Patterns of Spirituality

Charismatic Teachers

Charisma seems to be something that some teachers like to emphasise to their followers. And sometimes it is used as an excuse to justify anything and everything that the teacher does. Charisma can be manipulated just like any other ability can. So how can we tell whether a teacher is a genuine one or just a confused teacher putting on a show for his followers?  The difference between someone who is psychologically confused and someone who is working with god is that the genuinely spiritual person acts only to inspire others, whilst the confused person assumes that he is a kind of saviour who will save others. The confused teacher can only save others if they are prepared to do, without question, what he tells them to do. He has a great need to be an authoritarian figure. For comparison, the genuine teacher only re-orientates the thinking and beliefs of others. This way, the others are motivated to begin to help themselves either by positive change or by strengthening their faith if they are in a position where they cannot change (for example, living in extreme poverty or being seriously ill).

The person who believes that he can save others will eventually go one of two ways. One way is that he will become dis-illusioned by the lack of faith in him by those others and their lack of response, gradually becoming more bitter towards them (such as saying that they are brain dead, which I heard one so-called American teacher call some of his followers). The other way is that if he has successfully cultivated a charismatic personality he will acquire a group of followers and eventually become the centre of a cult propagating his own beliefs about reality.

Quite often the teacher who believes that he can save others has the view that people are asleep and need to wake up. All that this view means is that such teachers have little understanding of spiritual evolution. No one is asleep and no one wakes up. The spiritual path is a very hard one and requires strength of character to follow it with dedication.  People have to learn to acquire this strength and it takes many, many incarnations for them to do so. If a person tries to practice what is beyond his strength of character he will eventually go wrong and go down blind alleys such as following charismatic teachers. The person of inadequate strength will mix his psychological needs into his spiritual beliefs, and it is these psychological needs that make the person end up going down a blind alley.

In my view, the spiritual destiny of people is not the same for everyone. Some people will follow a path of individuality, whilst the majority will follow a group path. The group path is for these of a more passive nature. There is nothing wrong with passivity, it is just that the spiritual path is very hard and most people cannot follow it on their own - they need to have emotional support. It is these group-minded people that get despised by the charismatic teachers. And yet the irony is that the charismatic teacher's followers come from people who need a group.

Copyright © 2002 Ian Heath
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