Psychology.

Beware The Spiritual Narcissist.

Two signs that psychologists identify in spiritual narcissists.

Photo by Rowen Smith on Unsplash

“Self-enhancement through spiritual practices can fool us into thinking we are evolving and growing, when in fact all we are growing is our ego.” — Scott Barry Kaufman.

Tibetan Buddhist Chögyam Trungpa warns of ego distortions in seeking spiritual awareness and psychologists agree.

Psychologists find that spiritualism may in fact strengthen ego over self-enhancement. This ego-enhancement leads to :

1. The “I’m enlightened and you’re not” syndrome. This syndrome is often seen in spiritualist churches and in memes on social media.
2. Spiritual bypassing. Spiritual narcissists use spiritual bypassing as a defence for their harmful words and actions.

Spiritual bypassing is a common effect of pseudo-transcendence as Scott Barry Kaufman expands in his book, “Transcend: The New Science of Actualization.” The book also discuss spiritual bypassing in the following story: