 Today, we are going to discuss the multifarious ways the narcissist uses to deceive you, mislead you into believing that he or she is not a narcissist. This is known in biology and zoology as mimicry. And the topic of today's video is the narcissist aggressive mimicry. Wait a minute, all of you howl in unison. Mimicry occurs between two species, usually a predator and a prey. Well, I regard the narcissist as a member of another species. The narcissist in the most profound sense is asexual, is amoral and is above all inhuman. In many ways, the narcissist belongs to another species, an alien species, a predator species, which preys upon you. So welcome to the Twilight Zone. My name is Sam Wackney and I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited. And I'm a former visiting professor of psychology. We are all animals. Ultimately, we are all animals. Human beings are an evolved, complex form of animal. No one knew this better than the ancient sages. One of the most common and simple forms of mimicry is known as wolf in sheep's clothing. Zoologists use this phrase to describe aggressive mimicry, who will come to it a bit later. Animals have evolved to deceive their prey by appearing either as other prey or as something completely unrelated, a prey spray or something like that. The phrase wolf in sheep's clothing originated in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing. But inwardly there are ravening wolves, the Gospel of Matthew 7.15. And then he continued to say, by their fruits shall ye know them. That's excellent advice. Jesus would have made a great YouTuber, a life coach probably. So, let's delve right in. I want to start with something known as bipolar mimicry system. I will describe it and then I will explain to you what is mimicry and where does it fit in with other deceptive strategies in the animal kingdom such as camouflage. The narcissist uses all of them. You would be well advised to think of the narcissist, to conceive of the narcissist as an alien predator species roaming amongst you, hunting for prey, using everything at its disposal, deception first and foremost. Bipolar mimicry system. Some psychopathic narcissists imitate a sensitive, much wronged victim of narcissistic abuse or an empathic, savior, rescuer. That's a perfect example of a bipolar mimicry system. Bipolar mimicry systems involve two species and they are a very unique form of mimicry because the dupe is the model. In other words, the predator imitates, emulates, copies the prey. We have two variants of bipolar mimicry system where the target is imitated. In the first case, this is known as Bayesian-Valacean mimicry and that's when the predator simply copies the prey to the point that it becomes indistinguishable from the prey. Like the aforementioned psychopathic narcissist pretends to be very convincingly a victim of narcissistic abuse. In the second case, the model is a host of a brute parasite. I'll come to it a bit later. I'm going to explore all forms of mimicry used or deployed by narcissists. But what is mimicry? What am I talking about? Mimicry is a concept in evolutionary biology. It means an evolved resemblance between an organism and another organism or between an organism and an object. Now usually the two organisms, the dupe and the model, the two of them belong to different species. The dupe is usually the predator. It dupes the prey. The model is usually some other species. So the predator pretends to be another species which is not a predator. For example, narcissists would pretend to be a nice guy, an average Joe or just a talented person who is a nerd. Narcissists would pretend to not be a narcissist. When a narcissist pretends to be a victim of abuse, when a narcissist pretends to be a borderline, when a narcissist pretends to be codependent, then we have a case of bipolar mimicry. When a narcissist pretends to be just a normal guy or a normal girl, then we have classic defensive or aggressive mimicry which we will distinguish in a minute. So mimicry is pretending to be someone else. Someone else that belongs to another type, another kind, another variety, another species. And sometimes in the animal kingdom the mimicry involves an object. So an insect would pretend to be a leaf and so on. Mimicry may evolve between different species, but it also occurs between individuals of the same species. And this is where the narcissist comes in. Mimicry evolves when a receiver, for example a predator, perceives the similarity between a mimic, an organism that has a resemblance, and a model, the organism that is resembled. And as a result it changes its behavior in a way that provides selective advantage. So there are several components, several elements in mimicry. Number one, deception, misperception. When a predator perceives an organism as another organism. When a predator perceives the dupe as a model, one organism is another. Or when a prey perceives a predator as a non-threatening organism, because the predator pretends to be a member of that non-threatening organism. So this is element number one, deception, being misled, pretending to be someone else convincingly. Number two, a change in behavior. When the deception works, it induces a change in the prey's behavior, in the victim's behavior, in the target's choices and decisions. Effective mimicry is behavior modification. It's a form of behavior modulation. And the third element, the mimicry provides a selective advantage to the mimic. So if a predator pretends to be a non-predator, if a predator pretends to belong to another species, which is not a predator, it gives the predator an advantage because it can safely approach the prey and pounce on it. These are the three elements, remember. And now you can easily apply the three elements of these three components of mimicry to the narcissist. Number one, he pretends to be a non-narcissist. He pretends to be a victim. He pretends to be a compassionate, empathic person. He pretends to be a savior or a rescuer. He pretends to be an average guy, non-threatening, etc. There's pretension, there's deception. Element one, element two, because you believe these erroneous signals, because you are misled and you're deceived, your behavior changes. The choices you make and the decisions you adopt are radically transformed. Element two, and element three, this grants the narcissist access to you, the ability to manipulate you, to entrain you, to recruit you to a shared fantasy in order later to devalue you and discard you. All three elements of mimicry absolutely exist in every single interaction with a narcissist. And in this sense, what's happening between you and the narcissist is not 100% psychological. It is at least 50% biological. It's a war between species. It's survival of the fittest. It's Darwinian selection, as simple as that. Now mimicry can sometimes accrue to the advantage of both organisms. Both organisms somehow transform themselves, their resemblance changes, the signals they emit are modified, and consequently, both of them benefit. This is known as a highly specific type of mimicry. It's called mutualism. But mutualism is very rare. An example of mutualism is when a narcissist teams up with a borderline. The narcissist provides a borderline with external regulation, pretending to be a nice guy, a supportive, loving, attentive, compassionate, affectionate, containing, holding, understanding, and accepting guy. A best friend or special friend. This is the narcissist mimicry, and the borderline benefits from it. Also by pretending to be a golden-hearted, loving, caring, holding, compassionate, accepting, maternal subject, maternal person. Both of them, the narcissist and the borderline engage in mimicry, and they benefit each other. The borderline allows the narcissist to separate and individuate, and also buttresses the narcissist's grandiosity, renders the narcissist the most important person in her life. He becomes her world, her universe. The narcissist, on the other hand, externally regulates the borderline. They both benefit. So in the case of borderlines of narcissists, there is mutualism, a form of mimicry that benefits both sides. But in the vast majority of cases, when the narcissist is involved, there is no mutualism. The mimicry is to the detriment of the narcissist's intimate partner. The narcissist is parasitic, and in some cases competitive, and always deleterious, destructive, damaging, breaking, harrowing, hurtful. So the narcissist's mimicry is a savage mechanism used to lure the prey and then do with it as the narcissist pleases or needs to do, is compelled to do. And that is at the total cost of the prey's well-being, mental functioning, and finally physical health. In the case of mutualism, the two parties are considered co-mimics. But as I said, this is very rare. Actually what happens is, as we become more and more aware of narcissists and narcissism, I give myself some credit in raising awareness, starting in the 1990s. As we become more aware, narcissists need to develop novel, more advanced mimicry techniques. They need to act more. They need to evolve into thespian beings. They need to stage more elaborate productions. The shared fantasy needs to become so convoluted, so misleading, so comprehensive that it easily supplants reality. This is known as evolutionary arms race. When mimicry negatively affects the model, and the model evolves a certain different appearance from the mimic. So here we are, where victims, targets, potential intimate partners, mates, identify the narcissist much earlier than before, owing to growing awareness. The narcissist needs to be a hell of a lot better in deceiving and misleading and camouflaging and pretending and faking evolutionary arms race. So let's get now to the narcissist's main strategy in terms of mimicry. It's known as aggressive mimicry. Aggressive mimicry is a form of mimicry in which predators, parasites, share similar signals using a harmless model. And this allows them to avoid being correctly identified by the prey or the host. So aggressive mimicry is when the predator imitates, emulates, copies, replicates another species or another type of individual in order to deceive the prey into believing that he is harmless. The predator renders himself harmless by copying or replicating a harmless model. And this is known as aggressive mimicry, because it involves aggressive intent. The idea is of course to consume the prey one way or another, psychologically or physically. And so the predator looks around and says, who am I going to imitate? What kind of model can I imitate, which will allow me to get closer to the prey, to penetrate her defenses, to disable her firewalls, to reduce her awareness, to involve her in fantasy and then to digest her, to consume her and get rid of her. This is the aggression in this form of mimicry. And this is