THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

145
feelings of resentment and deprivation support the assumption that he had felt frustrated
in the earliest feeding relation" (1955, p. 159). Greed, envy, and hatred are thus
aggravated by oral frustration arising in the infant-mother relationship. Klein locates the
origin of Fabian's pathology in his inability to "establish securely the good breast, the
good mother, in his inner world - an initial failure which, in turn, prevented him from
developing an identification with a good father" (1955, p. 165).
Whereas Freud identified the father as the original and only source of the Devil, Klein
sees the father as a secondary object onto whom the infant displaces feelings originating
in the maternal relationship. In Fabian's case, feelings of deprivation and frustration
extended to his father, for, in the young infant's fantasies, "the father is the second object
from whom oral gratifications are expected" (1955, p. 164). Klein traces another specific
maternal aspect to the Devil's contradictory asceticism and contempt for the "lusts ofthe
flesh". Klein therefore identifies both maternal and paternal identifications in the figure
of the Devil: "This aspect was influenced by Fabian's identification with the moral and
ascetic mother, the Devil thus representing simultaneously both parents" (1955, p. 153).
The last manifestation ofthe Devil is the opposite of that associated with a persecutory
internal object, namely a benign superego component which helps Fabian leave a
particularly destructive transformation, and warns him "to beware entering a person in
whom he would submerge to such an extent that he could never escape again" (1955, p.
168). Klein thus presents an interpretation ofthe Devil and Satanic pacts which, although
having aspects in common with Freud's interpretation, is far more complex. A close
reading of Klein's article shows the Devil to represent (1) the fusion of destructive
(sadistic, envious, and greedy) projective identifications, (2) projected homosexual love,
(3) the negative aspects of an internalised father who is split into good (God) and bad
(Satan) personifications, (4) a benign, helpful superego component associated with a good
paternal introject, and (5) superego manifestations ofmaternal identifications. Klein does
not explain the relationships between these aspects, but we are left in no doubt that the