THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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depends on the strategies that the individual uses to manage the anxiety elicited by the
complex. There are a number of possible strategies that people might use to deal with
a complex. Firstly, they might project it onto other individuals or groups of people.
This is often evident in the paranoid tendency of religious fundamentalists to sniff out
satanic influences in the lives ofother people who do not share their religious ideology.
A second strategy, the one that is most psychologically adaptive, is for the individual to
acknowledge, confront, and assimilate the complex, thereby leading to insight, psychic
growth and increased emotional flexibility. In this instance, individuals begin to
courageously explore the possibility that the demonic complex is not of supernatural
origin, but has its genesis in all too human feelings arising from their personal history.
A third strategy is to remain completely unconscious ofthe complex, which would then
forcibly find indirect expression in symbolic dreams, fantasies, and psychological or
somatic symptoms.
11.12 Involuntary and voluntary demonic possession
None of the above strategies would result in the experience of demonic possession
states. If, however, all these defensive strategies broke down, and proved too weak to
prevent the ego being overwhelmed by the complex, this complex might become
violently manifest as the experience of possession - the forceful intrusion of a malign,
alien force into the person of the victim. Our inherent human tendency toward
dissociation, both as a natural developmental function and as a defensive strategy
against egodystonic psychic contents, makes us susceptible to the experience of
possession. In all cases possession is possession by a part of the self, rather than by a
supernatural intelligence. The possessing agent, i.e., a demon or the Devil, is an
autonomous complex, split offfrom the rest ofthe psyche, where it leads a dissociated
and personified existence as a malevolent subpersonality. The defence strategy of
dissociation has the consequence of making a part ofthe self appear to be alien, and of
granting this alien part a disproportionate amount ofpsychic power and influence. The
demonic identity and power ofthe autonomous complex is determined by three factors:
(1) the character of the complex, including its affective intensity; (2) the degree of
resistance the ego displays toward integrating it, and (3) a mythical context to give it
an eidetic and narrative form. Complexes structured around destructive themes, and a