by David Kiely
In 1971, William Peter Blatty’s novel The Exorcist appeared, to be followed by a motion picture of the same name.
The effects of that single Hollywood production were seismic. Until 1973, the release date, exorcism was seldom spoken of in lay circles, much less experienced. That was to change, as long lines formed outside movie theaters, and people emerged white-faced, having seen director William Friedkin’s stunning and altogether alarming dramatization of Blatty’s book. The film was to spawn many imitators and introduce an incredulous public to a subject that the churches had for centuries kept from all but a few.
It is a curious fact that from the moment the movie was shown in Ireland, Britain, and mainland Europe, there was a veritable epidemic of “possession” symptoms presented by psychiatric patients, many consistent with those shown in The Exorcist. The simple explanation is, of course, that fakery was at work, and that those patients for whom attention seeking was always an intrinsic part of their illness were doing no more than ratcheting up the pressure on their therapists. In other words, the “demonic possession” was a cry for help.
The principle of Occam’s razor, that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, could certainly be applied with profit in most such cases. Yet a handful seem to fall outside the ambit of rationality, defying, as they do, reductionism. That of Anneliese Michel is perhaps the most celebrated, and one of the more recent “possession” motion pictures, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, was based loosely on her tragic circumstances.
A native of Würzburg, Germany, Anneliese began experiencing epileptic fits and “demonic” attacks when she was eighteen. The bishop, Dr. Josef Stangel, ordered the case to be investigated by an authority on such matters, who diagnosed possession. The bishop gave permission for an exorcism, to be performed by a Salvatorian priest with the assistance of a local pastor.
It was found that ten months of weekly exorcism could not banish the entities that had “occupied” the young woman’s body. They allegedly included Lucifer, Adolf Hitler, Emperor Nero, and Cain. Such was the ordeal that Anneliese endured during the protracted exorcisms that she eventually died. Too little attention had been given to Anneliese’s anorexia, and possible anorexia nervosa, which may have hastened her end: at the last, she was refusing all food and drink. A jury would find both the officiating clergymen and the girl’s parents guilty of “negligent homicide”; all four had, it was decided, allowed Anneliese to starve herself to death. Each was given a six-month custodial sentence, but this was mercifully suspended for three years.
That same year—1976—saw the publication of a groundbreaking book on exorcism. Entitled Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans, it was written by Malachi Martin, a “laicized” Catholic priest. By laicization is understood that the priest, usually voluntarily, has clerical character, control, or status withdrawn. Father Martin was a former Jesuit and a native of Ballylongford, County Kerry, Ireland.
He died in 1999 at the age of seventy-eight, and left a legacy of controversy. His detractors claimed that Hostage was a tissue of lies. Even the greatly respected psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck declares in his final book, Glimpses of the Devil, that Malachi Martin “was perhaps the most bald-faced liar I have ever known.” It is a curious statement, given that Dr. Peck was a great admirer and confidant of Father Martin; he actually dedicated the book in question to the exorcist. Yet he went on to aver, “In everything that deeply mattered to me and my quest for the Devil, I knew him to speak only God’s truth.”
Whatever the truth about his personal life and unorthodox activities, Malachi Martin’s book had a profound effect on both Church and laity. Never before had the subject of exorcism been examined in public, and in such detail, by a professional exorcist, and one, moreover, who wrote with such verve and élan. Hostage to the Devil became a best seller.
By this time, possession and exorcism were being openly debated around the world. This renewed interest had given rise to a frenzy of demon hunting, especially among the more extreme evangelical movements. By the start of the 1980s, at prayer meetings across America, demons were being expelled from the “possessed” as routinely as the collection plate was passed. The meetings were awe-inspiring, if not to say frightening, events, with hysterical people dropping to the floor, roaring and foaming at the mouth. Such “deliverance ministries” had America in thrall. Before long, the rest of the world would follow suit. At the time of this writing, the Ellel Ministries, a born-again group offering deliverance from “unclean” spirits, is expanding rapidly. Begun in Lancaster in 1986, Ellel has a presence on four continents—Britain alone has four training centers. There is even a “Pastors’ School” in Siberia; ten years ago such a venture would have scarcely been conceivable.
The Church of England bishops have, of late, become increasingly concerned by the proliferation of such maverick exorcists and fundamentalist groups. Whether this reflects a jealous fear that others are encroaching on their turf or a concern based on careful evaluation of such ministries remains to be seen. The difference between the established churches and the newcomers is, inter alia, the length and comprehensiveness of training. Whereas the Anglicans require many years, Ellel training is accomplished in a matter of weeks. The courses are packaged slickly, and the language used owes less to the theology lecture hall and more to the business seminar. “Satan’s strategies and tactics” are examined with the enthusiasm of an advertising executive evaluating a competitor’s latest campaign, and the training shows “how demonic footholds can be established in a person’s life and presents key principles by which the captives may be set free.”
It will hardly come as a surprise that clerics of the old school are expressing their disquiet. Dr. M. Scott Peck once asked Father Martin his opinion of the exorcisms—or, more properly, the deliverances—performed with such aplomb by the charismatic “healers.”
