THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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forces. Certain individuals in the person's environment would become containers ofthese
projective identifications, and consequently appear to personify evil. The intrusive return
of these projections would give rise to the experience of being possessed by an evil
supernatural force, as the self falls prey to the destructive subpersonality. This dynamic,
it is proposed, offers one explanation for the phenomenon of involuntary demonic
posseSSIOn.
10.3 Psychodynamics of voluntary possession and Satanic worship
The phenomenon whereby certain individuals invite possession and actively worship
Satan suggests a different dynamic. What appears to happen in these cases is that the
individuals defensively reverse the above strategy. Rather than identifying with the
fearful, impotent self component of the internal object relation, and projecting the bad
internal object, they instead identify with the bad object representations and project the
corresponding self representation. In this way, the person escapes the bad object's
persecution, with the accompanying feelings of terror and helplessness, by becoming one
with the bad object, giving oneself over to its influence and assimilating its destructive
power. Certain personality styles would be more predisposed than others to bad object
identification. The narcissistic spectrum of personality disorders, characterised by a
grandiose facade of omnipotence, independence, and contempt for others is perhaps most
likely to be attracted to Satanism. Behind this facade, lurks an empty, hungry, enraged,
impotent and envious core self (Kernberg, 1975), which the satanic emphasis on magical
power and control would help to counter. Thus, it may be argued, there is a 'goodness of
fit' between the narcissistic personality structure and satanic cult ideology.
The notion of destructive narcissism may help to substantiate this claim and understand
Satanists' need for identification with the ultimately bad object. A number of Kleinian
authors (Meltzer, 1988; Rosenfeld, 1987, 1988; Steiner, 1993) have focused on a
particularly malignant variety of narcissistic pathology that involves addiction to, and
idealisation of, destructive parts of the personality. As will later be illustrated, the work
of these authors is particularly relevant to understanding the internal world of certain