Narcissism & Empathy In The Endtimes: From Entitlement To Enlightenment

Narcissism & Empathy

Narcissism and empathy are two completely natural and very necessary human traits which are at opposing ends of the narcissism-empathy spectrum. We require both a healthy level of narcissism and a healthy level of empathy in order to function correctly in life. Without them we would be dysfunctional.

Healthy narcissism is simply healthy self-love. It's true that we must learn to love ourselves first before we are capable of going on to love another. Healthy empathy, on the other hand, is related to sympathy and is the ability to understand how something makes another person feel emotionally. That is, the ability to be able to 'put yourself in someone else's shoes' and understand what they must be feeling by subconsciously evoking similar feelings in yourself in order to experience them.

Whilst levels of narcissism and empathy do seem to fluctuate to an extent, based on subjective experience, a person with overly high levels of narcissism (making them narcissistic) would have lower levels of empathy, whereas a person with overly high levels of empathy (possibly making them an empath) would be less narcissistic.

In this respect, narcissism at the furthest left of the spectrum (malignant narcissism) could be represented by ego (the false self) whereas empathy at the furthest right of the spectrum (persistent empathy) could be represented by the true self. In other words, the battle between empathy and narcissism can be thought of as the battle between the ego and the true self.

Fight Or Flight?

The Fight or Flight response is well known in the field of psychology. NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) explains the Fight or Flight phenomenon in terms of people having either a towards pattern or an away from pattern (subjective behaviour), although this can change depending on the given situation. Of course, NLP itself is the study and structure of subjective human experience.

When presented with certain social situations, such as an elderly person falling over in public for example, people who have a towards pattern are likely to step forward and offer their assistance (the fight response), whereas those who have an away from pattern are likely to walk away and allow someone else to offer their help (the flight response).

Due to the flight response, in some situations, some people may still walk away even if they can see that no-one else has offered assistance. It would then take just one person with a towards pattern (fight) to step forward and offer help before others are likely to do the same. In this respect, the fight response (or towards pattern) can be thought of as service-to-others (empathy), whereas the flight response (or away from pattern) can be thought of as service-to-self (narcissism).

A Result Of Evolution?

Some researchers/writers have suggested that 'malignant' narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder may be the result of Darwin's "selfish" gene responsible for natural selection, which causes a species to evolve via self-mutation and self-replication gradually over time.

In other words, they propose the theory that 'malignant' narcissism is simply survival of the fittest playing itself out through evolutionary development. However, can narcissists really be considered to be the 'fittest', in terms of the long-term survival of the human race? Are they really that special and really as special as they think they are? Or is that in itself narcissistic ideology?

Ask yourself how likely it is that the purpose of evolution would be for us all to become more narcissistic, to the extent of being mentally impaired, in order to sustain our own survival. Surely, if anything, the purpose of our evolution would be to become more emotionally and spiritually evolved and more empathic, if anything?

It seems that the narcissists who are in control of the world today believe themselves to be the 'fittest', according to nature, due their selfish and self-centered nature and their skewed and distorted worldview.

It seems to me that, even if survival of the fittest has indeed played itself out leading to a malignancy of narcissism in current times, we would inevitably reach a point where the survival mechanism is no longer needed and we would then need to evolve over time to learn to live in peace and harmony with each other through the evolution of empathy and the eventual dissolution of narcissism all together.

After all, if we all eventually evolve to become empaths and we all therefore become "service-to-others", each and every one of us will have the love of every other person on the planet and therefore "service-to-self" (self-love/narcissism) will no longer be required.

Simply put, if everybody in the world showed each other love, compassion and empathy, nobody would have a problem.

A Sign Of The End-Times?

Regardless of your religious beliefs and on the topic of narcissism versus empathy, either as a result of evolution or as a result of creation, the bible offers some insightful words into narcissism:

"2 Timothy 3:1-7 - But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."

Many people argue that malignant narcissism has become widespread and is rapidly increasing at a remarkable rate and indeed it is. It's true that narcissistic abuse breeds more malignant narcissism. For this reason, many religious people believe that we are indeed already in the end-times.

The problem, however, is that we have generally become cut off from each other and from nature and therefore have become more narcissistic as a species due to the conditioning of the society we live in. In other words, being narcissistic has become a normal thing and therefore only those who are incredibly narcissistic compared to the rest of society are considered to be those who are mentally impaired.

Having said that, narcissists only make up a generally small percentage of the global population - they do not outnumber the rest of us and therefore malignant narcissism isn't quite as abundant as many people make it out to be. Whilst many religious people believe that widespread narcissism as a result of evolution will be a sign of the end-times, if we go back over our history it seems that, if anything, we have become less narcissistic and more empathic as time has gone on.

Imaginal Cells, The Elite & The New Age

Whilst we may still fight wars, we no longer openly torture each other in disturbing ways as was considered normal back in medieval times. No longer do our rulers consider it normal to openly behead people or have people who they believe are witches burned at the stake.

If anything, over time, we have evolved to become more empathic and are continuing to do so. Yes, there is still plenty of malignant narcissism in the world but it only affects a small minority of the world's population.

Inevitably, that means that a small narcissistic 'elite' are still likely to maintain control over the majority of the world but the evolution of our collective empathy is helping to diminish this problem and is very largely responsible for a major part of the New Age movement.

Whilst religious people fear that a coming 'apocalypse' is a sign of the end-times and is a sign of the world's end, the word 'apocalypse' actually translates to 'unveiling of previous hidden knowledge' and New Age thinkers believe that this is not the end of the world, it's just the start of a new one.

Ultimately, it is the evolution of our empathy which is gradually leading us from the age of entitlement to the age of enlightenment, which is our true destiny. The imaginal cells of society are popping up all over the place and helping to create positive change in the world. The power of empathy is beginning to take over and control is gradually being stripped away from the narcissistic elite who have maintained control over us for so long.

It will be the imaginal cells who help us to continue to evolve and who will lead us into the quantum age.