THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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however, these attacks came from outside, and were no longer internal (195). This
occurred because S was no longer introjectively identified with the destructive
subpersonality, but had defensively located it outside of himself by means of projective
fantasy. S's spiritual battle thus ended the moment he consciously terminated
identification with the destructive subpersonality, thereby facilitating defensive projection
ofhis bad self aspects, and effectively ridding himself ofinternal conflict (199).
Following his Christian conversion, S discovered, contrary to his previous beliefs, that
Satan was in fact powerless, and his opponent, God, supremely powerful (200,202). This
indicates that S's splitting defences persisted and, by means of a defensive reversal of
identifications, the previously denigrated part-object (God) became idealised, while the
formerly idealised part object (Satan) was denigrated. S's identification with the new
idealised paternal part-object, God, resulted in him embracing Christian values, and so
redefining himself as the loved and loving son ofan omnipotent and benevolent father.
Subject Six
14.6.1. Predisposing factors
S's predisposition to satanic involvement emerged from the familial context of troubled
relationships with both parents. As a child, he felt the need to shield his hypersensitive
mother from his own emotional difficulties, as she interpreted such disclosures as
reflections of her maternal failure (4). This maternal inability to contain S's experiences
must have aggravated his normal depressive anxiety and guilt, related to his aggressive
fantasies of harming his vulnerable maternal object. Instead of integrating a destructive
self representation, modified by maternal containment, S split off and projected this
uncontainably aggressive self representation. S's first object relation was thus established
on the experience of his internal world being beyond understanding, dangerous to, and
rejected by, his maternal object. Not surprisingly, therefore, S became an introverted and
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