ATEIZAM I OKULTNO
ATHEISM AND THE OCCULT

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the study was to examine the impact of atheism on the latent configuration of value orientations, personality traits and interest in the occult. The research was carried out on a sample of full aged Bunjevci Croats in Vojvodina (Republic of Serbia) who are all of Roman Catholic Church denomination (N=489). Factor analysis was performed to extract the latent variables that had been used in the research. The variables extracted from the space of value orientations have been labeled (1) materialistic-hedonistic orientation, (2) intellectual openness, and (3) altruism. The personality variables proved to be one-dimensional constructs and have been labeled (1) depressiveness, (2) anxiety, (3) impulsive aggressiveness, and (4) asocial aggressiveness. Interest in the occult also proved to be a one-dimensional factorial construct encompassing the need to be familiar with black magic, to experience the occult and spiritist sessions, to take part in satanistic rituals, and the need for predicting the future through horoscope. The results of canonical discriminative analysis have shown that the occult syndrome among the atheists is a component of sociopathic aggressiveness whose latent structure was defined by materialistic-hedonistic orientation, impulsive aggressiveness and asocial aggressiveness in a positive direction, and by altruism in a negative direction. Only the atheists with a sociopathic personality structure express stronger predisposition for various aspects of the occult practice.

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