THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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S once witnessed Satan's materialisation as a perfectly attractive, white, male, human
figure (80). Satan may be considered to be a hallucinatory manifestation of a projected
ideal paternal object, and his attractiveness suggests oedipal wishes coexisting alongside
S's feelings of hatred toward the destructive paternal part-object. She felt afraid, and
experienced Satan's domineering presence as a physical force pressing down on her (81),
confirming Satan's identity as the oedipal father who she simultaneously feared and longed
to be loved by.
14.1.5. Process of leaving Satanism
For S, Satanism involved the persistent striving for accomplishments which, when
attained, would no longer be adequate in her own eyes (95). She still lived under the
critical scrutiny of rejecting internal objects, displaced from her childhood pursuits, onto
her satanic activities. She also experienced inter-coven relationships to be based on
conflictual quests to conquer those perceived as having power (96), an unconscious reenactment
of her childhood sibling rivalry. S began to feel afraid, and wished to leave the
coven (89); wanting to lead a normal life, free of nightmares and drug abuse (90). She
understands her indiscriminate drug abuse to have been an attempt to evade the
unremitting stress of striving for more power, and fighting others for contested satanic
status (97). In the absence of injectable substances S would derive emotional gratification
from drawing her own blood, squirting and drinking it (98), an activity which S's mother
refused to acknowledge, despite witnessing the evidence (99). The traumatic event that
eventually forced S to leave Satanism was the alleged induced abortion and cannibalisation
of her foetus by coven members. This event continued to affect her work as a student
nurse, and she felt unable to witness routine medical pregnancy terminations, as these
vividly recalled the horror ofhaving foetal life torn from her (92).
S, fearing for her life, was blocked in her attempts to leave the coven by disbelieving
clergy who labelled her claims as attention-seeking fabrications (93). Other people's
refusal to acknowledge Satan's reality intensified S's fear and uncertainty about where to
seek help (100). She eventually found a religious minister who believed her (94), and S
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