THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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identify with it , partly out of fear, and partly because it contains his own vengeful
omnipotence" (p. 267). In pathological narcissism, the cult of the bad object, an
intrapsychic forerunner of the external satanic cult, may arise partly from an unusual
degree of constitutional aggression, but more likely from the child's developmental
milieu. Meltzer (1979) notes that "where a parent is seriously disturbed and a significant
degree of collusion can be established by the bad part of the personality, the situation of
fusion to form the sadistic super-ego is most likely" (p. 91). Brenman's analysis supports
this point. The mother's rejection of the infant's needy, anxious, 'baby' parts of self
results in the narcissistic sector of the individual's own personality exiling these aspects:
"A home is therefore only given to gods and the godlike narcissistic part of the self,
leading to a 'false self' and living a lie" (Brenman, 1988, p. 268). A highly moralistic
superego disguises its essentially cruel identity, and goodness "is highjacked and
perverted to the side of cruelty to give it strength and avoid catastrophe. This perversion
is worshipped as a religion" (p. 269). Brenman's description of a psychic attitude based
on a narcissistic organisation does not consider the situation in which evil itself is
pursued, but he provides a useful pointer to the processes giving rise to the sadistic
personality organisation which underlies evil. These processes include: "the worship of
omnipotence which is felt to be superior to human love and forgiveness, the clinging to
omnipotence as a defence against depression, and the sanctification of grievance and
revenge" (p. 269).
Chasseguet-Smirgel's 1984 study of perverSIOn, although largely Freudian in its
approach, has much in common with Meltzer's work, and is particularly interesting
insofar as she suggests Lucifer to be the model ofperversion:
The pervert attempts to take the Father-Creator's place in order to make a new
universe from chaos and mixture, a universe where anything becomes
.possible, and towards which he tends to return. Differences have been
abolished, the feelings of helplessness, smallness, inadequacy, as well as
absence, castration and death - psychic pain itself -also disappear. The model
ofthe demiurge character trying to dethrone the Father God-Creator is Lucifer
(p. 13).