What was your first experience after looking at the Tarot card to the left? When
I first looked at the card, the Devil, I was horrified by what I perceived as something
negative and evil. I said “get that thing away from me.” It was three years before
I understood what I saw in the card were shadow aspects of my personality, my
disowned self, mirrored back from the card. The disowned-self represents those
parts that for one reason or another are not acceptable to the super-ego and our
waking consciousness. Hence, they become compartmentalized, repressed and ever
more negatively charged.

The end result of this process, if allowed to go unchecked, may be that one or more
sub-personalities, at certain times block forward movement. The super-ego strives for
it’s perception of perfection. If it believes that not feeling is of survival value, then it
will numb you out through addictions. The super-ego will do anything it can to protect
you, including kill you! Dis-ease becomes disease!

Aspects created by the super-ego can take over the personality totally and determine
the ongoing process of your behavior. The culture and historical time of your
development strongly affect the nature of the identification and disowning process. An
essential aspect of personal growth and a successful life is the willingness and ability to
consistently be open to recognizing and facing the energy of these mythologies,
subpersonalities that are either too “powerful” or over identified with or “weak” and
disowned. You’ve seen these sub-personalities in yourself or others in the group. The
voice changes with the sub-personality. You may hear the voice modulate from the
little child or the deep male voice or the female voice, the judgmental voice etc.

Everyone has a primitive survival instinct, a genetic program that is all about the
survival of the DNA. The nature of this survival strategy varies with the personal
genetics. Over identifying with these primitive survival instincts is a self-destructive
aspect of the psyche, the purpose to block forward progress and shut us off from life.
It’s the great mystery of the human condition. We ignore the truth of who we are in
favor of suffering.

Metaphorically in this example the super-ego is represented by the devil energy of the
tarot card. Many so called problems come from this part of the personality—addictions,
fear, self-hate, laziness, rage, negativity and depression. The super-ego is dynamic. It
can make you miserable even when nothing bad is happening. It is universally present
in everyone because it has a spiritual function. What is traditionally labeled evil is
really the thought process the “super-ego.” It’s evil because it tries to keep us ignorant.
It demands that we ignore the truth of who we are; happy, free and limitless. The
authentic-self, our true nature, is happy, at peace, free and wise. The ego wants to stay
in business so it demands that we look outside the self for happiness and validation. It
demands that you remain unconscious and blocks your evolution. If you give in to it
you live a limited, unhappy, pain-filled life. However, when you turn on the observer
and notice the inflated ego states of addiction, face these excited states and penetrate the
deflated ego states, you develop higher powers. You rise above your primitive nature.
You become fully conscious. You experience your divinity.

Notice that the devil card depicts a scene with a character that looks like a monster. It is
a conglomeration of disparate parts. This card is a metaphor for the conglomeration,
the matrix of our disowned-selves. The devil sits on a block of stone, a representation of
the ego’s rigid view of the world. Our world view becomes cast in stone. The chains
connected to this block of stone appear to bind the man and woman, a metaphor for the
energetic binding of the intellect and intuition. They are unaware that they could
simply lift the chains that bind them off their necks. They are in a state of blind
resignation, bound to illusion. They are blinded and bound by their personal stories
and the belief in limitation and the way things are. The energy represented by this
symbol is what happens when you get reverse wired. Things aren’t really what they
seem. The card represents the power of illusion to bind creative energy, how ignorance
and reversal of thought create pain and suffering when you hold reversed beliefs. Life
is a challenge and it feels like your tail is on fire.

Just as in a computer game, when you face and conquer the energy guardian of each
level of awareness, you incorporate the energetic power of each guardian. In doing so
you gain new powers and tools. With the new tools you move to higher levels. It is the
same in life. There are specific tools to combat every dynamic each energty guardian on
the path causes. The various seminars offer tools to reveal the mythologies, energy
configuration and the characteristics of each energy guardian at each level. The more
you participate the more authentic power you’ll experience—in relationships, work,
creativity, etc. It is all about energy management. These mythologies and energy
guardians becomes your teacher in the process—that’s the real purpose of energy. You
learn and grow stronger from your struggles. When you grasp this, life becomes more
meaningful. Even the worst problem’s then have value.

The super-ego gets its power by creating a fantasy world, a realm of illusion and traps
you within. It tells you it’s possible to live in a place where you’re special and things
are easy—a perfect world. This fantasy life is a roller coaster ride, a series of inflated
ego states, excited states; emotional highs and a series of deflated or depressed ego
states; emotional lows. Your energy, your natural creativity becomes bound, limited
and contained within the fantasy world of the realm of illusion. Most pain is caused by
your failure to find and live in this realm of illusion, which you never can and never do
find.

However, as long as you narcissistically keep seeking the fantasy world, the super-ego
controls you. We all think there’s a group of others who do live in this fantasy
world—naturally we feel as if we are locked outside and inferior to them. The superego
inflates events in our lives—a job review, a date, a birthday party—hoping they’ll
put us in this magic world. The event becomes more important than you and then you
become terrified.

The search for the fantasy world of the realm of illusion makes us fixate on things
outside us. It causes an addictive relationship to the world. It says if we accomplish
this or buy that, then we can live inside that fantasy realm. This can take the form of
using alcohol, drugs, food, money, sex, etc. The super-ego tells us it is the next thing
that will make us feel whole. But it also makes us dependent on the validation of others
- then, if they reject or insult us, we feel like victims. The super-ego also teaches us to
use things outside ourselves for motivation. This causes the addiction to danger in
relationships or activities and the need to start conflicts, the devil made me do it. No
matter how alluring it appears the outer world is severely limited—it has no forces of
energetic flow or creativity. The true energetic flow comes from the unknown and all
knowing within. Once trapped in the illusion we’re overcome with dissatisfaction,
envy and fear. The super-ego lures us toward a perfect world and ends up putting us
in hell—that’s why it’s called the devil.

The key quality of the super-ego is that it repeats itself. It is cast in stone. You become
fixated and lose your self-respect. The universe keeps moving forward, constantly
changing. When you repeat a thought, feeling or behavior, you keep yourself in the
same place, resisting the universal flow of change. This keeps you separate from the
rest of the universe, trapping you in the fantasy world of the super-ego where it can
control you. You see this most easily when you repeat negative thoughts over and over.
Whatever it is you are repeating, you tend to do it with the sense that you’re right.
That’s a sure sign you’re bound by the super-ego.

The energy guardians whisper in your ear saying this is what you do to enter the realm
of illusion. I invite you to turn on your observer, notice the mental games and just stop!

Change requires the willingness to let go of lower levels of relative completion, or
seeming perfection, to attain higher ones. In the evolution of consciousness nothing
ever stays permanently set. It is important to consciously express a willingness to
transcend whatever may seem complete or perfect to us at present. This keeps us open
to receive higher levels of truth than that which may now seem adequate to us. It is
essential that we accept the possibility of higher interpretations of experience than we
may now be able to perceive. That is why the inline skating, slack line and movement
classes work. They present an experience beyond language, beyond what is held as
true and known by the rational mind.

In all areas of life expression there’s always a higher completion…always a greater
perfection than we have yet achieved. Through your participation in this process
you’ve seen the need to relinquish merely personal interpretations of experience.
Energy is impersonal. Love is impersonal. The states of consciousness are impersonal.
We are but transformers of an energy, of an attitude, or a power. You bring your
personal attributes to the states of relative existence in the world of name and form. To
achieve this, there must be a stillness of personality, through us-never from us-comes
all love, always then, all formation in time and space. All meditational methods are
designed to help us become conscious channels for the light and wisdom of the one ego.
Collapse down the mind chatter and the survival strategies of the intellect and we
become the one ego and channel the one intelligence.

When you hear yourself say “I’ve already done that” or “I know that” this is a cue that
you may be operating from a primitive survival mode, a bound and limited egoic and
personal psychological state, “the expert mode.” The greater the intellect, the more
likely one may fall into this trap. This is a state where the ego mimics data or behavior
perceived as crucial to survival and packages it for use in the future. It is all about
competing, impressing others, validation and approval. This behavior actually brings
the opposite effect, it fosters self-isolation rather than self-respect. It is a state of desire
and what we desire we energetically push away. It only serves to perpetuate suffering
and pain and sustains an energetic binding that truncates spiritual growth.

In the expert mode one interacts with others as if operating from a script. For the
recipient of this delivery, it is as if you are listening to a radio broadcast of the evening
news. There is an unspoken rage. It is unpleasant to watch, as it is a form of self-abuse.
There is no feeling. No vulnerability. No one listening. No self-respect. There is no
real accountability. No real experience of intimacy or of the concepts proffered, only
judging and defending and a perpetuation of the wounding of separation from self.

