Narcissism: Taking a History (Part 1 of 2)

At the beginning of healing processes, healers commonly do what’s called “taking a history.” Taking a history can be helpful in understanding the roots of things. And since Aristotle found that narcissism’s hubris was perpetuated by those lacking a knowledge of history, we might do well to take a history of narcissism itself. While gaining some view of how earlier cultural epochs have viewed, and attempted to address it...

Seventy thousand years ago, humanity was undergoing what historian Yuval Noah Harari termed a “cognitive revolution.” For the first time humans began to think and talk about things that don’t exist (in a literal, physical way). This is when humans first began to create myths. And nearly 6000 years ago in Sumer, another cognitive revolution occurred. This is when humans first began to write. (Initially, upon wet clay tablets that were then left in the sun to dry). And well over 2000 years ago, Greek and Roman poets were writing about narcissism. And these ancient bards gave us numerous versions of the myth of Narcissus— from which narcissism was first named. Narcissism is thus arguably the oldest, and earliest recognized personality disorder.

The Greeks then tried to criminalize it—akin to our version of an impeachment trial. For they considered hubris so detrimental to the health of society that it was both prosecuted as a civic crime against other citizens, while also considered as a violation of archetypal, spiritual relations—a crime against the gods. Perhaps for both reasons, hubris was commonly also the fatal character flaw in the protagonists of ancient Greek drama.

For well over 2500 years, the Asian spiritual traditions have been attempting to nudge humanity past its limiting, egocentric world-view—a developmental stage that can be healthy— but only for young children. (Should it persist into adulthood, narcissism is thus a case of developmental arrest). Quite significantly, the Asian spiritual traditions have also promoted the empathy and compassion that narcissism lacks. And until the latter part of the 4th century AD, the Greeks attempted to promote a similar developmental shift through collectively induced initiatory rites, the most famous of which were those celebrated at Eleusis.

The Eleusinian mysteries were the greatest transformational rites of the pre-Christian world. And for 2000 years they enabled its celebrants to uncover a spiritual vision that outshined both their individual ego structures, as well as their fear of death.

These spiritual rites were outlawed when the follower of a new mystery religion (Theodosius I) became crowned as the leader of the Roman Empire. For he feared the old myths, their deities, and ritual practices could hamper the spread of Christianity. A once tiny and persecuted sect was becoming the new state religion, and within a few years the sites of the sacred rites were turned to ruble, sites where transformational rites had been practiced for millennia. And from the 4th century on, as Joseph Campbell has told us, Europe began to become “Christianized—at sword point.”

If we jump forward, past medieval times, with their religious wars, and an Inquisition (that in Spain wasn’t to formally end until 1834) another cognitive revolution had begun in the 18th century. This was the so-called Western Enlightenment—or “The Age of Reason.” A new form of operational cognition was emerging. It was to give us science, usher in democracies, the decline of monarchies, and the advent of liberalism.

And by the early 20th century, another cognitive revolution is under way. Though still in its infancy, modern psychology was emerging then—initially from Viennese consulting rooms treating hysteria; a condition that no longer exists—and Swiss hospitals treating schizophrenia.

The new discipline ushered in a heightened awareness of people’s interior life—quite revolutionary for its day; in fact, the beginning of a psychological revolution. Even if the “revolution” has somewhat stalled since then. Or lacked the creative, imaginative fervor of its seminal figures, who were visionaries at the cutting edge of their time. (One thinks of Jung eating a dozen eggs and two loaves of bread each morning, as if to ground himself with ballast as he explored his own visions. Or Freud, humbly confessing: Wherever I go, I find that a poet has been there before me).

But the early psychoanalysts weren’t poets. Most were medical doctors. They were also starting from scratch--inventing, following, or squabbling over each other’s theories. And in their effort to establish their infant discipline as a legitimate medical and scientific enterprise, the early psychoanalysts largely attempted to divorce their discipline from its close cousins— the world’s religious and spiritual traditions.

The psychoanalytic movement thus adopted its own version of a mantra: Where id is, there shall ego be. But the primacy of the ego that it fostered, offered little aid for spiritual development—or transforming narcissism. (continued)