what is known as wolf in sheep's clothing. In the broader sense, aggressive mimicry includes various types of exploitation. And so aggressive mimicry can be focused on obtaining sex and reproductive access. It can be focused on feeding food, or in the case of human beings, money, wealth and resources. But it always involves deception. It always involves sending the signal, I am harmless. I am benevolent. I am helpful. I'm supportive. I myself am a victim. I will love you, etc., etc. All these messages involve self camouflage. Self camouflage. Now aggressive mimicry is not the same as defensive mimicry. In defensive mimicry, exactly the opposite is done. The defensive mimic pretends to be dangerous, harmful. The defensive mimic is actually harmless, but in order to deter the predator, in order to frighten, terrify, scare, terrorize the predator, the harmless prey pretends to be a predator himself, itself. Now this happens a lot among, for example, borderlines and co-dependence. They would pretend to be psychopaths and narcissists. This is a form of defensive mimicry. When co-dependence and borderlines find themselves in the presence of narcissistic and psychopathic predators, they often pretend to be narcissists and psychopaths and they even adopt narcissistic and psychopathic behaviors. And the aim is to broadcast the message, stay away, be careful. I'm warning you. I'm dangerous. I will destroy you. I'm a narcissist. I'm a psychopath, etc., etc. So this is defensive mimicry. A mimic may resemble an organism that is harmful to the predator in defensive mimicry or harmless to the prey in aggressive mimicry. The model, the organism being imitated, what happens to it? If more and more narcissists, an increasing number of psychopaths pretend to be normal, healthy, average blokes or chicks. What happens to the truly normal, healthy, nice, kind blokes and chicks? What happens to them? They are in trouble. They are in trouble because the narcissist prey or the psychopath's prey begins to be hyper-vigilant. He begins to be afraid even of the genuine model. So if you've had a bad experience with a narcissist or a psychopath and this narcissist or psychopath mimicked, pretended to be a nice guy, next time you meet a really nice guy, you would be afraid. You would be suspicious. You would push him away. You would be hyper-vigilant. And consequently, the opportunities of the model are affected by the mimic. In short, the opportunities of the nice guy to have sex with you, to have a relationship with you, to have children with you, make a family with you, do business with you, the opportunities of the nice, kind, supportive, loving, caring, empathic guy are much reduced by the fact that narcissists use this kind of guy as a model, imitate this kind of guy, mimic this kind of guy, thereby reducing this kind of guy's opportunities with you. So the mimic always benefits. The model sometimes suffers, consequently, from a general deterioration in trust in the environment. So we say in biological terms that the model suffers, the organism or the species or the individuals being imitated, the models, suffer reduced fitness. Their ability to compete, survival of the fittest, their ability to be selected in, for example, made selection process, this ability is much reduced because there are many fakes around that look and behave very much like them, narcissists and psychopaths. The signal receiver, the prey always suffers because she is strict in most mimicry behaviors and mimicry complexes. The prey, the victim, the target always pays a heavy cost. First and foremost, because she bases her behaviors and decisions and choices on the wrong information, on the information emitted by the predator who pretends to be non-predator, by the predator who pretends to be prey, a victim, poor codependent, by the predator who pretends to be another species which is harmless. Being misguided this way can lead and does lead to catastrophic consequences. Aggressive mimicry often involves the predator employing signals that attract the prey. So we are not only talking about what happens after an initial contact has been made, if an initial contact is initiated, the predator magnetically, electrically if you wish, hypnotically attracts the prey. Part of the mimicry mechanism or the mimicry complex are signals that generate attraction, attractability, like the equivalent of pheromones in the animal kingdom. So the narcissist or the psychopath pretending to be a victim of abuse or a rescuer and a savior or just a normal average guy, this narcissist or psychopath, they're not only going to passively wait and pretend and fake, they're going to actively attract you. They're going to emit signals saying, for example, I need love, only you can cure me, I've been waiting for you all my life. And this is precisely what we call love bombing or grooming. It is an integral part of mimicry in the animal kingdom, not only among animals by the way, plants, other kinds like insects and so on. Everyone engages in mimicry, absolutely everyone engages in mimicry. And always part of the mimicry is the element of attraction. Narcissists and psychopaths mimicry involves love bombing. What is love bombing? Love bombing is the ability to experience emotions and express them to have effect. We know that narcissists don't have access to any positive emotions and we know that psychopaths don't have positive emotions period. And yet