THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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Kernberg notes that these individuals frequently report childhood experiences of hostile
or violent behaviour from parental figures. The pain of depending upon powerful and
sadistic parental objects is transformed into rage which, when projected, "further
exaggerates the sadistic image of powerful bad objects who become towering sadistic
tyrants" (p. 82). Whereas true antisocial personalities are unable to idealise their objects,
an individual with a malignant narcissistic personality structure has "at least found some
possibility of condensing sadism and idealization by identifying himself with an
idealized, cruel tyrant" (p. 83). It is because of this tendency to idealise bad objects that
malignant narcissists, unlike antisocial personalities, resort to masochistic submission to
their sadistic internal authorities. Kernberg does not mention the phenomenon of satanic
worship, but his portrayal of malignant narcissism certainly suggests why individuals
ruled by this form of sadistic self structure would gravitate to Satanism, an ideology
which simultaneously encourages sadistic behaviour while demanding absolute obedience
to a tyrannical idealised bad object in the figure of Satan.
The work of the above authors points to a personality structure, originating in the first
years of life, which would predispose an individual to Satanic cult involvement.
This
structure is a pathological organisation (Steiner, 1993) - a malignant, sadistic part of the
self, fused with a bad introject, which prevents the dependent and needy part of the self
from gaining access to good objects. Strikingly, the hallmarks of Satanism - secrecy,
tyrannical ruthlessness, perversion, magical omnipotence, hatred of weakness and
conventional goodness - are organisational qualities which match the qualities of the
destructive/malignant narcissistic intrapsychic structure identified by Rosenfeld, Meltzer,
Grotstein, Steiner, Chasseguet-Smirgel and Kernberg. In the satanic cult, destructive
narcissists encounter the organisational embodiment of their own internal pathological
organisations. The Satanist's alliance with evil becomes readily comprehensible in these
terms. It is better to become evil, sadistic and strong by bonding with the omnipotent bad
object - personified by Satan - than to be an innocent, but vulnerable, and persecuted
victim. This identification with the bad object finds collective expression in satanic
meetings, where it is ceremonially formalised by means of elaborate black magic rituals