From time to time, I feel myself drawn back to books which have, in different ways, been crucial in changing the way I think about religious themes. After spending a couple of years thinking and writing about fundamentalism and charismatic phenomena in the 90s, I was still unable to come up with a psychological theory which offered some insight to explain the dynamics of what I was seeing. Around 2005 I came across the work of Len Oakes. He is an Australian scholar who wrote an important book in 1997, Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Personalities. Almost immediately I became captivated by his key thesis. The central idea of the book is that there are sometimes connections to be noted between the mysterious power and skills of certain leaders in the religious charismatic world and the profile of an individual who suffers from a clinically defined narcissistic personality. When I am speaking about such a personality, I need to emphasise that most of what I am describing here is something at one end of a wide spectrum of behaviours. Many of these are not problematic. The word narcissism on its own is not a diagnosis of any kind and It is quite often a part of simply being human. It only becomes a problem when we see it in its pathological manifestations. Oakes’ own interest in the topic came about through his own need to understand a charismatic group in the 1970s of which he had been a member. At some point he changed his role within that community from being a member to becoming a student and chronicler of the dynamics of his group. His book eventually became a study of charismatic religious leaders from a variety of traditions, including his own, over a period of some 20 years.
When I was writing my own study of Christian fundamentalism and charismatic groups in the 1990s, this word narcissism appeared nowhere in my vocabulary or understanding. I knew the word but at that time the pioneering work of Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg in the 1970s was unknown to me or anyone else I knew. These two scholars were, between them, laying the foundations for the then new category of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This reached the wider public as a category of mental disorder in the 3rd Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual published in 1980. Since that time, the concept of narcissism has grown from a fairly narrowly defined clinical term within the psychoanalytic literature to become a common word used to describe behaviours which are in many cases harmless. Our own use in this blog piece will follow that of Oakes. His observations tend to be concerned with the pathological toxic examples of narcissism, thus following closely Kohut’s case studies. This categorising was embedded in some quite dense and complex psychoanalytic ideas. These conceptualisations have, so far, stood the test of time and even those who disagree with him still use Kohut’s insights as a starting point.
When we talk about religious charisma, we are confronting the mysterious phenomena by which some Christian leaders have an almost magical power over their followers. We find it difficult to understand what is going on in a Toronto Blessing type of event. The happenings are simultaneously fascinating and, at the same time, a little frightening. It is not just, of course, in religious settings that we observe such charisma. It can appear in political or indeed in any institutional setting. Oakes takes the word and begins to demystify much of it as he links it, with the help of Kohut’s theories, with the grandiosity, the messianism and the enormous self-confidence that are key manifestations of classic narcissistic behaviour.
Kohut originally saw a link between charisma and chronic narcissism, when he noticed how charismatic leaders were similar to a group of his patients who possessed severe narcissistic symptoms. His patients were not, of course, capable of any leadership role, but they possessed, like charismatic leaders, an enormous self-confidence together with an extraordinary lack of self-doubt. They also felt themselves to be invincible, possessing totally unrealistic and grandiose fantasies about themselves and their powers. These typical symptoms of the narcissistic personality in its clinical manifestation also acted like a shell, covering over an extremely fragile core. The psychoanalytic treatment for this disorder had as its aim the restructuring and rebuilding of this core personality, one which had been hollowed out by adverse childhood experiences. But, even as he was treating these patients, Kohut could not help but notice the way that, in many cases, they possessed acute almost psychic sensitivity to others. This was however a negative sensitivity. It worked in such a way to enable the narcissistic patient to manipulate other people to serve his (normally his) needs or purposes. The other person was, in the process, becoming simply a source of potential psychological gratification for the patient. Thus, other people had one purpose, to be a kind of extension of the narcissist’s own ego. It was only in and through exploiting and dominating others in this way that the narcissist felt himself alive. In this way all his relationships were parasitic. Dominance and control of others were a key part of the narcissistic personality.
