THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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This dissertation spans a number of disciplines and discourses. At one level its province
may be best described as the psychology of religion, where religion is defined as "an
institution consisting of culturally patterned interactions with culturally postulated
superhuman beings" (Spiro cited in Rizzuto, 1979, p. 3). However, this research also
necessarily addresses issues typically located in the fields of psychopathology, history,
sociology, anthropology, mythology, folklore, and theology. This dissertation will
obviously not adequately address the questions that each of these specialist disciplines
may ask about Satanism. While some consideration of each of these knowledge domains
has been necessary in contextualising Satanism, the focus of the dissertation is a
psychological question - what is the meaning, both explicit and implicit, of Satanic cult
involvement for individual participants?
This particular research question is best addressed usmg a qualitative methodological
procedure. Qualitative methodology, previously frowned upon by the scientific
psychological community, has acquired recent respectability with the acknowledgement
that forms of knowledge other than statistical correlations have a valid place in
psychological research. The research data comprised verbatim transcripts of semistructured
interviews with seven subjects who claimed to have been involved for six
months or longer in organised Satanic cult activities. A psychoanalytic hermeneutic
framework was employed to interpret the subjective meaning that this involvement had for
the participants. The research objective was to explore both the individual meanings of,
and motives for, this involvement, and the meanings and motives common to all
participants. In this way it was hoped that a fresh perspective might be brought to bear on
the five questions posed above.
Dissertation overview and structure
The structure of the dissertation is as follows. Part One is a historical overview of the
history of the Satanic myth's evolution in Western culture, and how the evolving
conception of diabolical witchcraft established the foundations for belief in secret
organisations committed to Satanic worship. Although organisational Satanism, as it is
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