Episode 366: Exorcism
/Since 1973’s The Exorcist, demonic possession and exorcism have dominated horror pop culture. But what are the origins of exorcism within the Catholic Church and how has it changed over the centuries?
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of religious trauma, death, persecution, possession, ableism, medical malpractice, forced marriage, institutionalizing, mental illness, self-harm, homophobia, transphobia, and violence.
Housekeeping
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- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And today, we are going to be talking about something that really piqued my interest, you know, in the Halloween season this year. Because this Halloween, Amanda, for the first time, I watched The Exorcist.
AMANDA: How did it take this long?
JULIA: You know what? Like, that's a great question. I know it's a classic and it is, like, considered one of the scariest movies of all time. I've heard everyone say that to me before, but I— I hadn't gotten around to it for whatever reason. Maybe because it had a reputation of being so scary, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah. You have to be in a very specific kind of place to be like, "I want to sign up for, I think, the scariest scary movie."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. And you know what everyone's like, opinion on what is scary is different? Which is what makes the horror genre so interesting and so vast in its options, but I just— I never got around to actually watching it, and I sat down, and I watched it, and it was fine.
AMANDA: Really?
JULIA: Yeah. Like, I— I respect it for popularizing the exorcism genre in film, and it did a lot of stuff that a lot of movies would end up, like mimicking or paying homage to later on in film history. But I thought it was good, like I thought it was fine. That's about it. It was a really slow-moving plot, to be quite honest. It was a lot of people just talking.
AMANDA: I call this a Friends situation, which, you know, again, lots of people love Friends. I'm not taking that away from you. But what I am saying is I grew up watching TV in the post-Friends world. And so when you go back and see the urtext, you know, and read it or experience it, and think like, "Wow. This is the thing that inspired everything else that came after it." It can be a little bit underwhelming sometimes because you're already familiar with the stuff that at the time felt groundbreaking, you know?
JULIA: Yes. Exactly what I was thinking as well. And you also have to consider, at this point, when the exorcist came out, most people didn't know what an exorcism was.
AMANDA: I truly can't conceive of that as a cultural landscape.
JULIA: Yes. And because I watched this, after watching it, I kind of went down a sort of rabbit hole because the movie really does talk about exorcism as a thing that several of the characters had never heard of before. Like, it's this really, like, arcane and secret ritual, which did not match up to my modern reality, as you just said. Like, you can't fathom the idea that no one would know what an exorcism is. And it felt like when you're watching a zombie movie, and no one's outright saying zombies, because they're not aware of what genre they're in.
AMANDA: Hmm. Yes.
JULIA: That's what that movie felt like at the time. I'm like, "This just seems weird."
AMANDA: Say exorcist of God.
JULIA: But nowadays, I think most people have at least, like, heard of exorcism and have a certain idea of what it is when they hear that word. But exorcism, as I— as I mentioned before, was not always as well-known as it is today. And I wanted to dig into the history of it, and kind of how it became as mainstream as it is today.
AMANDA: I didn't even know this was a thing I didn't know, and that's my favorite kind of Spirits episode.
JULIA: That's the best kind, right? Like, even in general, like finding out stuff that you're like, "Oh, that is like that, and I didn't even realize to think that it hasn't always been that way." You know what I mean?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: It's some important context before we get started, there are many instances in the history of exorcism where exorcism was used either as an excuse to persecute someone, or as a way of attempting to treat an illness, either mental or physical, that should have been done under the care of trained professionals. Exorcisms are also sometimes done without the consent of the person who is assumed to be possessed. And there are documented instances in which the act of exorcism is considered a form of abuse, or in some ways led to someone's death. So as is the case in almost all of history, there are instances of people in power using it to persecute and discriminate against people who they see as other. And I want to like, right off the bat, say like, "Hey, that is a big part of the history of exorcism, and if that is something that causes you discomfort or something, a topic that you don't want to touch on, I completely understand and this might not be the episode for you." And that's totally okay.
