THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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contaminating bad internal object, attacking S from within as punishment for his betrayal
ofthe destructive subpersonality.
When S looked into mirrors he did not see his own reflection, but the horrifying faces of
the demons possessing him (187). These hallucinatory images were projected
personifications of S's ego-dystonic destructive self aspects - previously entertained, but
now disavowed, persecutory internal presences. S's work performance was compromised
by poor concentration, and he considered killing himself to escape the pain and fear arising
from the demonic attacks on him (184,185). S's "demons" forced him to verbally abuse
his family members, resulting in him being evicted from the family home (188). Having
dissociated himself from the destructive subpersonality, S's hostility toward his parents and
siblings found expression in abusive attacks on them by internal possessing forces,
seemingly alien and beyond his control.
During a second deliverance, S shrieked, convulsed, and vomited slime, as the besieged
demons screamed in agony and threw his body about the room (190). These extreme
somatic reactions indicate the intensity of the conflict between dissociated good and bad
parts of S. The latter were now experienced as palpably real and alien to the central ego,
which helplessly observed the destructive subpersonality's attempts to maintain control of
S's personality. Fearing identification with his weak and vulnerable child representation,
which had been split off and denied during his satanic career, S refused to renounce all of
his occult powers, resulting in a return of the possessing demons (193). S was loathe to
give up the power and grandiosity associated with the destructive subpersonality, thereby
allowing this part of him to infiltrate his central personality again, giving rise to further
possession symptoms. Although he felt no emotion, S acted in a bizarre, cruel, and
destructive manner, culminating in an attempt to murder the evangelist who had been
looking after him (192,194). The destructive subpersonality had reasserted control over
the self, and proceeded to attack those objects into which S had projected his libidinal, and
hence vulnerable, aspects. After telling the evangelist for the first time about the full
extent of his satanic involvement, S was physically attacked by demons. Significantly,
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