You better believe that if renowned narcissist Jim Jones were alive and well today, he’d be reaching far more numbers of vulnerable and impressionable minds by writing a blog from an upscale flat in London than he ever did in the jungles of Guyana.  He’d still have his loyal following of devotee’s with their troubled pasts of trauma, broken childhoods, broken marriages, and broken dreams.  He would naturally espouse to have vast knowledge on how to remedy all that ails them.  He would peddle his special brand of elixir or “how-to” and offer to turn their lives from misery to sanctity and freedom.  All that he would ask is that they just put their faith and trust in him, their fearless and self-ascribed Messiah .

Like any good narcissist, he seeks unlimited success/power/love, admiration.  He has a grandiose self-worth and believes himself superior to others.  He has a lack of empathy well-hidden behind a seamless veneer of charm and charisma.  Has a sense of entitlement and possesses interpersonal exploitative behaviors. Only Jones knows to prey upon women with childhood trauma histories, poor boundaries, the lost sorts, all of them looking for anyone to care about them.  He knows precisely  how to deliver that illusion.

In today’s day and age vampires have adapted.  They have no need to fear the daylight, for there are dark sunglasses and sunscreen.   So too, the modern-day Jones would dispense his Kool-Aid differently than his predecessor.   The pen has always been mightier than the sword, or in this case, the cyanide.   Our modern-day Jones would trade preaching for blogging.  He would use volumes of facts about narcissism and offer to help others gain “understanding”.    Jones may perhaps don the Scarlet Letter and admit publicly to being a narcissist.  This would do two things.  One, through his blog he would both normalize and desensitize the topic of malignant narcissism as well as foster a cheerleading team for himself.  Secondly, through describing his own personal experience of being a narcissist  in a “confessional” style blog, he appears honest to readers; even trustworthy.  He could ensnare victims by creating an online support group via the comment section of his blog and most of them would naïvely walk into it and never seeing it for its dark potential.   His harem, a coterie of would be stand-ins vying for place as his next primary source.  For they see him as “reformed.”

The real coterie’s purpose to him? anything he wants.  Since many subscribers have their profile linked to their social media, at his disposal are their emails, photos, and sometimes phone numbers.   He would most likely spend hours writing, cultivating, and pruning his blog as it would be no doubt a great source of ready-to-eat supply.     Simply put, narc heaven.

By the time our Kool-Aid Jones blog gets into the minds of subscribers, his words have already become like a slow-acting poison eating away at what’s left of their own self-confidence.   Mesmerizing them, paralyzing them to stay close to him for advice, dare they look right when they might look left.   After all, he loves feeling omnipotent, loves their adulation.  For only he can solve their queries.  He triggers the very trauma bonds in their early histories from which they’ve been trying to escape.

Wait, he seems so benign our Kool-Aid Jones, is there really a need for anyone to run?