AMANDA: Hey, we have exactly 365 others you can check out, one for each day of the year.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I also want to say that at the same time we're talking about this, this is not exclusive to a religious or spiritual practice like exorcism. Like, for example, think of the way that we treated people with mental illness before we really understood what it was. Or, for example, how women would be sent to asylums for something as simple as not wanting to be married, you know?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. You know, the quote-unquote, “hysterical mental condition of not wanting to marry someone picked out for you.”
JULIA: But I also want to acknowledge that there are people who have gone through the process of exorcism and have talked about how the process is a form of healing for them and that they are grateful that they went through the process of exorcism. And basically, just I want to get across that I find this topic really interesting, while also acknowledging the fact that this can be really difficult for some people, especially people who might have experienced religious trauma in their past or things like that. So, again, if the topic isn't for you, totally fine. But I want to try and treat the topic as judiciously as I can, as we go into the episode.
AMANDA: And I know you put a ton of care into preparing this. Yeah, it's something that is never going to be entirely good or entirely bad. And our mission here is not to, you know, give it a rubber stamp of approval, but to say, "Hey, how did this as a trope, a genre, a tool come into being and what does it mean today?" And I think that's inherently really worthwhile and really interesting. And as with any, you know, ceremony, technology, especially ones that have to do with spirituality and with institutions of power, the more power you hold, the higher responsibility to make sure you're using it well, and with the, you know, enthusiastic consent and informed consent of the people involved.
JULIA: Yes. So keep all those things in mind as we go through this episode, because I think they are very important themes in discussing the history of exorcism.
AMANDA: I mean, I'm interested.
JULIA: Good, I'm glad, because we have a lot to talk about. I want to point out as well, kind of— we're— we're talking about this and I think a lot of people in the modern mainstream, we tend to frame exorcism as a thing that is done as a part of Christianity, mainly the Catholic Church. But forms of exorcism though, they're not always explicitly called that, are found in branches of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, I think specifically in Kabbalah, and Taoism all features some form of exorcism in their belief systems.
AMANDA: Small e, exorcism, shall we say?
JULIA: Exactly. So for the most part, though, our conversation is going to focus on exorcism in Christianity and specifically in the Catholic Church, since that is, for the most part, what is most often featured in media, in modernity.
AMANDA: And if any listeners have examples of texts, traditions, you know, lectures that they've listened to, or experiences that they have in non-Catholic traditions, I would be really interested in hearing those.
JULIA: Yes, absolutely. Always interesting to hear an— a new perspective. So for those who don't know what exorcism is or maybe like know of it in passing, but don't know the precise meaning behind it, in general, it is the practice usually religious or sometimes just spiritual of evicting a spirit, demon, or other malevolent spiritual entity from a person or a place. And this is a pretty ancient practice. Again, we tend to think of Christianity when we think of exorcism, but the word itself comes from the ancient Greek word for binding by oath.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: And in early Mesopotamia, for example, priests are recorded expelling demons and spirits that brought illness and chaos from the bodies of their worshipers.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So this is something that we have been doing for a extremely long time as humanity.
AMANDA: You're right. And even though US horror movies, Catholicism may have the— the sort of, you know, monopoly on depictions of exorcism. The history of medicine and philosophy and the world is to say, how are spiritual matters affecting physical realities? And that isn't just the crops and the tides, but also your body, and what happens in your home, and your thoughts.
JULIA: Yes. And your body can be a representation of what is happening in society, in your crops, in your land, in your laws. You know what I mean? Like, there is a certain level of kind of internal and external spiritualism that happens when we're talking about an exorcism.
AMANDA: Totally.
JULIA: Interestingly, the Mesopotamian priests that I was referring to earlier, they would utilize— and these will start sounding familiar as we talk more about exorcism, but they would utilize protective amulets, they would perform elaborate rituals. Occasionally, they would actually summon other spirits to combat those that were causing problems, which I think—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —is a really interesting way of not, like— not looking at the way that the Catholic Church performs that, but the idea of using something of the same cloth to fight against something is very like —
AMANDA: Like, the humor is, right? like—
JULIA: —homeopathic like healing and stuff like that. It's very interesting.
