1983 book by M Scott Peck
People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil
Dr. M. Scott Peck was an American psychiatrist takes a psychological look into the essence of human evil. People who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. Peck demonstrates the havoc these people of the lie work in the lives of those around them. He presents, from vivid incidents encountered in his psychiatric practice, examples of evil in everyday life.
Peck served as a psychiatrist in the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and later entered private practice. His work focused on psychotherapy, blending psychiatry with spiritual and philosophical insights. His work draws heavily on Christianity, Jungian psychology, as well as his clinical experiences.
The Doctrine of Human Evil: People of the Lie
The concept of human Evil, rigorously defined, pertains to the darkest members of the human community and demands sustained scientific scrutiny. Evil is fundamentally understood as that which opposes the life force; symbolically, it is live spelled backward.
Specifically, evil is concerned with unnecessary killing, or murder, which extends beyond corporeal destruction to encompass the killing of the spirit. Killing the spirit involves opposing essential attributes of life, such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, and will.
This destructive force, whether internal or external, seeks to destroy life or liveliness.
The purpose of acknowledging and studying human evil is healing and eradication. Historically, science largely relegated the problem of evil to religious thought, viewing itself as value-free. However, the investigation of human evil mandates a science that is no longer value-free. The battle to heal human evil must always begin with rigorous self-judgment and self-purification.
Psychological and Moral Tenets
A formal, established psychology of evil does not yet exist; current understanding represents a nascent stage of learning. Psychological study reveals that the central defect characterising evil individuals is their absolute refusal to tolerate the sense of their own sinfulness. This evasion of the pain of conscience distinguishes the evil from ordinary mentally ill sinners.
The essential psychological problem underpinning this refusal is malignant narcissism, manifesting as an unsubmitted will. This arrogance compels the individual to reject and attack any evidence of their own inadequacy. In the conflict between guilt and will, the will must triumph. Malignant narcissists insist upon affirmation independent of all findings.
Evil people are characterised by the subtlety, persistence, and consistency of their sins. They are designated the People of the Lie because their perceived goodness exists purely as a pretense, driven by an intense desire to maintain an image of moral purity.
The lie is primarily constructed to deceive the self, protecting the individual from the painful awareness of sinfulness. The pervasive nature of lying and covertness is a hallmark of this condition.
A predominant characteristic of the behaviour of the evil is scapegoating.
Because they feel themselves to be faultless, they inevitably perceive conflict as the fault of the world. They project their own evil onto others, often assaulting their victims in the name of righteousness to preserve their narcissistic self-image of perfection. Individuals afflicted by malignant narcissism are pathologically attached to the status quo of their personalities, and may perceive self-criticism as synonymous with extinction.
Evil can be classified even as a secular form, as a specific form of mental illness. If designated a psychiatric disorder, it fits within the existing broad category of personality disorders, likely constituting a specific variant of the narcissistic personality disorder. This disorder is specifically distinguished by: consistent destructive, scapegoating behaviour; excessive, albeit usually covert, intolerance to narcissistic injury; pronounced concern with a public image and self-image of respectability; and intellectual deviousness, with an increased likelihood of a mild schizophrenic-like disturbance of thinking at times of stress.
Case Studies in Individual Evil
George: The Pact with the Demonic
George presented with a severe obsessive-compulsive neurosis, characterised by unwanted thoughts (obsessions) of death and a compelling need (compulsion) to return to the place of the thought to nullify its power. This mental illness was compounded by deep-seated problems stemming from a traumatic childhood and a miserable marriage. His neurosis was rooted in magical thinking—the belief that thoughts could cause events to occur.
In a moment of desperation to relieve his suffering, George made a pact with the devil.
This agreement stipulated that if he violated the compulsion, the devil would ensure the obsessive thought came true. To guarantee his adherence, George included his youngest son, Christopher, in the bargain, risking Christopher’s life upon the failure of the pact.
This decision was identified as bad, even evil, born of a fundamental cowardice and the choice of the easiest possible relief from pain, rather than confronting painful realities. George achieved redemption only when he chose to tolerate the pain of his guilt (the guilties) and commit to self-examination, thereby turning away from moral deterioration and voiding the pact.
Bobby and Roger: The Scapegoated Child
Bobby, a depressed adolescent, was the identified patient following his brother’s suicide. His parents, outwardly respectable, demonstrated covert evil.
They gave Bobby the specific rifle used by his brother in the suicide as a Christmas present, an act likened to encouraging him to follow his brother's path. Bobby’s depression and subsequent car theft were predictable psychological responses to the peculiar evil of his parents. Lacking the maturity to comprehend his parents' defects, he interpreted their cruelty as evidence that the evil resided within himself, leading to a negative self-image.
Roger, from a wealthy and sophisticated background, was a victim of a consistent pattern of subtle lies and lack of empathy from his parents. His parents repeatedly disregarded his feelings, denied his earned rewards (such as an educational trip), and refused professional help, preferring to believe Roger suffered from a hereditary, incurable condition rather than acknowledging their own psychological problems. This willingness to designate Roger as hopelessly malformed served to preserve their narcissistic self-image of perfection, exemplifying malignant scapegoating.
Hartley and Sarah: The Thralldom of Adulthood
Hartley, a passive and depressed man, was in willing thralldom to his wife, Sarah. Sarah exhibited overt cruelty and a profound narcissistic need for domination, frequently diminishing Hartley’s self-worth and inhibiting his independence.
