Gabriel Andrade & Maria Susana

Campo Redondo

Satanism and
Psychopathology:
Some Historical Cases
Abstract: Satanism has baffled many historians and cultural commentators.
Who in their right mind would ever worship Satan, the representation of absolute
evil? When in the 1980s, there was an alleged epidemic of Satanic Ritual Abuse
in the United States, mental health professionals were pressured to approach this
phenomenon from a clinical perspective. In this article, we consider the way some
diagnostic criteria laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Dis-
orders (DSM-5), could (and could not) be applied to some historical and contempo-
rary aspects of Satanism.

KEY WORDS: SATANISM, PSYCHOPATHOLOGY, SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE, PSYCHIATRY

Introduction

I n the mist of cultural anxieties, the United States witnessed in the 1980s
an intense moral panic. This term was originally defined by sociologist
Stanley Cohen, as when
… a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined
as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and
stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by ed-
itors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people (Cohen, 1972:1).

This 1980s moral panic was about Ritual Cult Abuse. This is the idea that,
in particular religious manifestations, criminal activity is performed as part
of the rituals. Nonconventional religious groups (Satanic or not) have al-
ways aroused the curiosity of outsiders, especially if some of their doctrines
and practices are surrounded by some aspects of secrecy. This curiosity has
unfortunately all-too-often turned into elaboration of grotesque stories
about despicable ceremonies as part of their ritual cult. Groups such as Ma-
sons and the Mormons have been the object of speculation regarding their
alleged abuses within the confines of their temples. By the end of the 20th

The Journal of Psychohistory 47 (2) Fall 2019

Satanism and Psychopathology: Some Historical Cases 127

Century, Ritual Cult Abuse now focused on alleged worshippers of Satan.

The media, lobbied by groups associated with the religious right and the
Anti-Cult Movement, constantly presented the theory that secret Satanist
groups proliferated in America, and they performed hideous rituals as part
of their Devil worship (Young, 2004). These groups, so the theories went,
controlled children’s daycare centers, and used them as bases to abuse chil-
dren as part of their Satanic rituals.
It was alleged that “groups… have prominent and influential members
including doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and police. They are both very psy-
chologically sophisticated in their abilities to use mind control techniques,
and criminally sophisticated in their ability to not leave any evidence of
their illegal activities” (Lotto, 1993). One common allegation was that
drugs, hypnosis, and various forms of brainwashing and mind control tech-
niques were used regularly by these cults for the purpose of binding reluc-
tant members to the group. Young cult members are allegedly threatened
and terrorized with the goal of preventing them from telling anyone about
the cult (Hicks,1991, Sakhein & Devine, 1992). It is not hard to see in these
features the conspiratorial mindset that has characterized moral panics.
In 1991 in England a six year-old boy told his teacher stories of bizarre
black magic practices including the killing of babies. Also, seventeen
children were removed from their homes, placed in foster care for nine
months, and were not allowed parental visits. The parents of the 17 chil-
dren were accused of being members of a Satanic cult who had ritually sex-
ually abused their children. As we shall see, sexuality has been a common
trope of the Ritual Cult Abuse scare (Black, 1992).
As it turned out, these allegations proved to be entirely without ba-
sis (Richardson, 1997). Investigators examined the cases and found seri-
ous mishandling of evidence or questionable interpretations of it. Many
of these allegations came from the use of hypnosis. Hypnotized subjects
would tell horrid stories of ritual abuse. Hypnosis allegedly helped them
to recover their repressed memories. Yet, There is a good deal of evidence,
chiefly derived from experimental studies of hypnotic recall, that memo-
ries elicited under hypnosis are unreliable and subject to distortion and fal-
sification (Spiegel & Spiegel, 1978 & Pettinati, 1988). The work of Elisabeth
Loftus has been very influential in this regard. Throughout the years, she
has designed experiments that successfully prove that even without hyp-
nosis, memories are not necessarily accurate representations of past events.
In fact, her work shows that memories can be implanted (especially in indi-
viduals more prone to suggestion), to the point that they themselves may
believe it (Wells & Loftus,1984).
128 Gabriel Andrade & Maria Susana Campo Redondo

