Psychology of Religion

Argyle (1990) has defined the psychology of religion as a search for psychological explanations of the religious experience. The field also includes research attempting to determine the influence of the religious experience on a person's subsequent psychology.

According to Argyle (1990), some of the most studied areas of the psychology of religion include satanic ritual abuse, the conversion experience, and psychological states associated with the awareness of a sacred presence in nature, music, and mystical experience. Of interest in these studies is determining the effects of religious experience in terms of health, subjective well-being, and a sense of inner meaning. Or, conversely, as in the case of satanic ritual abuse, the focus of the research is on determining the pathology that gives rise to the behavior and its negative psychoemotional effects on victims. Treatment and therapies for disorders arising from negative religious experience such as satanic ritual abuse are also a large part of the existing literature.

This paper presents a review of the literature on satanic ritual abuse in an effort to show some of the more current work being done in the field of the psychology of religion. The reviewed research is delineated and discussed in two parts. First, the paper presents a summarization of the research on satanic ritual abuse. Second, an analysis and synthesis is presented in which the reviewed material is discussed in terms of its contri

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y Disorder and who had reported some experience with Satanic Ritual Abuse. All subjects were sent a spirituality questionnaire to obtain qualitative information regarding their spirituality (Phase I). The information obtained from the questionnaire (Phase II) was then used to formulate a Likert-type scale to rate their responses. After scoring the responses, by an independent rater, the total score from each subject was used to determine their level of spirituality (Phase III). Phase IV of this study involved a content analysis of each question to examine God's impact on spirituality and the impact of spirituality on treatment and life as indicated in each subjects' questions. Data analyses revealed that those diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, reporting satanic ritual abuse, tend to score high on their level of spirituality. The relationship with God is reported to be a significant part of spirituality; and a positive alignment with God in the development of spirituality had a significant impact on the treatment and life of subjects. Treatment and life were reported to be impacted by spirituality. Individuals indicated less feelings of helplessness, more positive attitudes about treatment progress, therapy, a

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