they imitate well positive emotions. And they broadcast to you the existence, the alleged existence of these emotions and you are attracted inexorably to this overwhelming sensation of intensity and warmth and passion and desire and acceptance and ability. You're being idealized, you fall in love with your idealized image. It's all part of the mimicry. It's a strategy that allows predators to simply sit there and wait for the prey to come to them. The promise of love, the promise of sex, the promise of money, the promise of togetherness and intimacy, the promise of whatever, intellectual stimulation, these are the lures. Predator puts out debate and debate involves mimicry. Don't worry, I am not a narcissist. I am not a psychopath, says the narcissist or say the narcissist and the psychopath. We are not who you think we are. We are another species, very nice species, cutie pie species, loving species. Come to us, come to us. As long as the predator's true identity is concealed, it may be able to approach prey more easily than would otherwise be the case, clearly. And the signals, exactly like in the animal kingdom, the signals are compounded. The visual, how you dress, how you fit or not, due to take care of yourself. They are intellectual. Are you intelligent? Are you beyond intelligent, maybe? They are verbal, you know, smooth talking, sweet talking, small talks, small talk, light, pleasant, fun, jokes, sense of humor. These are all the dimensions of aggressive mimicry and they involve camouflage. There is an active effort to hide certain angles, aspects and dimensions. There are scholars such as Wickler and Wickler said that the signal is the most significant thing. The signal is the thing that activates the receiver. And it is the signal, the content of the signal, the intensity of the signal, the outcomes of the signal. This is what differentiates camouflage from aggressive mimicry. Camouflage is more passive. Aggressive mimicry intends to attract. But still, it's not very easy to tell how significant the signal is for the dupe. And the distinction is very fuzzy. I myself think there is no aggressive mimicry without camouflage. In other words, with the narcissist and the psychopath, what you see is not what you get. Never, ever what you get. Aggressive mimics involve always mixed signals, deceptive signals, and parts that are hidden or transformed via disguise and camouflage into other parts. I said that aggressive mimicry is not the same as defensive mimicry. I'll remind you again, aggressive mimicry is when a predator pretends to be harmless. Defensive mimicry is when the prey pretends to be harmful. Defensive mimicry has various forms, at least three that we know of. And all these forms are the antithesis, the exact opposite of aggressive mimicry. Also, the targets are different. In defensive mimicry, the predator is the target. In aggressive mimicry, the prey is the target. Defensive or protective mimicry takes place when organisms are able to avoid harmful encounters by deceiving enemies into treating them as something else. So this also happens in a shared fantasy or an intimate, so-called intimate, relationship with the narcissist or the psychopath, where the intimate partner would pretend to be someone else. As I said, she would say I'm a narcissist. I'm a psychopath. Don't f with me. This is a form of aggressive defensive mimicry. There's the opposite, by the way. There's when the victim pretends to be meaningless, insignificant, boring, the gray rock technique, unworthy of the predator's attention. In other words, not tasty. When the victim renders herself non-delicious, not palatable, that drives the predator away. And it's also a form of mimicry. So this Bayesian mimicry, where a harmless mimic poses as harmful. There is Mulerian mimicry, where two or more harmful species mutually advertise themselves as harmful, narcissists in a psychopath. There is Mertonese, Mertonesean mimicry, where a deadly mimic resembles a less harmful but less in teaching mode. We're not going to all this. There's even a fourth type, it's known as Vavilovian mimicry, where the bad sorts resemble good, the good sorts, like weeds resemble crops and so on and so forth. We're not going to all this because narcissists and psychopaths extremely rarely engage in defensive mimicry. They're victims, they're targets, they're intimate partners, they're children, they're harried and bullied coworkers. They are the ones who engage in defensive mimicry. And again, generally speaking of two sorts. I am dangerous, stay away from me. This is one type of mimicry, prey, that a prey engages in. And the other type is, I'm not interesting. I'm not interesting for you. Move on, find another prey. Find a prey that would gratify and satisfy your needs. In defensive mimicry, the mimic benefits by avoiding a harmful interaction with the predator. Had the prey not engaged in defensive mimicry, such an encounter would have been much more likely. The deception helps the prey to survive. And this is partly known as reactive abuse. And that's why I keep saying that narcissism is contagious. The narcissist forces his intimate partner to become deceptive. He forces the intimate partner to become a mimic. He forces the intimate partner to lie, to pretend, to fake, to deceive, to abuse, in short, to become a narcissist or a psychopath. So the aggressive mimic benefits from an interaction that would be less likely