In this regard, it is important to keep in mind Hebert Spiegel’s (1974)

work on the nature of hypnosis. According to Spiegel, on the basis of their
personality pattern, about 5% of the population is highly hypnotizable. In
his characterization of these individuals, they are very empathic, but as a
result, easily comply with commands. This may bring the unfortunate con-
sequence that in their interactions (especially in hypnosis sessions) they
may ultimately falsely admit to things that other people would not, and
ultimately, even become convinced of their own confessions.
It is also important to note that, apart from the faulty recollection of ev-
idence in many of these cases, there is a remarkable mismatch between the
scope of the allegations, and the actual evidence. The fact that there was
virtually no independent evidence to confirm the witnesses’ allegations
makes their claims especially suspect. FBI detectives who went to great
lengths to investigate the allegations, concluded that the sensationalist
claims were not to be believed, and that most of these bizarre accusations
were groundless. Consider, for example, this special agent’s conclusion:
“The most significant crimes being alleged that do not seem to be true are
the human sacrifice and cannibalism. In none of the multidimensional
child sex ring cases of which the author is aware have bodies of the murder
victims been found—in spite of major excavations where the abuse victims
had claimed the bodies were located. . . Not only are no bodies found, but
also, more importantly, there is no physical evidence that a murder took
place” (Lanning, 1992: 30).
There are now detailed analyses of the data as a whole, and these studies
agree that none of the allegations were factual, and they all proceeded from
fantasies and misperceptions. For example, in one study by Goodman et al
(1994), where 12,264 accusations of ritual abuse were investigated, the au-
thors concluded that not even one single case could be found to have con-
firming evidence of a “well organized intergenerational satanic cult, who
sexually molested and tortured children in their homes and committed a
series of murders.” Likewise, a 1994 British study analyzed these same al-
legations extensively, and again found no evidence whatsoever sustaining
them (Nathan & Snedeker, 1995).
Although in the popular perception, Satanism has been associated with
Ritual Cult Abuse (which, again, has proven to be lacking in evidence), in
Western religious history there has also been a tradition of Satanism that,
although retaining ritual aspects (but not necessarily with the elements of
Ritual Cult Abuse), takes Satan as a notorious symbol for particular philo-
sophical views. This has been particularly true with the so-called “Church
of Satan”. In 1966, Anton LaVey launched the Church of Satan, a religious
Satanism and Psychopathology: Some Historical Cases 129

movement supported by LaVey’s skills in public relations and savvy rela-

tions with the media. LaVey made clear that he was a Satanist, but not a
Devil worshipper. He took Satan as a symbol of autonomy, freedom, hedo-
nism and self-enhancement (Van Luijk, 2013: 322). LaVey took to a farther
extreme what some poets and philosophers had already been doing in the
preceding centuries. Ever since John Milton portrayed a heroic (but ulti-
mately flawed) Lucifer in Paradise Lost, Romantic poets were interested in
exalting Satan as a hero who fights for his own autonomy and determina-
tion (Nicholson, 1988: 186).
But even before Milton, the Devil was not always the incarnation of ab-
solute evil. Satan is just a prosecutor in God’s heavenly court (the word ha
satan simply means adversary.) It was only after Jews were in contact with
Zoroastrian dualist ideas during the Babylonian Exile, that this adversary
became God’s nemesis in a cosmic battle between good and evil (De la
Torre & Hernandez, 2011: 62).
Psychiatry had a role to play in this moral panic. Satanists were not only
judged from a moral perspective. The cultural narrative about Satanists
also began to be imbued with psychiatric diagnoses and concepts. After all,
who in their right mind would honor Satan, the incarnation of pure evil. It
is true that, in the history of Satanism, there have been some instances of
psychopathologies. Yet, in order to avoid the political and moralistic abuse
of Psychiatry, diagnoses have to be carefully considered.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

As the Zoroastrian influence took hold in Judaic monotheism, God was
conceived as omnibenevolent. It only made sense, then, that his nemesis,
the Devil, would be all evil, very much as the Zoroastrian concept of Angra
Mainyu would have it (Russell, 1987: 107). Likewise, under this concep-
tion, God, being the summum of good, is to be worshiped through acts of
love, charity, cooperation, and so on. It was not a great leap of thought
for religious adherents to come to the conclusion that those who honored
Satan would actually do the opposite: they would approach the Devil via
intrinsically evil ritual acts.
Yet, contemporary Satanists emphasize that they do not worship evil
as such, but rather, they rebel against conformity and collectivism (Knott,
2015: 165). It would thus be wrong and unfair to characterize contem-
porary Satanists as antisocial. Although his tactics were very sensational-
ist and his rituals scandalized many people, Anton LaVey went to great
lengths to forbid criminal behavior in his ranks, and he was never under
any police investigation.
130 Gabriel Andrade & Maria Susana Campo Redondo

