THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SATANIC CULT INVOLVEMENT: AN ...

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the social construction of Satanism reasserts control by naming the problem,
giving it human shape, and locating its source outside of the matrix of social
relations to which the social actors are committed. The problems confronting
families thereby become the product, not of inappropriate parental conduct
but rather of irresponsible or malevolent others. The appropriate response is
intensified alertness, surveillance, and social control (Bromley, 1991, p. 68).
Thus, for example, the increasing demand for day-care facilities which accompanies the
increase in the number ofworking mothers, has coincided with allegations ofsatanic cults
infiltrating these facilities and ritually molesting children (Bromley, 1991).
To summarise Bromley's analysis, Satanism serves as a useful external scape-goat for
inter-institutional tensions which create parental insecurity about their children's welfare
and their own parental provision. Anxiety about the erosion of traditional parental
control, together with the reality of increasing extrafamilial contractual childcare, creates
the predisposition to blame external agents for family-related dysfunction. The satanic
subversion narrative, which emphasises the ritual abuse of children, provides a culturally
plausible context for familial problems, given the fact that child-care services are of
necessity being entrusted with functions traditionally exercised by parents. The absence
of objective evidence in favour of the satanic subversion narrative does not diminish its
influence because a coalition of respected professionals, including police officers and
mental health professionals, lend credibility to 'occult ritual abuse survivor' testimony by
detecting and treating the alleged signs and symptoms of satanic abuse. In this way,
folklore becomes authoritative knowledge, which in turn is amplified and sensationalised
by a mass media requiring increasingly dramatic news stories to survive in an
increasingly competitive media market.
Constructionist accounts of the satanic scare are obliged to, firstly, prove that the
incidence of satanic involvement has not changed over time; secondly, explain why
Satanism has only recently assumed such a high public profile; and thirdly, provide
satisfactory alternative explanations for the eye-witness testimony of alleged satanic cult
survivors. Constructionists are critical of the belief that Satanism is growing, because