Oh, my video is off. Yep, I don’t see you. There you are. Here I am.

Here I am. Sure, I have no idea why you want to see me, but okay.

Awesome, awesome. Okay, guys, welcome back. We’re here for part two with Dr. Sam Vaknin.

If you want to see our previous talk, I’m going to put that down in the description box. And so you don’t need an introduction. But for those that don’t know, Dr. Sam Vaknin is a narcissism expert. And he is the author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited.

Welcome, Sam. Thank you for having me again. Second time on the same day, you’re a brave woman.

Yes, yes, I’m super excited to talk about today’s topic, which is on spiritual narcissism, which we seem to see a lot of that online nowadays. So can we just kind of break down what exactly would you define as spiritual narcissism? I have no idea actually. I guess it means narcissists who pretend to have some spiritual functions. So they can be clergy, they can be all kinds of healers and coaches, or they can be in the medical professions, they can be even therapists, they can be, you know, wherever people are in need of help and support, whenever people are in need of guidance. And these narcissists claim a connection to some higher authority, it could be God, it could be the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It could be it’s always a higher authority, it could be their academic degree. So they position themselves as somehow superior and as intermediaries with arcane knowledge. Like they have access to some kind of knowledge or some kind of teaching or some kind of wisdom, which would have been denied you had you not been in touch with the narcissists. The narcissist is conduit, he channels this infinite wisdom and bestows its benefits upon you. And again, it doesn’t have to be a spirit, a classical guru. It can be a therapist, but the therapist will behave in a way in the same way using the same scheme, the therapist would say, you know, I train with this and this, I have this information, I’ve learned a lot, I so I know things you don’t know. And I have ways to fix you and to heal you and to cure you. And all you have to do is come and submit and listen and obey. So the therapist would create a power matrix, a power relationship with a patient.

I’m giving example to therapists, but it’s very common, for example, among medical doctors. And of course, more classical spiritual leader could be a teacher, any role model, but the two components must exist.

Number one, I have access to wisdom, information and teaching that you don’t have can never have, except through my agency and my intermediation. And number two, I’m in some way superior to you could be my life experience could be my intelligence could be my connections could be one way or another, I’m superior to you.

Once the hapless, the hapless parishioner or fan or accepts this arrangement, except this unspoken rules, then we have a situation of a spiritual narcissist, and his flock or his herd or his followers or his fans or his subscribers, or his end, of course, this brings to mind social media, social media is a technological tool to amplify and enhance the reach, the intensity, the magnitude of the spiritual leaders, you know, access and ability to manipulate.

This is an actual, you know, spiritual losses, we can go deeper if you wish. It’s up to you.

Yes. So, you know, what drives somebody to go into spiritual narcissism, I would assume, again, it’s power, money, narcissistic supply, what are the drivers for it?

No, you just mentioned them.

Power and money are not very important to the narcissist. It’s a common mistake, by the way, people conflate narcissists and psychopaths. Psychopaths are goal oriented. Psychopaths are after money, after power, after sex, afteryou know, they’re after something. And if what it takes is to pretend to be spiritually endowed, or some kind of initiate, and, you know, form a community around you, if that’s what it takes to get sex, then you form a count as a psychopath, you form a count, and then you get sex, you get money, you get power, the narcissist is interested only in one thing. And that is narcissistic supply.

If money leads to narcissistic supply, then the narcissist would be interested in money. If power were to lead to narcissistic supply, then the narcissist would be interested in power. Whatever leads to narcissistic supply, whatever the narcissist can instrumentalize in his quest for narcissistic supply, the narcissist would go for it.

But these are not prime motivations.

Prime motivation is attention, adulation, affirmation, being at the center, and a sense of self-importance, buttressing one’s grandiosity, being godlike, to a large extent, infallible, perfect, brilliant, genius, amazing, drop dead gorgeous, whatever.

So narcissistic supply is the key.

But even so, we must distinguish three forms of spiritual narcissist between three forms.

There is the victim spiritual narcissist, there is the godlike or god divine spiritual narcissist, and there is the healer spiritual narcissist.

