Smakintosh: Narcissists Use of Moral Leverage to Control

Wow on this one. I definitely needed to hear this one especially since I have brought up in some of my articles and discussions the "Christians" who have affected some of us ACONs in very negative ways. Some of us have shared our tales of the "disapproving" church ladies and men with noses in the air, and shaking fingers at us who have called us out for being wicked, for being abused at all!

Jesus warned of the Pharisees, who unloaded "heavy burdens" on people and as Smakintosh says, will not move them with "one finger". When Smakintosh speaks of the "burdens that affect the unseen part of a man" that definitely has helped opened my own eyes to how this process of moral leverage works. It's not literal weights on your back but literal weights on your soul. I'm in the process of removing this stuff myself.

How many have felt oppressed by narcissists and others who call us out as "immoral", and "bad" and "wrong" in a religious or other context? Some of us have been called wicked for so long. It can be dangerous spiritual ground as this can be a place where a young person especially can abandon their conscience with thoughts like "I must be wicked anyway". Many ACONs attest to narcissistic parents who use various religious cults to shout at them for being wicked and to push false "guilt". Many carry enough guilt from "secular sources" but many have the religious kind too. Narcissists love to use religion and tell you that you are not kind or compassion enough or that you do not have the proper life.  The religion of "works" rules in Narc. Land. When Smakintosh speaks of those who lay on these burdens designed "to punish, injure and to exhaust the inner parts of man", this definitely defines what happens from this type of abuse of moral leverage. Two elements he mentions are power, and religion.

All this is done to set the frame work of the moral paradigm narcissists wish to establish.  Smakintosh calls out false Christians who use the name of Jesus to deceive. Those people who are false and claiming to be His followers and work to ensnare Christians. I've mentioned these type of people and my own run-ins with them. I've been in the place too of helping to rebuild others stripped to the bone by such types. This world has a lot of religious and spiritual abuse victims. For many narcissists and sociopaths, the modern churches are their feeding grounds.

Smakintosh is right that such types have hijacked the reputation of Jesus to form a "moral culture suitable to their own agenda". Many of us are feeling the pressures of this "moral culture", even my last articles, points to my feelings of repression and being smothered.  Some of us are so shamed and such outcasts from the culture we live in, it has been a fire-bombing of our souls. Religion has been used as a "list of wrong-doings and faults" to shame us further.

Surely some mean well and are honest about the frustration of unsolvable problems, but there is this coldness spreading across the land, called the "narcissist" 'saving of face' where appearances matter for everything, and even suffering itself must be erased from consciences and kept behind cover. It used to be that cults alone forced the "keeping sweet" like FLDS, now America in general has joined the trend. I've tried to put a voice to this feeling for a long time, and it has a lot to do with the narcissistic deadening of emotions and the biblical warning about people waxing cold. Why do I feel afraid around people now? It seems people are more busy hiding each other from one another now in our society, there are spiritual forces behind these things.

These soul afflictions do impact people in a very negative way, impacting their faith and relationship with God. I have been affected obviously and am just pulling myself back out. Smakintosh nails this one out of the park when he mentions, "now the ideology of materialism has been used much the same way as the Christian religion the idea that material success equates to rightness has permeated much of our modern cultural mind set."  This is an issue covered on this blog. It's not only might makes right, but cash makes correct according to this false mind set. Money is a bludgeon in the hand of the wicked, and it's not just things or the lack of things that can be affected but one's very soul. 

Yes, in America especially we are taught financial success means goodness and financial destitution means badness. He is right that while intellectually and emotionally we know that something is wrong with these attitudes, it does affect the  inwards parts of the conscience. It does affect the way a person interprets their self-worth. The covert narcissists are joined in this game too. The moral atmosphere of modern American society is based on materialism. It is an ideology pushed by the narcissists who run this place. 

Yes it is joined with family first and other bad ideologies. Smakintosh mentions the modern institutions that back these things up and he is right that modern "Christian" ministries, corporations, TV and other groups all do. Family First is a false premise. Actually I believe many modern churches have idolized family, the Duggars definitely would be an example. Most who push that philsophy, children and other family members are their mere trophies. This is why single people find themselves frozen out in many of a church that wants the "perfect families" in the pews. A true family is to be based on spiritual realities, not DNA or genetics. Yes Jesus even rejected the false moral leverage of his own family. It's a project many an ACON has to work through, rejecting these false moral leverages.