Authenticity, true openness, true change, requires the willingness to look at the world
and your experiences, as if you have never experienced, seen or heard them before.
You are willing to take in all feedback, both positive and negative, without ascribing
any meaning to what is heard. You understand that all feedback is love, rather than
rejecting that which you perceive as negative, distasteful or unknown. You are willing
to hear the truth about reality. In this listening there is a stopping. In the stopping you
are willing to grow and change. Stopping disruptive behavior engenders change, as
your innate condition is at peace and free. You face the world defenseless, with the
innocence of a child rather than an arsenal of data to shoot down any disagreements
with your world view. You realize that the truth requires no defense and that the
defensiveness perpetuates the separation and suffering.

People are slow learners when whatever it is that they must learn contradicts
everything they “believe.” What you believe is probably not true. There is an
intellectual paralysis associated with unpleasant new information. Information that
does not fit the current world view is rejected outright. We rarely learn the new lesson
based on intellectual comprehension alone, such as a careful study of facts, a
comparison of facts with theory, and then reassessment.

Instead, we are emotionally transformed by an event or experience that overwhelms
our world view. Until then, we suffer and are victims of repressed anger and emotional
pain. Rejection of new experience continues until there is that “emotional acceptance.”
Then we re-think everything. In a moment, life is transformed.

Megalomania n : is defined as a delusional mental disorder that is marked by
infantile feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur.

Over the last twenty years this behavior has become a much larger feature on the
landscape of human consciousness. In most lives there is a point at which there is a
recognition or perception that innocence has been lost. Where innocence once was there
is now a kind of cynicism, a pollution or sense of hopelessness or jaded outlook, either
spiritually or worldly. There is a memory of something that was pure and fresh and
clean.

In remembering that, there is a desire to reclaim it or get back to that, which is quite
natural, because there is still an echo or taste of that freshness and time. The problem
becomes two fold. Since the innocence is not being experienced, it is believed that it is
no longer here, it is somewhere else. The other part of that is that where it is
remembered is where it is assumed to be. So if you remember your childhood as being
innocent there is a hope or attempt to get back to that childhood innocence. It is
impossible to return to that time, it is gone, it is over, that childhood is over.

In that recognition there is a fear that that must mean that the innocence is over, since
the innocence and childhood were so linked together. The issue becomes centered in
the not knowing that the innocence that is sought in the past is already here at the
bottom of all the experiences that have been layered on top. There have been violations,
betrayals and misery, sellouts, and everyone is both the victim and the perpetrator of
these. With the loss of innocence there is a sense that one is a victim. Then one becomes
the victim or the victimizer, they are the opposite sides of the same energy pattern.
There is then a search to return to this initial innocent experience.

At the bottom of all of this the innocence still exists. Give up the activity that is mental,
it may have byproducts that are physical, circumstantial or emotional. However, the
problem becomes the mental activity designed to return to sometime in your life when
you knew yourself to be innocent and pure and powerful and free and good and holy
and one with spirit. You give up the image of that or the attempt to get that back. The
act of looking for the solution creates the problem.

You actually burn in the fire of this disillusionment, it is the experience of the loss of
that innocence rather than trying to get this back, that serves. Most spirituality is about
trying to get it back. If you put your mind into a trance with some of the most beautiful
methods or techniques, it can work for a moment or two, or an hour, or a period of a
retreat, with a mantra or a meditation practice or process. However, until the
willingness to simply burn up in facing the self betrayal, the self violation, the self
hatred, the self rape, the self theory, in facing that with out moving to fix it or make it
nice or make it comfortable or make it spiritual. Just to burn up in it, to not move into
denying it, as if it is not there, because it is all one, and all god and all is perfect. Just
give up those cliche statements. That is why the slack line works. You have to stand in
the self-betrayal and burn in it, grieve in it. There is the possibility of recognizing that
at the core the purity is still pure. There has been no violation there. No experience to
you or from you can violate that. Then you know directly without doing anything who
you are. Since you do not do anything to realize who you are, it is causeless. Who you
are and the recognition of who you are both causeless. When you assign a cause to who
you are then you have a definition of who you are, and that definition is a story. That
story has an image and an emotion and circumstances, and it is subject to change. That
story is subject to birth, death, betrayal, theft, rape, and hatred.

I have no interest in you having a better definition of who you are. I’m not interested in
you having a better story of who you are, a place to escape to when things are rough or
unhappy, or boring. My interest in spending time with you, is that you discover who
you are and that there is no escape from that. In surrendering to what there is no
escape from, you will meet the bigger deeper truth of who you are. Then there is a
critical shift, where you do not relate to life as a series of definitions subject to change.
You recognize the definitions and at the same time recognize that they are imposed
onto life. Life is free of definition. Life itself, the energy that infuses every life form is
free of definition. You are free of definition. You have objectified and defined yourself
as somebody, good or bad, enlightened or unenlightened, you got it or you didn’t get it,
you kept it or you lost it, all of these are absurd definitions. The fear is to not define
yourself at all.

I’ve observed the loss of innocence occurring at an ever more early age in children’s
lives as they are exposed to the violence in the media and the violent behavior of their
parents who have been over exposed to violence in the media. Once over exposed to
violence we become addicted to that which we are uncomfortable with. Violence
demands more violence. What you focus on in life is what expands.

I’m presenting this material to help you see aspects of your own megalomania that
result from the perceived loss of innocence. The sense of powerlessness and low self
esteem flips into a series of stories and self definitions that become megalomania, an
unrealistic belief in one’s superiority, grandiose abilities, and even omnipotence. The
self definition is characterized by a need for total power and control over others, and is
marked by a lack of empathy for anything that is perceived as not feeding the self.

Although megalomania is a term often ascribed to anyone who is power-hungry, the
clinical definition is that of a mental condition associated with narcissistic personality
disorder (NPD).

Narcissism is most simply defined as self-love. Though it is considered healthy to care
about your own well-being and have a healthy self-esteem, when someone loves
himself to the exclusion of all else, and others become objectified to be used only to
serve the self, this is no longer considered healthy.

There are different psychological theories about how and why NPD develops, most of
which relate to the integration of different aspects of ego and self as a child, and the
nature of the parental roles in that process. Regardless of theory, NPD is characterized
by extremely low self-esteem, which is compensated for by delusions of grandeur and
megalomania, a narcissistic neuroses, a highly configured self-definition. With the
propensity to act only on behalf of one’s objectified self, the unbridled need to feed one’s
ego, and the objectification of others to serve the power-hungry needs of megalomania,
it is easy to see how this can be a recipe for disaster, especially when wrapped in a
charismatic personality.

Los Angeles and the film industry is a magnet and perfect match for this behavior.
Nearly every studio head and actor is dealing with addiction, megalomania, narcissism
or sociopathy, they are all part of childhood compensatory behaviors. The fascinating
aspect of these behaviors is that the dysfunctions along with a charismatic nature drives
these people to major success at the expense of those around them.

One of the most well known examples of megalomania in modern history was Adolf
Hitler. A street waif, Hitler wasn’t content rising through the ranks to become the
military leader of Germany. His megalomania drove him to aspire to conquer the entire
world. Being born into a “superior race” also wasn’t enough for the mentally ill Hitler.
Instead, he wanted to wipe out all other races. This need to destroy everything outside
of what he perceived as an extension of himself is a classic though horrifically
illustrated example of megalomania. Paradoxically, a person who exhibits such
tremendous ego and self-confidence in reality has such low self-esteem and such a
fragile ego that he cannot abide any expression other than his own, for fear of
annihilation of the “objectified self.” Therefore everything that is not under his control
is perceived as a threat.

The principles or characteristics of NPD and megalomania can also be expressed in
lesser degrees or in a different fashion by those we might consider more mainstream
than genocidal maniacs and serial killers. Among actors, executives, dictators,
fundamentalists, and politicians we find those who view themselves as morally
superior with the willingness to sacrifice, kill, or risk the safety of others considered
inferior in order to assert their own agendas. Though there are legitimate circumstances
in which leaders must exercise civil or military force, or religious zealots can profess
solemn beliefs, the line between religiosity and fanaticism, between duty and
megalomania, can be a gray one. This is how the term has become part of our culture’s
vernacular.

When you begin to set these self definitions aside and no longer do this behavior, the
first fear is that you will not exist at all, that is the underlying fear. It is a strong deep
fear that all the conditioning is attached to and it is true. When you stop defining
yourself your self does not exist as any definition. You do exist, however not as a
definition. You exit as who you are, conscious awareness; free, indefinable,
inconceivable, undeniable and innocent.

You can only continue a round of self-betraying behavior, if you think you’re going to get something different from that next cycle. All addictions are self-betrayal. Defining
yourself as an object is self-betrayal.

