This is a form of magical thinking. Some clairvoyants claim to be able to extract from an object all the information regarding the present, past and future states of its successive owners. It is as though the object, the memory, or the sound carry the narcissist back to where and when Narcissistic Supply was abundant.

This powerful combination of branding and evidencing is what gives rise to the Narcissistic Contagion. This is the ability of the narcissist to objectify people and to anthropomorphise objects in order to derive the maximum Narcissistic Supply from them.

On the one hand, he invests as much affection and emotions in inanimate objects as healthier people do in human beings. On the other hand, he transforms people around him into functions, or objects.

In their effort to cater to the needs of the narcissist, his closest, nearest and dearest very often neglect their own. They feel that something is sick and wrong in their lives. But they are so entrapped, so much part of the narcissist's personal mythology that they cannot cut loose. Manipulated through guilt, leveraged through fear, they become a shadow of their former selves. They have contracted the disease of narcissism. They have been infected and poisoned. They have been branded.

next: The Narcissist and Social Institutions