Oakes uses these observations of Kohut about the narcissistic personality and its closeness to the characteristics of some possessors of charismatic gifts to form the heart of his study. His own experience of being a member of a cult had allowed him to see at close hand the typical external facets of narcissism, grandiosity and over-confidence. These were combined with an inner emptiness and dependence on other people to feed and allow the narcissist to flourish. Oakes helps us a great deal by penetrating and rearticulating the dense prose of Kohut himself. Although Kohut was writing in English, his background and training was as a Freudian psychoanalyst in Austria. His English style is convoluted and quite hard to unravel. In a few pages of the book Prophetic Charisma, Oakes explains in fairly straightforward language the key ideas of narcissism and its origins. He tells us how a child, according to Kohut’s theory, with the wrong kind of parenting can develop the distortions of the severe narcissistic personality. Narcissism, in its clinical version, emerges as the result of the child receiving either too little or too much parental attention. At the risk of over-simplification, we have explained to us by Kohut and Oakes, how there is an optimum way for a child to build, with the help of parents, a secure sense of self. When there is inadequate attention, the child has a desperate sense of loss. At the other extreme there may be too much attention, depriving a child ever of experiencing frustration and learning to deal with it. This can lead to the child being unable to handle the inevitable setbacks of real life where things do not go his way as an adult. Both these distortions of parenting can lead to the kind of clinically disordered behaviour we associate with narcissistic illness. Needless to say, the word has greatly expanded out of its original clinical setting to signify almost any kind of self-centred behaviour. This fact that the word can simultaneously refer to a clinical condition as well as ordinary human self-absorption means that we have to use the word with great care. But, however we use the word, every use of it owes something to the clinical examples of it set out by Heinz Kohut before his death in 1981.
Why do I find this book by Oakes so compelling? It is because it enabled me, at a time when I was puzzling over the dynamics of charismatic churches, to see how a therapeutically trained writer could account for some of the strange goings-on in that world. It is not all bad. Some people might actually benefit from being with a charismatic leader for a limited time. There are good things to be learned from the vision, the energy and even the giftedness that comes out as insight and gifts of healing. Problems arise when such relationships are allowed to go on for too long. Charisma has a life-cycle of its own and eventually all parties become disillusioned and damaged so that we can talk about a kind of narcissistic collapse.
One of the things that I find fascinating is that, although there has been this breakthrough in the understanding of the dynamics of charisma, little seems to have penetrated into church circles to encourage critical reflection on the powerful institutions in the Church which practise this style of church life. The work of Len Oakes should be taught compulsorily in places like theological colleges and in in-service training for senior clergy leaders. The language of narcissism also has something to say to other safeguarding disasters we have seen over the past fifteen years. Although Oakes has focussed on the charismatic styles of church life, pathological narcissism is clearly found in the dynamics of other parts of the Church. Oakes’ study could be used to unlock and interpret many of the disasters and dysfunctions of leadership that we see in our churches. In some of the major parishes of the Church of England narcissistic processes are obvious, if one has the eyes and insight to see them. The phenomenon of self-satisfied influential leaders standing in pulpits receiving the acclaim of dutiful acolytes is all too common. Whenever a clergy leader feels himself to be the target of idealising dynamics, that is a time for self-examination and reflection. A great deal of the observable power operating in the church is sustained by what we can describe as pure narcissism. There is much more to be said on this theme, but space prevents further discussion here. It is sufficient to conclude by suggesting that much of what we see as power in the church is less than healthy for those involved. It will always be unhealthy to be caught up in narcissistic cycles of self-importance and grandiosity. The stories of Jonathan Fletcher and Peter Ball can both be re-told with an emphasis in each case of strong narcissistic dynamics at work. That fact alone should alert us to the need to understand the crucial importance of Len Oakes’ work.
Books by churchmen (and they were all men) were the only allowed literature when I was growing up. I refer to the study of our faith.
