Tell-Tale Signs of Spiritual Narcissism

The other I went to an event at a spiritual center. I didn’t really want to go, my better judgment said to just have a night of self-care and relaxation while the babysitter takes care of my daughter for a few hours. But, against said better judgment, I went, so I could be social and all that, but was absolutely not surprised by what I witnessed.

Over the course of two hours, a “charismatic leader” pontificated about their psychic abilities, their power to channel the dead, how there’s hundreds of souls in the room RIGHT NOW, but somehow none of the souls had anything meaningful to say about the current conditions of the world, but were more concerned about supporting this person’s new marketing device, and offering a flat piece of advice about, like, holding onto hope, and stuff.

This person spoke in long, unbroken sentences. They cut off anyone that tried to get a word in edgewise, and spent the entire time saying nothing, yet the entire room was captivated, eating up every empty word and laughing to jokes that weren’t even funny. It was spellbinding to see. Truly. How someone with no real spiritual container or scholarly grounding could claim absolute TRUTH with such certainty and simultaneously claim to be a skeptic while not having a crumb of epistemic humility.

If I had gone to this event a decade ago, perhaps I wouldn’t be so jaded, and mayhaps the red flags wouldn’t have been so glaring. I used to be really naive and gullible, but I’ve had way too many experience with “spiritual” leaders and influencers that have hardened me over time.

And, as such, over a decade in the un-wellness space has shown that this archetype is an archetype, and is a carbon copy of a carbon copy, that is increasingly prevalent, and the tell-tale signs are always there.

It’s sad, truly, because the spiritual world should be one of the safest places we can go.

Especially when the world is flipped upside down, and every other day in the news cycle is yet another warning of impending doom. It should be the realm of inquiry, where we bring our most tender questions, our grief, our longing for meaning and connection and feel safe. It should be where we can find comfort within the oracle, who offers sage guidance when the ordinary world feels like an increasingly confusing modern Matrix.

But, most often what should be, is not.

Spiritual narcissism is an epidemic of sorts, which is inextricably linked into the fabric of wellness culture, psychics, yoga studios, retreat centers, online covens, endless personal development and Sisyphean self-help grifts.

It shows up in the teacher who can never be questioned, the community where doubt is treated as a sign of weakness, and the guru who uses your vulnerability as a vehicle for their own power to control.

The hard truth is that the people most drawn to spiritual spaces are often those who have been hurt the most, and the people most likely to exploit spiritual spaces know that.

What Is Spiritual Narcissism?

Spiritual narcissism is what happens when the ego is not tempered through spiritual practice, but rather inflamed to messianic proportions. The person who now believes they're enlightened because they have done "so much work" takes that as confirmation that they are beyond reproach. They become the teacher, usually with unearned wisdom, who transcends ordinary rules. They become the "thought leader" whose vision is so important that the ends justify the means, and the means always happen to benefit them, because they are the cap of the pyramid, the apex predator of muggles and those who still need to "wake up."

It can look like wisdom from the outside, because these personalities have a gift for speaking in long, circuitous, and often deliberately complex ways, with enough charisma that you mistake the performance for knowledge. Their confidence reads as enlightenment. Their charisma reads as being special, picked, or chosen. Their ability to identify your wounds and speak to them directly feels like an almost supernatural psychic gift. By the time you realize something is wrong, you may already be deep inside a system designed to make you doubt yourself before you ever think to doubt them.

Why You Need to Know DARVO

DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. It was identified by psychologist Jennifer Freyd as a common response pattern in abusers when they are held accountable. In a spiritual context, it tends to play out like this: a follower raises a concern, and suddenly they are the problem. The teacher is the one who has been wounded by the accusation. The community rallies around protecting the leader. The person who spoke up is cast out, discredited, or quietly erased.

You'll hear things like: "Your ego is resisting the teaching." "This is your shadow speaking." "You're not spiritually evolved enough to understand." "Look at all the good this person has done."

The language of healing becomes a weapon, and your own inner work is used against you.

This is one of the most insidious things about DARVO in spiritual spaces, because it co-opts the vocabulary of healing and turns it into a silencing mechanism.

