A couple of months ago, I read "Under the Banner of Heaven". I thought the book was very good. I understand Opey (err, Ron Howard) has bought the rights to make a movie on it?

Anyway, in one of the chapters, near the end, a University of Utah psychologist (or psychiatrist?) was testifying for the prosecution essentially saying he had looked at/talked with Ron Lafferty and concluded he was NOT "crazy", but he had "narcissistic personality disorder" (NPD, not to be confused with NDEs... :) ).

He explained, according to my reading and recollection, that NPD affected people suffer in some similar ways...they were able to function normally, he said many of the department heads at the "U" were sufferers of this disorder. They always thought they were right, they would criticize, bitterly and personally, anyone who disagreed with them. They think everyone else doesn't know as much as them, and they are the only smart people on the planet. They have delusions of granduer. They have a little success and blow it up into much more than it is.

So....

Anyway, never mind (I'm holding my hands away from the keyboard, holding, holding....!).

Apparently, many religious people, leaders, have this type of problem. Many politicians have this problem. Alot of rich people I've known suffer from this. In layman's terms we might call the person an "a$$hole". Maybe the disorder should be re-named "ADS" (a$$hole-disorder-syndrome).

Ron and Dan Lafferty had this disorder. They imagined revelations, they imagined themselves called as prophets, they imagined that they could set rules and then set them aside for themselves. Yet they could also function in society to a degree and have even a sense of humor. They could be charming at times.

I suppose, from reading a little bit on this, that a person like Joseph Smith could have suffered from this type of condition.

Or could he have suffered something else? I'm a technical person, not a medical person....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 10:39AM by elciz.

Yes, I think that may be a general consensus by some on the board that Joseph Smith was probably a narcissist and that the Chruch functions as an narcissist entity.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201110/what-borderlines-and-narcissists-fear-most-part

Excellent series of articles. Nice link.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 12:51PM by crom.

Thanks a *lot* you guys. I just spent the better part of the afternoon going down the NPD rabbit hole on the web. Love those Psychology Today articles!

I think the key point in my recovery from Mormonism was the day that I pulled out the DSM-IV and diagnosed ole Joe myself (I was a licensed mental health counselor at the time). NPD was such an illusive diagnosis a decade ago - not even official until 1980 I believe.

But when I hit it, I HIT IT!! Dayum. Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The "Prophet" Joseph Smith had it . . . and everything else snapped into place. I never doubted my "diagnosis" or the fraud of Mormonism ever again.

Great thread!

;o)

years after I got away from him.

When I came upon the infomation on Narcissim (proposed on this web site) all the experiences I had "snapped" into place, it was like finding the missing piece to a puzzel. There are too many parallels between a person who is narcissistic and how LDS Inc. operates.

I was so crazy, between him and the Church, I am suprised I got away from either of them.

I now think I must be an amazingly strong person to walk through hell and walk out the other side.

Sure was a trip, and I now see the demons for what they are, even when they are superficially pleasant, charming and extreamly persuasive.

<blockquote>Or could he have suffered something else? I'm a technical person, not a medical person....</blockquote>


NPD sounds likely to me. I got the sense that whenever joe had an idea he decided it was divinely inspired. I've always felt this was the origin of polygamy- he couldn't keep it in his pants, so god must have ordained it as the correct way to do things. How could someone be more narcissistic than that? He obviously lied without shame and seemed to buy into his own hype.

I've read the dsm (the guide for psychiatric disorders) all the way through and have researched personality disorders for awhile now, I haven't seen anything else that fits as well. But these things are largely a matter of opinion, especially when all we have are historical accounts instead of a person who can be evaluated.

Given JS's tendency to want to beat people that didn't agree with him and his other obvious manic episodes, I would throw in manic-depressive disorder and/or sociopathy...

OK, I read the Psychology Today article, very interesting. Obviously these are very manipulative people. It would be awful to be married to one...

I was married to one. It didn't last long after truths started coming out. He was so full of himself, he actually believed I was going to pop out like 10 kids and support them and him while he went to school to be a doctor/politician/astronaut. I had found out a lot of things he was lying to me about. I sat him down one night and told him I knew the real answers to the questions I was about to ask him, and all I wanted was honesty. Eventually, after lying continuously, he fesses up to some of them.
He also refused to work because he felt any position below CEO was beneath him. It didn't matter that he had minimal work experience.
He was diagnosed with NPD, but narcissists do not believe anything is wrong with them. Tired of the lies and the crazy, I gave him the boot. SO GLAD I didn't have any children with him!!