AMANDA: Exactly. Sort of, like, can draw out or, you know, emphasize like— I mean, I don't know. Like, I— so many— it's so funny, Julia, it's like I— my brain switches into the mode of almost like describing behavior to an alien, because it's like, yeah, like I do the same thing, like I— you know, I— I have, you know, garments, and scents, and rituals that, you know, put me into the headspace to be, you know, thinking about, you know, spirituality and, like, setting goals. And, you know, the literal act of, like, prayer or going to services like, you know, slows down my heartbeat, and lets me focus, and, like, gives me all the, you know, meditative practices. All thoughts are embodied, like all your— your physical presence has relationship to the things going on in your brain and vice versa. And for me, that's a big theme of my— you know, of the last couple years of my life and looking forward is, you know, thinking about— not that I think. You know, you can yourself healthy or ridiculous things like that. But to know that my body is the sort of, like, landscape upon which the weather of my thoughts plays.
JULIA: That was beautiful.
AMANDA: Thank you. I can't— I can't abstract those things from one another.
JULIA: Amanda, I truly think when you say stuff like that, in another life, you should have been an anthropologist. Like— like, the idea of like, yeah, just like being able to explain human actions, like, to an alien without the abstract of, like, being human, I'm like, "That's such an anthropology kind of thing." I love that.
AMANDA: Or poetry, you know, or both.
JULIA: Also poetry. Also, when you say things like the— "My body is the field in which my— my mind"— I'm like, "Girl, what? That's amazing."
AMANDA: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I just ate a sandwich, I'm feeling good.
JULIA: So moving on past the kind of more ancient practices of exorcism in Christianity, exorcism typically is performed on a person rather than a place. A place can be exorcised, but typically when we're talking about the type of exorcism that we're talking about, it is upon a person. And specifically, it is the casting out of a demon that is said to have possessed the person receiving the exorcism.
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: Now, exorcisms are performed by exorcists, as kind of one would assume. And, again, I know this is very basic stuff, but I am always acting on the idea that no one knows anything about the topic that we're talking about. So, like, yeah, an exorcist performs exorcisms, but we're gonna get into the nitty-gritty of who is an exorcist, and what they can do, and how they get qualified for that.
AMANDA: Not me getting distracted by what sort of Saturday Night Live Sketch I can make about exorcisms and exor— and exercising. And, like, exercisers versus exorcisers. English is a wild language.
JULIA: I think more personal trainers should be known as exercists, exercists.
AMANDA: I mean, basically, yeah.
JULIA: So exorcism is performed by exorcist. Though, depending on their tradition, that can be a variety of different figures who have received training or instruction on how to perform an exorcism. So specifically, in the Catholic Church, it must be a priest who has been mandated to perform the rite of solemn exorcism, or one who has been ordained into the minor order of exorcist.
AMANDA: You know, Julia, it's like a procedural where, because the case crosses state lines, they gotta call in the feds. It's not exactly like that, and probably involving the police is not the thing I want to do, but, you know, it's— it totally makes sense to me that there is, obviously, in every structure, an amount of like procedure that goes to being a specialist in this.
JULIA: Yes. So it's really interesting, the minor orders are kind of like these ranks within the Catholic Church, and in 1972, they reformed the minor orders, so that ordained priests would no longer receive the order of exorcist but rather, in order to achieve the ministry of Exorcist, one had to petition the Vatican. Basically, they had to be like, "Please, Pope, may I be an exorcist? XOXO, the bishop."
AMANDA: Gossip Bishop. Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. So it's also really important to note that in the Catholic Church, an exorcism on a person believed to be possessed may only be performed with the expressed permission of the local bishop, which is why I— I mentioned the bishop just now.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. No, no. Like, the— the— you know, the chief of police in this bureau has to make sure the feds are invited, et cetera, et cetera.
JULIA: Exactly. And then—
AMANDA: Sorry, I'm reading a lot of detective novels with my grandma.
JULIA: Good, good. I love that for you and Jammie. [14:45] I love that.
AMANDA: It's really fun. It's good.
JULIA: To that extent, the local bishop also has the power to appoint a priest for either a single act of exorcism if deemed necessary, but also has the ability to create a permanent position of exorcist among their clergy.
AMANDA: Got that.
JULIA: So you can give someone like a one-time— it's almost like getting ordained to, like, marry your friends.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Where it's like you can get a one-time pass to—
AMANDA: Such as license, yeah.
