The film tells the story of a young American girl who is possessed by a demon and eventually exorcised by a Catholic priest. As a scholar of Christian theology, my own research into the history of Christian exorcisms reveals how the notion of engaging in battle against demons has been an important way that Christians have understood their faith and the world.
The Gospels, reflecting views common in Judaism in the first century A. Possessed individuals are depicted as displaying bizarre and erratic behaviors. In the Gospel of Luke , for example, a boy is possessed by a demon that makes him foam at the mouth and experience violent spasms. Jesus is shown to have a unique power to cast out demons and promises that his followers can do the same.
Over the years exorcism came to be associated more widely with the Christian faith. Several Christian writers mention exorcisms taking place publicly as a way to convince people to become Christians. Early Christian texts mention various exorcism methods that Christians used, including making the sign of the cross over possessed persons or even breathing on them. Though operating with approval of the U.
Conference of Catholic Bishops, it is independent and privately funded, with a focus on training and educating priests about exorcism. In a statement on its web site, the institute acknowledges there is some skepticism about exorcism and demonic possession.
One perennial challenge for modern-day exorcists is to determine if a person potentially possessed by the devil is in fact suffering problems better addressed by mental health professionals.
The U. The AP is solely responsible for this content. Sections U. The decline of Christianity has also led to an increase in superstitious practices, he believes. Italian priest Benigno Palilla told Vatican News that the growing use of tarot cards and sorcery had also led to a renewed demand for exorcisms. However, very few cases actually require a major exorcism. Out of cases he has seen, Father Thomas says he has carried out just a dozen major exorcisms.
In the Catholic Church, a "major exorcism" can only be carried out by a priest with a bishop's approval. It involves specific prayers and an invocation for the demon to leave the body of the possessed in Jesus' name. In , the Catholic Church carried out its first major update to the rules surrounding exorcism since and distinguished between demonic possession and physical or psychological illness.
As a result, Father Thomas works with a team of doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists - all practising Catholics - to rule out any other cause for a person's suffering before diagnosing demonic possession. The priest will then try a series of deliverance prayers. A major exorcism will only take place "as a last resort", he adds. As outlined by www. The person who is possessed may be bound, and holy water should be used. Any of these things, he told her, could serve as a doorway for a demon.
It may surprise some Catholics to learn just how literally the modern Church interprets Satan and his army of demons. While many people today understand the devil as a metaphor for sin, temptation, and unresolvable evil in the world, the pope consistently repudiates such allegorical readings. In sermons, interviews, and occasionally in tweets, Pope Francis has declared that Satan—whom he has referred to as Beelzebub, the Seducer, and the Great Dragon—is a literal being devoted to deceiving and debasing humans.
Exorcisms also occur in some Protestant and nondenominational Churches, but the Catholic Church has the most formal, rigorous, and long-standing tradition.
The Church sees the influence that demons and their leader, the devil, can have on human beings as existing on a spectrum. Demonic oppression—in which a demon pressures a person to accept evil—lies on one end. In a crucial step, the person requesting an exorcism must undergo a psychiatric evaluation with a mental-health professional. The vast majority of cases end there, as many of the individuals claiming possession are found to be suffering from psychiatric issues such as schizophrenia or a dissociative disorder, or to have recently gone off psychotropic medication.
For some, being told they do not suffer from demonic possession can be a letdown. Father Vincent Lampert, the exorcist from Indianapolis, remembered a young man who came to him seeking an exorcism but was told he was experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia.
At this point he may begin looking for what the Church considers the classic signs of demonic possession: facility in a language the person has never learned; physical strength beyond his or her age or condition; access to secret knowledge; and a vehement aversion to God and sacred objects, including crucifixes and holy water. Check out the full table of contents and find your next story to read. Only a very small number of exorcism requests make it through the discernment process.
The Catholic exorcists I interviewed—each with more than a decade of experience in the role—had worked on only a handful of cases deemed to be true possession. The ritual begins with the exorcist, who is typically assisted by several people, sprinkling holy water on the possessed person.
The exorcist makes the sign of the cross and kneels to recite the Litany of the Saints, followed by several readings of scripture. He then addresses the demon or demons, establishing the ground rules they must abide by: to reveal themselves when called, give their names when asked to identify themselves, and leave when dismissed.
Because the exorcist is working with the full authority of God and Jesus Christ, Catholic doctrine stipulates, the demons have no choice but to obey. For those few people the Church believes are truly possessed, a half-dozen or more exorcisms may be carried out before the priest is confident that the demons have been fully expelled. According to Catholic doctrine, in order to take possession of a person in the first place, demons rely on doorways—what the priest in Orlando warned Louisa about.
These can include things like habitual sin and family curses—in which an act of violence or iniquity committed by one generation manifests itself in subsequent generations. But the priests I spoke with kept coming back, over and over, to two particular doorways. Nearly every Catholic exorcist I spoke with cited a history of abuse—in particular, sexual abuse—as a major doorway for demons. Thomas said that as many as 80 percent of the people who come to him seeking an exorcism are sexual-abuse survivors.
But from a secular standpoint, the link to sexual abuse helps explain why someone might become convinced that he or she is being menaced by something sinister and overpowering.
The correlation with abuse struck me as eerie, given the scandals that have rocked the Church. The second doorway—an interest in the occult—might offer at least a partial explanation.
Most of the exorcists I interviewed said they believed that demonic possession was becoming more common—and they cited a resurgence in magic, divination, witchcraft, and attempts to communicate with the dead as a primary cause.
According to Catholic teaching, engaging with the occult involves accessing parts of the spiritual realm that may be inhabited by demonic forces. In recent years, journalists and academics have documented a renewed interest in magic, astrology, and witchcraft, primarily among Millennials. After listening to the priests and poring over news articles, I started to wonder whether the two trends—belief in the occult and the rising demand for Catholic exorcisms —might have the same underlying cause.
So many modern social ills feel dark and menacing and beyond human control: the opioid epidemic, the permanent loss of blue-collar jobs, blighted communities that breed alienation and dread.
Maybe these crises have led people to believe that other, more preternatural, forces are at work. But when I floated this theory with historians of religion, they offered different explanations. But more described how, during periods when the influence of organized religions ebbs, people seek spiritual fulfillment through the occult. Adam Jortner, an expert on American religious history at Auburn University, agreed.
But just after my visit to Tacoma in March, I spoke by phone with Steven, with whom Louisa had recently reconciled, and he told me that she had been suffering for years from daytime episodes, too. The incidents in the middle of the night frightened Louisa more and felt, to her, more supernatural, but Steven found these daytime experiences much harder to explain.
One of these episodes occurred on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Louisa had followed the instructions of the priest at Saint James Cathedral, throwing out her Ouija board and some healing crystals. She and Steven had moved back to Washington State with their two children, hoping that proximity to family and friends would do her good.
They settled into a routine—Steven worked at a nearby warehouse; Louisa looked after the children—and for a while, Louisa all but forgot the nighttime incidents in Orlando. She came home in the early evening and spent some time upstairs in her bedroom. She eventually returned to the living room and spoke briefly with Steven.
Then she fell silent. When she began talking again, a new persona emerged. Normally an affable, meandering conversationalist, Louisa assumed a slow, measured tone.
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