The greatest fear is not defining yourself at all. When you get close to not defining
yourself in any manner, the greatest fear is that you will not exist. It is a strong, deep,
fear that all the conditioning is attached to, if you stop, then you will not exist! And it is
true, if you stop defining yourself, you do exist, and yet not as any definition. You exist
as who you are, undefinable, undeniable; infinite consciousness.

Resistance to a teaching is not resistance to the teacher, it is resistance to yourself. It is a
fear of giving up the self-doubt, a type of childish behavior, an aspect of a self definition.
Because the self-doubt is a long time companion, it is a tyrant and yet it has
kept you in line, it has kept you from being too arrogant, or a megalomaniac. You’ve
seen the actions of megalomaniacs in history and there is a fear of that behavior. There
is a personal recognition of a talent for that behavior, an affinity for that behavior. This
is all part of the human makeup, the innate human aggression, a genetic survival
strategy.

There must be a willingness to give up the self-doubt, and the aggression. There must
be a willingness to stop resisting yourself, however that has taken form uniquely for
you. There must be a willingness to give up the self-doubt so that if there is a delusion
in place, running you, it can be seen, whether it be self-hatred or hatred for others.
Whatever it is, it can then be seen as you! At the core, it is you who creates it all. If you
think it is someone else that is wrong, it will be seen at your core, it is you who is
wrong. Whatever you see as wrong in others, is where you must make the correction in
yourself.

This is the challenge, to turn on the observer, and then own all of this. In this owning,
megalomania may appear. It is not to be unexpected. Hopelessness, powerlessness,
sadness, whatever is being hidden will appear, it is only in the owning that it can be
seen. Whatever is seen, it is seen for the suffering that it is, the absurdity that it is, you
stop, and the suffering is no longer followed as a practice. Whatever is not seen, is
practiced and followed unconsciously, subconsciously. Suffering must be practiced.
Anything you do to avoid suffering is a practice that will bring on more of the same.
Left unseen we have this inner battle, a play between self-doubt and arrogance, ego and
superego, and deeper than all of that, closer than that is the truth. The truth is closer
than any suffering or self-definition. I invite you to stop suffering. The truth requires
no practice.

In all traditions, this teaching was kept secret until you had proven that you were not a
megalomaniac, and that you had a certain level of maturity. This information requires a
high level of responsibility, as this can be used as a medicine or a poison. Whatever
you are thinking, it is either ego or superego. The truth is closer than any thought. The
invitation is to recognize yourself as the truth. And then recognizing the lies as they
appear against this background of inner truth, the temptations as they appear, the
elaborate explanations and justifications for the temptations as they appear; now with
the capacity to choose the truth. When the binding to the story around resisting the
truth and seeking the truth is cut, then there is an opening, there is freedom, happiness,
infinite open space. Happiness cannot be practiced, it is your innate condition. You
must be willing to face the fear of your ego disappearing in the stopping of the self
definition, in order to experience the freedom of your true nature and true self.

When you feel guilt, an important characteristic of this feeling is that you should be
punished. You should be punished because of the things you have done, or the wrong
person you believe you are. Once you believe guilt is real, then you believe that you
will soon be punished for the guilt, or the act you believe you are guilty of. Guilt
always demands punishment, and since you fear punishment, this is the origin of fear.

Despite the seeming cause of fear in the world, the ultimate cause of fear is the
punishment that guilt demands. As you operate with the mistaken belief that you are
separate from spirit, your mind creates the obstacles to inner peace, which are the
emotions of anger, fear and rage. Your mind begins the cycle that progresses from sin,
to guilt, to fear, to the projection of anger and then to the justification of that anger. It
turns out that the ultimate object of our fear is our creator. The fear of the creator is the
finial obstacle to peace. There is nothing more terrifying in the ego’s thought system,
than the belief that God himself will strike you dead for your transgressions towards
God, whether or not you believe God exists.

As Voltaire once said, “God created man in his own image and then man returned the
compliment.” The image you hold of God is a mirror image projection of your own
inner experience of guilt. Inadvertently you have transformed this loving god into a
vengeful, hateful, wrathful god, and a god that will punish you for your sinfulness.

Remember as a child, those stories told about a wrathful god. They were often stories
about an angry god that would destroy you for your transgressions. These stories have
nothing to do with the unconditionally loving spirit that created everything. However,
these stories do have everything to do with the wrathful god that mankind has
projected outward, onto the world, from within.

Once this unholy trinity of sin, guilt and fear has been set into motion, it keeps cycling
over and over, and there seems no way out of the cycle. However, the ego is always
looking for a means of redemption. The ego looks for a way to protect us from the
terrifying burden of coming into contact with our own self-hatred, our inner conflicts,
or the terrifying belief that God is going to strike us dead.

In the ego’s system based on separation, God has been turned into the enemy. So in the
ego’s system it is not God you can turn to for help with relief of the anxiety, fear and the
feelings of self-hatred that you have. The only resource you have must be the ego itself.

Of course the ego is not a fool, the ego more than anything else wants to sustain its own
existence. When you turn to the ego for help, the ego seems to have the answers. And
one way to keep the ego in business is to get you to believe in it, to believe that it really
does have all the answers. Since the ego can be defined as the belief in some form of
separation from spirit, all the ego has to do is get you to believe that the separation is
real, that the separation from spirit has actually occurred. As the ego hooks you into the
belief in the reality of sin, or the reality of sin as the justification of guilt, the cycle is
engaged and the ego is in business.

The attraction of guilt is the most important element in the ego’s thought system and a
key element when working with this material. As long as you identify with the ego’s
thought system, you must also identify with the ego’s need to keep you guilty. When
you go to the ego for help, it says, yes, yes, I can help you. What the ego is secretly
saying is that the help that I am going to give you is secretly going to perpetuate the
very guilt you want to be free of. The ego does this in the following manner. When you
have terrifying feelings and go to the ego for help, the ego says, “what you do with
those feelings is push them down into the unconscious, you make believe that they do
not exist.” This is know as repression or denial. The mechanism of denial is very
simple. It says, that if you do not see the problem, then it does not exist.

Just like an Ostrich, that sticks it’s head in the sand, if it doesn’t see the problem, then
the problem magically does not exist. If you don’t feel like cleaning the house, then you
can sweep the dirt under the carpet. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for long, as the
carpet gets lumpy and sooner or later you trip over the lump. A similar thing happens
with repressed guilt, repression doesn’t work for long, because on some level the
problem remains and builds up over time, ultimately getting your attention in one way
or another.

The ego offers one other step that really takes care of the guilt. This step is the most
important of all the psychological defenses, this step is projection. Projection is the
dynamic that takes the guilt from inside you and projects it outside onto someone or
something else. Almost literally hurling the guilt away from you onto someone or
something in the outside world.

The ego tells you that this is the perfect way of getting rid of your guilt, because the
guilt no longer exists in me it is in you. Internally, at that point, you say it is you who is
responsible for all the misery, pain and suffering that I have in my life, it is not me. You
are guilty and not me. You are the one who should be punished and not myself. Were
it not for what you have done to me, then I would feel good about myself. This is what
projection is. It is to shift the responsibility for all the problems you have, problems
which originate internally from the belief in separation, and then to transfer that
problem outside and to make someone or something outside of us responsible for our
problems. It is you who is responsible for it, not me.

The means you use to keep distance between yourself and the guilt once you have
placed the guilt on someone else, is to get angry. Anger, is defined as a strong feeling of
displeasure. Anger defined from the ego’s perspective as an attempt to justify the
projection of guilt. As a projection placed on someone else, anger is never justified. The
reason why anger or attack are never justified, is that it has no meaning, except that it
seeks to justify both to the other person, to yourself, and to the world that someone else
is to blame, someone else is the guilty person.

The meaning then, of all anger, is the attempt to shift the responsibility for the internal
separation from God, seeing the separation not in me, but in someone else, they are
denying their relationship with God, not I. From the ego’s point of view, it doesn’t
make any difference who or what the object of projection is. It could be a person, a
group of people, a country, it could be an idea, it could even be God. All that the ego
cares about is that someone or something be found to take the blame.

This explains the tremendous personal investment you, as well as others throughout
history have in finding somebody they can make into a scapegoat to blame for all their
problems. This also explains the root cause of all prejudice, the attempt to find someone
who can be judged not as good as, so you can get yourself off the hook. Keep in mind
that this is the advice that the ego gives you to keep you free from guilt. Now what the
ego doesn’t tell you, is that the act of projection, is the best way of holding onto the guilt
and being trapped by it in a never ending cycle.

