ABSTRACT
Fresh spiritual movements have always had people who become uncomfortable at being situated at the centre of their personal universe. People with strong narcissistic trends have to struggle to love themselves or others, have no sense of being lovable, cannot allow themselves to be loved. In a narcissistic state of mind, only one thing is deeply and immediately experienced: what happens to oneself. Some people, finding that this is how they are, do not like it. Differences in the degree of pathological narcissism must be attributable, at least in part, to differences in the way people's healthy narcissism was respected in childhood. The literature on mysticism shows two main approaches to the ineffable, depending among other things on how people feel about being the kind of person they are. Bureaucratic rules and holy silliness are extreme self-help solutions to the problems of narcissism, but people may be drawn to them by the dilemma in which they feel caught.
