An article in Psychology Today highlights the traits of a narcissist — they are not dissimilar to the sociopath (See my earlier series of posts about the traits of the sociopath).
I am not entirety certain whether cults attract narcissists who rise to the top of the hierarchy, or whether narcissists create cults — but the need for praise and approval and the shifting of blame to others is a hallmark of the narcissistic personality. And this is a hallmark of a cult leader. I think it is helpful to understand the characteristics of these personality types because they are clearly prevalent in cults. As with previous articles, I am including some thoughts in red italics.
The Manipulative Narcissist
At the heart of narcissism is an inflated sense of self-worth accompanied by a deep thirst for, and fantasies of, the admiration of others.
Accordingly, narcissists view relationships mainly as opportunities for self-enhancement, surrounding themselves with potential admirers while avoiding or rejecting those perceived as critical or unappreciative.
The process of charming, recruiting and retaining the approving attention of other people is an unending endeavor for the narcissist, requiring considerable energy and effort.
If you find yourself in a narcissist’s orbit, it is helpful to be aware of their favorite manipulative techniques.
Most of us assume that relationships are reciprocal; that people form relationships based on mutual interests and genuine care. Narcissists turn this naivete against you by presenting themselves, at least initially, as attentive and interested in your needs. Over time, efforts to manipulate your feelings and behavior escalate but may be difficult to identify because the essence of manipulation is deceit.
The Blame Is on You
Shame is anathema to narcissists. The shame emotion is a familiar, unpleasant feeling marked by a global, deflating, sense of being deficient weak, or bad. Blaming can be seen as a means of assigning responsibility for what is “wrong.” In their battle to keep a sense of shame at arm’s length, narcissists are preoccupied with externalizing blame.
Narcissists will require that you accept and affirm their self-elevating narratives about what happened in any instance, who did what to whom, and who is to blame for any misfortune. Inevitably, the narcissist will blame others for their own actions or shortcomings, putting you in the role of passive cheerleader. Worse, you will gradually find yourself included among the blameworthy. Trying to defend yourself from irrational accusations will backfire; your attempts at defending yourself will be seen as cruelly disloyal, triggering angry attacks.
This describes the orbit of L. Ron Hubbard, David Miscavige and every cult leader perfectly. They are NEVER to blame, and it is a dangerous environment to be around them as eventually you will be the one who is blamed for their failures, and any effort to disprove the accusation only results in harsher attacks. Anyone who has been in the vicinity of a cult leader will come to experience this eventually. They might seem to be your friend and ally or even somewhat benevolent leader, but they will ultimately turn on you and even then the dominance they have achieved may cause you to meekly submit to their wishes and hope things get better. You may even return to favor, but it will only last until you become a convenient target to shift the blame to again
Subtle or Overt Devaluation
The narcissist’s grandiose sense of self will require that you become accustomed to occupying an inferior role in the relationship.
Patronizing treatment from the narcissist may be overt and nasty or more subtle, but the message will be that you are lacking in important qualities the narcissist claims to possess.
If you fail to accept your role as a gratefully subservient satellite, you may be met with outbursts of anger or punishing silence.
Again, anyone who has been around these people will recognize this trait — they are ALWAYS the MOST IMPORTANT person in the room and use various means to ensure their followers understand and comply with this or face retribution for daring to not bow down to the master.
Playing on Your Capacity for Guilt
Guilt is different from shame. Shame involves a focus on the global sense of self, while guilt is an emotion felt over regret at actions that have harmed another person. The narcissistic character is relatively immune to genuine guilt. The experience of true guilt requires an ability to acknowledge fault and to focus on the effects of our actions on another person. These qualities are generally lacking in the narcissist.
While narcissists do not experience true guilt, they are aware that other people do, providing yet another tool of manipulation.
If you are in a relationship with a narcissist, attempts to assert your own needs or values may trigger complaints or accusations calculated to play on your sense of guilt. You will be made to feel that your (very reasonable) actions are causing the narcissist terrible pain. One sign that you are in a toxic relationship with a narcissist is the feeling you are continuing to have contact out of a sense of guilty obligation rather than your free will.
