 My last conversation with Richard Granum provoked heated exchanges and commentary, especially with regards to a fellow Jew, Yeshua, who later came to be known as Jesus Christ. Today I would like to expound on this segment of the conversation. In the following video presentation, most of the quotes are from the Gospel of St. Matthew. I was careful to compare the quotes with the text of the other three canonical Gospels, and where the Gospels disagree, I avoided using the quote altogether. Before we start, I must say that in the wake of most scholars, I believe that Jesus Christ was a real historical figure. He is mentioned in Roman sources of the period, and there were many like him. Peripathetic prophets who roved and roamed the land of Judea and the region of Galilee, so he would have been no exception. He was a historical figure, most scholars believe, and so do I. Today I am concerned more with his psychology, or precisely his psychopathology. My name is Saint Agni, I am the author of Malignan Self-Rabbi, Narcissism Revisited, and a series of other books about personality disorders. I am also a professor of psychology in two universities. Illegitimate and adopted children, especially of humble origins, often developed narcissistic defenses to fend off persistent feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. Admittedly, it is highly unlikely that Jesus was an illegitimate child. Adulteresses in ancient Judea were stoned to death. But equally, there is little doubt that the circumstances of Jesus' birth were shrouded in mystery. His mother Mary caught herself pregnant, but not by having sexual intercourse with her lawfully wedded husband, Joseph. Early on, Jesus developed magical thinking, compensatory grandiose delusions and fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience. Jesus was a firstborn. He was much pampered by his doting mother. He was a prodigy, a wunderkind, highly intelligent and inquisitive, and more comfortable in the company of adults than with his peers. When he was a mere 12 years old, the Bible says they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. Doctors, meaning at the time, meant learned people. This is Luke 2.46. Even at this tender age of 12, the beginning of adolescence in today's modern world, at the time, the beginning of adulthood, he showed a marked lack of empathy and a full-fledged case of pathological grandiosity. Luke 2.48-49 says, His mother said unto him, Mary said to Jesus, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Why are you doing this to us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee, sorry, we are looking for you, in a bad state of mind. And Jesus said unto them, How is it that he has sought me? Why are you looking for me? Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business? Don't you realize that I must be at my father's? My father in this case being no more and no less than God himself. Gurus at the center of emergent healths are inevitably narcissistic, if not outright, narcissists. The self-imputation of superiority, epiphanic knowledge, and infallibility, and the assumption that others need, and for him, the Guru's message, they're all at the heart of an elaborate construct, which often borders the psychotic. Matthew 7, 28 to 29 says, The people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Referring to his twelve disciples, Jesus made clear that the disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord. Matthew 10, 24. So Jesus compares himself to a Lord, and his disciples are not his equals. They are his servants. He continues, Jesus, He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And He that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And He that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and He that loveth his life for my sake shall find it. Quite a grandiose statement, if ever there was one. The famous author and religious thinker C. S. Lewis said once that either you accept Jesus as a lunatic, or you accept Him as God. It's a bit difficult for one Jew to accept another Jew as God. And it's even more difficult to accept someone from a God for second region like Galilee and with a lowly occupation such as carpentry as the reification or embodiment of God. So I would dispense with that assumption that Jesus was God on earth. It strikes me as too psychotic. Today people are medicated or locked up in mental asylum for much less. Let us therefore safely assume that C. S. Lewis was right. If Jesus were not God, He was a rank lunatic. And let's continue along this assumption and see whether it can be substantiated. Here is how Jesus, the lowly, unmarried and itinerant son of a carpenter or at best architecton, interior designer, here is how He talks about Himself. Remember that Jesus at age 40 is an abysmal failure by the standards of His society. And this is how He views Himself. When the Son of Man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory and before Him shall be gathered all nations and He shall separate them one from another as a shepherd dividereth His sheep from the goats. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment by the righteous into life eternal. Matthew 25, 31, 32 and 25, 46. Jesus continues just to remove any doubt. Think as thou that I cannot now pray to my Father God and He shall presently give me more than 12 regions of angels? Do you really think that? Do you find this how to put it gently, mentally ill? Well, you are mentally ill. Matthew 26, 53. Contrary to His much cultivated image, Jesus, like the vast majority of cult leaders, lacked empathy and was a heartless and irresponsible and dangerous manipulator whose magical thinking ruined the lives of many around Him. Jesus instructed His followers to commit acts that must have had harshly adverse impacts on their hitherto nearest and nearest. In this sense, Jesus was an anti-social person. Jesus monopolized the lives of His disciples to the exclusion of all else and of all others. He said, For I am come to set a man a variance against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And men's foes shall be they of his home, of his own household. Matthew 10, 35, 36. Jesus continues, Then once said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee. Someone told him, Listen, Jesus, your mother and brothers are outside, I want to talk to you. But Jesus answered. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples and said, Behold my mother and my brethren. Matthew 12, 47, 48. We continue with Matthew 4, 1822. And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for there were fishes. And he said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishes of men. And they straight away left their nets and followed him. And going on from Ben's, he saw another two brethren, James, the son of Ziviti, and John, his brother in a sheep with Ziviti, their father, mending their nets. And he called them, and they immediately left the sheep and left their father and followed him. Consider the disastrous effects their actions must have had on their fathers and on their families. Now, left to starve. To Jesus evidently, these were irrelevant considerations. Jesus healed only those who visibly, volubly, clearly, publicly, and repeatedly worshipped him. In other words, he extended his gift only to his sources of narcissistic supply. There are numerous instances in the four canonical gospels where Jesus actually bargains with the afflicted and demands, sometimes angrily, their unconditional adoration in return for his healing gifts. Is Jesus his happiest when acknowledged and affirmed as Christ the Son of Men, Son of God? Those who do not recognize his landed grandeur, unbounded might and implied divinity, they are unporting dogs and swine. That's what he calls them in Matthew 7.6. His much-touted love of the poor was not a match for his malignant self-love. When his disciples braided a woman for anointing Jesus with expensive ointment because the money could have been better used to help the poor, the great humanist Jesus had this to say to them, Why trouble ye the woman, for she hath wrought a good work upon me, for ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always. Matthew 26, 10, 11. In other words, she was right to take her scarce savings by expensive oil and anoint Jesus rather than give charity and alms to the poor because the poor will always be there, but Jesus is one and only. The principles espoused by Jesus were malleable and easily bent at his convenience. Jesus professed to minister only to the Hebrews, sons of Israel, and steadfastly refused to heal the Gentiles whom he called dogs. When a woman of Canaan besieged him to cast the devil out of her daughter, she cried, have mercy on me. Jesus retorted shockingly, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is not meat to take the children's bread and to cast it to the dogs, dogs being non-Jews, non-Hebrews, non-Israelites. Matthew 15, 24, 26. But Jesus soon forgot and retracted this lofty principle when the same woman adulated him. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith. In other words, you gave me no statistic supply. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. OK, I'll do what you want. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. Matthew 15, 28. Here's the sequence. The woman comes to him and says, help me, please, have mercy on me. He tells her, you're a dog. You're a non-Israelite. I'm not going to help you. She adulates him, admires him, adores him, and he says to her, well, now that you gave me no statistic supply, of course I'm going to help you. Sounds like a classic grand use, no statistic, because it is. Similarly, Jesus cured the servant of a Roman centurion after his master catered to Jesus' by now, rampant megalomania. When Jesus heard it, what the centurion said, he marveled and said to them that followed, verily, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And Jesus said unto the centurion, go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the self-same hour, Matthew 8, 10 and 8, 13. Again, the exact same sequence. The centurion adulates and admires Jesus, caters to his psychotic megalomania, and Jesus agrees to heal, even the non-Hebrews. Jesus' initial false modesty soon gave way to bragging and outlandish, often confabulatory claims. Whenever Jesus affected a miracle, such as restoring eyesight to the blind, cleansing lepers, reviving the crippled, and raising the ostensibly dead, Jesus besieged them to keep mum about the events, one of many examples, and their eyes were opened, and Jesus straightly charged them, saying, see that no men know it, Matthew 9, 30. But much later, Jesus was not averse to blatant self-promotion when his false modesty failed to elicit narcissistic supply. Matthew 11, 2. Go and show John again those things which he had do here in sea. In other words, forget my previous injunction, go and spread the word about the miracles I'm making. The blind received their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. I say unto you that in this place, and in one greater than the temple, that in this place is one, sorry, greater than the temple, for the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath day. Behold, a greater than the prophet Jonas is here. Behold, a greater than King Solomon is here, and no, he is not talking about anyone else, he is talking about himself. As a true narcissist, Jesus reprimanded others for his own brand of behavior. This psychological defense mechanism is known as projection. This is how Jesus described the Pharisees, the scribes, and the Sadducees, and inadvertently himself, and his own conduct. They say, and do not, for they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be born, and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of man. To brag, they make broad their philacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at feast, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi, which is precisely by the way how Jesus was called throughout the New Testament, Matthew 23.1.6.1.2.6. Narcissists, especially grandiose narcissists, are destructive, counter-dependent, combative, and recent authority. They are rebellious, defined, and consummated. These aspects are common to narcissists and to psychopaths. Narcissists feel that they're above the law, or rather that they are the law, or aid law unto themselves. They hold themselves to be immune to the consequences of their actions. Listen to Jesus. Think not that I've come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword. Matthew 10.34. And Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all of them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold toves, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. Matthew 21.12.13. Narcissists are indisposed toward disagreement and criticism. They react to the slightest hint of either with narcissistic rage and fury that knows no bounds, and no mercy. Empathy flies out the window. Listen to Jesus in one of his narcissistic rage attacks. And thou, copper gnome, which art exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works which had been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee. Matthew 11.23.24. He was rejected in Cappanum, and his verdict is total annihilation of the city of the town and its people. He that is not to me is against me. No, that's not George Bush or Donald Trump. That's Jesus in Matthew 12.30. For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth till ye shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Lord being Jesus. Matthew 23.39. Narcissists react particularly badly when their co-coctored personal myth, therefore self, is directly and effectively challenged, and they are consequently discredited and humiliated in public. And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in the synagogue in so much that they were astonished and said, whence hath this man this wisdom and this mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James and Jesus, and Simon and Judas, and his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country and in his own house. And he did not. Many mighty works there because of their unbelief. Matthew 13.54-58. Jesus' love was highly conditional. You adore me. You admire me. You adulate me. I help you guys. You don't. I'm going to ruin you with hail and brimstone, like sodom. Ultimately, the diocese pays the price for years of ill-treating others and sucking their energies dry with constant demands for attention, adulation, and affirmation. People get tired of the overbearing and overwinning presence of the narcissist in their lives, of his destructive and destabilizing influence, and of the pernicious effects he has on their nearest and nearest and on their communities. Invariably, people seek to banish the narcissist and extricate themselves from his cult. The authorities usually are forced to intervene and lock the narcissist up, or worse, curse on him if he had lived in the wrong period. Even his closest followers, his supporters, his disciples give up on the narcissist, ultimately. Then all the disciples forsook him and fled. Matthew 26, 56. Then did they spit in his face and buffeted him, and others smote him with the palms of their hands, saying, prophesy unto us, thou Christ. Who is he that smote the Matthew 26, 67, 68. Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, before the Cork crowd, thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter indeed denied, knowing Jesus three times. Matthew 26, 75. And the fickle multitude, the common foreman, who were supposed to be the mainstay of Jesus' power and popularity, they betrayed him gleefully with the clearest sense of relief and good riddance. Matthew 27, whether of the twain will yea that I release unto you. That is Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, asking the multitude, the crowds, who do you want me to release? And they said, Barabbas, they all say unto him, let him, let Jesus be crucified. They cried out the more, saying, be crucified. Then answered all the people and said, his blood be on us, and on our children. And they, that passed by, reviled him, wagging their heads and saying, thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him with the scribes and elders said, he saved others himself, he cannot save. The thieves also, which were crucified with him left and right, cast the same in his teeth. Not a very popular figure. This is the end, the typical end of every narcissist, reviled, mocked, or worse. Thank you for listening.