The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated at 3.43 percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality.

I’m thinking of incorporating a sociopathy (how do you pronounce that word, anyway? Emphasis on the third or fourth syllables?) theme in my next novel. So I bought a book on the topic. I read The Sociopath Next Door, by Martha Stout, Ph.D., during my Minot sojourn.

It was not comforting reading.

According to psychologists, about four out of every 100 people around us are entirely without conscience. Possess no empathy. They walk among us, they look an act no differently (or not very differently) from anyone else. And yet there’s something important missing there.

Fortunately, they’re not all Charles Mansons or Hannibal Lectors. Most of them are just annoying – they may be the overbearing neighbor who’s always calling the homeowners’ association on you, or the cellar dwelling son who just sponges off his parents, never looking for work. Many of them are extremely charming, having mastered techniques for manipulating others to get what they want. They may be serial seducers or con men or politicians. Several fictional case studies are offered in illustration here.

The bad news is that sociopaths are hard to identify. Author Stout devotes a chapter to methods of recognizing them, but – sadly – the process takes time. They need to be observed in action for a while before the telltale signs can be discerned.

I was pleased by some positive quotations from the church fathers early in the book, but less pleased by the chapter at the end discussing religious concepts, which favors eastern religions because of their emphasis on shared spiritual connections. Still, it’s interesting that contemplation of the sociopathic condition – which occasionally expresses itself in acts that can only be described as evil – leads even scientists inevitably to a consideration of the soul.

The big problem for Christians, I think, is that it seems as if the sociopaths around us are incapable of grace. They cannot repent, because they are utterly blind to sin. They would appear to be children of the devil from birth. I don’t really have a category in my theology for this.

The Sociopath Next Door was a fascinating read, and well written. But troubling.