So start with the first, the victim spiritual narcissist is a narcissist who presents himself as the ultimate victim. Of course, anything the narcissist does is the ultimate. If he is a businessman, he is the ultimate businessman, genius is the ultimate genius. And if he’s a victim, he is the last word in victimhood. He is the world’s greatest victim ever.

And then such a narcissist leverages his victim. He uses victimhood as a form of virtuous signaling, he signals virtue. And it is deceptive, virtuous signaling because in effect, it’s a narcissist, usually a covert narcissist. And then he would use victimhood to signal how special is, how meritorious he is, how virtuous he is, how wonderful he is, how amazing he is. And he would attract via his victimhood, he would create a community of victims around him. And he would dispense to them spiritually by allowing them to access his victimhood as a template. So he would shape the victim.

This kind of narcissist would use his victimhood to shape other people’s perception of victimhood. And they would become mini satellites. They would become clones of the victim, the master victim, the not the numeral owner, the zero victim.

Okay. So this is the victim narcissist.

The second type of spiritual narcissist is the godlike narcissist or the divine narcissist. It’s a narcissist that says, I am endowed somehow. I have spiritual gifts. I’m super intelligent. Maybe I have access to information, ancient information that no one is aware of. I have, I’ve had a revelation from God. I, you know, this kind of narcissist would establish, establish himself as deputy god. I don’t dare to say the son of God, yeah, deputy god. And then he would mediate between his community members and God. And this act of mediation, this process of mediation would render him superior to them, unique. And God, his access to God would make him an extension of God.

Remember, narcissists are unable to perceive other people as separate. They don’t have a concept of separateness. They don’t have a concept of externality. They don’t see other people as external or separate.

So the narcissist relationship with God is the same. He is an extension of God because he cannot perceive separateness. The narcissist cannot perceive himself as separate from God or cannot perceive God as external to him. He is one with God or sheonic one with God.

And so he becomes God, gradually, becomes God.

And there’s a second type of spiritual narcissism, the God like narcissism.

The third type is the healer, the healer, the rescuer, the savior, the Messiah, the guy or girl who have all the answers to all your questions, all the solutions to all your problems, the one you’ve been waiting for, for all your life. He is there to heal you with his words, with his touch, with his presence, with his company, with support, with his compassion, with his empathy, etc. It’s a play act. It’s play acting, of course. It’s not real. It’s a simulation.

But the emphasis is on healing people, saving people, rescuing people, curing people, elevating people, transforming people.

So this is the third type of spiritual narcissism.

Now, usually they intermix, usually they’re intersections, intersectionality.

So for example, it’s very common that the victim narcissist would become a rescuer and a healer based on his own experience of victimhood. He would say, I have gone through this personally and I have emerged so I know how to survive this. I’m going to teach you how to heal because I have healed myself. Of course, he has healed himself. No one can heal the narcissist.

Okay. So I’ve healed myself and I’m going to teach you how to do this.

So the victim narcissist very often becomes the healer narcissist.

And many victim narcissists become god-like narcissists because Jesus was a victim. All the big prophets were essentially victims. Moses was a victim. He was denied access to the holy land. He died facing the promised land. Jesus was crucified. Muhammad was hunted all over the Arabian peninsula. He had to emigrate numerous types, escaping his prosecutors and persecutors. So all of them were victims.

And so it’s very easy to make a transition between victim and a divine figure or victim and a prophet. Very easy.

And so there’s an intersection there.

And of course the prophet heals. There’s a huge element of healing in religion, not only the laying of hands. Religion itself, its tenets, its presence, its core is about healing.

So you can’t really make this very clear cut distinctions. There’s victims, there’s god, there’s healer.

No, they transition. They start as victim, they become god-like, then they heal, or they start as healers. They become god-like because they are venerated. They are respected, they’re admired for their healing capacity. And then they merge it. They become a healing god and so on.

But these are the three archetypes of spiritual losses.

Yes. As I’m listening to that, what is your take on just some examples of these three archetypes?

So for example, in the news right now, we have the Russell Brand. I don’t know if you’re following what’s happening to him and his history and how he’s come into, you know, spirituality. I think he might be a little bit on the victim archetype.

And then you, the god-like archetype could be somebody like the Ron L. Hubbard of Scientology or Joseph Smith of Mormonism, where, you know, they had all the god-like premonitions and answers. And then the healer one, I think one example would be like Teal Swan. Are you familiar with her?

