Great musings. I may muse further upon them myself later today when my work
week is over and I have more time to...uh...muse. As for now, I'll just follow
up on your thoughts about doing studies of spiritual teachers to see whether
they exhibit known personality disorders by reposting the actual criteria that
were used to diagnose Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I can't think of very
many modern spiritual teachers I have met and spent time with who DON'T meet at
least five of these criteria.
Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
In order for a person to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder
(NPD) they must meet five or more of the following symptoms:
- Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements
and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate
achievements)
- Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance,
beauty, or ideal love
- Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood
by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or
institutions)
- Requires excessive admiration
- Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of
especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her
expectations
- Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his
or her own ends
- Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the
feelings and needs of others
- Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or
her
- Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
From: salyavin808 <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, March 6, 2015 7:55 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Meet the Ancestor!
---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote :
One to three percent of the population are thought to be sociopaths. There are
degrees of this. Psycopaths are the extreme end of the spectrum, sociopaths are
milder and generally fit in with the 'normals' much more easily. A general
characteristic is a lack of empathy and aggressive goal setting behaviour, but
such people have the ability to mimic normal emotions without actually feeling
them. They can also stare you down with an unrelenting gaze.
We class these conditions as "pathologies" but maybe they are just part of the
natural range of human social or self interaction? We all have the varying
components to a greater or lesser degree and the likelihood of personality
disorders manifesting is down to the same familial pressures we all have. Or is
there a genetic component that needs to be expressed in conjunction with a
dysfunctional upbringing?
Whatever the truth I would wager there have always been sociopaths just like
there have always been bipolar types and a lot of those make very good leaders
(Winston Churchill etc) because the manic part of the condition makes them very
dynamic and charismatic and also seems to "up" their levels of empathy so they
seem to automatically know how to get the best out of people around them. I
have experienced this in a friend who was badly schizophrenic and had a phase
he regularly went through that I called his "Jesus mode" because he could walk
into a room and radiate this peace and love to all and without even speaking.
It was amazing to behold as everyone would sit quietly and look at him and he
would talk to each person in turn, nothing profound just a deep empathy and
left you feeling like you'd really met someone. Sadly it was part of a swing
from isolated depression towards highly erratic and finally paranoid or violent
psychosis and he'd end up in a secure hospital.
Obviously there's nobody who wouldn't have classed him as mentally ill but
while he was coherent the personality traits were highly attractive and the
thing is, we all have them to varying degrees. In fact, the promise of TM is to
make us more like that because of it's richer depth of experience and we all
went for it for that reason I'm sure.
But suppose Marshy was "suffering" from a personality disorder, was it present
before he took to the spiritual path? Maybe he passed through a similar
spectrum and drew the crowds to him before it went over the top to it's
inevitable conclusion as the accelerated normality that perhaps it was?
I say "suffering" above because it's possible that these personality types are
actually part of an evolutionary attempt to sort us into leaders and followers
by enhancing traits that are useful. Maybe NPD gets classed as a disorder
because it falls outside of the bland averages that we declare to be normal
behaviour due to the constraints of our society that we self imposed so we can
get along better?
Seraphita's point that there are more depressed people in the west than India
is an interesting one but that seems to me to be a different type of disorder
than the perhaps genetic/evolutionary ones we are talking about that are more
social spectrum things rather than the mind giving up under stress and
defaulting to "quit" mode.
Not that depression hasn't evolved, I read a book recently about how it evolved
among primates to keep the secondary members of a group subdued so the leaders
can rule unchallenged. The evidence is good and if the stimulus of thwarted
ambition occurs repeatedly a lot of people (and chimps etc) will exhibit signs
of depression. Nature keeps us in our place occasionally, it isn't a good thing
of course but you can see why it's so common these days.
All speculation of course, I'm not aware of any studies of religious leaders in
the context of mental health disorders but it's an interesting area of
research. I can't imagine Marshy or Ron Hubbard agreeing to do the interviews
though so we'll have to do it from afar but we all have these psychopathic
traits to a certain levels of expression because they are part of normal
interaction. Maybe meditation is bad for those who have a higher innate level
of psychopathy because it will exacerbate it. Maybe these people make the best
dome guardians while the artsy-dreamy types like me get more spaced out and "at
one" with things thus letting the leaders get on with it?
All fun musings...
---In [email protected], <s3raphita@...> wrote :
Re "It certainly does not seem inconceivable that Maharishi was a sociopath":
Sure. It's not inconceivable, but "sociopath" seems a rather strong label. Bit
of a puffed-up egotist maybe?
If we are talking rates of mental illness then the West leads the world.