to occur without the deception at the expense of the target, of course. And the defensive mimic benefits from a lack of interaction or the avoidance of an interaction that would have happened had there not been deception. That's a very strong incentive to be deceptive. And gradually, gradually, victims who've been exposed for a very long time to a predatory person such as a narcissist or a psychopath, find themselves alienated and estranged from themselves. They don't know or recognize themselves anymore. They have become narcissists and psychopaths a little like in a zombie movie when the zombie bites you. I said before that aggressive mimicry has a component of attracting the prey, luring the prey, capturing the prey, captivating it. The signal receiver is lured toward the mimic. The mimic is the predator pretending to not be a predator. So the signal receiver, the prey, the victim, the target, is lured. And this raises the question, what does the predator use to lure the victim, to lure the prey? Yes, the predator is deceptive. The predator pretends to not be a predator. The predator pretends to be someone else or some other type or some other kind or some other species. Yeah, we get all this. But what in it, what in this kind of behavior, attracts the prey? Why would the prey move towards the predator inexorably, unable to stop herself, unable to contain himself? Why this magnetic hypnotic attraction exerted by the deceiving, mimicking predator? It's because the predator is sending a message. I have what you need. What is it that you need? Do you need love? I have it. Are you lonely? Do you need togetherness? I can give you that. Do you crave intimacy? I will provide you with it. Do you want to be listened to? Do you want to be attended to? Do you want to be? I will be here and listen to you indefinitely. Do you want to be saved or rescued? I'm your man. I'm a rescuer, a saviour, a healer and a fixer. Are you a victim? Do you want to commiserate? I'm a victim too. I've been a victim of narcissistic abuse all my life. I've never done anything wrong. Everyone did wrong to me. I'm like you, idealising the victim, rendering the victim an angel, creating a morality play where the victim is all good and the abuser is all bad, engaging the victim's splitting defence, primitive infantile defence, regressing the victim to her early childhood. All these allures, all these abates and they are irresistible. They are irresistible because the prey finds these things crucial. The prey believes that these are things which are vital to survival, even sometimes sex. All these things love intimacy, sex, being understood, being accepted, being listened to, being seen, being attended to, being taken care of, being held, being contained, being healed, being rescued, being saved. All these are perceived by the victim to be vital, critical. There is an element of catastrophising. If I don't have these things, I will die. This is the baby's natural reaction. If mommy doesn't pay attention to me, I will die. And this is exactly the principle of dual mothership. This is dual mothership. That's the core. It's a mimicry complex. The narcissist mimics a mother and then he reduces his intimate partner into a baby. By becoming a mother, the narcissist's intimate partner becomes a baby and then she is afraid. She becomes afraid, terrified to lose the narcissist because if a baby were to lose his mother, the baby would die. The narcissist reduces his intimate partner to such a primitive level of organisation, such an early stage of life that she becomes utterly dependent on him for her own survival and existence of life itself. That at least is what she comes to believe. He becomes her nutrition and the narcissist knows exactly what it is that you're missing. He has called empathy. He scans you. He sports your vulnerabilities, the chinks in your armour, your unmet needs, and he provides them. Everything he offers is of great value. Now, of course, we engage in mimicry. We as human beings, not narcissists and psychopaths, simply healthy, normal human beings, we engage in mimicry. Makeup is a form of mimicry. When women put makeup, they're sending a deceptive signal to the male sex. It's a strategy to guarantee appropriate mate selection and to ward off or to avoid unwanted mating. So this is a form of mimicry. But makeup is deceptive in a very limited sense. It's like saying, this is my potential. While the narcissists and psychopaths mimicry is not about exaggerating their potential, their underlying assets. It's about pretending to be someone else. The predator, in the case of the narcissists and psychopaths, pretends to be a prey, pretends to be a victim, or pretends to be someone else. A harmless, harmless, nice, kind person. The promise of psychological nourishment is a way to attract the prey into a relationship with the wrong kind of person. So the prey, the victim, the target, bonds with the narcissist, attaches to the psychopath, fully believing that they're not. And this is why narcissistic and psychopathic mimicry, love bombing, grooming, may definitely be criminal because they involve fraud. Now, there is something called curbing or blood-parasite mimicry. Host-parasite mimicry is a situation where a parasite mimics its own host. And again, we see this among narcissists and psychopaths. They pretend to be victims of narcissistic abuse. They pretend to be co-dependence. They even