The truth is, there is no way that anyone can get angry with anybody, whether it is
expressed or keep as thought, without at the same time feeling guilty about it.
Internally, you know the real reason that you are angry with someone else is that you
are trying to escape from taking responsibility for yourself. If you felt perfectly at
peace, you would never be angry. All anger is an attempt to say, “It is because of you,
that I do not have the peace of spirit in my life.”

Gossiping is an indication to childish behavior, an affirmation of being bound to a
search for perfection, this search for right and wrong is another aspect of projection.
Children do not take responsibility for their actions and in this respect their actions are
dangerous. Lose lips sink ships, and more companies are destroyed by this behavior
than any other. Adults know to set gossip aside. They know people make mistakes and
have no problem communicating their feelings with another, rather than gossip about
them. Adults take responsibility for their actions and know that other adults do the
same, and that gossip is a form of withholding information that others need to make
adjustments and corrections. Gossip is an attack, a form of competition.

Those who gossip are trying to win! It is self-betrayal of another flavor. Passing data
through to someone else, or participating in listening to someone else gossip about
another person or event, is the ego projecting feelings of guilt and separation out onto
others or events, this act justifies the gossip and makes it real. Gossiping is an
affirmation of separation, is a form of denial, and perpetuates guilt. What appears as an
attack towards others, is really an attack directed towards self.

If you are gossiping, you use everything outside of self to justify your suffering. You
are a leaky container, bound to jealousy, another aspect of separation, sabotaging your
process and trying to inhibit others growth, out of jealously. You take others down
with you. It is the story that if I can’t win, I’ll kill everyone else or destroy the game so
no one else can win either. Stop the gossiping, it is akin to complaining! Those who
complain and gossip are crap magnets. If you have something to say, say it in the
group. If your afraid to say it in the group, then it probably isn’t useful or true.

On a fall afternoon—I was five or six–I walked along one of the tree covered lanes on
our farm. On the left along the dirt path, large, curled, dried, brown leaves of the May
apples, on the right the moss covered bed of a trickling stream. The fresh smell of the
earth. The crispness of the air. The cool touch of a snow flake burst into awareness as it
fell on my cheek, and in the distant charcoal-grey sky, billowing black clouds of an
approaching storm. I stood motionless in the silence.

Snow flakes fell around my feet. A few melted as they hit the ground. Others remained
intact. Then I heard the silence get louder and louder and the then the falling of the
snow—the softest hissing sound.

I stood transfixed, listening…..then knew what could never be expressed: that the
natural is supernatural, and that I am the eye that hears and the ear that sees. And what
is outside happens within me, that inside and outside are unseparated.

This was not a belief. I experienced that there was an eternal law or principle at work
underlying what appeared as a perpetually changing world in motion. A unity, a
oneness, a moral order, the nature of life forces, the right, the idea of the world, the
method, the way, a holographic intelligence that informed all that is.

All of these words stand for abstract ideas or metaphors. It is like water that gives life
to everything and yet it does not strive to do so. It cannot be seen or heard. It is
intangible and yet it is the intelligence behind that informs everything. It flows
everywhere and is inexhaustible and at the same time brings everything into fulfilment.
This was my childhood. Experience after experience of directly knowing the
transcendent, that which is unexpressible through words, a quality of revelation that set
the stage for my life. After a time, I realized that others saw the world through the
blinders and filters of the rational mind and what I saw and heard and experienced they
did not as yet perceive, because “we see things as we are.”

The unifying principle I experienced underlies the major eastern religions, although
each may call it by a different name. Each holds that all phenomena from particles of
light to galaxies are aspects of the one. A little later in life I noticed that the orthodox
Judeo-Christian traditions had a different view of reality and emphasized opposing
dualities, God above, sinful human below, soul in opposition to world, spirit struggling
to overcome flesh, man in opposition to woman.

Modern atomic physics leads us to a view of reality that is very similar to the mystic’s
intuitive vision or reality. The picture of an interconnected cosmic web in which the
human observer is always a participator, emerges from quantum physics. At the atomic
particle level, the world view becomes very mystical; time and space become a
continuum, matter and energy interchange, observer and observed interact. The
physicist now knows through mathematics what the mystic has know through
mediation. They both share two basic themes: the unity and interrelationship of all
phenomena and the intrinsically dynamic nature of the universe.

The way for the experience can be prepared, my father knew this. When he moved his
family to a remote part of upstate New York, it was this awareness, this insight, that
nature would convey the message to his children with more infinite articulation than
any words he could ever proffer.

His action helped set the stage for an intellectual awareness and acceptance of this
spiritual awakening. Each week, and in each process I set a stage to share this
awareness of true silence with you. If there is a receptivity and openness, an intuitively
felt experience can follow.

We all have a story of our life. We invent, adopt, are led by and measure ourselves against our personal narratives. These are, normally, commensurate with our personal histories, our predilections, our abilities, limitations, and our skills. We are not likely to invent a narrative which is wildly out of sync with ourselves.

We rarely judge ourselves by a narrative which is not somehow correlated to what we can reasonably expect to achieve. In other words, we are not likely to frustrate and punish ourselves knowingly. As we grow older, our narrative changes. Parts of it are realized and this increases our self-confidence, sense of self-worth and self-esteem and makes us feel fulfilled, satisfied, and at peace with ourselves.

The narcissist differs from normal people in that his is a “highly” unrealistic personal narrative. This choice could be imposed and inculcated by a sadistic and hateful Primary Object (a narcissistic, domineering mother, for instance) – or it could be the product of the narcissist’s own tortured psyche. Instead of realistic expectations of himself, the narcissist has grandiose fantasies. The latter cannot be effectively pursued. They are elusive, ever receding targets.

This constant failure (the Grandiosity Gap) leads to dysphoria (bouts of sadness) and to losses. Observed from the outside, the narcissist is perceived to be odd, prone to illusions and self-delusions and, therefore, lacking in judgment.

The dysphoria – the bitter fruits of the narcissist’s impossible demands of himself – are painful. Gradually the narcissist learns to avoid them by eschewing a structured narrative altogether. Life’s disappointments and setbacks condition him to understand that his specific “brand” of unrealistic narrative inevitably leads to frustration, sadness and agony and is a form of self-punishment (inflicted on him by his sadistic, rigid Superego).

This incessant punishment serves another purpose: to support and confirm the negative judgment meted out by the narcissist’s Primary Objects (usually, by his parents or care givers) in his early childhood (now, an inseparable part of his Superego).

The narcissist’s mother, for instance, may have consistently insisted that the narcissist is bad, rotten, or useless. Surely, she could not have been wrong, goes the narcissist’s internal dialog. Even raising the possibility that she may have been wrong proves her right! The narcissist feels compelled to validate her verdict by making sure that he indeed “becomes” bad, rotten and useless.

Yet, no human being – however deformed – can live without a narrative. The narcissist develops circular, ad-hoc, circumstantial, and fantastic “life-stories” (the Contingent Narratives). Their role is to avoid confrontation with (the often disappointing and disillusioning) reality. He thus reduces the number of dysphoria and their strength, though he usually fails to avoid the Narcissistic Cycle.

The narcissist pays a heavy price for accommodating his dysfunctional narratives:

Emptiness, existential loneliness (he shares no common psychic ground with other humans), sadness, drifting, emotional absence, emotional platitude, mechanization/robotization (lack of anima, excess persona in Jung’s terms) and meaninglessness. This fuels his envy and the resulting rage and amplifies the EIPM (Emotional Involvement Preventive Measures). The narcissist develop a “Zu Leicht – Zu Schwer” (“Too Easy – Too difficult”) syndrome:

On the one hand, the narcissist’s life is unbearably difficult. The few real achievements he does have should normally have mitigated this perceived harshness. But, in order to preserve his sense of omnipotence, he is forced to “downgrade” these accomplishments by labeling them as “too easy”.

The narcissist cannot admit that he had toiled to achieve something and, with this confession, shatter his grandiose False-Self. He must belittle every achievement of his and make it appear to be a routine triviality. This is intended to support the dreamland quality of his fragmented personality. But it also prevents him from deriving the psychological benefits which usually accrue to goal attainment: an enhancement of self-confidence, a more realistic self-assessment of one’s capabilities and abilities, a strengthening sense of self-worth.

The narcissist is doomed to roam a circular labyrinth. When he does achieve something – he demotes it in order to enhance his own sense of omnipotence, perfection, and brilliance. When he fails, he dares not face reality. He escapes to the land of no narratives where life is nothing but a meaningless wasteland. The narcissist whiles his life away.

But what is it like being a narcissist? The narcissist is often anxious. It is usually unconscious, like a nagging pain, a permanence, like being immersed in a gelatinous liquid, trapped and helpless, or as the DSM puts it, narcissism is “all-pervasive.” Still, these anxieties are never diffuse. The narcissist worries about specific people, or possible events, or more or less plausible scenarios. He seems to constantly conjure up some reason or another to be worried or offended.

