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blithely refer to autistics as being cold and incapable of meaningful relationships or even love. 8 This is not only thoroughly and demonstrably wrong, but it’s also insensitive, discriminatory, and ableist. 9 It also has terrible effects on the way autistic people are viewed, taught, portrayed, and treated in the larger community. Some researchers in the area of autism are becoming more awake to the humanity and dignity of autistic people, but there’s still a very, very long way to go.
    In our work as empaths, however, we’ll enthusiastically welcome autistic people as fellow empaths—and often hyperempaths—who have unique sensitivities and immeasurable capacities for deep relationships, social interactions, and love. Let’s state this right out loud: autistic people have all the human emotions—autistics can feel and understand all emotions, autistics have empathy, autistics can display empathy, and autistic people are natural empaths.
    The deeply mistaken exclusion of boys, men, and autistic people from the world of fully realized empathy tells us that the study of empathy is a very active and tumultuous (and, in some cases, very backward) undertaking. Clearly, the story of empathy is still being written.
    There is yet another category of humans who are excluded from the realm of empathy; these people are variously called psychopaths, sociopaths (though this term is considered dated), narcissists, borderlines, or antisocial personalities. There is a great deal of interplay among these definitions, and diagnosticcriteria shift (as do the diagnostic titles). However, each condition includes assumptions of a pathological lack of empathy. As a survivor of predatory abuse (I’ll explain what I mean by that, gently, at the end of this chapter), I’ve had a lifelong interest in the dark side of human nature: of criminals and victims, abusers and manipulators, and our many shifting conceptualizations of human evil. Right now, one approach is to attribute all human evil to a lack of empathy, but I find that explanation to be too pat and too simplistic. I’m also very concerned sociopolitically about the fact that early research on psychopathy was conducted on imprisoned people, who are a socially created category rather than a truly different type of person. 10 Although there are certainly people who victimize others intentionally, attributing this abusive and predatory tendency merely to a lack of empathy displays an incomplete understanding of empathy, emotions, the nature of conflict, a sociologically grounded approach to crime and social control methods, and the many ways in which empathy development in early childhood can go awry. 11
    As we move into a deeper study of empathy, beginning with a short history of the concept, we’ll revisit abusers and predatory people not as ominously inhuman specimens with terrifying empathy deficits, but rather in a more empathic way altogether.
    A SHORT HISTORY OF EMPATHY
    Empathy and compassion have a long history in spiritual traditions. In Judaism, God is called the father of compassion, and in Islam, chief among Allah’s attributes are mercy and compassion. In Christianity, Jesus had such compassion and empathy that he chose to be crucified in order to take the pains of the world into his body and cleanse humanity of its sins. In Buddhism, the bodhisattva is an enlightened being who, in boundless compassion and empathy, forgoes Nirvana until all beings have achieved enlightenment. In Hinduism, daya, or compassion, is one of the three central virtues, and in Jainism, compassion for all life is the central tenet of the faith and of the Jainist dietary tradition of veganism. Compassion and empathy are vital aspects of sacred traditions all across our planet and all throughout recorded history.
    Our current Western idea of empathy arises from two places. In English, the word empathy comes from the Greek root pathos, which means “emotion,