He’s the leader of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, who are an offshoot of the mainstream Mormons and also not acknowledged by the official Mormon church. They practice polygamy that includes marrying underage girls. Now Mr. Jeffs is on trial in Texas for child abuse.
“I, the Lord God of heaven, ask the courts to cease the prosecution of my holy ways. There will be a judgment against all those who prosecute the church. ... I shall let all people know of your unjust ways. I will bring sickness and death. Let this cease,” he says.
There is this creature called the Narcissist. He actually doesn’t exist in real life. The term is a metaphor for a type of personality that is characterized by grandiosity, perfectionism, power, manipulation and social prestige. Hardcore narcissists organize their lives around these themes and see themselves as extra special and unique. Usually they demand compliance from those around them and do not tolerate disagreement or stepping out of line. Conceptually they may agree that you have a right to your own ideas and voice, but they don’t act in accordance with that. When push comes to shove, they will lash out with criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, put downs and in the worst case scenario violence.
And since the universe is always yin and yang, there has to be an underside to the persona they create for themselves. There is plenty of psychological literature that speaks to the dark side of the narcissist. Down below there reside feelings of worthlessness, powerlessness, a sense that maybe he is not all that he thinks he is and there is a true fear of being discovered as a fraud.
And so the persona that is erected exists in a dynamic tension between what is shown to the world while at the same time keeping what’s down below way down below. The more the narcissist disavows this side of himself, the more he is rigidly oriented in maintaining a grandiose image of himself. He’s a sad sack and doesn’t know it. Most hardcore narcissists will laugh and snicker at what I just wrote, citing pop psychology or total cluelessness on my part.
One of the things psychotherapists know well is that if you prod and push a narcissist too hard into looking at what is down below, you will elicit a firestorm of rage. I recall a moment in my practice when I asked a client a question, the answer to which required him to introspect and look at something “down below.” He froze, stared me in the eye and began to tremble. He did all he could to keep from exploding. Finally he jumped out of the sofa and left the room without saying a word. The following week he disavowed he had done anything like that.
And so I come to the quote above. There are plenty of narcissists in the ecclesiastical profession. They climb the social ladder with their charisma (indeed many narcissists have great charisma) and their talent for understanding scripture. Soon enough people follow them and before you know it, they’ve got their own church going. And before you know it again, they really think they are God’s emissary on earth. Their followers look up to them and endow them with specialness and thereby support their grandiosity. To wit: Jim Jones, David Koresh.
But as we know, something has gone really wrong for Mr.Jeffs. Being imprisoned and on trial is the ultimate embarrassment and humiliation for any hardcore narcissist. It is as if the persona has been forcibly challenged. But as I just stated, this is not a good thing to do with a narcissist because it will elicit strange reactions. One of them anger of course. Another is fear and paranoia.
You see the problem is that narcissists are so self identified with their grandiosity that any challenge to that disorients them. It is as if their entire world view is about to be upended. What would you do if your dearly held beliefs about yourself and life were challenged? You’d find ways to defend yourself and find fault with whoever is challenging you. Maybe they are the problem and not you.
Like rats in the cellar with the light shining on them narcissists scurry about to hide in the darkness because they think the end is coming. But when you can’t hide and are exposed in a courtroom, the flight to safety takes the turn of the quote above. Like someone cornered with no escape the only thing left to do is either capitulate ( and admit what has always been lurking below) or fight to the last man and grab on to anything you have left.
And so it is with Mr. Jeffs. He’s not capitulating (never will) and goes to his ultimate defense which has taken him to where he is today. He plays the God card and thinks himself above all others (typical narcissist) and rationalizes his special status on earth by claiming, as in the quote above, that he, in fact, is God too and because of that, he is exempt from the rules that apply to common mortals. Very very bad things happen when such a belief system takes hold of a mortal mind.
O dear. The ancient Chinese said, you don’t want to be number one. You want to be number two. For number one, there is only one place left for you to go and that is down (are you keeping track of what is happening to America today?)
If Mr. Jeffs goes to jail, I am sure he will fortify himself with the belief of being falsely imprisoned and that the world is his enemy and just doesn’t understand him. Simultaneously, if the metaphor of the narcissist applies here, somewhere deep down below is a tiny voice that says “maybe I am not what I think I am. But if I am not, then everything I have done is a sham and everything I have ever believed is false and because of that others have suffered.”