JULIA: —ordain that one wedding, or you can become a minister and marry whoever you want.
AMANDA: Makes sense. That is, by the way, how you become a rabbi. You become a rabbi by Rabbi saying, "You're a rabbi, my friend." And then you do.
JULIA: I love that. So we're talking about Christianity and exorcism, so you would assume that this practice must be somewhere mentioned in the Bible.
AMANDA: No, no.
JULIA: Only a little bit. So, basically, there's only one reference to demonic possession found in the Old Testament, in which King Saul is tormented by an evil spirit. Though, it's not necessarily ever said to be a demon.
AMANDA: That's true.
JULIA: You're like, "Okay, that's fine. The one time, and there's no demons mentioned. So how did we get to demons possessed people and we can perform exorcisms on them?"
AMANDA: I don't know, dude. Judaism stop there.
JULIA: I know. Well, Amanda, most of the belief in the ritual of exorcism comes from the New Testament.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: There's a lot of Jesus commanding his followers to expel evil spirits in his name, and in calling his followers to do so, the Catholic Church claims that this gave his disciples, and by extension, priests, the same ability to cast out evil spirits in Jesus' name. There's also several instances in which Jesus just expels demons with a simple command, most notably, during the exorcism of Mary Magdalene, which as someone who was raised Roman Catholic, didn't know the Mary Magdalene was ever possessed by a demon.
AMANDA: Not the story I've heard.
JULIA: You know what? I also am thinking about it, "But they didn't talk to us about Mary Magdalene that often."
AMANDA: No, no, no, no. It was just, "Mother Mary, pray for our sinners." And that's it.
JULIA: Yes. And that's it. They really just didn't— and like I can see kind of why, just be around the controversy of Mary Magdalene, but, like, come on, people who taught our religion classes when we were 12 years old, what happened?
AMANDA: Yeah, those are primarily high schoolers at the local, like, Catholic school. So looking back, I am less surprised that, like, a seven or eight-month intensive during my— my, like, basic Judaism education, covered far more ground, because I'm an adult now learning from an actual rabbi and not like a 16-year-old named Kellen. [17:12]
JULIA: Or just like people's moms.
AMANDA: People's moms, yeah. People's mom's, big—
JULIA: Jake— Jake's mom was one of the teachers at our Catholic school, Amanda.
AMANDA: Bananas.
JULIA: Truly wild. Love it. So, again, Jesus was doing a lot of expelling demons just by telling them to get lost. But in the book of Mark, Jesus claims that a demon can only be driven out through prayer and fasting. So while there are references to exorcisms that are written of the early church, we aren't sure what those exorcisms really looked like, because—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —they weren't codified by the church at large until the 1600s. There was a lot of period in between, you know, the writing of the Bible and the church finally codifying what qualifies as an exorcism, how one would go about that, and how to know if someone was possessed.
AMANDA: Quite fair. Again, because of living in exile, Jews are just so organized about this. My, you know, historical rabbi, I would invite to a dinner if I could. In like 1100 when he was writing, it was just, like, all these people's commentaries and scholarship is so scattered. How you're supposed to know what to do? "Well, I'll just distill it all down." And then wrote a handy dandy book telling you everything that, like ,we have decided makes sense and why with citations. And many, many people have done the same things since.
JULIA: Well, because the church didn't codify the ritual of exorcism until the 1600s, there were probably a lot of different rituals that kind of varied from place to place and clergy to clergy. And— and keep in mind, too, that this is the early days of the Catholic Church.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: This is a period of, as we call it on the show, well, it's not pagan, it's fine. [18:53]
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: This is also the period in which pre-Christian religions were othered as pagan, and spirits that didn't fall under an umbrella that could be adapted into the church became demons.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: To not renounce Paganism, during this time period, was to basically worship demons, which is to the church akin to possession, and therefore had to be dealt with, which kind of solidified during this transitional period, the importance of exorcism within the Catholic Church.