Positive past experiences do not ameliorate this preoccupation. The narcissist believes that the world is hostile, a cruelly arbitrary, ominously contrarian, contrivingly cunning and indifferently crushing place. The narcissist simply “knows” it will all end badly and for no good reason. Life is too good to be true and too bad to endure. Civilization is an ideal and the deviations from it are what we call “history.” The narcissist is incurably pessimistic, an ignoramus by choice and incorrigibly blind to any evidence to the contrary.

Underneath all this, there is a Generalized Anxiety. The narcissist fears life and what people do to each other. He fears his fear and what it does to him. He knows that he is a participant in a game whose rules he will never master and in which his very existence is at stake. He trusts no one, believes in nothing, knows only two certainties: evil exists and life is meaningless. He is convinced that no one cares.

This existential angst that permeates his every cell is atavistic and irrational. It has no name or likeness. It is like the monsters in every child’s bedroom with the lights turned off. But being the rationalizing and intellectualizing creatures that cerebral narcissists are – they instantly label this unease, explain it away, analyze it and attempt to predict its onset.

They attribute this poisonous presence to some external cause. They set it in a pattern, embed it in a context, transform it into a link in the great chain of being. Hence, they transform diffuse anxiety into focused worries. Worries are known and measurable quantities. They have reasons which can be tackled and eliminated. They have a beginning and an end. They are linked to names, to places, faces and to people. Worries are human.

Thus, the narcissist transforms his demons into compulsive notations in his real or mental diary: check this, do that, apply preventive measures, do not allow, pursue, attack, avoid. The narcissist ritualizes both his discomfort and his attempts to cope with it.

But such excessive worrying – whose sole intent is to convert irrational anxiety into the mundane and tangible – is the stuff of paranoia.

For what is paranoia if not the attribution of inner disintegration to external persecution, the assignment of malevolent agents from the outside to the figments of turmoil inside? The paranoid seeks to alleviate his own voiding by irrationally clinging to rationality. Things are so bad, he says, mainly to himself, because I am a victim, because “they” are after me and I am hunted by the juggernaut of state, or by the Freemasons, or by the Jews, or by the neighborhood librarian. This is the path that leads from the cloud of anxiety, through the lamp-posts of worry to the consuming darkness of paranoia.

Paranoia is a defense against anxiety and against aggression. In the paranoid state, the latter is projected outwards, upon imaginary others, the instruments of one’s crucifixion.

Anxiety is also a defense against aggressive impulses. Therefore, anxiety and paranoia are sisters, the latter merely a focused form of the former. The mentally disordered defend against their own aggressive propensities by either being anxious or by becoming paranoid.

Yet, aggression has numerous guises, not only anxiety and paranoia. One of its favorite disguises is boredom. Like its relation, depression, boredom is aggression directed inwards. It threatens to drown the bored person in a primordial soup of inaction and energy depletion. It is an hedonic (pleasure depriving) and dysphoric (leads to profound sadness). But it is also threatening, perhaps because it is so reminiscent of death.

Not surprisingly, the narcissist is most worried when bored. The narcissist is aggressive. He channels his aggression and internalizes it. He experiences his bottled wrath as boredom.

When the narcissist is bored, he feels threatened by his ennui in a vague, mysterious way. Anxiety ensues. He rushes to construct an intellectual edifice to accommodate all these primitive emotions and their transubstantiations. He identifies reasons, causes, effects and possibilities in the outer world. He builds scenarios. He spins narratives. As a result, he feels no more anxiety. He has identified the enemy (or so he thinks). And now, instead of being anxious, he is simply worried. Or paranoid.

The narcissist often strikes people as “laid back” – or, less charitably: lazy, parasitic, spoiled, and self-indulgent. But, as usual with narcissists, appearances deceive. Narcissists are either compulsively driven over-achievers – or chronic under-achieving wastrels. Most of them fail to make full and productive use of their potential and capacities. Many avoid even the now standard paths of an academic degree, a career, or family life.

The disparity between the accomplishments of the narcissist and his grandiose fantasies and inflated self image – the Grandiosity Gap – is staggering and, in the long run, unsustainable. It imposes onerous exigencies on the narcissist’s grasp of reality and on his meager social skills. It pushes him either to reclusion or to a frenzy of “acquisitions” – cars, women, wealth, power.

Yet, no matter how successful the narcissist is – many of them end up being abject failures – the Grandiosity Gap can never be bridged. The narcissist’s False-Self is so unrealistic and his Superego so sadistic that there is nothing the narcissist can do to extricate himself from the Kafkaesque trial that is his life.

The narcissist is a slave to his own inertia. Some narcissists are forever accelerating on the way to ever higher peaks and ever greener pastures. Others succumb to numbing routines, the expenditure of minimal energy, and to preying on the vulnerable. But either way, the narcissist’s life is out of control, at the mercy of pitiless inner voices and internal forces.

Narcissists are one-state machines, programmed to extract Narcissistic Supply from others. To do so, they develop early on a set of immutable routines. This propensity for repetition, inability to change and rigidity confine the narcissist, stunt his development, and limit his horizons. Add to this his overpowering sense of entitlement, his visceral fear of failure, and his invariable need to both feel unique and be perceived as such – and one often ends up with a recipe for inaction.

The under-achieving narcissist dodges challenges, eludes tests, shirks competition, sidesteps expectations, ducks responsibilities, evades authority – because he is afraid to fail and because doing something everyone else does endangers his sense of uniqueness. Hence the narcissist’s apparent “laziness” and “parasitism.” His sense of entitlement – with no commensurate accomplishments or investment – irritates his social milieu. People tend to regard such narcissists as “spoiled brats”.

In specious contrast, the over-achieving narcissist seeks challenges and risks, provokes competition, embellishes expectations, aggressively bids for responsibilities and authority and seems to be possessed with an eerie self-confidence. People tend to regard such specimens as “entrepreneurial”, “daring”, “visionary”, or “tyrannical.” Yet, these narcissists too are mortified by potential failure, driven by a strong conviction of entitlement, and strive to be unique and be perceived as such.

Their hyperactivity is merely the flip side of the under-achiever’s inactivity: it is as fallacious and as empty and as doomed to miscarriage and disgrace. It is often sterile or illusory, all smoke and mirrors rather than substance. The precarious “achievements” of such narcissists invariably unravel. They often act outside the law or social norms. Their industriousness, workaholism, ambition, and commitment are intended to disguise their essential inability to produce and build. Theirs is a whistle in the dark, a pretension, a Potemkin life, all make-believe and thunder.

A Philosophical Comment about Shame

The Grandiosity Gap is the difference between self-image–the way the narcissist perceives himself–and contravening cues from reality. The greater the conflict between grandiosity and reality, the bigger the gap and the greater the narcissist’s feelings of shame and guilt.

There are two varieties of shame:

Narcissistic Shame – which is the narcissist’s experience of the Grandiosity Gap (and its affective correlate). Subjectively it is experienced as a pervasive feeling of worthlessness (the dysfunctional regulation of self-worth is the crux of pathological narcissism), “invisibleness” and ridiculousness. The patient feels pathetic and foolish, deserving of mockery and humiliation.

Narcissists adopt all kinds of defenses to counter narcissistic shame. They develop addictive, reckless, or impulsive behaviors. They deny, withdraw, rage, or engage in the compulsive pursuit of some kind of (unattainable, of course) perfection. They display haughtiness and exhibitionism and so on. All these defenses are primitive and involve splitting, projection, projective identification, and intellectualization.

The second type of shame is Self-Related. It is a result of the gap between the narcissist’s grandiose Ego-Ideal and his Self or Ego. This is a well-known concept of shame and it has been explored widely in the works of Freud [1914], Reich [1960], Jacobson [1964], Kohut [1977], Kingston [1983], Spero [1984] and Morrison [1989].

One must draw a clear distinction between guilt (or control)–related shame and conformity-related shame.

Guilt is an “objectively” determinable philosophical entity (given relevant knowledge regarding the society and culture in question). It is context-dependent. It is the derivative of an underlying assumption by “others” that a Moral Agent exerts control over certain aspects of the world. This assumed control by the agent imputes guilt to it, if it acts in a manner incommensurate with prevailing morals, or refrains from acting in a manner commensurate with them.

Shame, in this case, here is an outcome of the “actual” occurrence of “avoidable” outcomes–events which impute guilt to a Moral Agent who acted wrongly or refrained from acting.

We must distinguish “guilt” from “guilt feelings,” though. Guilt follows events. Guilt feelings can precede them.