Yes. That, to me, is maybe falls under that category.

What are your thoughts?

We, there’s a famous sociologist, and he said that we have transitioned from the age of dignity to the age of victimhood. Victimhood is an organizing principle of our reality. Victimhood is an identity, and consequently, there’s identity politics of victimhood. Victimhood is also what we call hermeneutic, exegetically, principle.

Victimhood makes senseexegetit principle. It’s an interpretative, explanatory principle.

Victimhood makes sense of reality, imbues life with meaning, gives you direction and purpose. Victimhood has become super critical, super crucial. People wake up in the morning and they say, “I’ve been victimized by my mother and then by the teacher and then by the state.”

People are hell-bent on finding proof that they’ve been victimized by someone. “Please, god, let me have, let me be victimized by someone.”

So today, definitely, nine out of ten people, if not ten out of ten, define themselves directly, indirectly, with varying intensities, as victims.

I’m sure that if I were to interrogate you and you were to interrogate me, we would come up with proof that you consider yourself a victim and I consider myself a victim. That’s the way we see the world. That’s the lens through which we perceive the world.

And yes, you have narcissists that combine things. For example, Donald Trump combines the healer with god. He’s the god plus healer. Make America great again. So that’s an example of god plus healer.

I wouldn’t like to discuss Russell Brand because he is not subjected to criminal proceedings. There have been… Right, it’s just allegations. … allegations and proceedings because the police is investigating. So that’s a very touching issue. It also involves topics which are not really, which have little to do with spiritual narcissism. Topics like gender wars, relations between, actually between genders, feminism, third way, fourth way. Maybe we should make a different talk about this.

But yeah, it’s not so difficult. Just throw a stone and you will find someone who is a combination of two of the three of all three. It’s really trivial. Absolutely trivial.

Yes, yes. I saw there was a Netflix documentary on Wild, Wild Country. I don’t know if you saw it. It’s about Osho. No, I didn’t see it. Yes, it was very illuminating in, obviously, into cults, but like spiritual cults and just how people get, I don’t know, brainwashed in the spiritual bypassing that they go through.

This is a very common term that you hear people out there.

But I do understand like people’s need to feel safe. People’s need to feel hope and meaning.

Because life can be tough.

And so turning to even people that are spiritual narcissists that might not be, you know, doing them well.

I guess the question is, how harmful can they be?

Always. There’s no such thing as a spiritual narcissist who is not harmful. Absolutely no such thing.

Narcissism is pathological. Narcissism involves certain features which render abuse and harm inevitable.

For example, the narcissist can never perceive, as I said, other people as separate with their own needs and wishes and dreams and priorities and history and emotions and cognitions. He doesn’t perceive them as separate. He internalizes them and he treats them as his property, as his extension, as internal objects.

Easy to manipulate, easy to work on and easy to collaborate with in his mind. Narcissist is totally divorced from reality and so obsessive.

So if the narcissist is in a position of authority and he’s a cult leader, for example, he can impose this vision on his on his flock, on the cult members. He can force them to objectify themselves. He can cause them to collaborate with this view that they are nothing but extensions of the leader, which happens very often.

And so he converts them into internal objects and then they comply and become internal objects. They lose their agency, autonomy, independence, ability to make decisions and choices. They vanish as separate entities and re-emerge in the cult leader’s mind as internal objects.

So that’s one example.

Second example, when you don’t conform to the narcissist’s view of you the way he wants you to be, even if it’s idealized, he has an idealized view of you, when you diverge from it, when you deviate from it, when you disagree, when you criticize, when you make a suggestion, when you provide advice, when you express concern, you are challenging the internal object. You’re no longer in conformity with the internal object and you therefore constitute a threat, an absolute threat to the internal architecture of the narcissist’s mind.

And he sees you at that minute as an enemy, a persecutory object, and he needs to punish you and he needs to reform you, reshape you so that you do fit the internal object.

So there’s a lot of coercion and punitive action going around. There is no way to coexist with the narcissist in whatever setting, by the way, the workplace, family, cult, a church, you name it, friendship, friendship. There’s no way to coexist with the narcissist and insist on your individuality. The two don’t go together. You need to sacrifice yourself.