I am the son of one. Yes, it is awful.

It's truly amazing.

If you Google "cult leader narcissistic personality disorder" you get lots of hits. Jim Jones and David Koresh are the poster boys.

This one reason why I left mormonism. I believe that in a truly Christian church, narcissists should be squirming in the pews. Narcissist mormons remind me of the scribes and pharisees. Jesus pulled no punches in attacking them.

Mormonism seems to reward narcissistic behaviour.

6 iron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This one reason why I left mormonism. I believe
> that in a truly Christian church, narcissists
> should be squirming in the pews. Narcissist
> mormons remind me of the scribes and pharisees.
> Jesus pulled no punches in attacking them.
>
> Mormonism seems to reward narcissistic behaviour.


Have you found a Christian church that isn't dominated by narcissists?

There is, incidentally, a huge overlap between Narcissistic disorders and sociopaths... A co-morbid bipolar disorder also can't be ruled out; I'm on the fence on that one, but many place "hypersexuality" as one element of that one, so...

This one was well-received at the time, but I note I was dead wrong in predicting that the state of Utah would've executed Ron Lafferty by now...

Subj: Krakauer Review

I just finished this book and only read it because my mother happened to pick up a copy (I've got plenty already to make me livid about the Mormon Church without adding another helping to my plate), and I also knew reading it would afford me entrance into discussions on this bulletin board . . .

There was very little in the book that was new information to me, but then I've read most of the original sources except Michael Quinn's. If you want a thumbnail history of many of the national headline issues that have come out of Utah in the last century-and-a-half, then this book offers it.

The one allegation that was new to me was the alleged murder by Southern Utah Mormons of the three members who left John Wesley Powell's Colorado River expedition--the original story--which I first saw in a movie and which Powell went to his deathbed believing--was they were killed by Indians. Krakauer goes into substantial detail about this, and the witnesses he cites are credible Mormons who had no axe to grind against the church.

My issues with the book are largely editorial ones; I thought it was particularly gruesome, and if it hadn't been written so quickly, perhaps this quality could have been mitigated slightly. We visit the murder of Brenda Wright Lafferty at least three times, and I'm enough of a wuss to think once might've been enough. The piece on Elizabeth Smart's rape was also equally chilling . . . others may find this a palatable part of their reading diet, but I don't have much appetite for it . . . I recognize that the writer's goal is to somehow make the unthinkable understandable to the reader, and it is perhaps intrinsic to this kind of storytelling that sane people don't react well to insanity . . .

I think Krakauer grew substantially in understanding in writing this book . . .

I do find it interesting that neither Krakauer nor church historian Turley seized on what was obvious to me, that the "middle step" between Mormonism and the Laffertys' homicidal fanaticism occured with the abuse of the Lafferty children in their upbringing . . . they were regularly beaten and witnessed their mother being beaten as well; additionally, there's a narrative describing the brothers engaging
in a "pissing party," and perhaps only an insider can understand the internalizing of shame and mixed messages about our bodies and our sexuality that occurs in the Mormon culture

I want to particularly compliment Krakauer on his presentations of
the psychological material from the Lafferty trial. As one who has had firsthand contact with the University of Utah's pool of psychiatrists and psychologists, I found the explorations and presentations on the subject of narcissism and
narcissistic disorders particularly lucid and well-grounded. The cerebral explorations at least afforded some distance from the emotional blood-and-guts of so much actual physical violence . . .

Krakauer, as a conclusion to this study on the sanity vs. insanity argument, notes that it's very likely the State of Utah will execute Ron Lafferty in the fairly near future. What he doesn't say--and I'm not sure he realizes it--is the reason this execution will occur is because the citizens of Utah won't allow him to live as a reminder of their own unresolved darkside issues . . .

They already hate Dan Lafferty--and by extension, his cellmate, Mark Hofmann--for these crimes-beyond-murder, and the prospect of yet another is likely to be unbearable. And of course, they see Krakauer as an accomplice to this travesty . . .

I've told the story before about a couple of guys I've worked with, who got their hands caught in the cookie jar--and other body parts in other places--and somehow seemed to skate right through to their next "adventure". Un-frikkin'-believable