Guilt feelings (and the attaching shame) can be “anticipatory.” Moral Agents assume that they control certain aspects of the world. This makes them able to predict the outcomes of their “intentions” and feel guilt and shame as a result – even if nothing happened!

Guilt Feelings are composed of a component of Fear and a component of Anxiety. Fear is related to the external, objective, observable consequences of actions or inaction by the Moral Agent. Anxiety has to do with “inner” consequences. It is ego-dystonic and threatens the identity of the Moral-Agent because being Moral is an important part of it. The internalization of guilt feelings leads to a shame reaction.

Thus, shame has to do with guilty feelings, not with “guilt,” per se. To reiterate, “guilt” is determined by the reactions and anticipated reactions of others to external outcomes such as avoidable waste or preventable failure (the FEAR component). “Guilty feelings” are the reactions and anticipated reactions of the Moral-Agent itself to internal outcomes (helplessness or loss of presumed control, narcissistic injuries – the ANXIETY component).

There is also “conformity-related shame.” It has to do with the narcissist’s feeling of “otherness.” It similarly involves a component of fear (of the reactions of others to one’s otherness) and of anxiety (of the reactions of oneself to one’s otherness).

Guilt-related shame is connected to self-related shame (perhaps through a psychic construct akin to the Superego). Conformity-related shame is more akin to narcissistic shame.

• Seeks to create an illusion of superiority and to build up an image of high self-worth.
• Strives for recognition and prestige to compensate for the lack of a feeling of self-worth.
• May “acquire a deprecatory attitude in which the achievements of others are ridiculed and degraded”.
• Has persistent aspirations for glory and status.
• Has a tendency to exaggerate and boast.
• Is sensitive to how others react to him, watches and listens carefully for critical judgment, and feels slighted by disapproval.
• “Is prone to feel shamed and humiliated and especially (anxious) and vulnerable to the judgments of others”.
• Covers up a sense of inadequacy and deficiency with pseudo-arrogance and pseudo-grandiosity.
• Has a tendency to periodic hypochondria.
• Alternates between feelings of emptiness and deadness and states of excitement and excess energy.
• Entertains fantasies of greatness, constantly striving for perfection, genius, or stardom
• Has a history of searching for an idealized partner and has an intense need for affirmation and confirmation in relationships.
• Frequently entertains a wishful, exaggerated and unrealistic concept of himself, which he can’t possibly measure up to.
• Produces (too quickly) work not up to the level of his abilities because of an overwhelmingly strong need for the immediate gratification of success.
• Is touchy, quick to take offence at the slightest provocation, continually anticipating attack and danger, reacting with anger and fantasies of revenge when he feels himself frustrated in his need for constant admiration.
• Is self-conscious, due to a dependence on approval from others.
• Suffers regularly from repetitive oscillations of self-esteem.
• Seeks to undo feelings of inadequacy by forcing everyone’s attention and admiration upon himself.
• May react with self-contempt and depression to the lack of fulfillment of his grandiose expectations.

Speculative Diagnostic Criteria for Compensatory Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of self-inflation, pseudo-confidence, exhibitionism, and strivings for prestige, that compensates for feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, as indicated by the following:

• Pseudo-confidence compensating for an underlying condition of insecurity and feelings of helplessness.
• Pretentiousness, self-inflation.
• Exhibitionism in the pursuit of attention, recognition, and glory.
• Strivings for prestige to enhance self-esteem.
• Deceitfulness and manipulativeness in the service of maintaining feelings of superiority.
• Idealization in relationships.
• Fragmentation of the self: feelings of emptiness and deadness.
• A proud, hubristic disposition.
• Hypochondriasis
• Substance abuse.
• Self-destructiveness.

Narcissistic Personality Type

The basic trait of the Narcissistic Personality Type is a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

The Narcissistic Personality Type:

• Reacts to criticism with feelings of rage, shame, or humiliation.
• Is interpersonally exploitative: takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends.
• Has a grandiose sense of self-importance.
• Believes that his problems are unique and can be understood only by other special people.
• Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.
• Has a sense of entitlement: an unreasonable expectation of especially favorable treatment.
• Requires much attention and admiration of others.
• Lacks empathy: fails to recognize and experience how others feel.
• Is preoccupied with feelings of envy

There are three “basic” types of narcissists:

The offspring of neglecting parents – They resort to narcissism as the predominant object relation (with themselves as the exclusive object).

The offspring of doting or domineering parents (often narcissists themselves) – They internalized their parents’ voices in the form of a sadistic, ideal, immature Superego and spend their lives trying to be perfect, omnipotent, omniscient and to be judged “a success” by these parent-images and their later representations (authority figures).

The offspring of abusive parents – They internalize the abusing, demeaning and contemptuous voices and spend their lives in an effort to elicit “counter-voices” from their human environment and thus to extract a modicum of self-esteem and sense of self-worth.

All three types exhibit recursive, recurrent and Sisyphean failures. (In Greek legend Sisyphus was punished in Hades for his misdeeds in life by being condemned eternally to roll a heavy stone up a hill. As he neared the top, the stone rolled down again, so that his lab our was everlasting and futile). Shielded by their defense mechanisms, they constantly gauge reality wrongly, their actions and reactions become more and more rigid and ossified and the damage inflicted by them on themselves and on others ever greater.

The narcissistic parent seems to employ a myriad of primitive defenses in his dealings with his children. Splitting – idealizing the child and devaluing him in cycles, which reflect the internal dynamics of the parent rather than anything the child does. Projective-Identification – forcing the child into behaviors and traits, which reflect the parents’ fears regarding himself or herself, his or her self-image and his or her self-worth. This is a particularly powerful and pernicious mechanism. If the narcissist parent fears his own deficiencies (“defects”), vulnerability, perceived weaknesses, susceptibility, gullibility, or emotions – he is likely to force the child to “feel” these rejected and (to him) repulsive emotions, to behave in ways strongly abhorred by the parent, to exhibit character traits the parent strongly rejects in himself.

The child, in a way, becomes the “trash bin” of the parents’ inhibitions, fears, self-loathing, self-contempt, perceived lack of self-worth, sense of inadequacy, rejected traits, repressed emotions, failures and emotional reticence. Coupled with the parent’s treatment of the child as the parent’s extension, it serves to totally inhibit the psychological growth and emotional maturation of the child. The child becomes a reflection of the parent – a vessel through which the parent experiences and realizes himself for better (hopes, aspirations, ambition, life goals) and for worse (weaknesses, “undesirable” emotions, “negative” traits). A host of other, simpler, defense mechanisms employed by the parent are likely to obscure the predominant use of projective identification: projection, displacement, intellectualization, depersonalization. Relationships between such parents and their progeny easily deteriorate to sexual or other modes of abuse because there are no functioning boundaries between them.

It seems that the child’s reaction to a narcissistic parent can be either accommodation and assimilation or rejection.

Accommodation and Assimilation

The child accommodates, idealizes and internalizes the Primary-Object successfully. This means that the child’s “internal voice” is narcissistic and that the child tries to comply with its directives and with its explicit and perceived wishes. The child becomes a masterful provider of Narcissistic-Supply, a perfect match to the parent’s personality, an ideal source, an accommodating, understanding and caring caterer to all the needs, whims, mood swings and cycles of the narcissist, an endurer of devaluation and idealization with equanimity, a superb adapter to the narcissist’s world view, in short: the ultimate extension. This is what we call an “inverted-narcissist”.

We must not neglect the abusive aspect of such a relationship. The narcissistic parent always alternates between idealization of his progeny and its devaluation. The child is likely to internalize the devaluing, abusive, demeaning, berating, diminishing, minimizing, upbraiding, chastising voices. The parent (or caregiver) goes on to survive inside the adult (as part of a sadistic and ideal Superego and an unrealistic Ego-Ideal, to resort to psychoanalytic parlance). These are the voices that inhibit the development of reactive-narcissism, the child’s defense mechanism.

The child turned adult maintains these traits. He keeps looking for narcissists in order to feel whole, alive and wanted. He wishes to be treated by a narcissist narcissistically (what others would call abuse is, to him or her, familiar and constitutes Narcissistic-Supply). To him, the narcissist is a Source of Supply (primary or secondary) and the narcissistic behaviors constitute Narcissistic-Supply. He feels dissatisfied, empty and unloved if not loved by a narcissist.

The roles of Primary-Source of Narcissistic-Supply ‘PSNS” and Secondary-Source of Narcissistic- Supply “SSNS” are reversed. To the inverted-narcissist, a spouse is a Source of Primary-Supply.

The other reaction to the narcissistic parent is:

Rejection

The child may react to the narcissism of the Primary-Object with a peculiar type of rejection. He develops his own narcissistic personality, replete with grandiosity and lack of empathy – but his personality is antithetical to the personality of the narcissistic parent. If the parent were a somatic narcissist – he is likely to be a cerebral one, if his father prided himself being virtuous – he is sinful, if his mother bragged about her frugality, he is bound to flaunt his wealth.

