The belief in demonic possession spans centuries of history, from ancient civilizations to the contemporary Catholic Church. Between faith, medicine, and popular culture, exorcism has gone from being a widespread religious practice to also becoming one of the great icons of horror cinema.
Probably, the average citizen's greatest knowledge of what an exorcism is comes from the premiere of the film The Exorcist (1973), a brilliant film directed by William Friedkin, based on a novel by William Peter Blatty, which in turn was based on a real exorcism case that occurred in the United States in the 1940s.
But what is an Exorcism? To answer this question, it is first necessary to delve into Hades and talk about a key character: the demon.
The ancestral belief in evil spirits
What is the demon? Many ancient cultures have personified the concept of evil in an intelligent being capable of causing misfortunes and possessing a person's own body. Perhaps the most famous "evil spirit" in primitive Mesopotamian culture was Pazuzu, represented in the film "The Exorcist" as the cause of the possession of the girl Reagan.
In the Babylonian and Assyrian Mesopotamian cultures of the first millennium BC, Pazuzu personified the southwest wind, which brought storms, plagues, fevers, and droughts. However, unlike Judeo-Christian cultures, this "demon" was also a symbol of protection against other malevolent mythological beings, something known as apotropaic magic.
The demon in the Bible
In Judeo-Christian culture, the demon is also very present, and it is through, above all, the Christian religion, that we inherit its current concept.
In the Bible, the demon is mentioned numerous times, both in the Old and New Testaments. In the Old, it appears represented as the serpent that tempts Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, and is presented as a tempter to lead man away from God.
In the New Testament, the devil is presented as "prince of the world" and it is established that there is not a single evil being, but many, whom the evangelists mention as "unclean spirits" that possess people whom Jesus exorcises, forcing them out of the person's body, and recognizing Jesus himself as the Holy One of God. On one of these occasions, the demons possessing a man asked Jesus to have mercy on them and cast them into the pigs, something Jesus granted and the pigs became demon-possessed.
But, if there are many "demons," why do we usually speak of the devil in the singular? Because when we do, we are mainly referring to Lucifer, whom Christian theology considers the most beautiful angel created by God, and who later rebelled against him, in a battle described in the Apocalypse, where Archangel Michael defeats him. The other demons are other angels who prefer to follow Lucifer rather than God.
So, are exorcisms things of biblical literature and cinema, or do they really exist and can they yield results?
If we look at Catholic doctrine, the devil – or demons – are not merely symbols to express evil; they are intelligent beings whose function is to distance people from God.
However, the belief in the devil and the consequent practice of exorcism was not always approached by the Church in the same way. During the years after the Second Vatican Council, in the early sixties, different theological currents did point out that the devil was a symbol of evil, and that the evangelical scenes in which Jesus speaks of him and casts out demons should be taken as figurations. This is also reflected in the movie The Exorcist, when Father Karras reacts with surprise to Reagan's mother's request to perform an exorcism on her daughter: "Madam, those things don't happen anymore, you should travel to the 15th century."
Undoubtedly, the film's director thoroughly researched everything concerning exorcisms and the contemporary view the Church itself had of them, as well as the ritual itself.
What is an exorcism?
Exorcism is the ritual by which a priest, through prayer, torments the demon that possesses a person until its expulsion is achieved; this is what we see in the movie The Exorcist. According to various exorcists, such as the legendary Father Gabriele Amorth, the signs of a demonic possession can be intuited when a person has an inexplicable illness, begins to have an aversion to the sacred, speaks unknown languages, etc.
The exorcist prays before the person and orders the devil to manifest. Some of the phenomena reported by some exorcists are that each person speaks with a very hoarse and unpleasant voice, has convulsions, and sometimes, as in the movie, even levitations can occur.
Exorcists report that there are brief exorcisms where a simple prayer is enough, others have lasted years, but they acknowledge that it is highly improbable for a person to become possessed, and they warn that the risks a person would have of being possessed would be to engage in practices such as the Ouija, practicing tarot, or other occult practices.
What does science say?
As is obvious, the ritual of exorcism is eminently religious, and although those who authorize exorcisms warn that psychiatric pathologies are first ruled out, the most skeptical are wary that exorcism can have any effectiveness, attributing the symptoms that allegedly demon-possessed people may present to mental problems or suggestion.
However, psychiatrists like Richard Gallagher give veracity to the exorcist practice, explaining that there are situations that cannot be explained from psychiatry and that the symptoms disappear after the exorcism.
Does a real exorcism resemble the one in the movie?
In general, exorcists usually praise the theme and documentation of Friedkin's film, but most maintain that there are elements in the film that do not occur in conventional exorcisms, such as the girl's 360-degree head spin, or the exorcist ending up dying.
What they usually relate is that when the prayers begin, the supposed demon reacts violently, with great aversion to religious things, especially emphasizing the figure of the Virgin Mary.
At this point, exorcists conclude that the demon feels a special aversion to the mother of Jesus for supposedly representing the opposite of him: obedience and humility. Thus, they recommend praying the Rosary as an effective weapon against the evil one.
Exorcism today
Currently, the Catholic Church has lost its fear of speaking about the devil or the practice of exorcism. Pope Francis, for example, frequently mentioned the devil and his malevolent plans. Currently, and theoretically, each diocese should have at least one exorcist, with 37 official exorcists in the country today. The designation of a priest as an exorcist must be approved by the bishop of the diocese according to canon law, which requires the person to be an ordained priest, with theological solvency and deep piety.
In the movie The Exorcist, two priests perform the exorcism on the girl Reagan: the aforementioned Father Karras, a psychiatrist and skeptic of the practice, and the veteran Father Merrin, who perfectly understands the devil's modus operandi and has vast experience.
These two characters perfectly reflect, as we said before, the contemporary Church: straddling the skepticism of new priests, and that of those convinced of the existence of the devil and his effects.