THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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Despite Jung's reference to the "black fiend", analytic psychology has been conceptually
ill-equipped to understand evil as anything other than the archetypal shadow, whose
destructive aspects Jungians have de-emphasised. However, it appears theoretically
viable to unite the neo-Kleinian concept of pathological narcissistic personality
organisations with the Jungian theory of the shadow, and thereby formulate a depth
psychological model of evil which will be able to comprehend the sadistic excesses of
satanic rituals. Furthermore, the tension between the destructive and creative
conceptualisations of the unconscious, in the respective Kleinian and Jungian discourses,
is echoed in the experience of these ex-Satanists. While they may have identified with
evil, both intrapsychic and organisational, a life-affirming part oftheir unconscious minds
was never quite extinguished. The reparative impulse, and some germ of good internal
object experience, prevented these individuals from totally and permanently identifying
with evil. Thus, despite subject two's continued hatred, bitterness, and attraction to
Satanism, he is still able to maintain contact with an internal good object, which he
identifies as God: "1 can stillfeel Him down inside here, He's that tender part ... He is the
tenderness inside me". Even subject seven, whose psychic life since early childhood
seems to have been dominated by a sadistic subpersonality, was aware of the "spiritual"
desire to regain contact with some projected and dimly perceived good part ofhimself: "1
was trying to find the link between myself and the things around me. 1 was always
striving for answers, always striving for that". If we define evil as the unambivalent,
complete and permanent identification with the sadistic parts of one's mind, of which
Satanism is the archetypal embodiment, then none of these subjects, despite their
association with evil, can ever be described as evil in themselves.
We need to be mindful, however, of how vulnerable these individuals are to regressive
identification with the destructive parts of themselves. Charismatic Christian salvation is
experienced as providing a magical cure but, as pointed out above, it may simply provide
an alternative narcissistic identity structure, based on dissociation rather than integration.
The precariousness of this inflated psychic state is tragically illustrated in the case of
subject five. Eighteen months after having been exorcised and converted to Christianity,