Cults and the Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Excerpted from the following site:
http://samvak.tripod.com/journal45.html
"But often, even when disillusionment and iconoclastic despair have set
in - the narcissist continues to pretend to love God and follow Him. The
narcissist maintains this deception because his continued proximity to
God confers on him authority. Priests, leaders of the congregation,
preachers, evangelists, cultists, politicians, intellectuals - all
derive authority from their allegedly privileged relationship with God.
Religious authority allows the narcissist to indulge his sadistic urges
and to exercise his misogynism freely and openly. Such a narcissist is
likely to taunt and torment his followers, hector and chastise them,
humiliate and berate them, abuse them spiritually, or even sexually. The
narcissist whose source of authority is religious is looking for
obedient and unquestioning slaves upon whom to exercise his capricious
and wicked mastery. The narcissist transforms even the most innocuous
and pure religious sentiments into a cultish ritual and a virulent
hierarchy. He prays on the gullible. His flock become his hostages.
Religious authority also secures the narcissist's narcissistic supply.
His coreligionists, members of his congregation, his parish, his
constituency, his audience - are transformed into loyal and stable
sources of narcissistic supply. They obey his commands, heed his
admonitions, follow his creed, admire his personality, applaud his
personal traits, satisfy his needs (sometimes even his carnal desires),
revere and idolize him.
Moreover, being a part of a "bigger thing" is very gratifying
narcissistically. Being a particle of God, being immersed in His
grandeur, experiencing His power and blessings first hand, communing
with him - are all sources of unending narcissistic supply. The
narcissist becomes God by observing His commandments, following His
instructions, loving Him, obeying Him, succumbing to Him, merging with
Him, communicating with Him - or even by defying him (the bigger the
narcissist's enemy - the more grandiosely important the narcissist
feels).
Like everything else in the narcissist's life, he mutates God into a
kind of Inverted Narcissist. God becomes his dominant source of supply.
He forms a personal relationship with this overwhelming and overpowering
entity - in order to overwhelm and overpower others. He becomes God
vicariously, by the proxy of his relationship with Him. He idealizes
God, then devalues Him, then abuses him. This is the classic
narcissistic pattern and even God himself cannot escape it.
Sweet of you to imply so.