What It Looks Like in Practice

The HBO docuseries Breath of Fire traces the rise and fall of Guru Jagat, born Katie Griggs, who built a Kundalini yoga empire with sexy branding and the promise of transformation through “ancient technology.” The series showcased how seamlessly genuine seeking can be exploited, and how a community built around healing can become a closed system that protects its leader above all else. A particularly revealing thread was her "never hire, never fire" approach, exploiting free labor under the guise of exposure or spiritual service, while simultaneously charging extraordinary amounts for her own offerings — a very common practice with a lot of spiritual influencers as a whole. Devotion as currency, and she knew exactly how to collect it.

The Freeform docuseries The Deep End is another prime example. This series follows Teal Swan, a spiritual influencer with millions of followers, and offers an extremely uncomfortable front-row seat to the dynamics of a high-control community. What makes this particular story so arresting is how ordinary the manipulation looks in real time. The love bombing, the boundary erosion, the way dissent is treated as betrayal rather than legitimate concern. Teal positions herself as all-powerful, all-knowing, and utterly indispensable to her followers' healing, making the idea of leaving feel not just disloyal, but dangerous to their own wellbeing.

And then, of course, there's NXIVM, Keith Raniere's (aka: VANGUARD) "self-improvement" program that functioned as a trafficking operation beneath a layer of personal development language. What NXIVM illustrated so starkly is that the more sophisticated the spiritual or psychological framework, the more effectively it can be weaponized. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and Raniere used his carefully constructed mythology of enlightenment as cover to control, exploit, and sexually abuse the very people who idolized him and trusted him most with their growth.

These are not anomalies, they are the extreme expressions of patterns that exist on a spectrum throughout spiritual culture.

Red Flags Worth Taking Seriously

If a spiritual leader claims special access to Truth (with a capital “T”) that others cannot verify, that is absolutely a red flag. Especially when that claim comes wrapped in an origin story so extreme, so cinematic, so conveniently unverifiable that it reads more like something out of a literal movie. Surviving impossible (and often Satanic Ritual) abuse, being chosen by otherworldly (GALACTIC!) forces, having gifts that manifested from birth, possessing a special mission that only they can fulfill. The more elaborate the backstory, the more worth pausing on it. Fiction can be compelling precisely because it isn't real.

If your questioning is reframed as ego, fear, or spiritual immaturity, that, too, is another glaring red flag.

If a member of a “community” is gradually isolated from outside perspectives and relationships…red flag.

When there is a strong inner circle and a culture of proving loyalty, or financial or sexual boundaries feel blurry or are normalized as part of the path, and leaving is treated as a betrayal, a spiritual failure, or something to be feared…red flag.

When timelines don’t add up, or tall tales seem too good to be true…red flag.

And pay attention to how you feel in your body when you are around these types of persons. Psychic vampires have a way of making themselves the energetic center of every room. You may leave conversations feeling inexplicably drained, like the air has been vacuumed out and somehow they got more vibrant as you got more depleted. You might find yourself editing your thoughts before you speak, shrinking your reactions, or talking yourself out of what you clearly just witnessed. That is gaslighting, and when it happens repeatedly, you begin to do the work for them, second-guessing your own perceptions before they even have the chance to. You start to wonder if you're too sensitive, too negative, not evolved enough to understand.

RED FLAG!

Trusting Yourself as a Spiritual Act

Real teachers, the ones worth following, tend to have a few things in common. They don't require your total devotion. They encourage you to think for yourself. They hold their own authority lightly. They can be questioned. They point toward your own inner knowing rather than positioning themselves as the sole source of it.

Discernment is a crucial part of the spiritual path, which is why many mystery schools didn't gatekeep arbitrarily, but rather had initiatory degrees so that students couldn't advance without earning it. It's also why Eliphas Levi's powers of the Sphinx remain such an enduring tenet in esoteric practice. To Know, To Will, To Dare, and To Keep Silent. To Know asks us to seek truth with clear eyes. To Will reminds us that our path is ours to walk with intention. To Dare calls us to trust our own perception even when a room full of believers tells us otherwise. And To Keep Silent reminds us that not everything sacred needs to be handed over to someone else for interpretation.

Genuine evolution will never ask you to abandon yourself to ascend to higher levels of awareness. And if you have found yourself somewhere along the way having given too much, trusted too blindly, or followed someone who didn't deserve the devotion you offered, please be gentle with yourself. Sometimes the most priceless lessons happen to be expensive, in money, in time, in pieces of yourself you had to reclaim. But there is beauty even in the breakage, and hindsight is quite often 20/20.

The way forward includes incorporating the past with grace, because even the detours can help us grow and create better boundaries in the future.