The narcissist tries to merge with an idealized but badly internalized object. He does so by “digesting” the meaningful others in his life and transforming them into extensions of his self. He employs various techniques to achieve this. To the “digested” this is the crux of the harrowing experience called “living with a narcissist”.

The “inverted narcissist” “IN,” on the other hand, does not attempt, except in fantasy or in dangerous, masochistic sexual practice, to merge with an idealized external object. This is because he so successfully internalized the narcissistic Primary-Object to the exclusion of all else. The “IN” feels ill at ease in a relationship with a non-narcissist because it is unconsciously perceived by him to be “betrayal,” “cheating,” an abrogation of the exclusivity clause he had with the narcissistic Primary-Object.

This is the big difference between narcissists and their inverted version. The former rejected the Primary-Object in particular (and object relations in general) in favor of a handy substitute: themselves.

The “IN” accepted the (narcissist) Primary-Object and internalized it – to the exclusion of all others (unless they are perceived by him to be faithful renditions, replicas of the narcissistic Primary-Object).

Criterion One

The “IN” possesses a rigid sense of lack of self-worth.

The narcissist has a badly regulated sense of self-worth. However this is not conscious. He goes through cycles of self-devaluation (and experiences them as dysphoria). The “IN’s” sense of self-worth does not fluctuate. It is rather stable – but it is very low. Whereas the narcissist devalues others – the ‘IN” devalues himself as an offering, a sacrifice to the narcissist. The “IN” preempts the narcissist by devaluing himself, by actively devaluing his own achievements, or talents. The “IN” is exceedingly distressed when singled out because of actual achievements or demonstration of superior skills.

The inverted narcissist is compelled to filter all of his narcissistic needs through the primary narcissist in their lives. No independence is permitted. The “IN” feels amplified by the narcissist’s commentary (because nothing can be accomplished by the invert without the approval of a primary narcissist in their lives).

Criterion Two

Pre-occupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance and beauty or of an ideal of love.

With the narcissist, the dissonance exists on two levels:

Between the unconscious feeling of lack of stable self-worth and the grandiose fantasies and between the grandiose fantasies and reality (the Grandiosity-Gap).

In comparison, the inverted narcissist can only vacillate between lack of self-worth and reality. No grandiosity is permitted, except in dangerous, forbidden fantasy. This shows that the invert is psychologically incapable of fully realizing their inherent potentials without a primary narcissist to filter the praise, adulation or accomplishments through. They must have someone to whom praise can be redirected. The dissonance between the “IN’s” certainty of self-worthlessness and genuine praise that cannot be deflected is likely to emotionally derail the inverted narcissist every time.

Criterion Three

Believes that he is absolutely un-unique and un-special (i.e., worthless and not worthy of merger with the fantasized ideal) and that no one at all could understand him because he is innately unworthy of being understood. The “IN” becomes very agitated the more one tries to understand him because that also offends against his righteous sense of being properly excluded from the human race.

A sense of worthlessness is typical of many other personality disorders (and the feeling that no one could ever understand them). The narcissist himself endures prolonged periods of self-devaluation, self-deprecation and self-effacement. This is part of the Narcissistic-Cycle. In this sense, the inverted narcissist is a partial-narcissist in that he is permanently fixated in a part of the narcissist wheel, never to experience its complementary half: the narcissistic grandiosity and sense of entitlement. The “righteous sense of being properly excluded” comes from the sadistic Superego in concert with the “overbearing, externally reinforced, conscience”.

Criterion Four

Demands anonymity (in the sense of seeking to remain excluded at all costs) and is intensely irritated and uncomfortable with any attention being paid to him – similar to the Schizoid personality disorder”.

Criterion Five

Feels that he is undeserving and not entitled.

Feels that he is inferior to others, lacking, insubstantial, unworthy, unlikeable, unlovable, someone to scorn and dismiss, or to ignore.

Criterion Six

Is extinguishingly selfless, sacrificial, even unctuous in his interpersonal relationships and will avoid the assistance of others at all costs. Can only interact with others when he can be seen to be giving, supportive, and expending an unusual effort to assist.

Some narcissists behave the same way but only as a means to obtain Narcissistic-Supply (praise, adulation, affirmation, attention). This must not be confused with the behavior of the “IN”.

Criterion Seven

Lacks empathy. Is intensely attuned to others’ needs, but only in so far as it relates to his own need to perform the required self-sacrifice, which in turn is necessary in order for the “IN” to obtain his Narcissistic-Supply from the primary narcissist.

By contrast, narcissists are never empathic. They are intermittently attuned to others only in order to optimize the extraction of Narcissistic-Supply from them.

Criterion Eight

Envies others. Cannot conceive of being envied and becomes extremely agitated and uncomfortable if even brought into a situation where comparison might occur – loathes competition and will avoid competition at all costs, if there is any chance of actually winning the competition, or being singled out.

Criterion Nine

Displays extreme shyness, lack of any real relational connections, is publicly self-effacing in the extreme, is internally highly moralistic and critical of others; is a perfectionist and engages in lengthy ritualistic behaviors, which can never be perfectly performed (obsessive-compulsive, though not necessarily to the full extent exhibited in OCD). Notions of being individualistic are anathema.

The Reactive Patterns of the Inverted Narcissist “IN”

The inverted narcissist is liable to react with rage whenever threatened, or……When envious of other people’s achievements, their ability to feel wholeness, happiness, rewards and successes, when his sense of self-worthlessness is enhanced by a behavior, a comment, an event, when his lack of self-worth and voided self-esteem is threatened. Thus, this type of narcissist might surprisingly react violently or rage-fully to good things: a kind remark, a mission accomplished, a reward, a compliment, a proposition, a sexual advance).

• When thinking about the past, when emotions and memories are evoked (usually negative ones) by certain music, a given smell, or sight.
• When his pathological envy leads to an all-pervasive sense of injustice and being discriminated against or treated unjustly by a spiteful world.
• When he encounters stupidity, avarice, dishonesty, bigotry – it is these qualities in him that the narcissist really fears and rejects so vehemently in others.
• When he believes that he failed (and he always entertains this belief), that he is imperfect and useless and worthless, a good for nothing half-baked creature.
• When he realizes to what extent his inner demons possess him, constrain his life, torment him, deform him and the hopelessness of it all.

Then even the inverted-narcissist rages. He becomes verbally and emotionally abusive. He uncannily pierces the soft spots of his target, and mercilessly drives home the poisoned dagger of despair and self-loathing until it infects his adversary.

The calm after such a storm is even eerier, a thundering silence. The narcissist regrets his behavior but rarely admits his feelings, though he might apologize profusely.

He simply nurtures his feelings as yet another weapon of self-destruction and self-defeat. It is from this very suppressed self-contempt, from this very repressed and introverted judgment, from this missing emotional atonement that the narcissistic rage springs forth. Thus the vicious cycle is established.

One important difference between inverted-narcissists and non-narcissists is that the former are less likely to react with “PTSD” (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) following a relationship with a narcissist. They seem to be “desensitized” to narcissists by their early upbringing. Whereas the reactions of normal people to narcissistic behavior patterns (and especially to the splitting and projective identification defense mechanisms and to the idealization devaluation cycles) is shock, profound hurt and disorientation – inverted-narcissists show none of the above.

This information is meant to further illustrate the energy fields of the human body. The renderings and colored chart represent the general shapes and placement of individual Chakras. In the real world the shape and placement of the Chakras and fields vary from person to person and is a reflection of individual spiritual development.

The human energy system comprises seven major vortices of energy called Chakras or energy centers. These vortices of energy are distributed from the root Chakra between the legs and the crown Chakra at the top of the head. The Chakras were named thousands of years ago by adepts who could see the cloud like fields of energy that are visible surrounding each chakra. Actual physical position of the Chakras varies from individual to individual and as you see in the accompanying illustrations, location also varies with gender. There are more than forty additional minor Chakras of the human body, one located in the vicinity of every joint of the skeletal system. Each of the major Chakras has a male and female polarity.

The human body is part of a hyper-dimensional energy system that exists within and cannot be separated from space and time. Physicists reference this energy system when they talk about the “Holographic Paradigm.” This paradigm describes a space-time domain—all physical reality that we experience, is a hologram.

A primary component of this paradigm is the concept that the human brain is a holographic transducer, we are spiritual beings and that we are projected from another dimension (a hyper-dimension or hyper-dimensions) into space and time.