However, in the history of Satanism there have been a few cases in

which, indeed, criminal behavior has been present, and their participants
did seem to fit the profile for a diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder.
DSM 5 establishes as criteria for diagnosis the failure to conform to social
norms, deceitfulness, impulsivity, irritability, recklessness, irresponsibility
and lack of remorse (American Psychiatric Association, 2013: 659).
The first documented (although, as we shall see, there have been some
historical doubts regarding the details) case of Satanist rituals with criminal
aspects was that of the French nobleman, Gilles de Rais (Black, 2012). Born
in 1404, Rais exhibited behavior that closely matches criteria for psychopa-
thy and Antisocial Personality Disorder. He was appointed as a French mar-
shal during the Hundred Years’ War, and he was distinguished on the basis
of his fearlessness in battle, to the point of being described by biographers
as “reckless” (Penney, 2003: 135). This type of recklessness has been exten-
sively observed in antisocial subjects (Gibbon et al, 2010).
After military service, Rais retreated to his many inherited estates. While
there, he appeared to grow increasingly bored, and seemed to need con-
stant stimulation—another relevant trait in diagnosis of Antisocial Person-
ality Disorder. He impulsively wasted away his large fortune by hosting
lavish feasts. Ultimately, his financial irresponsibility brought him close to
bankruptcy. Desperate to recover his wealth, Rais engaged with alchemists
in the vain hope of transmuting ordinary metals into gold.
He fell under the influence of Francois Prelati, an alchemist who intro-
duced Rais to rituals relating to demon summoning. Prelati persuaded Rais
that a particular demon, Baron, needed to be appeased with the ritual sac-
rifice of an infant. This led Rais to order one boy be abducted so that the
ritual could be performed. Apparently, Rais was sexually stimulated by the
experience of killing the boy, and from then on, in a period of two years,
he arranged the abduction of around 140 children, who he first sexually
molested and then brutally killed. Although villagers were fully aware of
what was going on, Rais’ status as a nobleman, along with his cunningness,
prevented the opening of a formal enquiry.
In 1440, a criminal investigation was finally launched, and Rais was ar-
rested and brought to trial. Evidence against him piled up, and witnesses
described the utter cruelty and satisfaction that Rais displayed when mur-
dering his victims. Yet, he displayed no remorse during the first phases of
the trial. This is a strong indication of his psychopathic behavior. However,
he was tortured, and as a result, he confessed to the charges—including
worshipping the Devil—and publicly repented.
It must be noted, however, that historians have not reached an absolute
consensus regarding Rais’ deeds (Zathujalk, 2012: 245). Given that he was a
Satanism and Psychopathology: Some Historical Cases 131

nobleman at a time of intense political disputes, some historians have con-

sidered the possibility that charges against him were politically motivated,
and that his confession was extracted under torture. In fact, roughly a cen-
tury and a half prior (1314), Knights Templars were falsely accused of Devil
worshipping, and the political motivation of these charges were very clear
(Sanello, 2005). Likewise, the fact that Rais’ main accuser was the Duke of
Burgundy also casts some doubt about the veracity of the accusations, as ul-
timately, the Duke of Burgundy himself seized Rais’ property after his arrest.
However, Rais’ case set a standard for later generations of inquisitors,
law enforcers and moral crusaders, to imagine that there are networks of
Satanists plotting to commit monstrous crimes similar to Rais’, for the sole
sadistic purpose of inflicting damage in order to please Satan. This was the
mindset that led to the massive witch craze of the early modern period in
Europe, and to the Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic of the 1980s. In the
narrative coming out of these moral panics, Satanists (and mostly anybody
with any interest in Satan as a figure, whether it is religious, historical, or
simply aesthetic) must inevitably be psychopaths.
As part of this moral panic, some individuals with clear psychopathic
personalities and responsibility for horrible crimes, have been erroneously
attributed with some connection to Satanism. Consider, for example, the
case of Charles Manson, the infamous leader of the cult that murdered Sha-
ron Tate and six other victims in 1969. Manson’s diagnosis was never easy
to formulate by psychiatrists. Some described him as clearly psychopathic
on account of his reckless disregard for human life and his manipulative
skills as leader of the cult (Hare, 1993:79); whereas others, on account of
his delusions and incongruent affect, believe he was actually psychotic (Ar-
kowitz and Lilienfeld, 2017: 157).
Be it as it may, Manson had only some remote connection to Satanism.
He was called “Satan” by some of his followers, but then again, he was also
called “God” (Lewis, 2001: 160). It would seem to be extremely unfair to
associate his crimes with Christianity just because of this latter title associ-
ating him with God. One cult member, Susan Atkins, apparently was a top-
less dancer for a nightclub organized by the 20th Century’s main Satanist,
Anton LaVey. Yet, the connections to Satanism did not go beyond these
merely circumstantial facts. Manson certainly had some very strange reli-
gious ideas, but worshipping Satan was resolutely not one of them.
During the heyday of the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare, some other shock-
ing crimes with extensive media coverage (thus further reinforcing the mor-
al panic), clearly perpetrated by psychopaths, were also wrongly attributed
to Satanic motivations. Consider, for example, the Matamoros murders of
1989 (Perlmutter, 2003: 224). These were a series of killings carried out by
132 Gabriel Andrade & Maria Susana Campo Redondo

