarium." We didn't really expect any money from the conference since we were mostly doing it as a favor to Vincent to help him get his "publishing company" off the ground, which would have been advantageous to us as well, since he was going to publish our books.

Nevertheless, Mr. Weidner informed us that there was a charity involved, and that funds from the conference had been slated to go to this charity, and the figure was $8,000.00.

Mr. Weidner continued his letter by informing us that Vincent Bridges claims about the book they wrote together were "out and out lies." He then informed us that Vincent Bridges owed him thousands of dollars since he financed their research trips. (The figure was later give as $3000.00)

Mr. Weidner concluded his letter with a heartfelt plea to Vincent Bridges to "set his career, and life, back in order." He had the idea that this could be accomplished if Bridges" would just apologize to everyone publicly for his misrepresentations.

Now, coming forward to the present: We have just received a letter from Mr. Weidner telling us that our posting of his letters has essentially served his purpose. He informs us that he has now entered into a legal agreement with Vincent Bridges that he finds "satisfactory to me ["Jay Weidner"]." He then states that Bridges has paid him back the $3,000.00 he owed, and that he has "apologized for his mistakes." Next, he tells us that the copyright problem has been straightened out as well as the ownership of Aethyrea Books.

This last issue relates to the fact that we discovered through the tax collector's office as well as the Secretary of State's office in North Carolina, that Vincent Bridges did not own a legally registered company and therefore, any of his representations as being a publisher were fraudulent and misleading. Jay Weidner later filed the corporation papers on Aethyrea Books LLC, and this was the first time that it had existed as a legal corporation.

At some later point, Vincent Bridges posted on the internet in numerous places that Ark and Laura had "blackmailed" Jay Weidner into writing the letters that we posted on our site at Jay's request. Jay then provided a letter declaring that "Vincent Bridges was an "out and out liar." The fact is, Jay Weidner contacted us, not the other way around as the published correspondence will show.

Several other letters were published by us, on behalf of Jay Weidner, in our ongoing effort to expose a serious internet predator - Vincent Bridges - who has a history of theft, lies and fraud. Mr. Weidner has now informed us that he wishes to just let the whole thing drop because he is satisfied; he got his money back, he got an apology, and "the many things said in those letters is no longer true."

As a certain member of the research team pointed out regarding such a position: "Since when does truth become 'no longer true?' Who decides, and who's truth was it in the first place? Does something become not true, which once was true?"

What concerns us here, of course, is that there is nothing in Mr. Weidner's attitude that suggests concern for other people Vincent Bridges has, or will con others in the future.

So, the bottom line is: even though Mr. Weidner has a price - and rather low, at that - I don't think that Mr. Bridges will be able to "persuade" any of the other contributors to the documentation of his fraudulent life to retract what they have said.

And so, at his request, we are removing Jay Weidner's letter. The reader interested in the study of psychopathy might want to next read more recent exchanges with Jay Weidner.

Continue...

Is Truth Defamatory?

The COINTELPRO Files: Vincent Bridges and Co. (photographic exhibit)

The Bridges - Jadczyk Correspondence

The Weidner - Jadczyk Correspondence

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An Open Letter From Jay Weidner About Vincent Bridges

Is Truth Defamatory?

An Open Letter From Jay Weidner
About Vincent Bridges