I think these examples of Diabolical Narcissism in film are very instructive, and make for interesting posts. Remember, just because I coined the term “Diabolical Narcissism” doesn’t mean the phenomenon is new – it is exactly the opposite. DN predates the existence of human beings, as it is what Lucifer and the one-third of the angelic beings chose to do when they fell and were cast out of heaven. That happened BEFORE God created man. If you have watched my video presentation on DN, you know it basically hinges around 1 Corinthians 13: 1-5, in which St. Paul, inspired by The Holy Ghost, makes the chilling statement that the man who chooses not to love is, in the eyes of God, NOTHING. Nihil sum.
In this scene (2:30:00) at the end of the VERY GOOD film about St. Bernadette Soubirous and her visitation at Lourdes by The Blessed Virgin which Holy Mother Church celebrated yesterday and every February 11th, the Imperial Prosecutor, Vital Dutour, played by Vincent Price, always in contempt of Bernadette and especially of religion (remember, this is France just a few decades after the satanic French Revolution and the Vendee Genocide), after being diagnosed with terminal throat cancer, goes to the Grotto and makes this confession:
“I am a stranger here. I am not like these thousands of souls flickering brightly and hopefully in the darkness. My pride has always stood between them and me. The pride of being a superior human being. But now I know that we are all a wretched animal species, distinguished from the insects only by nerve centers and false reasoning. A hungry cancer is feeding at my throat. Tomorrow I’ll crawl back to Langlois, hide in some hole of death and be heard of no more. I’ll be alone – alone and desolate. And why not? It’s logical. I’ll be alone because I have loved no one. No one and nothing. Not even myself. Nothing. Nothing.
Pray for me, Bernadette….”
This is a succinct description of Diabolical Narcissism. The otherness, the pathological haughtiness, the self-loathing, the self-pity, and most importantly the lovelessness. The freely-chosen lovelessness, which only leads, as St. Paul said, to NOTHINGNESS. Nihil sum.