THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

126
God, is invoked because contradictory impulses toward, and experiences of, the actual
father are ambivalently fused. In this instance, Haizmann's affectionate-submissive
longing for his dead father is fused with his hostile, rebellious and fearful attitude towards
him. The demonic parental surrogate who appears to him is thus both longed-for and
consoling, while at the same time persecutory and truly terrifying.
5. Freedom from demonic possession assumes the form of exorcism, in which the Devil
is vanquished by a higher power. In Haizmann's case, it is the projected maternal imago,
the Mother of God, who, together with the figure of Christ, frees Haizmann from his pact.
Interestingly, this implies that the first solution to Haizmann's neurotic depression (the
pact with the Devil) is supplanted by another neurotic strategy, his commitment to serving
God and the Holy Virgin. That this solution is also neurotic is evident from the fact that
Haizmann, after renouncing the Devil, was also persecuted by God, who "led him into
Hell so that he might be terrified by the fate ofthe damned" (Freud, 1923, p. 101). Christ,
too, appeared to him, and "upbraided him soundly with threats and promises" (1923, p.
101). Thus God has replaced the Devil as a substitute father, but is still an ambivalent
figure. Only by submitting himself totally to God's calling did Haizmann find
symptomatic relief.
6. The ambiguity concerning the Devil's unconscious origins may be resolved ifwe
accept Freud's argument that the superego comprises images ofparental figures
transmuted by the individual's own repressed instinctual impulses. The Devil is thus a
composite figure, comprising unconscious aspects ofboth selfand other.
7. The modem-day absence of the Devil as a father-substitute in psychologically
disturbed people may be attributed to the declining influence ofreligion, and therefore the
declining importance ofthe associated mythical figures, particularly Satan.