Few people have the strength and fortitude to stare directly into the eyes of the future forms which are preparing to take our place.
~ ~ Dr. Christopher S. Hyatt

Psychopaths have usually been regarded by the public as either cartoon-like (Eminem, Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst) or a threat to the prevailing social order (Quake video-game junkies). For a brief period in the mid-1990s, the fascination with suave serial killers and film characters like Dr. Hannibal Lecter suggested that the psychopath was undergoing revision, being transformed from murderous villain to flawed yet admired hero.

Christopher S. Hyatt's book, originally titled The Toxick Magician (1994) and revised as The Psychopath's Bible, offers some introductory remarks on how to make friends with your Inner Psychopath.

Although he cites the DSM-IV definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder, and the lesser known World Health Organization guidelines (F.60.2) of Disocial (Antisocial Personality Disorder (18), Hyatt, a licensed psychotherapist, is not interested in studying the motivations of the one-dimensional 'slasher' killers who have achieved press coverage. He is interested, instead, in "the sort of person who cares nothing for the 'advancement' of the species" (11).

Hyatt's vision closely resembles the 'Solve' process of the alchemical 'Solve et Coagula' formula: ossified forms are destroyed in order for the void where new creation can take place. "Toxick magick, then, is the direct use and application of one's power and abilities to speedily bring about the destruction of mediocrity and stupidity" (37). It is also about buying time (40) in a world that has gone Hyperculture.

"The hero-psychopath is," Hyatt writes, conscious of his values and deliberate in his actions" (13). He echoes George Gurdjieff and the Malamati (Path of Blame) of Islam-oriented Sufism when Hyatt stresses that the hero-psychopath will work intentionally and deliberately against social conventions in order to achieve specific goals (23). He stresses that Toxick Magick this is a focused form that can require laser-beam like intensity (79). Elsewhere, Hyatt warns: "Remember it is a natural tendency to be dark and self destructive. The trick is to do it well - very well" (44).

Hyatt explains that the hero-psychopath, unlike the 'mindless' film counterpart, is driven by four strivings (105):

(1) Vengeance
(2) Obsession
(3) Expressing the 'Will to Power'
(4) Doing your own 'True Will'

This quartet reveals the historical and philosophical sources for Hyatt's study – Jacobean revenge tragedies, Romanticism, Friedrich Nietzsche and Aleister Crowley (the 'ill to Power' and 'True Will' are long-misunderstood philosophical concepts). The shadows of Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo Machiavaelli loom over this book, as Hyatt is also concerned with how people can survive and prosper in a society that has, until recently, been defined by resource scarcity and the remorseless struggle against Death.

The influence of Hobbes, Machiavelli and Social Psychologists becomes more apparent when Hyatt summarizes their thoughts on humanity as the most advanced social animal. An observation such as "the entire structure of the world is a food chain of infantilizing" (66) could be taken from the pages of Hobbes' Leviathan (1651).

When Hyatt claims that "the normal man can be defined by his repetitive routines" (70), he is drawing upon a view that became enshrined in Frederick Taylor's management studies (Hyatt name-checks the Peter Principle) and Herbert Spencer's Social Darwinist school. "People are so familiar with abuse and misuse that they are unaware of it" (97) is a cornerstone of Freudian psychoanalysis. "The generic victim needs to be the victim" (32) could have come from the mouth of Satanic magus Anton LaVey.

But quibbling over Hyatt's sources misses the point . . .

How the System Really Works

What separates Hyatt's writings from the occultnik pack is his awareness of psychological development. Hyatt understands that magical thinking appeals to people during certain life crises. His most well known book, Undoing Yourself With Energized Meditation and Other Devices (Tempe AZ: New Falcon Press, 1993), has gone through six revisions. It's an eclectic volume with some unusual pictures, embracing Tantra, Chaos Magick, Hypnotism and Absurdist insights. My other Hyatt fave is Tree of Lies (Tempe AZ: New Falcon Press, 1992), which begins with a self-scoring test that is designed to show how societal rules have shaped your worldview. I file them both under 'early influences.'

There are flashes of Hyatt's humor throughout the book, from pithy Discordian aphorisms like "Discord is the politics of mobility" (47) to a sober reminder that "paranoia is a simple misdirection virus" (39). Hyatt is at his best with a line that "the Toxick Magician always views his adversary with his head in the toilet bowl" (36). In a single line, Hyatt offers Absurdist humor, a one-upmanship technique for beating the pecking order, an example of perceptual re-framing and a parody of an Aghori meditation.

Psychology, more Humanist than Freudian, is at the heart of Hyatt's writings. Surveying the magisterial DSM-IV (fourth edition), Hyatt contends that the American psychotherapy establishment has stopped pursuing the chimerical state of "mental health", preferring instead to believe only in differing levels of psychopathology. This view is at odds with Freud's contemporary, Josef Breuer, who is credited with beginning the taxonomies for mental illnesses. Hyatt’s views aren’t exactly revolutionary anymore: there is still fallout from the mid-1990s "Freud Wars" that engulfed the psychoanalytical establishment, yet it's a message that many people still need to hear. Freud is still very much alive, however, his legacy is now viewed as a partial solution to the Post-Human Condition.

The other dilemma that Hyatt alludes to is the Existentialist critique of a society bereft of meaning, a society that has not invested in the resources that are needed to face the looming problems of existence. "Remember," Hyatt advises in one of the most important lines of the book, "every solution leads to more complex and involved problems" (35).

Sometimes the solution may be to "scan the environment for appropriate enforcers" (90); to look for the feedback loops and recurring patterns in the landscape. The "unwritten rules of the game", if you will. Hyatt understands that these are the tools that are at the magician's disposal. "It is the quality and nature of the forces set in motion for which the Toxick Magician strives" (36).

He also grasps that sometimes the solution is to modify your perceptual structure, not get lost in analyzing the labyrinth of endless content and re-experiencing trauma. Hyatt makes references to "inter-woven neucloid-correlation matrices" (35), an allusion to Chaos Theory and structural dynamics, but he doesn't shed any further light on how this paradigm can reveal the deep forces at work in our lives and social interactions.

The most startling omission from this book is Hyatt's own battle with the psychoanalytical establishment regarding the Satanic Ritual Abuse scares. According to Bill Heidrick, Grand Treasurer General of the Ordo Templi Orientis, when Hyatt faced a 1987 mandatory licensing seminar in California to renew his credentials, he was told:

"You are required to report child molestation in instances where the person consulting is a member of the Golden Dawn, Ordo Templi Orientis, Temple of Set, or Church of Satan. Aleister Crowley founded the Order of the Golden Dawn. Membership in these organizations constitutes cause to believe that the member is involved in child abuse or molestation."