History is full of those who rise to power only to fall as a result of their own grandiosity. It is the stuff of Shakespearean tragedies. And we know how those usually end.
“I, the Lord God of heaven, ask the courts to cease the prosecution of my holy ways. There will be a judgment against all those who prosecute the church. ... I shall let all people know of your unjust ways. I will bring sickness and death. Let this cease,” he says.
There is this creature called the Narcissist. He actually doesn’t exist in real life. The term is a metaphor for a type of personality that is characterized by grandiosity, perfectionism, power, manipulation and social prestige. Hardcore narcissists organize their lives around these themes and see themselves as extra special and unique. Usually they demand compliance from those around them and do not tolerate disagreement or stepping out of line. Conceptually they may agree that you have a right to your own ideas and voice, but they don’t act in accordance with that. When push comes to shove, they will lash out with criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, put downs and in the worst case scenario violence.
And since the universe is always yin and yang, there has to be an underside to the persona they create for themselves. There is plenty of psychological literature that speaks to the dark side of the narcissist. Down below there reside feelings of worthlessness, powerlessness, a sense that maybe he is not all that he thinks he is and there is a true fear of being discovered as a fraud.
And so the persona that is erected exists in a dynamic tension between what is shown to the world while at the same time keeping what’s down below way down below. The more the narcissist disavows this side of himself, the more he is rigidly oriented in maintaining a grandiose image of himself. He’s a sad sack and doesn’t know it. Most hardcore narcissists will laugh and snicker at what I just wrote, citing pop psychology or total cluelessness on my part.
One of the things psychotherapists know well is that if you prod and push a narcissist too hard into looking at what is down below, you will elicit a firestorm of rage. I recall a moment in my practice when I asked a client a question, the answer to which required him to introspect and look at something “down below.” He froze, stared me in the eye and began to tremble. He did all he could to keep from exploding. Finally he jumped out of the sofa and left the room without saying a word. The following week he disavowed he had done anything like that.
And so I come to the quote above. There are plenty of narcissists in the ecclesiastical profession. They climb the social ladder with their charisma (indeed many narcissists have great charisma) and their talent for understanding scripture. Soon enough people follow them and before you know it, they’ve got their own church going. And before you know it again, they really think they are God’s emissary on earth. Their followers look up to them and endow them with specialness and thereby support their grandiosity. To wit: Jim Jones, David Koresh.
But as we know, something has gone really wrong for Mr.Jeffs. Being imprisoned and on trial is the ultimate embarrassment and humiliation for any hardcore narcissist. It is as if the persona has been forcibly challenged. But as I just stated, this is not a good thing to do with a narcissist because it will elicit strange reactions. One of them anger of course. Another is fear and paranoia.
You see the problem is that narcissists are so self identified with their grandiosity that any challenge to that disorients them. It is as if their entire world view is about to be upended. What would you do if your dearly held beliefs about yourself and life were challenged? You’d find ways to defend yourself and find fault with whoever is challenging you. Maybe they are the problem and not you.
Like rats in the cellar with the light shining on them narcissists scurry about to hide in the darkness because they think the end is coming. But when you can’t hide and are exposed in a courtroom, the flight to safety takes the turn of the quote above. Like someone cornered with no escape the only thing left to do is either capitulate ( and admit what has always been lurking below) or fight to the last man and grab on to anything you have left.
And so it is with Mr. Jeffs. He’s not capitulating (never will) and goes to his ultimate defense which has taken him to where he is today. He plays the God card and thinks himself above all others (typical narcissist) and rationalizes his special status on earth by claiming, as in the quote above, that he, in fact, is God too and because of that, he is exempt from the rules that apply to common mortals. Very very bad things happen when such a belief system takes hold of a mortal mind.
O dear. The ancient Chinese said, you don’t want to be number one. You want to be number two. For number one, there is only one place left for you to go and that is down (are you keeping track of what is happening to America today?)
If Mr. Jeffs goes to jail, I am sure he will fortify himself with the belief of being falsely imprisoned and that the world is his enemy and just doesn’t understand him. Simultaneously, if the metaphor of the narcissist applies here, somewhere deep down below is a tiny voice that says “maybe I am not what I think I am. But if I am not, then everything I have done is a sham and everything I have ever believed is false and because of that others have suffered.”
History is full of those who rise to power only to fall as a result of their own grandiosity. It is the stuff of Shakespearean tragedies. And we know how those usually end.
