THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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the ambivalent impulses ansmg from the interaction of this protracted infantile
dependency and universal instinctual wishes, both gratified and frustrated by parental
figures, provides the key to religious experience. The human infant, unlike other
mammals, is totally dependent on parental physical and emotional nurturance for a
protracted period. Every child thus experiences a prolonged period of helpless
vulnerability and total dependency on parental figures, which exert a profound formative
influence on subsequent psychological development. In line with Freud's emphasis on
the oedipal stage of development and the primacy of the father in psychosexual
maturation, childhood dependence on the paternal figure is emphasised:
The derivation of religious needs from the infant's helplessness and the
longing for the father aroused by it seems to me incontrovertible,
especially since the feeling is not simply prolonged from childhood days,
but is permanently sustained by fear ofthe superior power of fate. I cannot
think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's
protection .... The origin of the religious attitude can be traced back in
clear outlines as far as the feeling of infantile helplessness (Freud, 1930, p.
23-24).
Psychological vulnerability and dependency does not end in childhood, but persists
throughout the course of life. The anxiety associated with childhood helplessness
provides the original motivation for religious belief and ritual (Freud, 1927). The initial
experience of parental power is subsequently experienced as the capricious power of fate,
and individuals feel the need for divine protection from fate in much the same way as
children feel the need for adult protection: "In religion we are all children, related in our
trusting infantile dependence on a powerful god who replaced the oedipal parents"
(Meissner, 1984, p. 14). The power differential between child and adult, particularly
between son and father, contends Freud, provides the developmental foundation for the
adult's experience of God.