THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

225
12.6 An archetypal object relations theory of demonic possession states
Although analytical psychology and object relations theory represent alternative
traditions, a striking degree ofconceptual concordance invites the formulation ofa theory
of possessive states that integrates key aspects of these traditions, without ignoring their
significant differences. All deities, whether good or evil, are personifications of the
unconscious, formed by an interaction between innate (transpersonal) structures and the
influence ofpersonal childhood experience. The universal experience ofspirit possession
stems from the archetypal predisposition to assign supernatural significance, and
associated imagery, to aspects of our experience of self and other. The supernatural or
numinous quality of this experience derives from a number of related factors: (1) its
instinctually-based emotional intensity, (2) the innate tendency to split conflictual
experience into dissociated self and object suborganisations, (3) to personify these
psychic structures or organisations as subpersonalities, (4) to externalise these
subpersonalities through unconscious projective mechanisms, and (5) to make sense of
the resulting personified entities or forces through mythological narratives. Demons are
thus unconscious, projectively disowned, intrapsychic configurations, comprising split-off
and personified shadow parts of self, invariably identified with internalised parental
objects, which exert an obsessive or possessive influence on the ego by virtue of their
destructive instinctual energy and impunity to conscious will.
Developmentally, demon possession is made possible by the failure of real parental
figures to 'humanise' the child's negative introjects (bad objects), fantastically amplified
by archetypal polarities, splitting defences, and destructive projective identifications.
Internal objects are archetypally organised, i.e. there is an archetypal predisposition to
relate to parental objects, organising and selectively shaping them in accordance with the
archetypal themes in question. The infant's developmental task, in this respect, is to
marry archetypal predispositions in relation to parental figures, with actual experiences of
the real parents. If this process is successful the infant attains a basis for real
relationships with objects that are not distorted by delusional fantasy arising from
archetypal sources. Extremely negative parental experiences at an early age, however,