Very interesting. I do think a cabal of psychopathic individuals has a powerful influence on the world (not total control of course). I have a different perspective on why they "worship" dark forces.

I got this idea by briefly reading cultstate.com article (Anyone remember that site? Kappy tweeted a hash of the phrase "cultstate.com has issued protections on this matter" and Lin Wood gave us the phrase later. Not that I trust Lin Wood, but hashes don't lie). I'll quote the site here (https://cultstate.com/2018/07/30/What-Is-A-Cult-State/):

What is a cult state?

You could assassinate any one of these theoretical players, but then you have to contend with their remaining influence networks and now you have a whole mess on your hands...

What if blackmail could be planted on these players in a way which would destroy the social and political reputation of powerful people and decouple them from their influence?...

With the advent of film, a person can be coerced to engage in not only pedophilia behavior, but to also kill the child after wards while being filmed...

As you scale this technique out to compromise more and more powerful people, you need more and more film footage, storage facilities, and... thousands upon thousands of children on a near annual basis. How does one create the necessary loyal handlers to facilitate this unbelievably gruesome and horrifying type of blackmail creation? A doomsday cult provides all of the trials and training needed to select for the most loyal who will go to any lengths to appease the faith.

So what is this doomsday cult based on? A doomsday prophecy. Different cultures have their own:

The central mythology of all cult states, present and future, will be this: Not only is the world doomed from a menagerie of candidates... but each of us has an impulsive drive to accidentally accelerate that collective doom.

The West is mostly based on Abrahamic faiths, which already provide the necessary doomsday prophecies. Moreover, even most "righteous" religious people believe in this, that what happens after end times is a good thing, that they are themselves safe and so need not take action to prevent it (hence "each of us has an impulsive drive to accidentally accelerate that collective doom"). In other words, it is predictive programming built into the religion itself that ensures the plans of the elite are unopposed, because the "righteous" people think they know what happens next and they will be safe (part of the reason for "the collective is too fragmented to reach actionable consensus").

Therefore, only those [like the cabal?] who can enforce and ensure loyalty [loyalty yields coordinated action] are destined to rule because the collective is too fragmented to reach actionable consensus.

In other words, this "cabal" of psychopaths acts along the plot lines of scripture not because they are beholden to the devil, but because it provides an already prevalent foundation on which to build their cult. They freely plagiarize from other cultures if needed. As for the rituals, symbols, numerology etc: For the initiates it is all about bringing about the doomsday. But for the creators of the cult, rituals are important not because they somehow invoke the power of the devil, but because they keep the faith of the initiates, but also provide the necessary conditioning to remove all empathy from initiates, because empathy creates a risk of exposure for the cabal. Eg: Zimbardo prison experiment shows how easy it is to remove empathy and dehumanize the prisonsers, just using the ritual of roleplaying prison guards and prisoners.

Note: Just another perspective to keep in mind. Religious people want to believe the creators of the cabal actually worship the devil and the doomsday prophecies are coming true exactly as stated in the scriptures, maybe because it validates their beliefs very strongly. And maybe they are right. But what if it lulls them into a false sense of confidence about being safe in the end times because of their faith and taking no action (like qanon folks)?