Material on psychology and related disciplines was regarded with deep suspicion, unless it was by mainstream doctors. Jonathan Fletcher dismissed the subject area as ‘psychobabble’ in at least one of his writings.
I obviously welcome constructive attempts to understand what’s going on in the areas Stephen describes. I suspect decades of dismissal and resistance by narcissistic leaders in the Church were precisely because they didn’t want anyone looking too closely, although I concede they may have been unconscious of this motive. The fear was that by analysing what was going on they would be exposed as frauds.
Without analysis of some phenomena, they do have a mystical, magical feel. Of course I believe in a miraculous God, but I note that a number of Jesus healings were done in private, and all without smoke machines and soft music (as far as I know).
It’s right to point out the elucidating work of scientists in this area, and it would be foolish to continue to ignore or, worse still, denigrate their diligent work.
Lately I’ve been rethinking my experience of the charismatic movement and these concepts are helpful.
The acute sensitivity to others’ vulnerabilities which can be exploited certainly rings true. Some people have this to an uncanny degree; it’s the abuser’s stock in trade.
There are other tricks of the trade, too. A few days ago I came across the transcript of a ‘prophecy’ Paul Cain (of the Kansas City Prophets) gave about St. Michael-le-Belfrey in (I think) late 1990. I was at the Wimber conference where he gave this prophecy, and also prophesied about Nicky Gumbel and Chris Brain (of the infamous Nine O’Clock service) among others. I was a curate at St. Mike’s at the time, and so had some insight into how Cain worked.
He had met Ann Watson when she had stayed in Anaheim, California and attended Wimber’s church. From her he learned a certain amount about St. Mike’s, its history, and what was happening at present. He then gave a prophecy for St. Mike’s which was rather ambiguous. The vicar being ill, the deputy vicar rang Cain in California to get some clarification, and during that conversation Cain gleaned more information. He then used that information to give another prophecy, and so on.
When Cain ‘performed’ at Wimber rallies, his stint followed at least 45 minutes of emotional worship songs played at rock band sound levels. There was some introductory spiel which built up expectations, and then Cain would call the names of people in the audience and give encouraging predictions about how God was going to use them to bring about revival. But in the case of St. Mike’s, all of the details about the leaders and church which Cain claimed God had revealed to him, were things he had the means of knowing from the conversations he’d had with Ann, Chris, and Graham. People really believed God was speaking, but it was all stuff they desperately wanted to believe. And some of those people were themselves narcissists.
That’s the way psychics operate (as exposed by James Randi). Needless to say, the predicted revival didn’t happen, and Cain didn’t foresee the implosion of the Nine O’Clock Service after Brain was revealed to have sexually abused a number of women over a long period of time.
You can watch videos of Cain online.
It amazed me that people had zero discernment. In ‘Some Said It Thundered’ Paul Cain is said to have said Jesus was jealous of his (PC’s) girlfriend – yet this is reported in the book as though it is unexceptionable and normal. Also PC had long absences and popped up here and there with little stability nor accountability; even when taken to task for a sinful lifestyle he was not the most repentant.
Churches are fuller and more ‘on the front foot’ under Conservative governments (1950s, 1980s) but the excesses born of complacency are to be found in particular in 1990-1997 when the Tories had been in for many years.
I was at several John Wimber conferences from 1984 onwards and I retain a high regard for John Wimber and his ministry. But I was always underwhelmed by Paul Cain and the other ‘prophets’. I could never quite see what they added.
According to Martyn Percy in his book ‘Word, Works and Power’, Wimber was facing challenges to his leadership of the Vineyard churches. Along came the Kansas City Prophets, predicting that Wimber was a great apostolic leader who would lead all the world’s churches and even governments, and that everyone needed to obey him; even hinting that those who didn’t come under Wimber’s leadership would suffer the fate of Ananias and Sapphira. (See also Clifford Hill’s article on the KCP and Wimber in Prophecy Today, available online.) That reinforced Wimber’s authority, so of course it appealed strongly to him.
