Dharma Combat

Where Spiritual Giants Duke It Out

Claudio Naranjo
Taking Hits

Claudio Naranjo (on himself):

"I was once at a point of having evoked in people enough willingness to hear or follow what I said, that I began to use my authority. I used it well at the beginning, and then not so well. My authority was very invited at the beginning, and very lightly used. The first things that I prescribed were very right-on. For instance, I remember saying to a certain person, "You should write the story of your life, and publish it." He eventually wrote an autobiography and it was a very fulfilling experience. Then I started to abuse that authority and to demand of myself that I have something to prescribe for everybody. I overdid it, and started to force things. I asked for things that were harder and harder to do.
I began to feel more insecrure, more challenged, and I started to put down people who implicitly challenged me, and to invalidate them by pointing to their pathology. It may have been appropriate to some extent, and I think I did a lot of good, but there was a bad motive. The worse the motive got, the less that my prescriptions were good, until I put an end to the whole thing. I didn't feel the internal authority to be in that position."
- from Halfway Up the Mountain by Mariana Caplan

Dharma Combat

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