What is the relationship between narcissism and fringe cult leadership?

 I think the most direct answers to this question are found in two books: Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein and Traumatic Narcissism by Daniel Shaw. They both describe the relationship between a cult leader and the followers in fine detail and the mindset of the cult leader in terms regarding the dynamics of this relationship.

The ideas put forth by these cult experts in these excellent books explain in very clear terms how the cult leader acts as a human predator, known in much of the literature as a malignant narcissist, or in Shaw's terms a traumatizing narcissist, and uses the people following them in an abusive relationship.

Cult expert Margaret Singer said that to be a cult leader you must be willing to lie to people and to exploit people. She meant in my opinion you must be willing to harm them, to traumatize them, to cultivate trust then betray that trust. Her book Cults In Our Midst described this quite well.

I also think that Robert Jay Lifton described this quite well in numerous books including his latest, Losing Reality.

Here are blog posts related to this topic:

In Depth Analysis of Books and Videos

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-new-look.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-first-things-first.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-totalist-group-structure.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-brainwashing-process-and.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-attachment-theory.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-forms-of-attachment.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-disorganized-attachment.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-recruitment.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-undue-influence-in.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-totalist-indoctrination.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-11-fright-without.html

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/09/cults-in-our-midst-part-1.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2017/01/traumatic-narcissism-part-1-scientology.htmlhttps://mbnest.blogspot.com/2017/01/traumatic-narcissism-part-2.html

Several more posts are available at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology.