THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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adolescent conflict may interfere with the adolescent's acquisition of moral reasoning
skills. The consequence is a diminished sense of morality, based essentially on selfgratification,
and an inclination to 'immoral' Satanic ideology. Furthermore, conflictual
parental relationships may result in general emotional detachment and consequent
difficulty in establishing meaningful peer attachments. This, it is assumed, would further
predispose adolescents to Satanic cult affiliation.
Olsson (1981) and Wright & Piper (1986) implicate declining parental authority as an
important causal factor in adolescent occult involvement. The absence of good parental
authority is experienced by adolescents in terms of empathic failures which, in turn,
impact negatively on the formation ofmoral structures. Cult involvement simultaneously
provokes adult authorities while simultaneously replacing the authority abdicated by
parents. In this regard Satanism is possibly no different from any other religious cult.
Curtis and Curtis (1993), writing about general susceptability to cult involvement, suggest
that cults provide:
a surrogate family atmosphere in which dislocated and disenfranchised
persons attempt to reestablish the missing structure. Accordingly, individuals
bereft of supportive family relations or nurturant social networks may be
actually driven to seek out utopian or communal living environments
ostensibly offered by cults (p. 452).
Lastly, Moriarty & Story (1990) suggest that defective parenting of an obsessive nature
may result in adolescent preoccupation with guilt-related issues. In cases where parents
associate guilt with religious convictions, adolescents may be inclined to ritual
involvement in a maladaptive attempt to alleviate guilt.
There is, however, a serious problem with claims that the above family factors lead to
satanic involvement. This concerns the observation that these factors are implicated in
many varieties of adolescent deviance and psychopathology, and are consequently not
specific to the pre-Satanist. The question remains as to why some adolescents from
pathogenic family backgrounds should choose to get involved in Satanism, rather than in