THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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supporting a history of alleged satanic ritual abuse are elusive, hidden, and dissociated
from conscious memory, many mental health professionals attend workshops run by
"experts", who instruct them in the art of eliciting and interpreting relevant information.
The implicit demand is that clinicians accept the reality of satanic cults and their practices
before they can begin to hear what their patients are communicating. Those mental health
professionals who successfully complete accredited Satanic Ritual Abuse training
workshops are taught that the absence of satanic-related memories does not invalidate the
theory of ritual abuse in any case. In fact, by invoking the phenomenon of dissociation,
the absence ofmemory in this regard may be considered a positive sign of a satanic abuse
history. The above factors, combined with the mass media's eagerness to disseminate
Satanist-related stories, as well as popular demand for educational workshops by credible
social-service Satanism "experts", created and sustained the belief that Satanism was a
vast underground movement (Richardson, Best & Bromley, 1991; Stevens, 1990).
Implicit in the constructionist account of subversive and countersubversive ideologies is
the assumption that the antisatanist ideology is either a delusional construct or necessarily
disproportionate to the opinions and actions of self-professed Satanists (Bromley, 1991;
Carlson & Larue, 1990; Stevens, 1990). Indeed, the perceived threat of Satanism is
given exaggerated credence by those deviants attracted to it (Stevens, 1990). The satanic
subversion myth has proved remarkably resilient in technologically sophisticated societies
which pride themselves on their scientific knowledge and rational worldview. In fact, the
sceptical voice of scientific reason does not seem to have impacted on popular belief in
the posited reality of the satanic threat. In America, the Committee for Scientific
Investigation of Religion (CSER) spent three years investigating allegations of satanic
activity in America. Carlson and Larue (1990), commenting on the findings of the
committee, conclude that:
After three years of investigating allegations of the existence of large-scale
Devil-worship and satanic activities presently underway in America, the
CSER has concluded that these allegations are tall pillars of nonsense built on
the slippery sands ofunreason. It doesn't take too hard a shove to topple them
(p.26).