“They’re generally just casting out their own fantasies,” he replied. “But very occasionally, usually by accident, they do catch a real fish.”
THE RESTLESS DEAD AND EVIL SPIRITS
Ghosts are sometimes known as the “restless dead.” It is important to establish that such entities are considered to be the “souls” or “spirits” of human beings. This is to distinguish them from non-human entities that have never drawn breath, those which are often referred to as demons. It is such a broad area of investigation that it would be impossible to do more than touch upon it here. We do so in order to clear up a misconception: namely, that all paranormal activity is somehow of demonic origin.
The exorcist will be at pains to point out that, while demonic oppression may accompany paranormal activity, there are many instances where it plainly does not. In such cases the exorcist must allow for the presence of an earthbound spirit, or spirits.
Such entities, also referred to as the “unquiet dead,” have been the subject of some interesting studies. In the mid-1800s, it was proposed that there are three categories of spirit, and each was assigned its own rung on the ladder of spiritual evolution. There were the “low spirits,” those trapped in the world of the living; “second-degree spirits,” who desire only to promote goodness on earth; and “perfect spirits,” those who have reached the pinnacle of their evolution. The three categories are, by and large, still accepted by modern psychic investigators.
The “low spirits” are of particular interest to the exorcist. It is believed that, during their lifetimes, such entities were wedded to materiality and so failed to develop spiritually. For this reason they are unable to “move on,” choosing instead to oppress or disturb the living. At their most malign, they can be considered to be evil spirits; at their least harmful, they are classified as poltergeists.
These theories were given currency in recent times by the notable British psychiatrist Dr. Kenneth McAll (1910–2001). He became interested in the powers of “possession” while working in China as a missionary-surgeon. During the turbulent war years, he
was confronted by phenomena that led him to an exploration of possession. He went on to dedicate his life to treating mental illness with reference to extraphysical causation.
Dr. McAll’s revolutionary thesis, introduced in his seminal work, Healing the Family Tree, was that many supposedly “incurable” patients were the victims of ancestral control. By drawing up a family tree, he claimed to be able to identify the ancestor who was adversely affecting his patient. He would then sever the bond between the ancestor and the patient by having a clergyman celebrate a service of Holy Communion. The ancestor would be delivered back to God, and the transgenerational hold consequently broken.
It was, in effect, a most unorthodox form of exorcism, or deliverance. It is an important area, insofar as it examines what one might call “indirect” possession. Dr. McAll concluded that the dead may become pawns in the struggle for the souls of the living, that souls in transition, or “dislocated” souls, may become possessed by evil, so that they in their turn can possess the living, and so drive the living into despair, or worse.
“Evil symptoms and their inevitable fruit of despair, which leads to suicide,” he believed, “bear the marks of the evil one battling with those who are sensitive to the uncommitted dead.”
EXORCISM: SOME DEFINITIONS
Before going further, it may be useful to examine our definitions. In the way of words, exorcise has undergone a shift in meaning since earlier times. Its roots are in Greek: exorkizein literally means “to out an oath.” To exorcise, then, is to place a demon on oath, and so command it by the power of God to depart and not trouble the afflicted again. In our time, it is also acceptable to speak of the exorcism of places and inanimate objects, when obviously an oath is neither demanded nor sworn. Such exorcisms are common practice; for instance, a priest will exorcise all sacred vessels and paraphernalia before their employment in divine service.
The Catholic Church recognizes two distinct forms of exorcism: the solemn and the unofficial. Before performing a solemn exorcism, a priest is obliged to obtain the permission of a bishop. There are sound reasons for this. In the first place, the rite must be enacted in the name of the Church, and it is used for the expulsion of evil spirits. This is dangerous territory, whether or not one holds with the existence of such entities. Done incorrectly, or by an individual not properly qualified or equipped to perform the rite, a solemn exorcism can end in disaster, for victim and exorcist alike. Malachi Martin recounts the case of a priest he called Michael Strong, who failed to exorcise a possessed man in wartime Nanking, China. Father Martin met him shortly before his death some years later and was dismayed at the other priest’s physical decline, a “general appearance of delicate survival, of a hair’s-breadth balance in him, between life and the disappearance from life.” Evidently the entity had taken its toll of both exorcee and exorcist.
Simply put, [Father Strong said] evil has power over us, some power. And even when defeated and put to flight, it scrapes you in passing by. If you don’t defeat it, evil exacts a price of more terrible agony. It rips a gash in the spirit.
The solemn exorcism is undertaken only rarely. It requires that the priest converse with the entity. It is principally in this regard that the solemn exorcism differs from the informal.
An unofficial exorcism may be applied to a number of situations and circumstances. Moreover, it can be performed by religious and layperson alike. No permission is required and the exorcist does not act in the name of the Church, be it Roman Catholic or Protestant. Hence a Protestant minister can be said to perform an exorcism when delivering a place or an individual who is beset by the so-called restless dead—the soul of a deceased person.
This is an important distinction. In short, exorcism is used to expel both malignant and bothersome entities.