This is where the narcissist and sociopath are so similar. Sociopaths have no conscience and thus don’t feel guilty no matter what they do or who they hurt. So too the narcissist. The harm can be in the form of mental abuse, but it also often devolves into the physical. The recipient is to blame for whatever damage they suffer. This is entirely ingrained in the basic teachings of scientology “what did you do to pull it in?” is the shorthand version of the principles Hubbard delineates in scientology “scripture” that lay down in stone the idea that the victim is always at fault.
Bullying and Invalidation
One of the most painful results of manipulation by a narcissist is a sense that your own needs, opinions, and preferences are not heard. The narcissist has difficulty seeing you as an individual separate from the compliant, admiring acolyte their fantasies require. Over time, gaslighting as well as pressures to adopt the narcissist’s worldview will take its toll on you. For example, children raised by narcissistic parents react to this chronic treatment by doubting the validity of their own experiences. As adults they may develop impaired self-esteem accompanied by angry feelings submerged under a confusing veil of guilt at imagined disloyalty.
Nothing to say here except, been there.
About COB no sorry I mean Diddy;-) at the Daily Beast today.
Blood, Threats and Tears: Inside Diddy’s Nightmare Workplace
https://www.thedailybeast.com/diddys-former-employees-reveal-his-abusive-workplace-behavior
Regarding the mental pseudoclones idea we have a bit of research.
I am going to quote an answer that I posted regarding cults at Quora:
To give some degree of reference, some evidence for this in plain terms, I am going to quote another expert on cults, he is known as the top expert and historian on Scientology, and a bona fide expert on influence in his own right – Jon Atack.
I am going to quote a brief excerpt from his superb book Opening Minds:
“In 1985, the Boston Church of Christ asked Flavil Yeakley, a personality test expert, to make a study of its members. Critics insisted that the group caused unhealthy transformations of personality in its members. The Boston Church of Christ was accused of being a cult that was brainwashing its members.
Over 900 members filled in extensive questionnaires. Yeakley also administered the Meyers-Briggs’ Type Indicator to 30 members each of six groups generally regarded as ‘manipulative sects’ – Yeakley’s expression – including Scientology, The Way, the Unification Church (or Moonies), the Hare Krishna Society, Maranatha and the Children of God, and to 30 members each in five mainstream churches: Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran and Presbyterian. The same personality test was filled out three times by most of the subjects – as if it were five years earlier; from their present perspective; and how they anticipated they would answer five years into the future.
In Yeakley’s words, ‘Changes in psychological type do not indicate normal healthy growth. Such changes indicate some pressure in the environment that causes people to deny their true type and try to become like someone else.’ There were no significant deviations in personality type over time among members of the five mainstream churches, but all of the ‘manipulative sects’ showed significant movement, including the Boston Church of Christ, in direct opposition to its leader’s conviction that his group was not a cult.
Yeakley found that there was a convergence towards a particular personality type within each manipulative sect, but that the type varied from group to group. In other words, the ‘manipulative sects’ were changing the personalities of their members each towards its own specific type. The effect has come to be known as ‘cloning’ and is a substantial proof that thought reform occurs in some groups.
This work is supported by a study made by Paul Martin and Rod Dubrow-Marshall, who sampled 567 former members and demonstrated significant effects relating to depression, dissociation and anxiety induced by cult membership.″ end quote Jon Atack, Opening Minds
Flavil Yeakley described his research in the book The Discipling Dilemma.
Numerous cult experts now use the term cloning to describe the personality changes that cult members undergo. It’s a quite common concept among cult experts to regard a cult indoctrination as involving the process of having a pseudo personality or identity created in the mind of the cult member and this is a duplicate of the perceived personality of the cult founder or leader. The personality of the cult member is seen as buried, suppressed, or set aside and the cloned personality of the guru (cult leader) is seen as dominant in this hypothesis.
Professor Rod Dubrow-Marshall published his research in The Influence Continuum – the Good, the Dubious, and the Harmful – Evidence and Implications for Policy and Practice in the 21st Century, International Journal of Cultic Studies. vol.1, no.1, 2010
This is regarded as significant evidence of the changes that occur in a cult. To understand how they occur and the fine details of what happens, what the group does, what the cult leader does and what role each plays we have a wealth of resources to examine.