AMANDA: Yeah. And never not related to politics, right? Like everything is involved in who gets to live here, who gets to live unmolested, you know, and unbothered. Who, you know, is fit for leadership and who is pure, and what happens to the people who have been living here all along, but then, you know, the— the— then a new Catholic Church decides is no longer in power because they don't have money, land, legal rights, et cetera. It's all— it's all related.
JULIA: It is all related. And don't worry, we will get into kind of the politics of it in— in just a second.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: But I did want to talk about— for example, we know that during the medieval era, the Benedictine Order recorded a formula, so basically a ritual but like a little bit shorter and a little bit less concise, I guess, for exorcism that was called the Vade retro satana, which translates to "Begone, Satan."
AMANDA: Listen, short, straight to the point.
JULIA: Exactly. Specifically, it was evoked to reject demonic temptation, though, of course, in modernity, it is sort of seen as like a witty dismissal of a bad, but tempting offer. Like, when you say, "Begone, Satan," when someone offers you something, you're like, "Tempting but no, I'm good, actually." And it's just so funny that that's where that comes from, you know? When someone like jokingly says that, you're just like, "Oh, you're— you're basically doing a very gentle, tiny, funny exorcism."
AMANDA: But my tiny exorcism is about like a fourth box of Thin Mints.
JULIA: Exactly. So also, during the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church allowed exorcists to not only be clerics, but also they would allow laymen as well. Claiming that any follower of Jesus had the ability to drive out demons in the name of Jesus. This, however, did not last long. It was later revised so that only priests could perform the rite of exorcism and—
AMANDA: Yeah, Julia, that's not Protestant. Why would you allow that?
JULIA: Well, Amanda, it's worth noting for our religious history babes out there that, of course, Martin Luther got in on this action.
AMANDA: Hey! I am willing to bet money right now, that one of the 95 theses was about exorcism in some way.
JULIA: He was not happy when they got rid of the ability for laymen to perform exorcists.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: And he also abbreviated the Catholic Church's ritual of exorcism in his usual vein of, like, making the church more accessible to worshipers.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And this split in the church with the Protestant Reformation also is what led to an increase in the importance of exorcism in the Catholic Church's eyes, because suddenly the other—
AMANDA: Unsanctioned, unpermitted exorcisms, yeah.
JULIA: —were fellow Christians.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And exorcism was as a result really tied to the rise in the inquisition.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So it really wasn't long after that, that the Ritual Romanum, which is the codified rite of exorcism by the Catholic Church was published in 1614.
AMANDA: Oh, dang.
JULIA: Amanda, you're probably wondering, you're like, "Well, what does that look like?"
AMANDA: Yeah, how'd they classify it? What are the steps? What do you do?
JULIA: We will talk about that just as soon as we get our refill.
AMANDA: Alright, let's do it.
JULIA: Begone, Satan.
AMANDA: Begone.
[theme]
JULIA: Hey, this is Julia, and welcome to the refill. Of course, hey, let's start with thanking our newest patrons for joining us here on the Patreon. Marc, Betty, Beth, Mother of Beasts, and Maddy Cat. Thank you so much. You too can support the podcast by going to patreon.com/spiritspodcast today and joining the ranks of people like those new patrons or our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Arianna, Ginger Spurs Boi, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Nathan, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah and Scott. And, of course, our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And again, if you want to join the Patreon by going to patreon.com/spiritspodcast, you can get some really cool rewards and, hey, I'm not going to tell you what those rewards are. If you want to find out go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast right now. Also, I want to tell you about a show that I have been enjoying lately. It's something that I really enjoyed watching with my husband back when we were like where first dating and Netflix just got two seasons of it. So if you like competition shows and you like special effects makeup, horror-y kind of stuff, Face Off is now on Netflix. And if you watch those two seasons, and you like the show, it's very 2000s but in a really fun way. You can watch more of it, I think they have, like, eight more seasons on Peacock. And if you have Peacock, go check that out. That's Face Off, it's frickin' delightful. Also, while you have a second and maybe you're thinking about holiday gifts to give to your friends and your loved ones, or just to yourself this holiday season, why don't you head to our merch store at spiritspodcast.com/merch? We have so many cool options available for gift giving or just, you know, gifting to yourself. We have bath bombs, we have