THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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distinguished from what people believe about it (Kingston, 1976). Whatever conclusions
are reached in this regard, the undoubtedly paranoid medieval beliefin witchcraft requires
some explanation. The following section attempts to locate witchcraft beliefs within the
social context ofearly European history.
2.5 Historical origins of the demonic conspiracy theory in Christian heresy
In trying to understand the sociology and social psychology of belief in sectarian black
magic, and the persecutory practices accompanying this belief, Cohn (1975) traces a
pervasive historical fantasy, dating back to Antiquity: the presence of a clandestine,
conspiratorial subculture responsible for perpetrating inhumane, sacrilegious acts, and
committed to the overthrow of the existing social order. The antics of this group,
identified by the 2nd Century AD, typically involve cannibalistic infanticide, sexual
orgies involving perverse acts, and the worshipping of strange divinities in the form of
animals. In medieval Christendom, sacrilegious acts and the worshipping of Satan were
appended to these previously identified behaviours. The collective nuclear fantasy behind
these beliefs is that the despicable ritual acts are the means by which a group of
conspirators affirms its solidarity and attempts to seize power from an existing regime.
Despite changing social contexts, the motive force behind the demonic sect fantasy is the
same in all cases: "the urge to purify the world through the annihilation of some category
of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil" (Cohn, 1975,
p. xiv).
Although Cohn is sceptical about the validity of the Church's accusations against the
heretics, Cavendish (1967) argues that the Gnostic ideology underlying many of the
heretical sects justified the Christians' fears. The Gnostics embraced a rigid spiritual
dualism and the rejection of everything earthly, which was associated with Satan.
Because the earth was evil it could not have been created by a good God, but by lesser
deities, Archons, hostile to God or ignorant of His existence (Cavendish, 1967). The
Cavendish (I977) states that there were probably a small number who did indeed worship the Devil and
who "came as close to being Satanist witches as was humanly possible" (p.IIS)