Cain’s prophecies flattered other leaders too; I was probably lucky in not being mentioned and thus didn’t have any reason to suspend my critical faculties.
I can’t recall Cain having ‘words’ for anyone other than church leaders. Others of the Kansas City Prophets had ‘words from God’ for more ordinary folk, but they tend to be of the very general kind. When someone says to a crowd of 2000 people, ‘There’s someone here having a lot of trouble with their back/marriage/asthma’ or some such, there’s very little chance of their being wrong!
And the difference from fortune tellers and psychics is…?
Flashes in the pan are many, whereas the aforementioned Clifford Hill has enjoyed with his wife a nigh-on 70 years’ consistent and faithful ministry, during which he has developed much analytic insight; the interesting thing is how he has not especially slowed down with old age at all, almost the reverse: showing that what they have is genuine – a phenomenon also seen in David Hathaway and the late Michael Green.
I found your insight incredibly helpful it goes some way towards explaining what I have experienced in church, and what was going on in the Nine O Clock Service too, I think.
What I am confused about is churches where the leader(s) are abusive, and appear all-knowing through the dodgy techniques you describe, but you get an experience of the Holy Spirit there also. Perhaps because there are many spirit-filled Christians worshipping there also? So you get the true good alongside the evil of abuse? I find this a really difficult question and wondered if you have any insight?
It’s difficult. I’ve noticed this one. How can good come out of evil? And should you leave if good may come? All I can offer is “The wind bloweth where it listeth”. Not very helpful.
I’ve wrestled with this for years. How do I define what “an experience of the Holy Spirit” is? I’ve actually often sung in a worship band and physically shaken at times of profound experience. It felt like the Spirit Himself was directing the harmony I was making. Others were moved too.
But some doubtless were not and felt unwelcome at the church door. Homeless people still beg in our town. For Christ, church was where the poor and needy were. On the streets with the lost. Paul himself describes spiritual worship in Romans 12. It doesn’t resemble our worship sessions. In Amos 5:21 the Lord says he despises their religious assemblies.
Phenomena we experience may be a sign of being Spirit-filled or they maybe just human sensations. Or both. They can feel good, but that is no guarantee of us being suddenly good people just because we’re in the thick of it. Perhaps it’s more to do with what we’re really like when not on the stage?
I had a friend with many years of experience of following Jesus who decided to visit Toronto and see what was going on there at the Airport Vineyard in the 1990s. His commend to me on return was interesting. “You will get what you go for. If you go seeking an experience, you will receive it, but it may not be from God. But if you go seeking God, you will find him.”
Also, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” There were clearly strange things afoot at that time, because this comment was made when Saul prophesied and lay naked all night (1 Samuel 19:23f). And Saul did not turn out well. There seem to have been bands of prophets, a school of prophets, and prophets hidden in a cave for fear of King Ahab. I expect there were believers who were heartily put off by all the fringe stuff in the prophetic activity, and wanted nothing to do with it all, but that was not God’s attitude, as the likes of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel were to come out of this movement.
Was it a remark of Nigel Wright in our day that went something like this? “Only 10% of the charismatic movement is from God, but praise God for the 10%.”
That’s my experience too. I concluded that where a person is genuinely seeking God, they are very likely to have ‘an experience of the Holy Spirit’ (with the caveat that we don’t always recognise God’s presence with us, so the experience may not be felt).
It’s not about the minister, it’s about the seeker. As the Bible puts it (can’t remember where) ‘If with all your heart ye truly seek him, ye shall ever truly find him. Thus says your God.’ (Quoting from Brahms’ setting in his German Requiem.Or is it Handel’s Messiah? Haven’t switched brain on yet today.)
And the 39 articles tell us that the efficacy of the sacrament is not affected by the unworthiness of the minister. It’s the same principle.
Mendelsohn’s Elijah, but Jeremiah 29:13 rather than Job. It’s a lovely aria. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fyD4WIsXzw
Nice Janet. Thanks. The work is out of favour – I only ever sang in it once at school.
