[FRIAM] narcissism

[Prof David West]

In early-mid 1970, I did a study of cults in California. It was an ethnographic study and my methodology was participant observation which means I spent a lot of time participating in cult activities as well as interviewing and observing cult leaders cult rituals, and cult practices.

I spent the summer interacting with about twenty cults including the Raelians, Heaven's Gate, Peoples Temple, Eckanar, Children of God, Source Family, Fellowship of Friends ...  I met some Branch Davidians but did not meet David Koresh. I did meet Jim Jones and attended several Peoples Temple services in Oakland before they went to Guyana.

The smallest, and strangest, cult was three people: two of the most beautiful and sexual women I have ever met and I guy that put himself in suspended animation — yogic style lowered respiration, heartbeat, and body temperature — for period up to 13 consecutive days. The women would anoint his body with oils, clean up his eliminations, and watch over him while "working on another plane" then have non-stop 3-way Roman orgies (food, drink, drugs, sex) when he was "awake."

I never used the term or the description of narcissist to describe any of the cult leaders I met. Charismatic was the most used descriptive term, followed very closely with empathic. Empathic in the sense of being aware of the psychic needs of the membership and able to cater to them. The same skill used by Tarot readers and "psychics."

I am looking for the paper - it is on a Zip drive somewhere in either Word 1.0 or WordPerfect format.

The question for this thread: what is the relationship, if any, between narcissism and charisma?

