What is the relationship between narcissism and fringe cult leadership?

 

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What is the relationship between narcissism and fringe cult leadership?

 I was in Scientology for twenty five years.

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

How Cults Work 1 - A New Look

I have written many posts online about cults and taken on many separate aspects of cults in the past few years. This post is going to be dif...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-new-look.html

How Cults Work 2 - First Things First

This is the second post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein. In her book she starts out by ...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-first-things-first.html

How Cults Work 3 - Totalist Group Structure

This is the third post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein. This post picks up at the topic...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-totalist-group-structure.html

How Cults Work 4 - The Brainwashing Process and Outcomes

This is the fourth post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein. In this we now take on the bra...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-brainwashing-process-and.html

How Cults Work 5 - Attachment Theory

This is the fifth post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein. In this post we zero in on atta...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-attachment-theory.html

How Cults Work 6 - Forms Of Attachment

This is the sixth post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein. In this post we can examine how...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-forms-of-attachment.html

How Cults Work 7 - Disorganized Attachment and Dissociation

This is the seventh post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein. In this post we take on two c...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-disorganized-attachment.html

How Cults Work 8 - Recruitment

This is the eighth post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein. In the third chapter of Terror...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-recruitment.html

How Cults Work 9 - Undue Influence In Recruitment

How Cults Work - Undue Influence In Recruitment This is the ninth post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by ...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-undue-influence-in.html

How Cults Work 10 - Totalist Indoctrination

How Cults Work - Totalist Indoctrination This is the tenth post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexand...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-totalist-indoctrination.html

How Cults Work 11 - Fright Without Solution

This is the eleventh post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein. Stein described the totalist...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-cults-work-11-fright-without.html

Cults In Our Midst Part 1

      "The public takes care of their fear by thinking only crazies and stupid people wind up in cults. I've interviewed over 4000 ...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/09/cults-in-our-midst-part-1.html

Traumatic Narcissism: part 1 Scientology and Hubbard

I have seen the extraordinary cult expert Doctor Daniel Shaw in several YouTube videos and read several online articles by him including an ...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2017/01/traumatic-narcissism-part-1-scientology.html

Traumatic Narcissism part 2: The Relationships in Scientology

This series references the book Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation by Doctor Daniel Shaw. All quotes referenced are fro...

https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2017/01/traumatic-narcissism-part-2.html

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