I think it’s important to discuss Spiritual Narcissism, whilst on the topic of New Age philosophy and subsequently Theosophy and Anthroposophy. When describing Thoughtforms, Besant lays out a colour chart, which attaches certain colours to thoughts, following a set of criteria.
In Thoughtforms, Besant begins to outline the difference between the thoughtforms of a ‘man [whose] energy flows outwards towards external objects of desire or is occupied in passional and emotional activities’ and a “thinker, is clothed in a body composed of innumerable combinations of the subtle matter of the mental plane, this body being more or less refined in its constituents and organised more or less fully for its functions..”… The passion led man’s thoughtform is “dull in hue, browns and dirty greens and reds playing a great part in it. Through this will flash various characteristic colours, as his passions are excited.”… The thinker with a ‘higher type’ of form in the astral world is “accompanied with a marvellous play of colour, like that in the spray of a waterfall as the sunlight strikes it”. Besant then states “As selfishness is eliminated all the duller and heavier shades disappear”. The text reads like the musings of an imaginative child… whilst Besant has her activism endeavours, these musings are harmful in their assertion of a ‘higher type’ of being. This kind of spiritual narcissism is very dangerous and whilst often through spiritual means, people apply these karmic principles of control and passivity to being more enlightened.. We run the risk of dehumanising the people we deem ‘lesser’. Notions of Purity, pure thoughts produce beautiful astral projections. Much like visuo-centrism and the rejection of touch and smell, I think that Thoughtforms follow these same conventions. ‘Passional desires’ and a lack of control are often applied to indigenous cultures by the colonialist as a way of mitigating how ‘advanced’ a culture is. It is highly possible that Besant does not intend to draw such conclusions but there is a link to this kind of scientific racism. Which is interesting, one thing that esoteric and rational thought practices around the 19th century have in common is their affinity with unfounded and insensitive, racist musings.
Spiritual superiority and spiritual narcissism are long described phenomena in wake of New Age movements. The heirarchical nature of spritual groups are based around modes of improvement through spiritual awakening. Through this practice a distortion begins, much like how power corrupts in tandem with wealth, a kind of corruption occurs where a raised figure begins to exert power in their superiority.
“As predicted, our Spiritual Superiority scale was correlated with narcissism significantly more strongly than with self-esteem. This is the first empirical demonstra-tion of the interconnection between the two, corroborating the no-tion of spiritual narcissism.Our correlational results obviously do not indicate the direc-tion of this relation. We speculate it works in both directions. On the one hand, spirituality can be seized as a way to bolster the self, allowing one to see the self as very special. Considering that spirituality can be a contingency of self-worth, and that perceived progress in this domain is more easily accomplished than in do-mains with hard objective outcomes, it is a quite reliable way of boosting feelings of superiority. This may be especially true for energetic training, where self-serving inferences can easily over-ride any objective evidence of one’s accomplishments. In Study 3, narcissism was in fact substantially higher in the energetic group (Table D in Data S1).Conversely, spiritual training programs may attract people with strong personal development motives, related to our western nar-cissistic culture. Many people now engage in their own privatized search for meaning; they do not need to humbly subordinate them-selves to a community, a greater philosophy, or God, as in traditional religions. In line with the current “me”-culture, they develop their own personal religion. This self-importance, and the extensive ex-ploration of one’s personal thoughts and feelings, may be particularly appealing to both overt and covert narcissists (Vitz & Modesti, 1993; Wink et al., 2005).”
This paper spoke about the differing forms of Supernatural Overconfidence, you believe your energy outwardly effects the world. Spiritual Guidance, whether or not you teach others enlightenment ‘I can help those on their path’, which may imply ‘higher/lesser’ power structures and Spiritual Superiority, defined as ‘I am more enlightened than most others’. And contingent self-worth, that when someone practices spirituality they tend to feel better about themselves. These terms may come in handy when attempting to define aspects of dehumanising thought within New Age principles.
“the road to spiritual enlightenment may yield the exact same mundane distortions that are all too familiar in social psychology, such as self-enhancement, illusory superiority, closed-mindedness, and hedonism (clinging to positive experiences) under the guise of alleged “higher” values. It is possible, then, that the actual effects of spiritual training on self-enhancement stand in sharp contrast with the presumed diminishment of ego motives.” – Roos Vonk and Anouk Visser – An Exploration of Spiritual Superiority: The Paradox of Self Improvement.
Effectively this paper tries to link evidence through extensive interview between certain spiritual practices and this kind of spiritual narcissism. These movements seem to attract both those looking for answers, and those looking to be the answer.