Their relationship was a symbiotic one—a mutually parasitic and destructive coupling where Hartley's dependence nourished Sarah's need for power, and Sarah's dominance satisfied Hartley's monumental laziness.
For an adult not under duress to become a victim of evil, they must have bound themselves to the aggressor through failure of courage, often by chains of laziness and dependency, thereby settling for a child's impotence. Sarah exhibited all the signs of malignant narcissism, including a denial of personal needs and a sudden loss of composure—disorganisation in thinking more characteristic of ambulatory schizophrenia—when confronted with her role in the marriage.
Charlene: The Impenetrable Will
Charlene, an intellectually gifted but intensely confused patient, submitted to lengthy psychoanalytic psychotherapy, but the treatment was ultimately a failure.
She was identified as profoundly autistic—an utter failure to submit to reality—living in a world where the self reigned supreme. Charlene was a true person of the lie, maintaining control by routinely withholding crucial information and using elaborate rituals.
Her malignant narcissism manifested as an insistent demand for unconditional love as a sick adult, refusing to relinquish control or regress to the passive, childlike state required for deep healing. Her pursuit of the therapist was fundamentally dishonest, seeking infantile nurturance under the guise of adult sexuality.
Her deepest failure was her unsubmitted will, which sought power purely for its own sake, resulting in a petty, tasteless destructiveness that only lacked political power to be transformed into a great tragedy. Her terrifying stability and imperviousness to reality made her fundamentally unhealable under traditional methods.
The Phenomenon of Group Evil
Group behaviour typically operates at a more primitive and immature psychological level than individual behaviour. Group evil often results from the fragmentation of conscience caused by specialisation. Individuals within specialised groups can easily forsake personal moral responsibility by passing the ethical burden onto another part of the system.
The MyLai Massacre in 1968 served as a profound example of group evil, where five hundred or more unarmed civilians were murdered by American troops.
Factors Contributing to the Atrocity
1. Stress and Regression: Chronic combat stress experienced by Task Force Barker caused individual soldiers to regress psychologically, becoming more primitive, immature, and brutish than they would otherwise have been.
2. Psychic Numbing: Constant exposure to horror and death led to psychic numbing, an emotional self-anesthesia that blunted the soldiers' capacity for horror, making them insensitive to the suffering of others and increasing the likelihood of brutality.
3. Malignant Group Narcissism: The group's cohesiveness was maintained by fostering hatred of the external enemy, generalising the target from the Viet Cong to all Vietnamese ('Gooks'). The group, having failed its mission (zero enemy body count), was hungry for blood, satisfying this indiscriminating hunger through the massacre.
4. Scapegoating: The soldiers were scapegoats for American society, which had chosen and employed specialised killers to do the nation’s dirty work.
The Cover-Up and National Villainy
The atrocities went largely unreported because soldiers were unaware they had committed a crime, operating under an atmosphere of atrociousness and evil pervasive throughout the military. The group crime was compounded by a gigantic group lie (the cover-up).
The war itself was sustained by the pathological narcissism and intellectual laziness of American society and its leadership. The government clung to obsolete attitudes about communism to avoid the painful work of self-doubt. The escalation of the war, accompanied by deliberate fraud and lying (the Gulf of Tonkin Incident), was an exercise of political power intended to destroy the evidence of the limits of American potency and preserve the national self-image of infallibility. This national villainy arose from collective unwittingness and arrogance.
The Demonic, Possession, and Exorcism
The theological model of traditional Christianity, more accurately views evil, and offers the most adequate framework for dealing with evil, not as a distinct entity or creation of God but a corruption of good, and absence of God's will, that arises from the Free Will of rational creatures, and beginning with the fallen angel Lucifer.
Satan is real. He is the Father of Lies and a spirit dedicated utterly to opposing human life and growth. Although intangible, Satan has an actively hateful personality. Satan's only power lies in human belief in his lies, and his spirit exhibits weaknesses due to his extraordinary pride and narcissism.
Possession is a gradual process often stemming from profound loneliness, where the demonic is adopted as a companion. The diagnosis of possession is complex; the question is whether a patient is mentally ill andpossessed, as a significant emotional problem is required for possession to occur and the possession itself enhances existing illness.
Exorcism is a highly dangerous procedure, defined as psychotherapy by massive assault. It involves a team that invokes the power of God to uncover and expel the Demonic, which often hides behind a pretence. The crucial moment of expulsion is ultimately decided by the patient, who must exercise Free Will and voluntarily choose to align with the God of Truth for deliverance. Following successful expulsion, healing occurs rapidly, demonstrating that the critical victory against evil has already occurred in a cosmic sense.
The Methodology of Love and Prevention
The scientific investigation of evil must not be undertaken lightly, as concentration upon evil rather than goodness is exceedingly dangerous. The only way to safely study and conquer evil is through the methodology of love. Evil cannot be conquered by destruction, which would only result in the destroyer becoming evil. Evil must be defeated by goodness.
The arduous process of love requires the individual healer to sacrificially absorb the evil, allowing their soul to become the battleground. Through a mysterious alchemy, the victim who absorbs the evil becomes the victor, containing and neutralising the malignant energy.
The task of preventing group evil involves eradicating individual laziness and narcissism. Because the character of any group is determined by its individuals, the salvation of a single human soul is of sacred importance, as the battle between good and evil is ultimately won or lost in the solitary mind. Only by subjecting human evil to strenuous scientific scrutiny, coupled with the sacrificial methodology of love, can transformation be achieved.