Lastly, the term deliverance is used today in a broad sense. Generally speaking, it applies both to Catholic and Protestant exorcism, and is the term of choice for most Protestant denominations, in particular those of the Reformed communions. The word, which appears frequently in these pages, is sometimes interchangeable with exorcism, especially when applied to the cleansing of a place. Within the Christian framework, it is generally accepted that whereas both Protestant and Roman Catholic priests engage in a deliverance ministry, exorcism is largely a Catholic rite.
THE PARANORMAL AND THE DEMONIC
We have established that paranormal activity need not necessarily signal the presence of the preternatural. (By preternatural is meant that which is higher than the physical yet subordinate to the supernatural or divine; the word derives from the Latin præter naturam, “beyond nature.”) One case examined in this book has no relation to evil: that of little “Lucy” (pp. 131–153), who saw a succession of apparitions. It is difficult to interpret the disturbances the family experienced as an attempt by the Devil or other demons to influence the household.
That said, it will be seen that other cases began with ostensibly innocent occurrences, such as the case of the “child Sarah” (pp. 98–130), only to progressively develop into something sinister. This appears to be a relatively common phenomenon, when so-called poltergeist activity makes way for malevolence. In his impressive study entitled But Deliver Us from Evil, Reverend John Richards goes some way toward explaining the phenomenon. At one point, he refers to the haunting known as the Epworth Poltergeist, which began in Doncaster, England, in the parental home of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement. It was 1716 and John was thirteen at the time.
It is difficult to say if there was anything demonic in the affair. Everyone, except the dog, seems to have become accustomed to the situation, which suggests that the early fear of the children was largely the fear of the unknown rather than the fear of evil. But it must be remembered that the Curé d’Ars was haunted by what A. R. G. Owen calls, “a strong resemblance to poltergeist activity.” These incidences are usually taken to have a predominantly spiritual significance because of the Curé’s stature as a man of God and as an evangelist. When similar happenings occur in the home of John and [his younger brother] Charles Wesley it may not be without spiritual significance either. Even if no demon were involved, the Enemy would have been pleased if the intervention of the unknown had opened the door to fear which might distort and undermine the spiritual lives of the young boys; the greatest danger—then as now.
Richards’s closing observation is an important one. Both John Wesley and his brother Charles went on to become Christian ministers, following in their father’s footsteps. Although there is little in the accounts of the haunting to suggest the presence at Epworth of a demon—much less one that required exorcising—there is likewise no evidence that would preclude a preternatural agency. At this long remove in time, nearly three hundred years after the events, it is of course impossible to determine the precise nature of the haunting. Nevertheless, the circumstances bring to mind words spoken by a Catholic priest we interviewed: “Old Nick won’t waste his time going for the sheep. He’ll go for the shepherd instead. By weakening the shepherd he can get at the flock.”
What better focus of attack for any aspiring demon than the home of three ministers, one already practicing, two to come?
SOME CAUTIONARY TALES
“I don’t understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this,” Father Daniel Corogeanu told the press in June 2005. “Exorcism is a common practice in the Orthodox Church. Other priests use my methods.”
His “methods” included crucifixion: the chaining of a young nun to a cross after binding her and stuffing a rag into her mouth to prevent her from crying out as she was made to suffer a slow and agonizing death. She died of thirst, compounded by shock and asphyxiation.
The scene of the botched exorcism was a convent in northwestern Romania, the victim a twenty-three-old nun, Maricica Irina Cornici. Her death was the culmination of a short, unfortunate life that began in an orphanage, where the girl was systematically abused. Three months before she died, she had visited the convent,
found solace there, and decided to join the community.
She began to hear voices—external locution—and to display further symptoms one associates with schizophrenia. Yet no physician was summoned; instead, the young woman was “diagnosed” as a demoniac. Father Corogeanu, the spiritual head of the convent, undertook the task of exorcising her.
Two salient facts emerged during the subsequent murder trial. The convent in question, the Holy Trinity, was built in 2001 by an attorney and had not been sanctified by the Orthodox Church. Nor was Corogeanu a qualified priest; he had never completed his studies. He had his heart set on becoming a professional footballer or a lawyer, but chose the religious life when denied a place at university.
For nine days, four nuns helped the “exorcist” to restrain Maricica; this included chaining her to a cross while Father Corogeanu said prayers over her.
When asked why he had not summoned medical help as a preliminary, the priest replied: “You cannot cast out the Devil with pills. You banish devils with fasting and prayer.”
In the wake of the tragedy, the bishop shut down the convent and had the community transferred elsewhere. Father Corogeanu was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for the murder, and the four nuns who helped him were also given lengthy custodial sentences. To prevent further abuses, the Orthodox Church in Romania has vowed to introduce psychological tests for men entering the monastic life.
The case must serve as a warning to those unqualified “exorcists” who meddle in spiritual matters, and to those who allow them to. Rogue preachers—some properly ordained, many not—find demonic influences at work in hitherto unsuspected places. If we are to believe their sometimes outrageous claims, demons are at the root of every human foible. Derek Prince, a Pentecostal minister who died in 2003, identified the demons of caffeine, compromise, cosmetics, criticism, fantasy, gossip, infidelity, masturbation, nicotine, and sleepiness, while maintaining that the Devil is also behind Tourette’s syndrome.