davew


On Wed, Apr 29, 2020, at 11:33 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> 
> > Waco
> > https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/waco/s01
> 
> I declined to respond to Glen's originating post on this topic until I
> had more time/background.   We finally watched the limited series the
> last two nights and it brought back a lot of memories of that era to
> both Mary and myself.   We had the opportunity to discuss both our
> contemporary understanding of characters like Koresh and his followers
> (and the ATF/FBI characters as-depicted and the families of, and locals
> in nearby Waco) as well as our memories of how we responded to it as it
> unfolded (through the lens of popular media and discussion).  I felt
> that the show (and probably the two books it was derived from, written
> by the FBI negotiator and by one of the more sympathetic
> characters/members of the Davidians) had some barely hidden agendas...  
> while I'm willing to believe that egos and personalities and
> incompetence and systemic flaws were key to how the ATF/FBI (mis)handled
> the scene right up through it's tragic conclusion and aftermath, I
> didn't take every detail to be unbiased and accurate. 
> 
> > I don't know much about Koresh or the Branch Davidians. I remember watching it (and the Ruby Ridge coverage) on TV back then. (I was pretty libertarian back then ... but that was back when the word "libertarian" meant something ... it's a useless word these days. So my understanding of these events was heavily biased by that.) This TV show does a good job, I think, of showing Koresh simply edit out his abuse of the flock while maintaining an air of authenticity in other domains. And the supporting character (Paul Sparks/Steve Schneider) states it explicitly when he says something like "I wish God had chosen someone else" or somesuch ... because Koresh was such a jerk.
> I don't know much about Koresh (or his Davidians or the Ruby Ridge
> family or ... players) either...  and I agree that this depiction showed
> well a tension between his "abuse" and "authenticity".   I have NO
> embedding in the kinds of belief systems that Koresh and his followers
> came from (and went far beyond),  so my first-order response to the lot
> of them was not very sympathetic.   Mary was raised Catholic and did not
> leave that fold until she divorced in her early 40's.   She still has
> some momentum from that embedding which makes it easier for her to be
> sympathetic with the underlying tropes of belief in a personal
> creator/savior and in scripture, even though I would say all of those
> are now vacant in her active current consciousness.
> > My conscious attempt to empathize with everyone, in every context, no matter how deplorable it might be, prevents me from accusing someone like Koresh of *rational* manipulation.
> I share that conscious attempt, or even instinctual bias.   I don't
> *want to believe* people are that fundamentally different/bad/flawed
> than I want to believe that I am.   I know myself to have operated with
> *rational* manipulation, but it usually grows up out of the fertile soil
> of *unconscious* manipulation... simply seeking to optimize some
> personal rewards/satisfaction vector with limited awareness of the
> results on others (especially those far from me socially/geographically).
> >  I tend to think his manipulation of others is the *same* as his manipulation of himself. In programming, we use the term "reflection" or "introspection" to talk about an object manipulating itself in the same way it manipulates other objects (and vice versa). In some circles, it's called "reflexive", which I think is misleading. The idea is that you treat yourself as other or you treat others as yourself.
> 
> As I understand your point here, it is perhaps the *only* or *most
> fundamental* thing which keeps me in line consciously.  I do have
> natural empathy that is rooted in my
> vertebrate/mammalian/primate/hominid genetics as well as that which was
> nurtured by my family and communities of origin.    But as I became
> (trained to be?) more rational, my own narcissistic pursuits transformed
> to become more *intentional* and possibly more pathological.   A lot of
> what probably comes across as bald "virtue signalling" in my posts here
> is me trying to remind myself that I *can* (and should?) work
> consciously to balance that out.   If left to my own instincts and
> learned habits in this (manic hypercapitalist, ultra-individualistic)
> society, I might well behave in a very selfish manner at every
> opportunity.   
> 
> It also triggered memories of how the well-publicized Jonestown and
> Heaven's Gate cult suicides  unfolded... though I *do* believe the Waco
> account that says theirs was NOT a mass-suicide.   The nature of
> cult-belief/following/extremity was the point.
> 
> > When I hear descriptions of narcissism, this self-other mixing seems absent, which makes all the descriptions of narcissists seem cartoonish and wrong. They portray narcissists as hyper-rational, manipulate others to get what you want, sociopaths [†].
> I think these are the extrema (edge/corner cases) that we like to focus
> on because it makes for good storytelling.
> >  But if all people do a little bit of self-manipulation as well as other-manipulation (and it's the same tools/anatomy that does the manipulation), then narcissists are *not* hyper-rational sociopaths. They can't be if they *feel* hurt by the words of others, insecure, self-important, grandiosity, etc. If they have feelings at all *and* they manipulate their self like they manipulate others, then they can't be these hyper-rational sociopaths. It's either a contradiction or a paradox that needs resolving.
> I believe this way of framing it... but when faced with someone whose
> narcissism builds a strong (albeit fragile) ego-shell which impinges on
> my own (hopefully equally strong, but in a more durable way) it is easy
> to forget this and react as if they are hyper-rational sociopaths.
> (which engenders an awareness that the biggest risk in these contests is
> to "become one's enemy")  In Sun Tzu's wisdom, there is a place for
> this... but getting caught in it seems to be what keeps us there.
> > We can see this in the DSM 5 _Alternative_ model. The 1st two trait categories (section A, 1-4) are other-centric, whereas the 2nd two are self-centric. Section B's categories seem to flip too, where grandiosity seems self-centric and attention seeking seems to be other-centric. It leaves me wondering if there are really 2, fundamentally different types of narcissism, that driven by an external locus vs. that drive by an internal locus, where the former cares deeply what others think/feel and the latter is totally apathetic to (or denies outright) others' thoughts/feelings. If that's plausible, then former-type narcissists would (as Frank said last week) live horrifying lives, but the latter-types might get a bit frustrated by the complexity of the machine they have to live inside, but could live very happy, solipsistic lives.
> 
> I think your previous invocation of "modes of being" are apt here.   I
> suspect we all have our (minor? trivial? well-managed?  well-hidden?)
> episodes of all of these features of narcissism.    Just after we hit a
> lucky shot (pick your sport) or make a killer-prediction (stock market,
> news, personal business decision, etc.) we may feel a rush of
> grandiosity.   After a particular embarrassing faux-pas, we may feel
> acutely judged and defend it with some posturing or rapid
> change-of-topic.   I would suggest that if we are *healthy* (whatever
> that means) that these are passing episodes which we compartmentalize
> more than rationalize... too much rationalization can layer those
> ego-preserving/enhancing habits deeper into our selves.  
> 
> Some of my earliest/strongest memories involved some kind of acute
> embarrassment or abrupt awareness of my own vulnerability (even if not
> observed by others).  To the extent I am aware of those moments and keep
> them somewhat walled off as exceptional moments rather than
> internalizing them as (ambiguous?) proof of my ultimate entitled
> powerfulness or my abject victimhood, I feel like I can use them to
> understand myself and the world I live in better, rather than slip into
> (yet more of) a fantasy that protects/supports my ego.
> 
>  Mumble
> 
> > [†] By "sociopath", I mean something like: someone who doesn't mirror the feelings of others in themselves. Sorry if that's non-standard. I'm using it because I don't have a better word for such a person.
> >
> 
> 
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