Sorry once again for the delay in positing something on my Blog. I really have been very busy getting new materials together. I have a lot of new stuff that I find amazing, hopefully the reader will as well.
One thing, I would like to bring to your notice, is the new posting (to be found by clicking on “Links” – at the bottom of the features box at the top right hand of the Home Page. The piece I am referring to is entitled A NOTE ON FREUD & SELTZER’S BOOK SERIAL KILLERS 10/04/2008. There is a good representative quotation from Freud, of the kind that only a maniac or serial killer would make. Check it out. I received the below response:
I'm sorry the previous email I sent via the email option given on your website did not come through. In it, I said that I had noticed in your book, PASSION FOR MURDER, that you mentioned one of the three FBI specified childhood characteristics of a person who later develops into a serial killer -- enjoyment of torturing animals -- but I wondered if you had information on Freud having had either of the other two characteristics, since my understanding is that the FBI says that serial killers seem to consistently have evidenced two of the three characteristics in their childhood. The other two are being a bed wetter and being a fire setter. As a middle school counselor during the time of the Springfield, OR school shooting rampage and also Columbine, I felt a HUGE responsibility to be aware of indicators and provocations for violence, so it has been an interest of mine for some time.
Hope others have not had a problem with the email. We are looking into it. As to the issue raised: Actually, in Passion for Murder there is a lot of information concerning Freud’s serial killer profile. But, actually, the FBI did not come out with its Serial Killer Profile until after initial publication of PFM. In PFM I mention in a couple of places, I believe, Freud’s fondness for torturing animals. The issue of fascination for fire and being maniacally attracted to it is also featured in a number of places. Indeed, Freud refers to the very center of his soul as being a raging inferno;
In Freud's words, the unconscious [obviously his unconscious] was "an intellectual hell, layer upon layer of it, with everything fitfully gleaming and pulsating; and the outline of Lucifer-Amor coming into sight at the darkest centre." 5.
The “darkest center” is, of course, in Hell itself; at the center of Freud’s personal hell is the image of the Sex Devil. This kind of language is not at all unusual for a serial killer. I am completing a new work which makes a close examination of the Serial Killer Profile and refers to the very center of his soul as being a raging inferno. Freud’s earliest memory (he has different versions of his earliest memory) he tells us was at the age of three when he traveled with his mother to Breslau and he say “gas flames” of the street lights was burned into his memory and which he claims reminded him of “souls burning in Hell.” I could go on and on. I have an entire chapter on the serial killer “triangle” of torturing animals, fascination with fire and bedwetting specifically relating to Freud’s psychological profile. As to bedwetting, again, one of Freud’s earliest memories involved him urinating on his parents bed, at about nine years of age—as an act of defiance. Freud frequently discusses urination issues in his dreams. More on all of this later.
Of course, the Serial Killer Profile is far more involved and the above mentioned “triangle” is only a general indicator—which, in fact, may not even be present with all serial killers. Below is another general comment on the “type.” This might be helpful to an educator such as yourself, as the below indicated signs are more easily observable in a classroom situation. The following is from a website on serial killers sponsored by persons from the legal profession.
The F.B.I has its own list, but due to its unavailability I have prepared my own. Traits that should be looked at when trying to decide if a person is a potential killer include: Social withdrawal, abnormal dependence’s on ones mother or ulcerated relations with ones parents, hypochondria or other attention seeking behavior including forms of clothing, delusional mind as to grandeur, severe depression, a general feeling of emptiness as to the future, inability to take criticisms, a general feeling of being mistreated, inability to assert ones self, parental taunts as to ones inability to be sufficient (or as I prefer to call it - the Hitchcock ‘Psycho’ syndrome), mood disorders, and a general failing in attempts to succeed. Of course these are very general points, and even if someone had the majority of these (as I do), it would not necessarily mean that they would become serial killers, it is only meant as a point of reference.
I have studied and read many books on serial killers over the last two decades and I can tell you quite confidently Freud is unquestionably of the type—an extraordinarily rare type, even among murderers. I believe my new book will convincingly frame the issue.
ELM
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