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Narcissist's Cult

Uploaded 8/7/2010, approx. 5 minute read

My name is Sam Vaknin. I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited.

The narcissist is a guru at the center of a cult. Like other gurus, he demands complete obedience from his flock, his spouse, his offspring, other family members, friends and colleagues. He feels entitled to adulation and special treatment by his followers. He punishes the wayward and the straying lambs. He enforces discipline and adherence to his teachings, and sets common goals.

The less accomplished the narcissist is in reality, the more stringent his mastery and the more pervasive the brainwashing.

Cult leaders are narcissists who failed in their mission to be someone, to become famous and to impress the world with their uniqueness, talents, traits and skills. Such disgruntled narcissists withdraw into a zone of comfort, which I call the pathological narcissistic space.

And this zone of comfort, this space, becomes the hallmarks of a cult.

The often involuntary members of the narcissist mini-cult inhabit a twilight zone of his own construction. He imposes on them a shared psychosis, replete with persecutory delusions, enemies, mythical narratives and apocalyptic scenarios if he is flouted.

The narcissist's control within this cult, within this space, is based on ambiguity, unpredictability, fuzziness and ambient abuse, on gaslighting. His ever-shifting whims exclusively define what is right versus what is wrong. What is desirable versus what is unwanted. What is to be pursued and what is to be avoided. He alone, the narcissist, determines the rights and obligations of his disciples and alters them at will.

The narcissist is a micromanager. He exerts control over the minutest details and behaviors. He punishes severely and abuses with holders of information and those who fail to conform to his wishes and to his goals.

The narcissist does not respect the boundaries and privacy of his reluctant adherents. He ignores their wishes, he treats them as objects and instruments of gratification or extensions of himself. He seeks to control both situations and people compulsively. He strongly disapproves of others' personal autonomy and independence. Even innocuous activities such as meeting a friend or visiting one's family require his permission.

Gradually, he isolates his nearest and dearest until they are fully dependent on him emotionally, sexually, financially and socially.

The narcissistic cult leader, and actually every narcissist, acts in a patronizing and condescending manner and criticizes often. He alternates between emphasizing the minutest faults, which is what I call devaluation, and exaggerating the talents, traits and skins of the members of his cult, which is called idealization.

He is wildly unrealistic in his expectations and this legitimizes his subsequent abusive conduct when he is disappointed or frustrated.

The narcissist claims to be infallible, superior, talented, skillful, all-powerful, omnipotent and all-knowing, omniscient. He often lies and confabulates to support these unfounded claims.

Within his cult, the narcissist expects all admiration, adulation and constant attention, commensurate with his outlandish stories and assertions. He reinterprets reality to feed his fantasies and expects everyone around him to adopt this distorted view.

The narcissist's thinking is dramatic, rigid and doctrinaire. He does not countenance free thought, pluralism or free speech, and he doesn't brook criticism or disagreement. The narcissist demands and often gets complete trust and a relegation to his capable hands of all decision-making.

The narcissist forces the participants in his cult to be hostile to critics, to the authorities, to institutions, to his personal enemies or to the media. If they try to uncover his actions and reveal the truth, these are cast as enemies.

He closely monitors, senses information from the outside, exposing his captive audience only to selective data and analysis, which conform to his narrative.

The narcissist's cult is missionary and imperialistic. He is always on the lookout for new recruits. He spouses friends, he's told his girlfriends, his neighbors, new colleagues at work. He immediately attempts to convert them to his creed, to convince them how wonderful and admirable he is.

In other words, the narcissist tries to render them sources of narcissistic supply.

Often, the narcissist's behavior on these recruiting missions is different to his conduct within the cult.

In the first phases of wooing new admirers and proselytizing to potential conscripts, the narcissist is attentive, compassionate and ethic, flexible, self-effacing and helpful.

At home, among the veterans, those he takes for granted, he is tyrannical, demanding, willful, opinionated, aggressive and exploitative.

As the leader of his congregation, the narcissist feels entitled to special amenities and benefits not accorded to the rank and file. He expects to be weighted on, hand and foot, to make free use of everyone's money and to dispose of their assets liberally and to be cynically exempt from the rules that he himself has established.

Of course, if such a violation is gainful or pleasurable. In extreme cases, the narcissist feels above the law, any kind of law.

This grandiose and haughty conviction leads to criminal acts, incestuous or polygamous relationships and to recurrent friction with the authorities.

Hence, the narcissist panicking, sometimes violent reactions to dropouts from his cult. There's a lot going on that the narcissist want kept under wraps.

Moreover, the narcissist stabilizes his fluctuating sense of self-worth by deriving narcissistic supply from his victims.

Abandonment threatens the narcissist's precariously balanced personality. It is a rebuff and the narcissist cannot tolerate it.

