THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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power, inclines him/her to Satanism, the definitive destructive occult anti-establishment
organisation.
Individuals' formal acceptance into the cult occurs by means of a ritual initiation
characterised by the rejection and denigration of the Christian God, a blood pact with
Satan, and the ingestion ofsacrificial blood from an animal identified with Satan. This oral
incorporative act facilitates introjective identification with Satan, simultaneously
experienced as an idealised father and an omnipotent part ofoneself. The individual's lust
for power, yearning for familial belonging, and narcissistic identification with an ideal
father is thus satisfied by the cult's initiation ritual.
The dualistic satanic "theology" and its hatred of Christianity promotes pre-existing
splitting defences, encourages ego-syntonic identification with the destructive
subpersonality, and encourages uninhibited sexual and aggressive gratification. Through
the practice of malevolent magic rituals the hated bad paternal part-object - symbolised by
God - is destroyed in fantasy, and a sense of supernatural omnipotence is cultivated. The
normative moral poles of good and bad are reversed, allowing the "children" of Satan to
feel loved and worthy while living out their sadism and destructiveness. Guilt and
compassion are expunged and replaced by manic triumph, hatred, and further disavowal of
libidinal parts of the self. Conscious elaboration of hostile projective identification
processes, by means of "magic" rituals, promotes sadistic mental attacks on those
individuals identified with persecutory internal objects and ego-dystonic self aspects.
Human and animal sacrificial rituals, in which the victim is killed and the sacrificial blood
imbibed, simultaneously flout inviolable social taboos, blasphemously parody the holy
Christian Mass, create group solidarity, symbolically destroy projected ego-dystonic
aspects, gratifY sadistic impulses, and promote personal power through the belief that the
victim's.life force is internalised with the consumption ofits blood.
By means ofritual invocation, blood drinking, and sexual intercourse Satanists consciously
invite possession by demons - previously split-off, personified and projected aspects of
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