The Narcissist Resides Within History Alone

In this post, I made the point that the human being dwells simultaneously in the realms and history and Spirit. In this post, I pointed out that the admixture of history and Spirit varies from person to person depending on the degree to which the spiritual capacities have been developed.

Most people exist largely within the realm of history, concerned more with the process of getting and spending, cause and effect, investment and immediate return than they are with transcendent values, states and ideas.

The spiritual dimension is always a fraction of the whole. Spiritual growth is the process of increasing the numerator. As a normal person matures spiritual values and powers make up more of the whole.

This is not true for the narcissist. The numerator in the narcissist’s fraction is frozen at or near zero. His ability to exercise spiritual power is so limited that growth has become impossible. He cannot reflect on himself, cannot become aware of the destructive ruts in which his mind routinely runs, cannot see his own emptiness.

The precondition for exercising the spiritual capacities of the self is to have a self. The narcissist has no self and therefore no capacity for spiritual power. Instead of a self, the narcissist has a facade, an image he has cobbled together from his impressions of what others desire to see and which he hopes to see reflected back.

As a person totally consumed by the historical dimension of being, the narcissist’s only recourse is worldly, historical power which he yields ruthlessly in his attempt to fill his void. He may threaten. He may be violent. He may destroy property, reputations or relationships.

At other times, his moves may be more covert. He may manipulate, guilt trip, engage in endless confusing conversations designed to exhaust and gaslight his victim. Whether blatant or subtle, the narcissist’s behavior is always an expression of worldly power in an attempt to acquire the one thing he imagines deep down will fill the void where his soul ought to be.

What he believes will fill this void is the soul of another. All his machinations are focused on this. His cruelties are fueled by the desire to possess, corrupt and destroy the soul of another in hopes of replacing what he lacks.

The narcissist on the hunt for souls to ravage is characterized above all by his lack of empathy. He cannot behold reality from the point of view of another because employing empathy is a spiritual power and the narcissist, as a person totally confined to the historical dimension, lacks such capacities.

He resides instead in a world of cause and effect, a world in which he is forever seeking to manipulate causes to achieve the effect he most desires: the acquisition of another’s soul.

Of course, this leads only to frustration because temporal, historical methods can only yield temporal, historical results and the soul exists beyond this realm. As the narcissist’s frustration mounts so do the extremity of his tactics. He will become ever more cruel or manipulative or aggressive until his victim dies or flees.

Even then, the narcissist will not see because as a creature bound entirely to the historical realm, he can only blame the absent and the dead.