I sang it at Uni … but that was in about 1973!!
Time it was brought back into favour, along with Brahms’ German Requiem.
Strange that the crowning glory of the Requiem is an afterthought (movement 5) – however, Brahms’s mother’s death avowedly provided the inspiration which on this occasion was special. Faure’s too was composed in 2 stages.
Now that I did sing at school!
How interesting that Paul Cain should have popped up on this blog. I wanted to go to the Wimber conference at Harrogate in 1990, but was prevented, so I listened to Paul Cain’s talk there on Jeremiah 33 verse one on an audio tape, and have loved the encouragement it gave ever since. It remains my favourite sermon. “When Jeremiah was still confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the Lord came to him a second time.” The message: we may have made a complete mess of things first time round, but with God there’s always a second chance. So heart warming. Anyone who reads this blog feeling that they have blown it, take heart.
I won’t be dismissing Paul too quickly.
On charismatic leaders, a character study of Elijah and Elisha would be fun. Perhaps I will write one over the next few weeks.
My perspective differs slightly: there are patterns that are warning signs, and I would not want sheep either to be led astray or to waste time. If people were better at seeing the warning signs, then things could be fine, but I have been repeatedly amazed at how even the most blatant warning signs seem not to register with so many. Things that I would notice in a split second (prosperity-gospel etc). And it is worse, because there is a high proportion who ‘buy’ pretty much anything that is pronounced from ‘the front’. This blog, for all its failings (I often wonder how many NT heroes would escape its strictures) identifies patterns e.g. narcissism – these are the big picture which many have not yet constructed from the jigsaw pieces. It is right that the voice and wisdom of those who have analysed enough to see the big picture be heard by and available to those who at present see only unassembled jigsaw pieces.
My Uncle Harold wrote a book on Elijah, ‘A Man Just Like Us’, which is still available online secondhand. You might be interested to read it. In fact, I think I have a spare copy I could send you.
As for Paul Cain, the fact that he preached a sermon which helped you is no guarantee that he was a genuine disciple of Christ, let alone a genuine prophet. We have many tragic examples of people with apparently effective ministries who were abusive, exploitative, and sometimes completely fraudulent. Anyone who follows this blog will be aware of multiple examples. In fact Jesus actually warned us this would be the case, but we are sadly reluctant to own that our heroes have feet of clay.
Good point. Thanks, Janet
Having now had a chance to read Len Oakes’s work, I found it to be rich in wisdom and insight derived from careful research.
Thinking about the way some of us write about our experiences in various churches may I quote (p140):
‘…career “apostates”: these are disillusioned ex-followers who battle against their former group often at great personal cost, by attempting to publicly expose every scandal associated with the group. Fortunately for them charismatic groups usually have a lot of skeletons in the closet and dirt under their carpets so the “mission” of the career apostate can become a full-time vocation.’
I don’t think of myself as an apostate, but I’m sure some would if they noticed!
Oakes himself is careful about using or avoiding the term “charismatic”. Words can shift meaning quickly, but despite being published in 1997, his work feels current and pertinent. Jonathan Fletcher, despite being conservative evangelical in theological orientation, would definitely count as “charismatic” in the ways Oakes describes.
The study of narcissism has helped us begin to understand ourselves, our churches and our leaders. I’d like to quote again (p174):
‘Is it possible that the narcissistic mind locates its meanings as much in the future as the past? In the telling of a great lie, the lie would not be felt as false because it would not be compared with facts located in memory. Rather it would be compared with facts “from an imagined yet-to-become future that is experienced just as real as the past.’
Some of the clear recent lies being told by obviously narcissistic political leaders could be perhaps understood with this insight?
Don’t read this book if your faith is easily shaken, or if you have a closed mindset. Personally I enjoyed its impact and will refer to it again in my own study.
Thank you Janet, and everyone else for your comments in response to my question, and Stephen for this post. I found it really helpful.