Disorders like schizophrenia and chronic depression, although common amongst
us, were until recently extremely rare in the Third World. (On a more mundane
level, Maharishi's astonishment that westerners used sleeping pills is
revealing.) Mental disorders are now not so rare - precisely because the
"underdeveloped" world has been following our lead as regards consumerism,
individualism, reliance on modern technology, etc. The resulting alienation is
now impacting on the psychological health of people trying to cope with radical
and sudden shifts away from traditional patterns of social cohesion.
I suspect that Indians (MMY included) have been far less likely to suffer from
mental pathologies. Sure, they have no shortage of undesirable traits,
including extremely disturbing attitudes to the freedom of women (MMY included)
but they are less susceptible to mental imbalance as they still retain, at
least to a larger extent than us, traditional societal norms.
---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote :
In the past day or so there have been 30 posts to FFL and 8 to the Peak. Since
I am on both forums, I redid my email, sorting them into FFL and Peak folders,
and one particular poster also on both goes directly to the trash, so these
figures here represent everyone else. The intellects here are much more likely
to jump on inconsistencies and sloppy thinking here. There have been a few
conversations of note on the peak, but mostly it is kind of tepid with a halo
of woo fluff. Without a challenge the mind gets soft. Right now there seems to
be a conversation about Vernon Katz's new volume. While here I can wonder what
percent of my DNA matched that of Australopithecus Afarensis, or whether Buddha
would have liked coffee if he had had access to it. Here you can say what you
really think. For example, watching Maharishi on tapes some 35 years ago, I was
watching him pounding a flower against his face chuckling to himself and I was
really thinking, is this guy some kind of saint or a daemon, it was like there
was this experience of a dark thread running through that session. I have
lately been reading a bit about sociopaths, and it certainly does not seem
inconceivable that Maharishi was a sociopath considering the way he dealt with
people and because of his incredible focus on getting what he wanted. There are
certain features of sociopathy and states developed via meditation that cross
over, and 'bad' socipathic traits might get enhanced by practice.
From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]"
<[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2015 9:09 AM
Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Meet the Ancestor!
From: salyavin808 <[email protected]>
---In [email protected], <turquoiseb@...> wrote :
LOL. I was going to make the same comment. :-)
I just took my first ever look at the Peak, it's a bit too anodyne for my taste
but I totally get why they didn't like hanging around with us! I'm almost
embarrassed at having actual opinions about things.
At least now you understand the irony I've been pointing out about The_Leak
since its inception. People like Ann, Steve (seventhray), and Buck *claim* that
they're there on The_Leak because it's higher vibe and they prefer that. But at
the same time they make a surprising number of posts *about* FFL. And *in*
those posts they make it clear that they still come to FFL and *read every word
of every post made by the people they hated while they were here* -- you, me,
and Michael. What's up with that, eh? The_Leak is "higher vibe," but they can't
get their rocks off without slumming at FFL?
Meanwhile, while claiming "28 members," the 107 posts made on The_Leak in the
last week were primarily made by 5 people, with another 4 contributing one
each. Compare and contrast to contentious and "abyss-mal" Fairfield Life, which
during its last full week contained 321 posts, made by 18 people, with another
8 contributing one post each. (And in fact -- and to counter your assertion
that they "don't like hanging around with us" -- three of The_Leak members
posted more *here* on FFL than they did there.)
I stand by my original predictions -- I don't see The_Leak surviving. I see it
headed for the same fate as the similarly anodyne BATGAP messages forum, which
still nominally has 116 members, but which had ZERO posts last week. Statistics
don't lie -- there simply is no lasting market for namby-pamby.
