THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

96
argued, arose from the unequal distribution of a fluid-borne energy in the human body. It
could therefore be cured by restoring magnetic equilibrium by channelling, storing and
conveying this energy using the 'magnetiser's various physical interventions. His success
in treating so-called possession symptoms convinced him that he had found a rational,
scientific explanation for what had been misperceived as demonic possession, and a
medical alternative to exorcism. Experimentation with 'Mesmerism' revealed that an
altered state of consciousness, 'magnetic sleep', could be induced in subjects by making
'magnetic passes' of the hands over their bodies. This magnetic sleep, today referred to
as the hypnotic trance, displayed a number of extraordinary characteristics (Crabtree,
1985): (1) a somnambulist state of ,sleepwaking' in which subjects appeared to be asleep,
but would respond to the mesmerist's questions and instructions; (2) dual consciousness
and memory, i.e., the waking state and mesmeric state were independent states of
consciousness, with separate and independent memory chains; (3) loss of identity,
manifest in mesmerised subjects' uncertainty about who they are; (4) heightened longterm
memory (hypermnesia); (5) sensory blunting or deadening; (5) insensitivity to pain;
(6) extreme suggestibility and suspension of reality testing; (7) sensorial rapport, whereby
the mesmeric subject feels the physical sensations experienced by the mesmerist; (8)
mental rapport, whereby the subject can intuit the thoughts of the mesmerist; (9)
clairvoyance - some subjects would display extrasensory knowledge of events and could
'view' things occurring elsewhere at the time ofthe mesmeric trance; and 'retrocognition'
- being able to perceive historical events of which they had no waking knowledge; and
(10) a transcendental awareness ofspiritual entities.
Although Mesmer's notion of 'animal magnetism' was thoroughly discredited, the trance
state he had discovered, and the implications that human beings had a dualconsciousness,
provided the foundation for a psychological understanding of demons and
so-called demonic possession. Jean-Martin Charcot (1838-1893), the eminent French
neurologist and hypnotist, has been credited with finding a scientific explanation for
demonic possession (Ellenberger, 1970). Charcot, who demonstrated conclusively that
hysteria could be both induced and relieved by hypnosis, argued that possession was