THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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Devil is a composite figure, constructed in unconscious fantasy from introjective and
projective processes associated with both maternal and paternal objects.
Klein associates demonic phenomena with paranoid-schizoid dynamics, i.e. infantile
persecutory anxiety arising from the defensive splitting of the ego and its objects into
polarised good and bad aspects, and the fantasised location of the bad aspects in external
objects which then constitute a perceived external threat to the person. Splitting is
associated with a number of primitive defences, particularly projective identification,
which makes the recipient of the projections appear to be the incarnation of the
projector's split-off destructiveness.
While Freud identifies an ambivalent paternal relationship and genital oedipal impulses
as the source of the Devil, Klein identifies oral frustration in the context of the infantile
mother-child relationship as the original source of the demonic projections. Oral
frustration intensifies the destructive impulses at the expense of libidinal ones, thereby
increasing reliance on projective identification to rid the self of internal badness (evil) in
order to protect the good internal objects. Father is a secondary object in the sense that
destructive introjective identifications originating in relation to the bad maternal object,
are projected onto the bad paternal object, which is subsequently personified in fantasy as
the Devil.
While constitutional destructiveness, the psychic expression of the death instinct, is the
origin of negative projective identifications, internal and external factors interact to either
strengthen the destructive impulses or strengthen the reparative impulses, thereby
'promoting psychic integration and consolidation of good introjective identification.
Parental loss, absence, or emotional unavailability are particularly important negative
environmental factors which aggravate the tendency to employ primitive defences,
thereby increasing the tendency to perceive one's own destructiveness in personified
demonic form.