What's going to be fascinating is how Jimbo is going to try to spin things when
The_Leak fails and he comes back here seeking his attention fix. Now THAT is
going to be entertaining. :-)
#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514 -- #yiv5281854514ygrp-mkp {border:1px solid
#d8d8d8;font-family:Arial;margin:10px 0;padding:0 10px;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-mkp hr {border:1px solid #d8d8d8;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-mkp #yiv5281854514hd
{color:#628c2a;font-size:85%;font-weight:700;line-height:122%;margin:10px
0;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-mkp #yiv5281854514ads
{margin-bottom:10px;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-mkp .yiv5281854514ad
{padding:0 0;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-mkp .yiv5281854514ad p
{margin:0;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-mkp .yiv5281854514ad a
{color:#0000ff;text-decoration:none;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-sponsor
#yiv5281854514ygrp-lc {font-family:Arial;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-sponsor #yiv5281854514ygrp-lc #yiv5281854514hd {margin:10px
0px;font-weight:700;font-size:78%;line-height:122%;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-sponsor #yiv5281854514ygrp-lc .yiv5281854514ad
{margin-bottom:10px;padding:0 0;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514actions
{font-family:Verdana;font-size:11px;padding:10px 0;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514activity
{background-color:#e0ecee;float:left;font-family:Verdana;font-size:10px;padding:10px;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514activity span {font-weight:700;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514activity span:first-child
{text-transform:uppercase;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514activity span a
{color:#5085b6;text-decoration:none;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514activity span
span {color:#ff7900;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514activity span
.yiv5281854514underline {text-decoration:underline;}#yiv5281854514
.yiv5281854514attach
{clear:both;display:table;font-family:Arial;font-size:12px;padding:10px
0;width:400px;}#yiv5281854514 .yiv5281854514attach div a
{text-decoration:none;}#yiv5281854514 .yiv5281854514attach img
{border:none;padding-right:5px;}#yiv5281854514 .yiv5281854514attach label
{display:block;margin-bottom:5px;}#yiv5281854514 .yiv5281854514attach label a
{text-decoration:none;}#yiv5281854514 blockquote {margin:0 0 0
4px;}#yiv5281854514 .yiv5281854514bold
{font-family:Arial;font-size:13px;font-weight:700;}#yiv5281854514
.yiv5281854514bold a {text-decoration:none;}#yiv5281854514 dd.yiv5281854514last
p a {font-family:Verdana;font-weight:700;}#yiv5281854514 dd.yiv5281854514last p
span {margin-right:10px;font-family:Verdana;font-weight:700;}#yiv5281854514
dd.yiv5281854514last p span.yiv5281854514yshortcuts
{margin-right:0;}#yiv5281854514 div.yiv5281854514attach-table div div a
{text-decoration:none;}#yiv5281854514 div.yiv5281854514attach-table
{width:400px;}#yiv5281854514 div.yiv5281854514file-title a, #yiv5281854514
div.yiv5281854514file-title a:active, #yiv5281854514
div.yiv5281854514file-title a:hover, #yiv5281854514 div.yiv5281854514file-title
a:visited {text-decoration:none;}#yiv5281854514 div.yiv5281854514photo-title a,
#yiv5281854514 div.yiv5281854514photo-title a:active, #yiv5281854514
div.yiv5281854514photo-title a:hover, #yiv5281854514
div.yiv5281854514photo-title a:visited {text-decoration:none;}#yiv5281854514
div#yiv5281854514ygrp-mlmsg #yiv5281854514ygrp-msg p a
span.yiv5281854514yshortcuts
{font-family:Verdana;font-size:10px;font-weight:normal;}#yiv5281854514
.yiv5281854514green {color:#628c2a;}#yiv5281854514 .yiv5281854514MsoNormal
{margin:0 0 0 0;}#yiv5281854514 o {font-size:0;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514photos div {float:left;width:72px;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514photos div div {border:1px solid
#666666;height:62px;overflow:hidden;width:62px;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514photos div label
{color:#666666;font-size:10px;overflow:hidden;text-align:center;white-space:nowrap;width:64px;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514reco-category {font-size:77%;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514reco-desc {font-size:77%;}#yiv5281854514 .yiv5281854514replbq
{margin:4px;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-actbar div a:first-child
{margin-right:2px;padding-right:5px;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-mlmsg
{font-size:13px;font-family:Arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-mlmsg table {font-size:inherit;font:100%;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-mlmsg select, #yiv5281854514 input, #yiv5281854514 textarea
{font:99% Arial, Helvetica, clean, sans-serif;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-mlmsg pre, #yiv5281854514 code {font:115%
monospace;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-mlmsg *
{line-height:1.22em;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-mlmsg #yiv5281854514logo
{padding-bottom:10px;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-msg p a
{font-family:Verdana;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-msg
p#yiv5281854514attach-count span {color:#1E66AE;font-weight:700;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-reco #yiv5281854514reco-head
{color:#ff7900;font-weight:700;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-reco
{margin-bottom:20px;padding:0px;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-sponsor
#yiv5281854514ov li a {font-size:130%;text-decoration:none;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-sponsor #yiv5281854514ov li
{font-size:77%;list-style-type:square;padding:6px 0;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-sponsor #yiv5281854514ov ul {margin:0;padding:0 0 0
8px;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-text
{font-family:Georgia;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-text p {margin:0 0 1em
0;}#yiv5281854514 #yiv5281854514ygrp-text tt {font-size:120%;}#yiv5281854514
#yiv5281854514ygrp-vital ul li:last-child {border-right:none
!important;}#yiv5281854514