Mexican criminals operating in the town of Matamoros, mostly related to

drug trafficking activities. The person charged with these murders was Ad-
olfo Constanzo. He was never formally diagnosed with any psychopathol-
ogy, but the viciousness of his crimes makes it likely that, indeed, he had an
Antisocial Personality Disorder.
Some of these murders appeared to have a ritualistic aspect to them, evi-
denced by gruesome mutilations of some of the victims. In the midst of the
Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic, it was thus immediately assumed that
these mutilations had some connection to Satanism. Further investigation
proved that, indeed, some of the killings were ritualistic, but they were
actually related to Constanzo’s involvement with the Afro-Cuban religion
Palo Mayombe (Palacios, 2001: 161), which practices animal sacrifice, and
occasionally, relies on human remains (but gathered from grave desecra-
tion, not human sacrifice) for purposes of magic protection (Bielo, 2015:
92). Satanism did not have anything to do with the Matamoros killings.
Nevertheless, in the recent history of Satanism there have been cases in
which, indeed, terrible crimes have been committed explicitly in the name
of Satan. The most notorious is the case of Richard Ramirez, also known as
“The Night Stalker”. In 1989, Ramirez was convicted of thirteen murders.
During his trial, he was completely unrepentant. Robert Hare describes
Ramirez as matching most of the criteria for psychopathy (Hare, 1993: 4).
And indeed, Ramirez’s words upon hearing his sentencing are revelatory of
his antisocial personality: “I am beyond good and evil. I will be avenged.
Lucifer dwells in all of us… I don’t believe in the hypocritical, moralistic
dogma of this so-called civilized society” (Lewis, 2001: 189).
Unlike Manson or Constanzo, Ramirez did have a strong connection to
Satanism. He had read some Satanic literature (mostly LaVey’s The Satan-
ic Bible), and left the inverted pentagram (a common Satanic symbol) in
some of his crime scenes. Yet, he was clearly a lone-wolf. His trial took place
at the height of the Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic, and it was gratuitous-
ly assumed that he may have been part of a wider Satanic conspiracy, or
that, at any rate, engagement with the Occult and Satanism leads to these
kinds of crimes and psychopathologies.
In fact, we now know that he acted alone the whole time, and that he
had a very traumatic childhood (Allely et al, 2014), and this has long been
identified as a strong predictor of Antisocial Personality Disorder (Bruce and
Laporte, 2015). It is thus safe to argue that Ramirez’s use of Satanic symbols
had little (if at all) to do with his psychopathic personality, or at any rate, he
twisted the meaning of those symbols adjusting them to his own behavior,
as any antisocial individual can do with any religious symbol.
Satanism and Psychopathology: Some Historical Cases 133

Ramirez was fond of Heavy Metal Music (he called himself the “Night
Stalker” in remembrance of a song by Heavy Metal Band AC/DC). At the
time of the Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic, this fueled the fear that Heavy
Metal bands were part of a Satanic conspiracy inducing youngsters to com-
mit hideous acts. It is true that some bands did incorporate Satanic imagery
in some of their album covers, and occasionally, some lyrics in the songs,
although nothing explicitly criminal. But the allegations about the Satanic
went beyond. It was claimed that Heavy Metal bands would send subliminal
messages through the backmasking technique, exhorting antisocial acts as a
way to honor Satan, and thus influence behavior more powerfully (Bennett,
2001: 54). However, the capacity to influence behavior through subliminal
messages in backmasking has been completely debunked (Kennaway, 2012).
As the Satanic Abuse moral panic dwindled in the 1990s, the association
between crime and Heavy Metal music was only seldom made. However,
the fear that Heavy Metal music may somehow induce Devil worshipping
and shape psychopathic personalities in adolescents, returned to public
opinion in the early 2000s, with the highly publicized case of Italy’s Beasts
of Satan (Johnson and Cloonan, 2013: 78).
This was a Heavy Metal band made up of adolescents, with strong inter-
ests in Satanic aesthetics. In 1998, two of its members were killed by other
members of the band, allegedly under the rationale that one of the victims
was the Virgin Mary. A whole new moral panic about Satanism and psy-
chopathy developed, this time in Italy. Yet again, it would be wrong to at-
tribute these antisocial acts to Satanism itself. The murders by the Beasts of
Satan seemed to be induced by LSD consumption. And, on a deeper level,
the troubled sociological conditions of industrial alienation in Northern It-
aly (where the killings took place), seemed to play a much greater role than
Satanism or Heavy Metal music.
This is not to deny that, occasionally, criminal activity in the name of
Satan is reported (Ellis, 2015). However, most of it is petty criminality, most
frequently committed by adolescents in the context of rebellious attitudes.
Satan, after all, is the adversary, and it serves as a powerful symbol for oppo-
sition and defiance in the adolescent mind. But again, we must be aware of
the causal direction. It is unlikely that Satanism itself induces oppositional
and defiant behavior; instead, Satanism is simply used as a way to express a
behavioral tendency that is already present

