THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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without generating an unmanageable quantity of data. These seven subjects came from
five South African cities, in four different provinces, thereby minimising the possibility
of any collaboration or contamination influencing their respective interview disclosures.
Six of the subjects were ex-Satanists who, at the time of the interviews, had severed all
contact with the satanic movement. The seventh had not completely left Satanism, and
claimed that he returned periodically. Only one of the subjects selected was female. The
age of the subjects ranged from 19 to 45 years. To the best of the researcher's
knowledge, none of the subjects were acquainted with the others. Considerable care was
thus taken in ensuring the "authenticity" and veracity ofresearch subjects' accounts.
2. Data collection
The data was obtained using a qualitative interview method, i.e., an interview aimed at
gathering "descriptions of the life-world of the interviewee with respect to interpretation
of the meaning of the described phenomena" (Kvale, 1990, p.l74). The semi-structured
interview format was guided by the five research questions. The interview began in an
open-ended manner, with the request: "Please tell me in as much detail as possible about
your involvement in Satanism, how you came to be involved, and how you experienced
it". When information apposite to one or more of the research questions was not
spontaneously forthcoming, questions relevant to the specific research foci were put to
the subjects. The interviews were recorded and transcribed.
13.3.3 Analysis and interpretation phase
The interview transcriptions were analysed to identify both individual and general
characteristics of object relations derivatives in the research subjects' protocols, and to
address the five research questions in the light of these object relations phenomena. In
other words, the researcher was concerned with understanding the object relations
significance of satanic involvement, both in terms of the subjects' unique individual
experiences, and the common features that identify individual variations as
manifestations of a more general experience of satanic involvement. It needs to be
emphasised that no claims of universality are made in this regard, the objective being to