THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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This situation perpetuated S's splitting defences, exacerbated by his father's apparent
failure to maintain regular contact, and keep his promises to his son (6,7). The extent of
the paternal part-object's badness was thus intensified by the father's neglectful behaviour,
and S's protection of the idealised maternal object, by projecting his negative maternal
experience onto the bad paternal object. Therefore, although his mother forced Christian
religious instruction on him (16), S's childhood hostility toward Christianity appeared to
be associated only with his deceitful father's self-professed Christian faith (7). God, the
projected bad paternal part-object imago, was subsequently perceived by S to be an absent
and uncaring figure (19).
S thus entered adolescence with an internal world structured by critical and rejecting
internal objects, and splitting defences erected to protect an idealised maternal part-object
from his unconscious anger. As a consequence, his internal reality was dominated by a
rejecting paternal part-object, onto which he projected his hatred, thereby establishing a
punitive superego whose retaliatory attacks were experientially manifest as a sense of
inferiority and self-hatred. S's paranoid orientation was strengthened by his social
alienation, and belief that his peers rejected, ridiculed, and persecuted him (2,3). Having
been an obedient child, S's world changed when, as an adolescent, he adopted a negative
identity in order to win peer group acceptance (9,10). This strategy, however, aggravated
his negative relationships with teachers, who were projectively identified with bad parental
part-objects, and thus perceived as hated, abusive authority figures (13,14,15). His refusal
to conform to their expectations of him resulted in him being regularly punished, and
failing academically, which in turn fuelled his paranoia and underlying self-hatred.
A hostile superego, a paranoid orientation, and the absence of a secure good internal
object were conspicuous when S, as a young adult, felt lonely, rejected, friendless,
directionless, and perceived life as meaningless. These factors, together with his rebellious
behaviour, hatred of authority, and anger toward God - the supernatural projection of his
bad paternal part-object - predisposed S to satanic involvement.
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