The Path Whisperer

Since this is a frequent search that finds me and since I’ve only had one image, here are a few others.

Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story Of A Doctor Who Got Away With Murder

Michael Swango: Doctor of Death

Wikipedia entry on Michael Swango

This individual is an extreme example of the “alien masquerading as a human” level psychopath.

I have my own six-degrees-of-separation connection to Dr. Swango.  One of Michael Swango’s waypoints was his conning Alan Miller, M.D.,  into admitting him into a psychiatry training program.  Alan Miller essentially made my father’s career (I met him as my father’s boss during my school years).  His recognition of my father’s talent and his promoting him was what led to my father becoming a state commissioner of mental health himself.  I have both respect and affection for Dr. Miller.

I have seen comments and received one myself that diagnosing psychopaths should be left to psychiatrists.  Yet here, an extremely able and intelligent psychiatrist was unable to recognize Swango as a psychopath.  In my opinion, Michael Swango is immediately recognizable as a psychopath.  There is simply no soul behind his eyes.

Those with eyes can see, those without, cannot.  Western education in general tries to forbid “emotional reading” or “soul sensitivity.”  I can’t see how anything in MD training is of any help in the training of a therapist.  They’d be better off spending the years reading great novels, seeing great plays (or reading them) and movies and then discussing the motivations of the human soul.

The secular soul is that part of the psyche that dreams and never lies, the seat of the deepest wants, desires and instincts.  Psychopaths/sociopaths simply never develop a complex adult soul.  This is reflected in their lives, behavior and even their eyes.

In my opinion, the long criminal career of Dr. Swango represented an egregious failure of both our justice and mental health systems.  There was enough evidence from his early contacts with the law to recognize him as a dangerous psychopath even though there was not enough evidence for a legal win.  He should have faced involuntary commitment as a danger to society criminally insane psychopath.   Obviously this would have depended on publicly witnessed behaviors and checklist type items, not an individual (such as myself) saying ‘well, my subconscious says he’s a psychopath.’  I present that approach simply as a life tool, not as a legal or involuntary commitment tool.