Paraphilic disorders
When studying the history of Satanism, it is very difficult to separate ac-
tual deeds and rituals from each other in the imagination of inquisitors
134 Gabriel Andrade & Maria Susana Campo Redondo

and witch hunters. This is especially the case with sexuality. The appeal
to depraved sexuality has been a constant feature of suspicions of Ritual
Cult Abuse, far beyond the context of Satanism. For example, sexual vio-
lence has been a common trope of anti-Catholic prejudice. Accusations of
the practice of witchcraft involving sexual orgies, sadistic torture, and the
slaughter of newborn infants were made in the 1830’s and 1840’s. Several
books, supposedly written by former nuns who had escaped from forced
confinement in convents, were published. This was at the height of the
anti-catholic movement which flourished in response to the Irish Catholic
immigration to this country occurring at the time. (Victor, 1993)
In the earliest religious sources of Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity
and Islam, Satan was never particularly associated with abnormal sexuali-
ty. However, as Christianity took a firmer repressive stand towards sexual-
ity, and as Satan began to be pictorially associated with the Greek god Pan
(known for his roguish sexual behavior), the Devil did ultimately become a
symbol of hypersexuality (Russell, 1992: 187).
As the witch hunt craze took full swing in Europe beginning in the 15th
Century, inquisitors began to imagine that witches would celebrate Sab-
baths, as part of a major diabolical conspiracy. These were allegedly noc-
turnal gatherings, in which witches would summon demons and Satan
himself, expecting to get bewitching powers from them. During the trials
of the witch hunt period, the overwhelming majority of persons charged
with witchcraft accusations were women, as they were believed to have
special connection to de Devil. This reinforced the idea that, in these Sab-
baths, all sorts of sexual depravity took place.
As mentioned above, for the historian it is hard to separate fact from
fiction in these accounts. During the trials, some women confessed to, in-
deed, having participated in Sabbaths, and gave some detailed descriptions
that may suggest that, although heavily embedded in the imagination of
inquisitors, nocturnal gatherings of women seeking some sort of supernat-
ural power may have taken place.
Many of these descriptions came from women undergoing torture (some
claimed they would fly with brooms to the Sabbaths, which makes the
whole account extremely implausible), and this raises huge doubts about
the total veracity of the details.
An essential part of the Sabbath was the oscularum infame, the kiss of
shame (Givry, 1971: 87). Participants were said to kiss the anus, either of
other human beings, or according to some accounts, of cats and goats, as
symbolic representations of the Devil, and sexual union with him.
Under torture, some defendants also confessed that, in Sabbaths, chil-
dren would be sacrificed to Satan, and in some cases, eaten. In these tes-
Satanism and Psychopathology: Some Historical Cases 135