As spiritual beings everything in our reality is first created mentally, created from thought, projected outside onto the world around us and then perceived by us as a hologram within which we simultaneously exist. We know that a holographic photo plate contains the entire three-dimensional image of an object and that every part of the hologram (no mater how small) also contains the entire image. Likewise we are holographic beings. We exist within the universe and we also contain the entire universe within us.

As human beings we experience space and time through dualities, the polarized energies and the polar opposites. Without the experience of polarities, we would be unable to distinguish or differentiate ourselves from the surrounding world or perceive anything as separate from self. Polarized states create a tension and allow us to experience the full range, the gradations between, on and off, positive and negative, hot and cold, light and dark, etc. Polarized states are analogous to the “male,” cognitive, linear, or active components of our psyche. In the “Intensive Life Training” we also explore the “female” component of our psyche, an aspect not as often honored within our culture. It is also called, the affective, intuitive, receptive or feeling domain.

Every Chakra of the human body is a vortex or transducer of energy, a holographic interface with space-time and higher dimensions. Chakras are an interface through which energy flows in and out of the body—nourishing and being nourished by the Auric field of the human body. This holographic field extends out into the hyper-dimensional spiritual domain, into the universal and all that is. Some of the polarities of the human body are listed below, as you progress through the “Intensive” you will discover why these and other polarities are so.

There are several, “male—female” polarities associated with the body. The back side of the human body from head to toe constitutes a “male” energy. The front side of the human body from head to toe constitutes a “female” energy. The system may be easier to understand if you visualize the male energy as a vehicle or motive force, a force that actualizes and activates the female creative energy. The back side of the body is the supportive vehicle that moves the creative-receptive front side of the body through space–time.

The top half of the body is male—with the male energy centered in the mid-chest area just above the sternum. The “Heart Chakra’ is located just behind the sternum and just below the “Mid-Chest Chakra.” The Heart Chakra is the center of unconditional love and this is where we are connected to everything in the universe.

The bottom half of the body is female—centered at the Second Chakra. The Second Chakra is located an inch or two below the navel. The Second Chakra is also the center of our mind, the center we move from and the center of our sexuality. The Third Chakra—located at the solar plexus is the emotional center and the center of our personal power. The whole-left side of the body from head to toe is female and the whole right side of the body from head to toe is male. These are just a few of the polarities that we cover in the various trainings.

Almost every native and ancient culture understood and expressed these conventions in a similar manner. This male-female relationship is somewhat understood in traditional psychological circles as left brain and right brain, cognitive-intuitive. Psychological tradition states that the left side of the body is controlled by the right brain considered to be the female—intuitive or feeling brain. The right side of the body is controlled by the left brain considered to be the male—linear or cognitive brain.

All polarities are explored experientially through movement therapy in the classes.

People often ask how the process I share differs from a secular psychological view of the world. It is spiritually based rather than based in an ego-identified rational, godless view of the world.

The following material makes a distinction between the secular ego-based rational world-view and a spiritually based life. During the last thirty years spiritually and religion have fallen out of fashion. Many have little religious or spiritual training or spiritual foundation as the central guiding force in their life. Most have little sense that there is a spiritual basis to all life and have identified with the secular-scientific godless view of the world.

California is rife with this materialistic view of the world. Happiness is derived through externals, possessions and accomplishments. People come from all over to find happiness in California. Many end up bitter, jaded and angry when they find that nothing has changed except the weather. We see the attitude raging on the streets everyday. You see the rage as they push others aside, with the get out of my way you are an impediment to my finding happiness. Surrounded by beauty and every imaginable thing, they are still not happy. In every moment their life is a story of pain and suffering as they push joy away in the act of feeding their desires.

Moral relativism is a key feature of this way of secular thinking, adjusting morals and values to serve the moment at hand. This is evident in the mass corruption in major corporations at all levels of management during the 1990s. The end justifies the means.

Much of secularism is a philosophy of victimhood and denigrates anything of spirit. When the mind is all there is, it sees victims and problems that need to be fixed everywhere it looks. In truth there is a spiritual solution to every “perceived” problem.

Happiness is a natural inner state. It is within all of us. It is a choice to live in ones head, to focus attention outside of self, to avoid ones true nature and suffer instead. One can just as easily go within to ones innate peace and divinity.

A Statement of Humanistic-Secular Principles

• We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems.
• We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation.
• We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life.
• We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.
• We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state.
• We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.
• We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating discrimination and intolerance.
• We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves.
• We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.
• We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species.
• We believe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest.
• We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence.
• We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to comprehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity.
• We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences.
• We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion.
• We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences.
• We are citizens of the universe and are excited by discoveries still to be made in the cosmos.
• We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking.
• We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others.
• We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality.
• We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.

At first glance these points seem very innocuous. However the moral basis for these precepts is seated within the rational mind rather than grounded within ones divinity. To the secular humanist the mind is mightier than spirit. Humanists often shout down anyone who disagrees with their view of the world.

How Do Secular Humanists View Religious and Supernatural Claims?

Secular humanists accept a world view or philosophy called naturalism, in which the physical laws of the universe are not superseded by non-material or supernatural entities such as demons, gods, or other “spiritual” beings outside the realm of the natural universe. Supernatural events such as miracles (in which physical laws are defied) and psi phenomena, such as ESP, telekinesis, etc., are not dismissed out of hand, but are viewed with a high degree of skepticism.

Are Secular Humanists Atheists?

Secular humanists typically describe themselves as atheist (without a belief in a god and very skeptical of the possibility) or agnostic (without a belief in a god and uncertain as to the possibility). Secular humanists hail from widely divergent philosophical and religious backgrounds, ranging from Christian fundamentalism to liberal belief systems to lifelong atheism. Some have achieved a comfortable secular humanist stance after a period of deism. Deists are those who express a vague or mystical feeling that a creative intelligence may be, or was at one time, connected to the universe or involved with its creation, but is now either nonexistent or no longer concerned with its operation.

Secular humanists do not rely upon gods or other supernatural forces to solve their problems or provide guidance for their conduct. They rely instead upon the application of reason, the lessons of history, and personal experience to form an ethical/moral foundation and to create meaning in life. Secular humanists look to the methodology of science as the most reliable source of information about what is factual or true about the universe we all share, acknowledging that new discoveries will always alter and expand our understanding of it and perhaps change our approach to ethical issues as well.

What Is The Origin of Secular Humanism?

Secular Humanism is a term which has come into use in the last thirty years to describe a world view with the following elements and principles.

• A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
• Commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
• A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
• A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
• A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
• A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
• A conviction that with reason, an open marketplace of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.

Secular humanism as an organized philosophical system is relatively new, but its foundations can be found in the ideas of classical Greek philosophers such as the Stoics and Epicureans as well as in Chinese Confucianism. These philosophical views looked to human beings rather than gods to solve human problems.

During the Dark Ages of Western Europe, humanist philosophies were suppressed by the political power of the church. Those who dared to express views in opposition to the prevailing religious dogmas were banished, tortured or executed. Not until the Renaissance of the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, with the flourishing of art, music, literature, philosophy and exploration, would consideration of the humanist alternative to a god-centered existence be permitted. During the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, with the development of science, philosophers finally began to openly criticize the authority of the church and engage in what became known as “free thought.”

The nineteenth century Freethought movement of America and Western Europe finally made it possible for the common citizen to reject blind faith and superstition without the risk of persecution. The influence of science and technology, together with the challenges to religious orthodoxy by such celebrity freethinkers as Mark Twain and Robert G. Ingersoll brought elements of humanist philosophy even to mainline Christian churches, which became more concerned with this world, less with the next.

In the twentieth century scientists, philosophers, and progressive theologians began to organize in an effort to promote the humanist alternative to traditional faith-based world views. These early organizers classified humanism as a non-theistic religion which would fulfill the human need for an ordered ethical/philosophical system to guide one’s life, a “spirituality” without the supernatural. In the last thirty years, those who reject supernaturalism as a viable philosophical outlook have adopted the term “secular humanism” to describe their non-religious life stance.

Critics often try to classify secular humanism as a religion. Yet secular humanism lacks essential characteristics of a religion, including belief in a deity and an accompanying transcendent order. Secular humanists contend that issues concerning ethics, appropriate social and legal conduct, and the methodologies of science are philosophical and are not part of the domain of religion, which deals with the supernatural, mystical and transcendent.

Secular humanism, then, is a philosophy and world view which centers upon human concerns and employs rational and scientific methods to address the wide range of issues important to us all. While secular humanism is at odds with faith-based religious systems on many issues, it is dedicated to the fulfillment of the individual and humankind in general. To accomplish this end, secular humanism encourages a commitment to a set of principles which promote the development of tolerance and compassion and an understanding of the methods of science, critical analysis, and philosophical reflection.