Presence of evil

[beachcitygirl]

Aibu to ask if you've ever felt yourself in the presence of evil. Following on from
The intuitiion thread.

I once met a friend of my ex in a coffee shop. The man was nothing but civil & friendly. Soft spoken & was an ex police officer. My then husband was there also.
I went to the loo & spent ages as something about him made me feel afraid. I stress it was just a feeling. Zero untoward behaviour.
Many years later he was arrested & found guilty of violent rape.

Has anyone else ever sensed evil? (For want of a better word)

@BillGigolo

I’ve been thinking about this thread and I definitely have no spidey sense for ‘evil.’ My friend’s mum actually went to college in the States with Ted Bundy and never thought there was anything untoward about him. You’d think if you were going to get evil vibes off someone it would be him.

I read an essay years ago by Michel Foucault about the French serial killer Thierry Paulin, where he argued that the reason we ‘other’ killers as monsters/evil/inhuman is because it’s scarier to think we might ever be capable of the same. We need to see them as almost a different species.

Ted Bundy is known for being quite charming.

@foxychox

2 places made me feel really uneasy and not surprisingly - a cave in Kanchanaburi in Thailand where UK prisoners used to hide from the Japanese and the Tuol Sleng detention centre in Cambodia. in Tuol Sleng I literally couldn't enter a room even though I really wanted to...

Tuol Sleng had a uniquely horrible feel to it. Genuinely chilling.

I also felt chilled at the murder site of Catherine Eddowes, murdered in 1888 by Jack the Ripper. Awful feeling there.

I don’t believe in ‘evil ‘ per se either
I was about 18 , I had a dream that my friends father tried to rape me , my friend and another friend . Six months later my friend revealed he had sexually abusing her since she was 13 -

I’ve had that feeling around a few people in my life. 3 times I was scarily right. 1 turned out to be a wife beater and abuser, she barely made it alive, 2 were found guilty of child abuse. All three perfectly nice, polite, lovely men. 2 of them I met as a child and I was terrified of them, it was almost a physical reaction even though there was no untoward behaviour from them.

Yes sorry I wasn’t meaning to equate mental illness with evil of course that’s not at all what I think- but it was more the feeling of danger ect.
The person who mentioned PD are more a danger to themselves are correct but of course it depends on the disorder and individual. I’m talking about ones who are a danger to others. Sorry if I unwittingly offended- it was clumsy to not clarify! Xx

@disconnected101

Faiths go back a thousand or more years, and is more often than not passed down in our genetic makeup Genes do not code for religious faith. It is learned through your environment - parents, home/school/community life.

I believe that other faiths - Islam included - have also passed down the generations, and we can no more change others or ourselves to other faiths as we can insist they have a different gift passed on from ancestors
This is rigid thinking.

I am sorry you have such an attitude to faith, because I believe everyone needs to be with similarly minded people who understand their reasons for everything they do

Of course people seek to surround themselves with like-minded others to reinforce their beliefs, and not just where religion is concerned. I think it can be healthy, for eg. it can provide a community and the support that comes from belonging to such, and it can be unhealthy, such as in a cult, where beliefs are not challenged or questioned.

@ChargingBuck @llizzie also said the things in bold in the above quote I know it's arsey to quote yourself but I'm not sure she saw the response and I reeeeeally hoped she would and I'm starting to think she's on the wind up & having a bit o' fun, if not out & out trolling

I’m not sure it’s necessary for people to say they felt “evil” at places like Auchswitz and Dachau, Bodmin Gaol etc. I mean presumably that’s obvious?! Obviously you would feel something negative being somewhere where you KNOW atrocities have happened.

Re dogs sensing things - Gavin de Becker makes a pertinent point in his book; that it’s far more likely dogs are responding to subconscious micro cues from their owners, rather than actually picking up on things themselves. A pet is sensitive to their owner and will realise if an owner is uncomfortable, even when the owner doesn’t necessarily realise it themselves.

@Strawberry33

I work in a secure psychiatric hospital and the particular ward I’m on is predominately personality disorders- so borderline personality disorder, sociopaths, ect. I notice the energy changes around them. Sort of an electric like feeling. Like fizzing. It’s strange. Just feels dark and unsettling. Not all of them but the ones who haven’t given me That have normally turned out to have a Different mental illness once assessed. It’s got to the point that I can tell when they walk in the room if they are very unwell without them opening their mouths even.

Oooh best get the crucifix out and preform an exorcism on them, then?

Obvs im joking. Your equating mental illness to evil. You may as well take a leap back to the 16th century.

@Millionairesshortbreadshort

If you really think you need to clarify that a mental health diagnosis is not linked to ‘evil’ then you seem to have read the room wrong. Perhaps you’re used to dealing with people are quite exceptionally stupid. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Arsey, @disconnected101 - I didn't know that! & appreciate your post.
Whether requoted or original ;)

Llizie is very welcome to her faith, I simply got a little bored with the nonsensical way she was justifying it. I've met enough people with entrenched imposed belief systems to imagine she might have been for real ... but the whole genetic inheritance of faith schtick was rather taking the communion wafer biscuit.