sweatshirts, we have mugs, we have coloring books, we have posters, we have so many things. Go and check those out at spiritspodcast.com/merch. And if you wish that you had more Multitude chose to catch up on, good news. Members of the Multi-Crew get a whole RSS feed full of bonus audio, including our newest show, the Multi-Crew Review. Every month I, Julia, from the podcast that you're listening to right now, sit down with one of the other members of Multitude to talk about something that they love and think that you'll love too. From video games to out albums, to activities like gardening, the members of Multitude show their passion and love with the hopes that they can introduce you to something that you'll love as well. Along with Head Heart Gut, Multi-Crew Review is exclusively for members of the Multi-Crew, which is our membership program that supports all of Multitude. So get Multi-Crew Review and Head Heart Gut as well as other audio exclusives by going to multicrew.club to sign up today. We are sponsored this week by BetterHelp. And I know that my family is very hard to shop for during the holiday season. We get each other gifts, but we really all kind of just want experiences rather than physical objects. So it makes opening Christmas gifts on Christmas a little underwhelming in terms of that regard. But I don't know, whether or not your family gives gifts during the holidays, you get to define how you give to yourself. And the holidays are a great time to do that, so whether it's by starting therapy, going easier on yourself during tough moments, or treating yourself to a day of complete rest. Remember, you need to give yourself some love this holiday season. And I know gift-giving can be stressful, but sometimes we need to give ourselves the gift of having a moment, to take care of our own mental health. 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JULIA: We are back. And for this episode, I wanted something that kind of reflects the history of exorcism, and also how it is presented nowadays. So I found a cocktail from Mad River Distillers called the Bittersweet and Sacred. It is bourbon whiskey, elderflower liqueur, lime juice, Campari, and a couple of drops of bitters.
AMANDA: You know, Julia, usually, I like double or triple the amount of lime juice that a cocktail calls for, just because I— I love that—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —bitter boy so much. But in this, it truly is so well-balanced. And shout-out to your curation and Mad River Distillers for putting this recipe together, it's so good.
JULIA: It's really, really nice. Amanda, this is a complete aside, I've been thinking a lot about cocktails lately. And the new cocktail bar that we really like, that our friend works at, just dropped their winter menu.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And they have a Mezcal cocktail on there, called the Senior [31:11]
AMANDA: Nice.
JULIA: You know how people like to do like dark Raisinets and popcorn together?
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: That's what this cocktail is.
AMANDA: What?
JULIA: It's truly amazing.
AMANDA: How do even do that?
JULIA: It is a popcorn-washed Mezcal.
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: Nixta, which is a corn liquer.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: And then they did dark chocolate bitters, a little bit of shaved chocolate on top of it, and a saline solution, so you get that salty popcorn flavor. It's wild.
AMANDA: Okay, we're— we're gonna have to make some plans here.
JULIA: We absolutely have to. Next time you're out here, it's not even a question.
AMANDA: But with my cocktail in hand now, Julia, I really have got to understand what was published in 1614 by the Catholic Church all about exorcism.
JULIA: Now, that we're back to what the ritual of exorcism looks like in the Catholic Church, in codifying the rite of exorcism as part of the Roman ritual, the Ritual Romanum in Latin, the Catholic Church laid out all of the services that a priest might perform during an exorcism. In general, the Roman Ritual was about codifying all rites and rituals in the Catholic Church.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But there was a specific section in which it was all about what an exorcism looks like. So basically, it was divided into 10 chapters, only one of those chapters was specifically regarding exorcism. But the chapter first begins with the general rules of the rite of exorcism and then gives exact ceremonies and prayers that could be administered during the rite.
AMANDA: The timing overall makes a lot of sense to me. Like, this is 100 years after the 95 Theses came out, you know, we're— we're dealing with the wake of the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church is kind of shoring up and administering and expanding in a lot of ways, gearing up for, you know, all kinds of activities into later 1600s. It makes complete sense that they would say not only are other exorcisms not sanctioned and unpermitted. And the others to your point from before the refill, you know, are not just those like un-Christian, other religions, but also some un-Christian, Christians. Now, we have to write down the rules somewhere and have a thing to point to, to say like, "This is what is right and the other stuff is not."
