Again, to take Ray’s absurd story at face value would be to miss the point of it entirely.
Yet when he spoke of Carmen and Vin, I witnessed swells of raw emotion pass like flaming waves across the surface of his cool, tranquil features—the surges resembling vengeful beasts repressed beneath a translucent statue shell.
I do suspect that Carmen and Vin are real; I predict they will prove of great significance as my Method works to piece together Ray’s actual experience at his church/former job.
As he finished speaking, I jotted:
What do the fog, raft, and sacrifice really represent?
How often in the church is someone “killed”?
Is the “killing” to offset the cost of keeping everyone else “alive”?
What/where is the city?
Such questions, of course, are not for me to ever ask directly; I intend them simply to serve as loose guideposts to frame our sessions as we continue to progress.
To repeat, I would not diagnose Ray as delusional.
He does, however, show clear signs of psychosis in thinking he sees things no one else can.
Note Ray’s obvious reluctance to disparage even those to whom he attributes cognizant responsibility for the “awful ironies” he cited.
Yet does each use of “it wasn’t their fault,” “that’s just how things were,” or some other variant not imply a unique and superior awareness on Ray’s part?
Some examples:
Unlike himself, most in Ray’s society are so blinded by fear as to be willing to die or kill for a system that would keep friendship from accomplishing for free what paid advertising never could.
Conversely, Ray alone picks up on the ridiculousness of a town’s and then cities’ populations being sold amongst themselves as “outsiders.”
Unlike his pastor, Ray can accurately track how ambitions in a fear-ruled world begin idealistic before inevitably turning coldly pragmatic and results-driven.
Unlike a vast congregation (large enough to be considered an empire), Ray is perfectly aware of fundamental modifications in meaning to the pastor’s message over time.
A more specific and less abstract instance: Only Ray understands why Carmen, Vin, and the other believers on the raft should not be blamed for the atheist’s death since they “backed themselves into it” without realizing.
Then building upon my solid base of evidence: Because Ray obviously holds what he sees and knows to be of great potential benefit for everyone else (those not privy to it), the literature would label his particular psychosis as a savior complex.
As I considered this, the connection my Method next pointed me toward struck me as being so crucially and undeniably relevant I hope you can appreciate the odd irony of my being solely mindful of it thus far: I realized how few scenarios I could imagine that would prove rougher for all involved than having someone with a savior complex be employed at a large, established religious institution.
How could deep, inscrutable conflicts not arise over the nature of the “saving” to be done, and the means by which it must be carried out?
Returning to our session, Ray sat silent as I perused my notes and pondered where the conversation might be best directed.
ME:
“So, you left with Caylee right after everything on the raft?”
RAY:
“I think it was, like, a year later we left.”
ME:
“Can you help me understand that a little more?
“How or why did what was happening in your church make you want to leave with Caylee?
“And then what does that notion of everyone agreeing to kill in the name of love and salvation make you want to say to your church now, or to your boss (or bosses)?”
RAY:
“Nothing. They didn’t do anything wrong.”
ME:
“Right or wrong, at this point we’re just trying to get to exactly how you feel or felt at that important moment in your life, that’s all.
“So, take some time and think: What do you want to tell them?
“Anything?”
Ray responded immediately.
RAY:
“Well, this is probably hard to… But maybe I’d say something like, ‘It seems you guys are willing to kill for things that . . . that you’re not even really paying attention to anymore…?’”
ME:
“What does that mean?
“What are they not paying attention to?”
RAY:
“It’s just . . . believing The Pastor’s message about the coming other world was supposed to be what mattered more than anything, right? But then The City came, and it got to where everyone in The Church who wanted to be in charge sort of felt like their job was to show they cared more than anyone else about what The Church was doing to grow and bring in as many new people as possible. That’s, I guess, what the importance of the message turned into…? But when it came to regular workers like me, whether or not we believed, well . . . that didn’t actually matter so much anymore as long as we kept doing and saying the right things, y’know? As long as we were useful.
“Anyway, I was mad for a long time. But I think now I see where that . . . that way of thinking . . . comes from.”
Notice again Ray’s implication that he alone is aware of important matters his church or leaders are “not even really paying attention to anymore.”
I could easily go back line by line and show you every instance where Ray’s clear issues with authority tie to what he perceives to be his secret savior wisdom falling on the collective deaf ears of an ineffectual empire.
Yet the religious nature of Ray’s case presents me with a rather more interesting and pressing potential problem: In approaching belief systems such as Christianity, my Method works stunningly well to sift through symbolic language and uncover the appeal of every given claim or term: a star, a snake, a baby, a devil—or, in Ray’s case: friendship, advertising, cannibals, and fog; in listening to Ray speak, however, the danger I sense would be in getting bogged down by ever more detailed descriptions of his figurative representations instead of allowing my Method the free use of those representations to help unlock what each one means and why it matters.
Put simply: A religious person with a savior complex who sees and communicates via metaphorical Outlier visions might feel obligated to clarify vision particulars all day, etching endless distinctions like further mixed-up puzzle pieces for my Method then to have to work to place.
So, in order to avoid my precious time being eaten up with frivolity, while also still not challenging Ray’s presented revelations in the least, I must commit to keeping the direction of our conversations general instead of ever letting us get stuck spinning out in specifics.
Show a client broadly what they want in their own words, and you can keep them from retching out further words to mask or make false sense of what they care about.
ME:
“Were you mad that they’d be willing to kill for something they no longer even valued the same way?”
RAY:
“Well, I saw Grace.”
I don't know anything 