TatianaBis

My post was in relation to @Strawberry33 post. I don’t feel the need to clarify this generally. @strawberry has now clarified. I had assumed this wasn’t what they meant, however in the context of a thread about ‘evil’ there was the risk of misinterpretation. I feel glad I clarified and would do so again but thank you, again, for your feedback.

Strawberry33

Thanks for clarifying. I assumed that’s what you meant (just those with a diagnosis who have been identified as a danger to others, rather than ALL people with that diagnosis) but good to be clear on these things.

Tough work you do! I’ve worked on non secure psychiatric units and that was emotionally demanding enough!!

I read a paper on a study some psychologists did that explain OPs phenomenon. Women generally have an ability to sense a set of traits present in a man that are called the 'dark triad' - these are subclinical narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism.

The test was essentially, 100 or so men were asked to take a few simple personality tests that are trusted within the field to identify individuals that are very narcissistic and antisocial. They noted the results and took photos of the men's faces. They showed these mugshots to women, in a setting where the women felt comfortable and were not told what the test was about. They were asked how they felt about each face. Almost every time they saw the face of a man who had scored highly on the tests, they felt creeped out or uneasy. The women were even more accurate when slightly inebriated, as the researchers had them drink some alcohol to test that response.

It's a pretty good thing to have really.

Not so much a presence of evil, more of an atmosphere. I was in Kincora House once, which used to be Kincora Boys Home. I didn’t realise it at the time because the building was being used for others purposes. Felt highly on edge, very uneasy, a prickly feeling on my neck as if I was on red alert. My friend and I drove past it one day & pointed it out to me and told me it was Kincora. I was very disturbed by that.

That’s very interesting. Do you think it was their actual faces or their expressions (ie lacking empathy)?

ginastill

That’s an interesting bit of research. Any chance you have the reference? I’d love to read it.

Not a person, but a place, Stanhope Castle in Co Durham. The town itself seems quite nice at first, gateway to a lot of walks in the area etc. The Castle stands at one end and it seemed to loom somehow and I said I wouldn’t want to stay there at all (it’s holiday apartments, look lovely in the online brochure). Bit more digging into the history revealed it was an Approved School before that and a significant amount of abuse took place. Couldn’t wait to get out of there tbh.

I’m so so glad you’ve lived a life that can allow you to say evil doesn’t exist evil does exist (I’m not saying god and the devil but evil is as real as any other personality trait) what else do you call child abusers or murderers? I’ve met both and they’ve shown no remorse

Took the car to a car wash one time. There were six or seven men attending the car. My hackles went up at one man and I was inexplicably terrified of him. He didn't so much as look at me but I was terrified. Strange.

@Justheretoaskaquestion91 I think that is very true about dogs. Our dog never took to DD1's partner, always on edge around him. After they split up DD1 told us she had been trying to split up with him for a while as she wasn't happy. New partner is adored the dog so I take that as a good sign.

I think regarding people's faces what we may subconsciously pick up is that not all of the expression on the face is joining up. Essentially the mouth is saying one thing but other parts of the face are saying something different.

If the other parts of the face are 'saying' bored then we may not gel with the person.

If the other parts of the face are saying 'rage/contempt/disgust' then we will be rightly frightened.

Either way we likely won't know why, it will just be a feeling.

I think it is perfectly possible for posters or their friends and family to have come into contact with serial killers or murderers. They were predators for years and would have been trying to lure victims and obviously, thankfully, were not successful all the time.

Re people being evil; I think it’s a dangerous thing, like a Pp said, to just “other” people like that. I realise it makes general society reassured and “well it could never happen to us” “normal people couldn’t do these things”, but normal people DO do these things. Most people I would class as “evil” are people born as perfectly normal and innocent babies who have been abused themselves and fucked up that way. It’s fine to use “evil” as an adjective, a synonym of “extremely bad”, “awful” etc but it’s not helpful/is a bit childish IMO to just blanket say THEY ARE EVIL NOTHING COULD HAVE PREVENTED. That’s not true. Even people who are born with low empathy or psychopathic traits could follow a better path with loving or nurturing parents.

That said, I don’t believe in rehabilitation. Once the Apple has gone bad, it’s bad. It is shown time and time again that rapists and paedophiles etc will reoffend once released.

@Lucycharlotte1990

I’m so so glad you’ve lived a life that can allow you to say evil doesn’t exist evil does exist (I’m not saying god and the devil but evil is as real as any other personality trait) what else do you call child abusers or murderers? I’ve met both and they’ve shown no remorse

This has been answered on this thread multiple times.

Oh absolutely. But I was searched by Wayne Couzens on arrival at H of C and picked up nothing and he's unquestionably evil so it's not foolproof. Followed home one by a wicked invisible force, yes.

Definitely. It’s what I’ve always counted on, my gut feeling. Always go with your gut because it’s always right