JULIA: Yes. And they said this is what is right for 400 years. And then it was revised in 1999.
AMANDA: Whoa.
JULIA: Why the change, Amanda? Why the change?
AMANDA: Well, is that after that movie with that scary boy?
JULIA: Yes. Yes, it is. So until the 1960s, specifically, in the United States, exorcism was still a fairly unknown thing. And requests for church-approved exorcisms were pretty much far and few between. And then The Exorcist came onto the scene in 1973. The script was adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name, but the visual representation of exorcism basically lit a fire in the public consciousness. According to the Boston Catholic Center, in the weeks after the film came out, they began receiving daily requests for exorcisms.
AMANDA: Yeah, dude. Like things that you notice, you notice much more. It's not just the Dunning-Kruger Effect, it's also that our brains are pattern-seeking machines. And when we see stuff that reminds us of something, or we start seeing, you know, examples, or— or fear-mongering, or things to look out for, we see them, not because we're silly, but because that's what our brains are made to do.
JULIA: Yes. And our brains also when provided an explanation for how something works, or something that we don't understand an explanation is given, we want to believe that. I think that's true of humans when it's like if an explanation is offered to us, we tend to accept that to a certain extent. And like obviously, like that was something that we were taught a lot in school, where it's like question anything, like if someone says that's the—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —thing, don't accept that as truth. But it is sometimes easier just to accept that, like, rather than being like, "Oh, I have, you know, like some sort of mental illness." The idea that, "Oh, instead, I'm possessed by a demon, can seem a lot easier because there is a solution." And the solution in this case is exorcism, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah. Or— or anything where there's a— there's a string of, you know, events, behavior, whatever, that doesn't make sense to you. Like, there is a reason why, you know, as diagnoses of all kinds are talked about more often, the rate goes up, because people are like, "Oh, oh, thank God." Like a— a name and a thing that I can recognize and put a name to. It doesn't mean, again, that we're all, like, willful or being influenced. It means that when you know the name for a thing, you use the name for the thing. And again, perhaps a little bit different when it comes to, like, you know, rates of like diagnoses and people feeling excited and empowered to, you know, learn more about their particular mode of interacting with the world versus exorcisms. But it is a broader pattern that I just— I hate when, you know, we look back in the past and think like, "Ugh, people, man, so following trends." Like, you know— or like, "So, you know, influenced." And it's like, that's— that is who and what we are. The more, I don't know, honest and normalized we make talking about how we are products of our influences, I think the better it is. Like it's— I don't know, it's no different to thinking about how like algorithms on social media are really optimized for conflict and keeping us addicted, and looking back at the past with a little more compassion.
JULIA: Yes. I think that we— we should be more generous with ourselves as humankind in the past. And, you know, that— that is not excusing any sort of atrocities that have happened in the past, but like, we also have to know, like, sometimes, "Hey, we'd like— we genuinely didn't know better." And that's okay.
AMANDA: Yeah. And— and that there's lots of things we don't know better about now. And I'm sure we're looking back and there are things that I am thinking is unique to me right now. That I will realize 10 years from now, definitely was not. But one of those was definitely people seeing this movie and going "Oh, oh. I need one of those right now, please."
JULIA: Yes. And the writer of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty, himself had gotten inspiration for the novel and the script, because of a story that he had read in 1949. It was an article in the Washington Post about a boy in Maryland who had been through an exorcism. And he, you know, took this as complete truth because it was being reported in The Washington Post. But it was a particularly sensationalized story, and Blatty's portrayal of exorcism was in turn sensationalized by the nation.
AMANDA: Oh. So we're dealing with like, a copy of a copy situation, but that thing where, like, you download an old Instagram photo, and you're like, "Oh, baby, the filter was too rough on this one."
JULIA: Yeah, exactly. But this— you know, this led to thousands claiming to be possessed by demons or that their loved ones were possessed, and this led to for lack of a better phrase, problems.
AMANDA: Yeah, I bet.
