THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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Summary
Although Freud portrayed intrapsychic life in terms ofpersonified, autonomous agencies,
Klein extended this psychodynamic understanding by proposing a model of mind
characterised by detailed fantasised interactions between the ego and multiple
representations of internalised object relationships. By proposing a universal set of
introjective and projective mental processes, Klein was able to demonstrate how
significant others come to be experienced as concretely located in us, and how aspects of
ourselves, identified with these internal objects, may be defensively split off and located
in others. Those objects experienced as bad by virtue ofthe subject'S hostile projections,
or because they frustrate the subject's developmental needs, are perceived as personified
internal persecutors, which cannot be assimilated into the subject's ego. This framework,
in which malevolent, personified internal objects exert control over the ego, provides the
foundation for understanding the experience of demonic possession. Klein, interpreting a
satanic pact in a work of fiction, argues that the Devil is the personification of infantile
destructive impulses, arising from oral frustration in the context of the infant's
relationship with his mother. Greed, envy, and hatred prevent the secure internalisation
of a good maternal object. These destructive impulses, in turn, are projected onto the
paternal object, thereby preventing identification with a good internal father figure. At
the same time, the individual desperately seeks contact with an idealised counterpart of
the bad paternal part-object, but is prevented from succeeding by internal destructiveness.
As a result of splitting and projective identification, the destructive aspects of self are
located in a paternal part-object (the Devil), experienced as wholly bad or evil. Although
the motive for the demonic pact is the search for a good father, re-integration of the
destructive projections results in the ego identifying with the bad object, thereby
becoming one with the Devil. Projected homosexual love and benign superego
components, arising from maternal and paternal interaction, strengthens attachment to the
demonic 'father' figure. Although not directly relevant to satanic cult involvement,
Klein's complex interpretation of a fictional satanic pact does provide a useful theoretical
framework for understanding the unconscious origin of the Devil as an internal object,
and suggests plausible motives for the ego's identification with this evil internal figure.