timonies, very few claimed that children were also sexually abused.
However, ever since Gilles de Rais’ case, the suspicion is that Satanism is
related to pedophilia.
When the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare erupted in the United States in the
1980s, accusations of pedophilic behaviors were rampant. Allegedly, im-
mense networks of Satanists operated American kindergartens. Children
would be flushed down toilets, taken to basements, perform strange Devil
worshipping rituals with sexual aspects, and then be returned to school to
be picked up by their unsuspecting parents. These allegations are entirely
fictional and were completely debunked by criminal investigators, but the
connection between Satanism and pedophilia has remained the same in
some sector of public opinion (Bottoms and Davis, 1997).
It is important to note that many of the alleged pieces of evidence re-
garding sexual abuse in cases of Ritual Cult Abuse have been misinterpret-
ed. This has been duly documented by John McCann’s (1990) studies. In
these studies, children who have not been sexually abused may neverthe-
less exhibit “anal winking” (contraction of the anal sphincter muscles) af-
ter just a few minutes in positions awaiting anal examination. In many
of the alleged cases of sexual abuse during the Ritual Cult Abuse, “anal
winking” was determined to be enough proof of sexual abuse, without con-
sidering that this particular phenomenon may actually be normal even in
the absence of sexual abuse. Very much as with the allegations regarding
Ritual Cult Abuse of the 20th Century, the allegations that witches engaged
in orgies at Sabbaths are very hard to believe. After all, many confessed to
having intercourse not just with men, women and animals, but also with
demons (i.e. supernatural agents) . However, as the witch craze dwindled
down in the latter half of the 17th Century, rational and efficient police
investigations did come up with some evidence of real satanic rings that,
indeed, incorporated orgiastic rituals.
The best known of these cases was that of Catherine Monvoisin, known
as La Voisin (Mollenauer, 2007). This was a fortune teller who had some
skills in preparing poison and magical potions. Members of the Parisian
aristocracy frequented her as clients, seeking her services for love charms.
La Voisin also had a reputation as a practitioner of abortions, and she pro-
vided this service to her clients as well. As word got out about the trade of
poisons, Parisian police carried out an investigation, and ultimately dis-
covered that with the help of a Catholic priest, La Voisin celebrated Black
Masses, profane parodies of the Catholic Mass worshipping the Devil.
Allegedly, children were offered as sacrifices in these rituals, although it
seems more likely that they were in fact aborted fetuses that La Voisin may
have had in stock, as part of her abortion practices. It is more certain that
136 Gabriel Andrade & Maria Susana Campo Redondo

in these rituals, sexuality would play a central role. The client seeking to se-
cure the love of an aristocratic man would lay naked on the altar during the
Black Mass, and the priest would carry on the ceremony, frequently kissing
her body, as the congregants would watch.
La Voisin was arrested and executed in 1680, and her group quickly dis-
banded. However, by the latter half of the 19th Century, it seemed that France
was a hub of Satanist circles performing Black Masses, and the sexual aspect
of it was much more explicit. One particular participant, Catholic priest Jo-
seph Antoine Boullan, taught a version of Christianity in which sexuality was
a powerful means of channeling magical energy (Young, 2016: 187), and as
a result, he was believed to be a Satanist, although he vehemently denied it.
However, Boullan did not deny that, as part of his rituals, he mixed the
sacred host with his own excrement and urine, and fed it to his followers.
He also did not deny that, in his rituals, there would be indiscriminate sex-
ual encounters with congregants.
French novelist Joris Karl Huysmans established contact with Boullan,
and based on these and other descriptions, wrote Down There, a novel por-
traying Satanist groups in fin-de-siècle France. In the climax of the novel,
a Black Mass is described in detail. After some blasphemous pronounce-
ments and other grotesque gestures honoring the Devil, the high priest,
wearing a headdress with two horns, becomes erect, takes off his garments,
faces the congregation, and throws sacred hosts to the ground; women and
men crawl on their knees, pick up the hosts, consume them, and then, they
all end up having an orgy (Faxnfeld, 2012: 311).
Huysmans assured readers that he himself witnessed these ceremonies.
Historians are not so confident that Huysmans was indeed present at Black
Masses; his descriptions may have taken significant poetic licenses. Yet, the
fact is that, Huysmans’ descriptions of a Black Mass became hugely influen-
tial, and when Satanism as a more philosophical movement was launched
in the 1960s by Anton LaVey, celebrations of Black Masses were signifi-
cantly based on Huysmans’ account. As Massimo Introvigne describes it,
in Satanism, ultimately “reality imitated fiction” (Introvigne, 2016: 220).
However, although these Satanic rituals may be considered both exhi-
bitionist and voyeuristic, they should not be considered as psychopatholo-
gies. Psychiatrists have wisely understood that paraphilias become disorders
only insofar as they cause distress, impairment, or they are acted upon non
consenting persons. That was not the case in Huysman’s descriptions of the
Black Mass, and it has not been the case of Satanic rituals ever since. As part
of the philosophical libertine spirit that LaVey’s movement has defended,
Satanism has certainly encouraged sexual promiscuity. Yet, in keeping with
Satanism and Psychopathology: Some Historical Cases 137

their professional duties, most psychiatrists have been careful enough not
to lean towards moralism in contemporary culture wars. The role of the psy-
chiatrist is to distinguish between the normal and the pathological, not to
distinguish between the moral and the immoral in sexuality.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

The Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic in the United States was triggered
by the publication of Michelle Remembers, by psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder
(1989). This book recounts the story of Michelle Smith as Pazder’s patient
(they would eventually marry). As part of psychotherapy, Pazder encour-
aged Smith to undergo sessions of hypnosis, and recover some of her child-
hood memories that, allegedly, she had unconsciously repressed.
The memories came out to be very disturbing. She “remembered” being
subject to vicious child abuse by her parents, as part of Satanic rituals. As
the book’s sales increased significantly, many other psychotherapists also
used hypnosis with their patients, and they too began to “recover” alleged
memories of childhood abuse in Satanic rituals.
Pazder theorized that as a result of Satanic abuse, children develop dis-
sociative mechanisms as a defense. The most common dissociative mech-
anism is developing alternate egos, or “multiple personalities”; abused
children thus feel as if the trauma happened to someone else.
Some mental health professionals lent credibility to this theory by posit-
ing that victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse suffered from Multiple Personality
Disorder. This is now labeled Dissociate Identity Disorder in the DSM-5,
and its criteria is defined as “Disruption of identity characterized by two
or more distinct personality states, which may be described in some cul-
tures as an experience of possession… the disruption in identity involves
marked discontinuity in sense of self and sense of agency, accompanied by
related alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception,
cognition, and/or sensory-motor functioning” (American Psychiatric As-
sociation, 2013: 292).
In the narrative of the Satanic moral panic, Satanists induce Dissociative
Identity Disorder with their ritual abuse (Morris, 2008). That way, victims
would remove from their memory all those traumatic experiences, and as
adults, would never report the events. Furthermore, in the case of adults,
these dissociative mechanisms would also be convenient for Satanists for,
it was frequently claimed that in Satanic rituals, babies were sacrificed and
eaten. But, in order to dispose of the remains, and to ensure that mothers
would never report the disappearances of their babies, they had to develop
alternate personalities. (Wenegrat, 2001)
138 Gabriel Andrade & Maria Susana Campo Redondo

Although Dissociative Identity Disorder remains a formal diagnosis in

DSM-5, there are increasing doubts that it is a valid one (Dell, 1988), or in
any case, even if valid, it is extremely likely that it was too frequently diag-
nosed during the Satanic Ritual Abuse moral panic.
The main method to recover the alleged repressed memories of Satanic
rituals, was hypnosis, which as was mentioned earlier, is notoriously unre-
liable in recovering memories. Subjects under hypnosis are prone to sug-
gestion, and a hypnotist can actually inadvertently implant false memories
through leading questions (Rathus, 2011: 240). As the moral panic expand-
ed, psychotherapists became aware of the allegations about Satanic rites, and
some convinced patients that they had been victims of Satanic ritual abuses
and didn’t initially remember them because they were in a dissociated state.
Likewise, children are also very prone to suggestion, and inexperienced
social workers and law enforcement agents can actually lead them into tes-
tifying about things that never took place. In fact, this is what most likely
took place in the cases of children who alleged they had been subject to
abuse in daycare centers and kindergartens.
Some patients did indeed develop alternate personalities that claimed
to remember the Satanic rituals, but only after they underwent these ques-
tionable methods of psychotherapy. This has prompted Spanos (1996) to
propose a sociocognitive model, and argues that Dissociative Identity Dis-
order is in fact iatrogenic, further induced by extensive media exposure.
Spanos’ model seems to be adequate in its application to the Satanic
Ritual Abuse moral panic. But, it would be inadequate to argue that Disso-
ciative Identity Disorder does not exist as such. For, there may be legitimate
cases (although, admittedly, very few, in comparison to the enormous rate
at which it was diagnosed) in which, indeed, a patient may develop alter-
nate personalities as a dissociative mechanism.
In fact, this mechanism may be at work in some other phenomena re-
lated to the history of Satanism: demonic possession. DSM-5 states that
Dissociative Identity Behaviors “may be described in some cultures as an
experience of possession” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013: 292).
Ironically, the same religious movements that are too quick to diagnose
Dissociative Identity Disorder on alleged victims of Satanism, are reluctant
to use the same diagnosis when confronting alleged cases of demonic pos-
session (Weaver, 2015).
What is traditionally described as “demonic possession” is highly cul-
turally dependent. But in some cases, signs of Dissociative Identity Disor-
der do seem to be present in possession. It is commonly reported that in
possession, the person speaks with a different voice, and may have very
Satanism and Psychopathology: Some Historical Cases 139

different behaviors. Under the religious view, a foreign spirit has possessed
the person, but a more parsimonious understanding would just see it as
disruption of identity typical of dissociative states.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder