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Narcissist Re-idealizes Discarded Sources of Narcissistic Supply

Narcissists maintain discarded sources of supply in a mental reserve and may seek them out when other options are unavailable, attempting to recycle these sources for validation. To reconnect with a devalued source, they must re-idealize it without admitting past mistakes, creating a narrative that reconciles their previous devaluation with the new idealized view. Old sources of supply should remain indifferent to the narcissist's attempts to reconnect, as this indifference is intolerable to them and deprives them of the attention they crave. Ultimately, narcissists view everyone as potential sources of supply, even enemies, as any emotional response, positive or negative, serves to validate their existence.


Narcissist Has No Friends

Narcissists treat their friends like Watson and Hastings, who are obsequious and unthreatening, and provide them with an adulating gallery. Narcissists cannot empathize or love, and therefore have no real friends. They are interested in securing narcissistic supply from narcissistic supply sources. The narcissist overvalues people when they are judged to be potential sources of supply, and devalues them when no longer able to supply him, ultimately leading to the alienation and distancing of people.


Remain Friends with the Narcissist?

Narcissists are only friendly when they need something from you, such as narcissistic supply, help, support, votes, money, or sex. They also become friendly when they feel threatened and want to smother the threat with pleasantries. Narcissists are also over-friendly when they have just been infused with an overdose of narcissistic supply. Some people prefer to live with narcissists because they have been conditioned to treat narcissistic abuse as background noise and are compensated for the abuse by the thrills provided by living with a narcissist. However, inverted narcissists are typically unhappy and in need of help, which suggests that they are victims who experience the Stockholm Syndrome.


So, Is My Narcissist a Covert Narcissist? Nonsense vs. Scholarship

Covert narcissists are individuals who suffer from an in-depth sense of inferiority, have a marked propensity towards feeling ashamed, and are shy and fragile. They are unable to genuinely depend on others or trust them, suffer from chronic envy of others, and have a lack of regard for generational boundaries. Covert narcissists are not goal-orientated, have shallow vocational commitment, and are forgetful of details, especially names. Inverted narcissists are a subspecies of covert narcissism and are self-centered, sensitive, vulnerable, and defensive, sometimes hostile and paranoid.


Narcissist Hates His Fans, Followers, and Admirers

Narcissists depend on their followers for narcissistic supply but resent their addictive dependence and hold their followers in contempt. They see themselves as beyond human comprehension and refuse to grant anyone special privileges. The narcissist demands complete obedience from their followers and punishes those who stray. Cult leaders are often narcissists who failed to become famous and impress the world with their uniqueness, and they resent their followers for witnessing their fraudulence and failure.


Narcissist Hates Happy People and Holidays

Holidays and birthdays are a difficult time for narcissists, as they provoke a stream of pathological envy. The narcissist is jealous of others for having a family, being able to celebrate lavishly, or being in the right mood. They hate humans because they are unable to be one and want to spoil it for those who can enjoy. Holidays remind the narcissist of their childhood, the supportive and loving family they never had, and what could have been.


Narcissist's Objects and Possessions

Narcissists have a complex relationship with objects and possessions, with some being accumulators who jealously guard their belongings and others being discarders who give away their possessions to sustain their sense of control. Objects provide emotional decor and elicit narcissistic supply, and the narcissist often compares people to the inanimate. Narcissists collect proofs and trophies of their sexual prowess, dramatic talent, past wealth, or intellectual achievements, and these objects operate through the mechanism of narcissistic branding. The narcissist is a pathogen who transforms his human and non-human environment alike, objectifying people and anthropomorphizing objects to optimize or maximize narcissistic supply.


Recluse Narcissist

Narcissists do not have friends in the usual sense of the word, as they are only interested in securing the provision of narcissistic supply from others. They overvalue people when they are judged to be potential sources of supply, but discard them nonchalantly when they are no longer able or willing to supply them. The narcissist's behavior, choices, acts, attitudes, beliefs, interests, and life are curtailed by their sensitivity to outside opinion, and they avoid situations where they are likely to encounter opposition, criticism, or competition. The fear of flying is at the heart of narcissism.


Inverted Narcissist (Narcissist Codependent)

Inverted narcissists are a type of codependent who exclusively depend on a narcissist. They are self-effacing, sensitive, emotionally fragile, and sometimes socially phobic. They derive all their self-esteem and sense of self-worth from the outside and are pathologically envious. Inverted narcissists are narcissists, and it is possible to compose a set of criteria for them by translating the criteria available in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for the classical narcissist.


Negative, Fake, Low-grade Narcissistic Supply

Normal individuals seek a balanced amount of attention, while narcissists are insatiable, constantly craving affirmation to sustain their self-worth. They create a false self, projecting an idealized version of themselves to elicit reactions from others, which they refer to as narcissistic supply. Even negative attention can serve as supply for narcissists, as they prioritize any form of attention over being ignored, manipulating others to maintain their focus. Ultimately, the narcissist's existence revolves around this relentless pursuit of attention, which is intertwined with their internal struggles and feelings of worthlessness.

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