From
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-fundamental-universal-characteristics-that-define-a-cult/answer/Jeffrey-Jay-6
Thanks so much for taking the time to provide such an informative comment.
I have been interested in the topic of cult leaders and the psychology of the cult leader and the follower and the dynamics of the relationships between the leader and follower and the relationships between the followers and even the relationships of the followers and people outside of a cult.
I started reading about various models regarding human predators and the relationships they have since about 2014 when I left Scientology.
I think that this is a subject that is so important that it should be taught in school so children can understand that human predators exist and they are a threat to the children themselves and other people and society overall in my opinion.
I have noted here in the past that authors such as Bill Eddy and Martha Stout have pointed out that this is a social problem.
There are numerous models of the guru (cult leader) that are helpful in my opinion.
I wrote about how Scientology founder Ronald Hubbard fit the malignant narcissist model in many ways and still see that as worth examining.
Scientology’s Parallel In Nature – Malignant Narci…
https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/05/scientolgys-parallel-in-nature_3.html
I have since then seen many more models and consider many worth examining.
I see psychological models that are not empirical in design as essentially metaphors of the mind. They are useful for reframing the topic but should in my opinion be considered metaphor and not necessarily literal.
Stories of things like ravening wolves and wolves in sheep’s clothing are not literal claims but useful for reframing examining human predators in my opinion. Similarly the various models regarding human predators are useful but as they say the map isn’t the territory. It is a beginning point to make comparisons, not the end.
That being said I found the model that Daniel Shaw uses in his book Traumatic Narcissism to give unique insight into the topic as well as the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein.
Robert Jay Lifton has described the cult leader in numerous books and in Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry he very concisely gave his take on cult leaders and how they see their own thoughts as more worthwhile than the exterior world as solipsism.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have written at length on these models and several others regarding human predators, both in general and as cult leaders.
It’s almost axiomatic at this point, but worth pointing out that it is a generally accepted fact that Scientology encourages narcissism in members and the accounts of hundreds, maybe thousands, of ex members at this point portray that quite consistently.
It is just a well known fact that in the Scientology cult members are shaped into mental pseudoclones of Ronald Hubbard and they take in the personality traits to varying degrees of Hubbard. Hubbard was exceptionally narcissistic and that unfortunately is encouraged in Scientology cult members.
Interesting. I agree with what you wrote except for the last part. I don’t think Scn turned its members into narcissists per se. I think Scn turned its members into arrogant know-bests who felt they were better than others. But that doesn’t necessarily make them a narcissist. And I admit that when I was in Scn drinking the Kool Aid, I too felt I was above “mere wogs” by way of the training and processing I’d had in Scn. But since coming out of the cult, I’ve found there are many intelligent and capable people on the outside , some even genius. So I have been shedding the arrogance I once had, and it can’t happen fast enough for my liking.
That is such a great article. Points out exactly what types of personalities you see in cults snd abusive relationships.
I’ve created a few videos over the last few weeks suggesting a connection between malignant narcissism and a certain pernicious predator recently. It’s as if a whole community of people are awaking to this awareness at once.
There is a link to those videos? Thanks
Once again a very good article. This shows the personality and actions of a manipulative narcissist. Once you see the signs it becomes alot easier to see.
This article is great, Mike. A lot of these factors can help realize that there could be people who are narcissists in our lives without knowing this article can help with that.
Very instructive article, Mike. Thank you.
I just realized that someone very close to me is a potential manipulative narcissist. She don’t fully exhibit all the points listed here, but often dramatize them and perhaps exacerbate them over time. She is not a bad person, but they use the described traits to control and have a secure ‘space’ around.
It doesn’t cause me any problems because I handle it calmly. What I have observed is a lack of self-esteem and self-assurance, which dates back to her youth.
The first way to handle such persons (in my experience ) is knowing they are in such state and then that they will follow a mental scheme to control you, so break that scheme changing their topic or answering with something else that must get them to answer to you but always being calm. The person may explode to a certain point. Stay silent looking at the person’eyes and ask “Are you fine?”. Usually it works. Of course if it is a crazy leader just leave.