So far we have emphatically denied that conventional contemporary Sa-
tanists (of which LaVey’s followers are the most representative) can be di-
agnosed with any psychiatric condition. The few cases in which, indeed,
Satanists have met diagnostic criteria for particular mental disorders, seem to
be rooted in other circumstances in which Satanism itself does not play a role.
Magical thinking seemed to be an important aspect of LaVey’s person-
ality, and it was thus reflected in his Satanic philosophy. Although LaVey
claimed to be an atheist, and he consistently refused to acknowledge that
the Devil or any other supernatural being exists (as opposed to his early
follower Michael Aquino, who went on to form his own Satanic group wor-
shipping the Egyptian god Seth), he did believe in the power of magic.
Due to his own ventures into Occultism, LaVey was significantly influ-
enced by Aleister Crowley, another atheist who, nevertheless, was deeply
interested in the efficacy of magic. Although we may not be absolutely
certain (due to his constant fabrications just to get publicity), it seems that
LaVey did genuinely believe in magical powers, as laid out in the seventh
of his Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth: “Acknowledge the power of magic if
you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the
power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all
you have obtained” (Matthews, 2009: 50).
In surveys of contemporary Satanists, this tendency also seems to be pres-
ent. Although 60% of Satanists declare themselves to be atheists (Dryendal,
Lewis and Petersen, 2016: 181), and 63% believe that Satan is just a symbol
of self-empowerment (Dryendal, Lewis and Petersen, 2016: 181), 80% prac-
tice magic, and 59,8% do it either often, regularly, or sometimes (Dryendal,
Lewis and Petersen, 2016: 185). Likewise, 75.3% of Satanists believe that
Tarot is of help to them; 41.2% think Astrology is helpful in their lives
(Dryendal, Lewis and Petersen, 2016: 189).
These findings are not hard proof that Satanism is intrinsically related
to Schizotypal Personality Disorder. After all, 37% of Americans believe
in haunted houses, 21.5 % in witches, and 25,5% in Astrology (Moore,
2005), and 55 to 60% believe in the Devil (Lotto, 1993, 388), but psychi-
atrists should not be in the business of putting pathological labels on a
quarter of the American population, just because of their irrational ideas.
Furthermore, odd beliefs are not sufficient criteria for a diagnosis of Schizo-
140 Gabriel Andrade & Maria Susana Campo Redondo

typal Personality Disorder, the DSM-5 places more emphasis on “a perva-

sive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits”. LaVey was certainly not
exhibiting social and interpersonal deficits, as he seemed to have a special
gift for public relations. Satanists and other persons historically (rightly or
wrongly) associated with Satanism (Eliphas Levi, Charles Baudelaire, Aleis-
ter Crowley, etc.) certainly do qualify as “eccentrics”, but they were hardly
inept in social relations.
Furthermore, the DSM-5 also emphasizes that odd beliefs count as signs
of Schizotypal Personality Disorder, only if they are also inconsistent with
subcultural norms. Satanism is nowhere near to being considered cultur-
ally mainstream, but it does raise the question of when, exactly, a fringe
group becomes part of the mainstream, and therefore, its beliefs would no
longer be considered signs of a psychopathology.
Be that as it may, even if it were established that Satanism is intrinsically
related to Schizotypal Personality Disorder, it is not altogether clear what
the causal direction may be. In the same manner that some psychopaths
may use Satanic symbols to express their already present antisocial person-
alities, Satanism’s relation to magic may just attract individuals with an
already formed schizotypal personality; it would therefore be dubious that
interest in Satanism may be the trigger of this particular personality style.

Conclusion
Psychopathologies do not seem to be overrepresented amongst Satanists,
any more than other religious groups. Of course, throughout the history of
Satanism, there have been individuals who have engaged in pathological be-
havior (mostly antisocial, but also paraphilic and schizotypal), but it would
be extremely inaccurate to blame Satanism for that, in the same manner that
it would be unfair to blame conventional religions (Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism) for the behavioral deviances of some of its ad-
herents, even when done in the name of those respective religions.
Although there have been significant transformations throughout cul-
tural history, Satan has consistently been thought of as the adversary. This
implies that, predictably, society will always frown upon a group that, by
its very nature, is adversarial. Satanism may be subject to a reasoned moral
critique, as in fact, has been done by some philosophers (Matthews, 2009).
But, in order to avoid the criticisms frequently brought about by Foucault,
Szasz, Laing, and other representatives of the antipsychiatry movement
(Crossley, 2006), Psychiatry must be careful enough not to pathologize be-
havior that, although not necessarily satisfying from a moral point of view,
does not necessarily meet the diagnostic criteria for mental disorders.
Satanism and Psychopathology: Some Historical Cases 141

Dr. Gabriel Andrade is an Assistant Professor of Psychology, Ethics and Behavior-

al Science at Ajman University, United Arab Emirates.

Dr. Maria Susana Campo Redondo is a Professor of Psychology at United Arab

Emirates University, United Arab Emirates.

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