pretend to be a victim of independence. They even pretend to be borderlines. They pretend to be much-wounded, much-wounded targets of narcissists and psychopaths when actually they are the narcissists and psychopaths. And the mimicry is so effective that people tend to overlook and ignore even visible signs of extreme narcissism. So when the narcissist comes on a meeting, on the screen, on a date, usually there are many, many warning signs. Many physical signs, body, bodily signs, behavioral signs, postural signs, body language signs, verbal signs. I mean, you name it. There are many signs. But the mimicry is so effective because there is something called base-rate fallacy. We tend to believe most of what we are told. We are gullible. So a prime narcissist, someone who is clearly beyond any doubt, extremely narcissistic, would look you in the face and say, I'm a poor victim of narcissistic abuse. I'm a co-dependent war unto me. I'm a people-pleaser and you would buy it. You would believe it because he said it for no other reason. And the human, among humans, mimicry is mostly verbal and it is mostly believed. So very often, narcissists who are essentially parasites, they entrain your mind, they penetrate it and they install in your mind apps, introjects. This is a highly parasitic activity. But they imitate prey. They imitate victims. They imitate targets. And this is definitely an example of brood parasitism or brood parasitism mimicry, or Caribbean mimicry. Another type of mimicry is known as Biclerion-Icenarian mimicry of harmless species. The prey doesn't have to be attracted towards the predator for the predator to benefit. It is efficient for the predator simply to not be identified as a threat. The minute you are not identified as a threat, even if you don't attract the prey actively, there are numerous other societal benefits. Biclerion-Icenarian mimics resemble to some extent a mutualistic ally or a species of little significance to the prey, such as a commensural symbiotic species. So it doesn't have to be, the narcissists and psychopaths don't have to attract you all the time to ensnare you, to trap you, and then to suck the life out of you. They don't have to do this. It's enough, for example, that they are seen with you, associate with you, communicate with you, and the signal sent to the environment is, they are harmless, they are safe. So this is a kind of mimicry where they are by benefits, by products, side effects, positive side effects of being wrongly considered harmless. Now mimicry is... involves also behavior. So for example, there's something called mimesis. Mimesis, in Latin at least, mimesis is a kind of aggressive mimicry, cryptic aggressive mimicry. It's where the predator mimics an organism that its prey is indifferent to. So the predator mimics an organism that the prey is not worried about, is not afraid of, and it's the same with narcissists and psychopaths. They could imitate harmless people, irrelevant people, people which create indifference in the victim. So I don't know, a doorman, a service provider, an electrician, a plumber, a teacher. So they're like, they're not perceived as threats, but they're also not relevant to the life of the victim or the target. And this way they create a backdoor. A backdoor into the victim or target's life. And it is through this backdoor that they penetrate and inflict the damage by imitating another type of person to whom the victim is indifferent and of whom she is not afraid. She doesn't feel that other type of person is a threat. It allows the narcissists and psychopaths to invade her home, her space and to colonize her in effect. The predator is ignored by the prey, allowing the predator to avoid detection until the prey is close enough for the predator to strike. Again, it's a kind of camouflage. Parasites, for example, often imitate the hosts. And we have situations where parasites mimic either the hosts or the host's natural prey. But when the host is reversed, they want the host to eat them. In order to penetrate the host, to enter the host's body, these parasites pretend to be another species which is the host's food, the host's normal diet or nutrition. And then the host pounces on them, consumes them and they're inside the host body. Narcissists do this as well. It's known as a form of parasites mimicking prey. Narcissists do this as well. If they know, for example, that you are highly attracted to a specific type of guy, they would imitate this specific type of guy so that you consume them, grant them access, and then they're inside and it's too late. They've penetrated your fortress, your firewall. So Narcissists and psychopaths often imitate tasty morsels, appealing characters, people you want to associate with or make love to or be intimate partners with. And then you take the bait, you kind of pounce on them and they're in. And this deception provides a parasite with easy entry into the host. Once inside the host, they feed upon the host and they continue the life cycle. So as you've seen, narcissists and psychopaths use the entire arsenal of mimicry, camouflage, deception available to animals in the animal kingdom. It's predator and prey. It's an ancient dance, macabre. It is proof positive that regardless of the veneer of civilization and all our deceptions and pretensions, we are still at heart. Animals and some of us are very good at pretending that we are animals of their own kind.