What is Spiritual Narcissism

Spiritual Narcissism
By Dr. Fiyah Oates

“Ego is able to convert anything to it own use, even spirituality.” Chogyam Trungpa

What is spiritual narcissism?  A short answer is when the ego has used spirituality towards self-aggrandizement and ego-inflation.  This could look like people exploiting others as church or cult leaders for their own, I call them the 4 Ps, power, pleasure, purpose and profit.  This is so egregious that the Hebrew tradition put it as one of their 10 commandments, in fact it’s the second one:  “Exodus 20:7 thalt shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain.”  Remember the root word for vanity is vain, so do not take the Lord’s name or use spirituality for your own vanity.  This is a spiritual narcissist.  You find them both in positions of spiritual authority and use that towards their own personal gain or to prove to someone that they are the authority over certain spiritual matters.

Spiritual narcissism is an analysis of a person’s behavior that comes from the Transpersonal Psychology modality.  Transpersonal Psychology, according to Abraham Maslow, is the fourth force in psychology.  It is the psychology of beingness, transcendence, spirituality and non-ordinary states of consciousness.  Stanislov Grof coined the term Transpersonal Psychology.   Lets first explore the definitions of spirituality and narcissism!

Spirituality:  adherence to practices, rituals and tenants that help one experience the presence of the divine. Most spiritual disciplines seek a zenith of transcendence which is when a practitioner has moved beyond the boundaries of separation and are all at once, unified with source/God/Universe.  Some have occassioinal unification, some enter into that space daily and many times throughout the day.  These practices are designed to develop and cultivate divine principles like trust, growth, expansion, compassion, empathy, unconditional regard towards others, deep sense of community and mastering the ego.  Most spiritualities adhere to a notion of a divine being or source of which all has emerged from and is compelled to return to!  It is our job to integrate these high minded ideals into the ego in order to mature the ego to serve our beingingness instead of the other way around.

Narcissism:  Narcissism has a clinical definition and a layman’s understanding.  They both seem to agree on the following:

• A disorder in which a person has an inflated sense of self importance
• Need for admiration
• Always talking about themselves
• Believe they are superior to others
• Requires constant praise (like always seeking likes and loves on social media)
• Takes advantage of others
• Disregard for other feelings
• An inability to hande any critism
• A sense of entitilement
• An inability to have insight into their role in a situation, which results in the unlikelihood to change.
• the preoccupation with a person having a fantasies of their unlimited success, power, beauty, etc.
• Also believing their they are so special and unique that they will only associate with others who are special and unique.

Taking these two definitions together it sums up to a person who has become spiritually adept, but because ego jumps in, the qualities of trust, compassion and self-mastery turns on itself and those spiritual adeptness becomes the need for admiration, belief in their superiority, constant praise, disregard for other feelings, etc.  Transpersonal Psychology defines it as a person who has been through a transcendent or mystical experience and when returning to the self, the ego, aware that you left it, clings even greater to be in the forefront of your existence.  So the transcendence never gets integrated into the ego, and in fact made things worse.

LOOK HOW SPIRITUAL I AM:

You find many spiritual narcissists that are always talking about how much they cultivated their spirituality and are steadily talking about their adeptness.  They also feel they have all the answers for you!  So they inject their superiority over you to lead you to doubt in your own abilities.

Taken from Psychology today:

“example, you notice that thanks to your spiritual training you have become more authentic, or someone compliments you about it. Then, in an unguarded moment, your ego jumps out from behind the bushes to hijack the success: ‘See how great I’m doing!’ – and there goes your authenticity. Because now your ego wants to exploit it: to impress others with your acquired insights, or to feel more special than others.”

Spiritual Narcissism | Psychology Today

Ministers: We all know these ministers.  They use their power and position to manipulate relationships, authority and profit.  They control the behaviors of their congregants, they are buying big houses, big cars and fancy houses from their ministry.  They are not willing to have developmental critism and usually fill their support staff and membership with those that are “yes” men and women.  They are very much in a “look at me” state.

Narcissistic Healer:  We see narcissism in the clinical arena, when a therapist or doctor speaks down to the client, don’t allow different perspectives of healing and make themselves the ultimate authority, however, they do not purport to come from a spiritual place.  On the other hand, you have ones who are Yogis, spiritual channelers or readers, priest or priestesses in various discipline, manifesters and healers in such therapies as sound, aroma, color and touch.  They all cater to a mostly spiritual audience because of their therapies are outside the mainstream.  It’s when the healer has not worked on themselves and offer themselves as “vessels” to heal others.  They often state that they have done the work already and stand in a position of self proclaimed Master.  Or they have been given the title of Master or Doctor and use the title to make ones impressed with their “gifts”.  They feel they are never wrong and do not like to be challenged.  They are very similar to the spirit of narssism in the clinical arena.  Many times they will take advantage of the ones they are healing and make certain insistences that the adherent must do and will make them feel bad if they don’t accomplish them.  This is probably the most appalling as they are in direct contact with the adherent/client and their energy, many times can create or exasperates more trauma.

Cult Leaders:  Not all cults are bad.  Some are very uplifting and, although not perfect, they transform people’s lives in very profound ways.  Its when the leader is given so much praise the ego transmute that into self importance and at some point, this can block any hope for divine alignment and moreso an alignment with ego.

Indoctrination:  Indoctrinition is the most common one as it exists with the greater population.  If you are attending religious or spiritual institution and they insist that you must believe only what they teach you, all the adherents are now moving into spiritual narcissism.

“The ego, it seems, will find any way to take over, especially in the dangerous world of religion, and it often does, with the most clever of disguises.”  Richard Rohr, the Immortal Diamond

Many times they will have acquired ancient and modern wisdom and use it to their advantage.  The good thing is, you can use and apply the information for yourself without attaching yourself to the person.  (i.e. listren to the message not the messenger) However, narcissists need an audience, so they are also charmers and will lure you in!

How can you avoid not becoming a spiritual narcissist.  Integration is the key.  Go into it slowly, constantly check yourself.  Start some mindfulness practices of witnessing your thoughts and feelings.  Everyday commit to spiritual practices, not for the motions of it so you can show people how spiritual you are, to do it to experience the realness of oneness and alignment every day.

“Matthew 6:5-6 – And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites [are]: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.”

Why is spirituality and metaphysics so important in this curriculum?

We know that true transformation and transcendence of ones circumstance is a deep soul level process.  It is the place where the mind and the soul can integrate new empowering information and let go of things that are no longer serving us.  We get deeper in how to accomplish that through the phenomenal power of life coaching.  We do not focus on one particular religious or spirituality practice, but instead bring forth universal spiritual principles that can be found in any religion.

Metaphysics is a way to understand the world around us on a more sublime level and unleash powers that are dormant in our DNA and in our psyche.  Metaphysics and spirituality are essential when you are seeking to integrate principles of surrender, oneness, wholeness, belongingness, altruism and serving the greater local and global community!  We make sure that we support most of what we speak about with science and research.   Upon completion of this course, you will realize how necessary it is to integrate these universal spiritual principles.  We translate this into practical tools towards transformation.  You will find that through this process that your own life will open up to a new joy, and therefore you will be better equipped in healing others and opening their perspective of reality to new heights!