THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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continued identification with the destructive subpersonality. The character of the Black
Mass was also discussed, and it was pointed out how this ritual is tied to fantasies of a
perverse alternative universe, characterised by sacrilege, subversion of law, overthrow of
the oedipal father, narcissistic abolition of the distinction between subject and object,
replacement oftruth by falsity, and the substitution ofknowledge by magic.
Demonic invocation and the hallucinatory manifestation of demons was considered in
some detail. Demons were identified as split-off autonomous complexes, comprising
personified shadow parts of the self, fused with destructive parental introjects. Common
visual characteristics of demons was attributed to archetypal imagery, shaped by satanic
folklore and Western mythology. The symptoms of demonic possession, both egosyntonic
and ego-dystonic, were illustrated with details from subjects' first-hand reports.
The somatic manifestation of demonic possession was noted and attributed to the fact that
the body is not a material reality divorced from mental phenomena, but the incarnation of
psychological life.
The motives for, and experiences of, leaving Satanism were elaborated, and the Christian
solution to the problem of possession by bad objects, viz. possession by good ones, was
discussed. The chapter concluded with a consideration of the psychological meaning of
evil. It was argued that Jung, although he took the reality of evil seriously, could not
adequately conceptualise it. The author proposed a theory of evil that unites the neo­
Kleinian concept of destructive or malignant narcissism, with the Jungian theory of the
shadow archetype. This theory, it was contended, allows one to understand the sadistic
nature of satanic rituals.