JULIA: But it also led to change, Amanda, because there was this issue with rogue priests who were already on the fringes of their own clergies or were acting outside of the Catholic Church entirely, were beginning to take advantage of the popularization and demand for exorcism. And were performing basically like exorcisms with dubious or no sanction from higher up in the church. Like, I know it sounds like a really silly phrase, but like the image of, like, rogue priests doing back alley exorcisms is like— it's sad, but it's also kind of funny, you know?
AMANDA: It is. And the way we find dark humor in, you know, the— the institutions that most scar us because that's what we've got left.
JULIA: Yeah. So people who were only aware of what they were seeing in the movies and reading in books, were falling prey to these people who are only interested in either like egotistical power trips, or in some cases, monetary gain after they demanded payment for their services. So like, the Catholic Church is looking at this and being like, "This is a problem."
AMANDA: Not good for any of us out here, except maybe ticket sales of the movie, The Exorcist.
JULIA: Yeah. I— the book, Contemporary American Religion talks about these unsanctioned exorcisms and called them clandestine underground affairs undertaken without the approval of the Catholic Church and without the rigorous psychological screening that the church required. However, at this point, Amanda, the psychological screening was not a codified aspect of the rite of— of exorcism, but that would soon change.
AMANDA: I didn't even know it became part of it.
JULIA: Yes, of course. So, the current rite of exorcism was codified in a document called Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications, which was first published like I mentioned before, in 1999, though it was then additionally amended in 2004.
AMANDA: Why did these titles go so hard? Damn.
JULIA: I know, they're pretty good. Pretty good. That's my favorite sequel to Of Mice and Men.
AMANDA: I was just thinking—
JULIA: So the document codified before the 1999 version was, as I mentioned before, written in 1614, so I would safely say that it was probably unnecessary update.
AMANDA: Yeah, it's like when your computer start shaming you by saying, "We're not even going to support software because your OS is so old, jerk." But it was a 480-something-year-old document.
JULIA: Yep. Yep, yep, yep. So the revision was particularly important because it focused specifically on warnings and guidance about differentiating demonic possession from mental illness.
AMANDA: Alright, come through.
JULIA: So as such one of the prerequisites to gain permission, to perform an exorcism today is a careful medical examination in order to exclude the possibility of mental illness. Partially, this is because authorities in the Catholic Church believe that genuine demonic possession is an extremely rare phenomenon. And most reported possessions are much more likely to be some form of mental illness.
AMANDA: There is a ton of commonality I would imagine between things like, you know, psychosis, and depersonalization, and symptoms that other kinds of interventions would much better deal with. Do some examples get, you know, mistaken? That depends on whether you believe demonic possession is a thing that genuinely does happen. But I'm very glad to hear that there are sort of a lot of off-ramps and filters, you know, before proceeding through the thing that this document is codifying.
JULIA: Yes, you're 100% correct. Let me tell you a little bit about the examples of what the symptoms are that would be looked for to determine whether or not someone was potentially possessed.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: Exhibiting extraordinary strength.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Having knowledge of people, events, or places that the person could not logically know. An aversion to holy objects or places associated with the church.
AMANDA: Same.
JULIA: Violent and aggressive behavior, including self-harm, physical illness, and symptoms that cannot be diagnosed or resist medical treatment. Abrupt change in behavior and hallucinations and hearing voices. And obviously, several of these could be symptoms of various mental illness like we were just talking about. Which is why the church has instructed exorcists to work in tandem with medical professionals to determine the source of the symptoms before resorting to exorcism. In the most ideal situation, a priest or an exorcist is going to be working in close proximity and in tandem with people who are medical professionals to determine through rigorous study whether or not this person needs an exorcism.
AMANDA: I think it's tough. Like, I'm sure there are people acting with, like, what they think is the absolute best interests of the people coming to them for help. And yet, does that mean— you know, that doesn't mean that there aren't still examples of spiritual abuse, you know, systems of hierarchy and power overshadowing it, of, you know, a lack of perhaps accountability and oversight that plagues all kinds of institutions, but often, especially religious ones, given the, you know, like, attacks and legal exemptions that apply to those institutions. So I'm aware of this complex thing that we're talking about here, but as a spiritual practice, as mythology, and as a spiritual technology, I think this is a really interesting matter to look at. And also, hey, a very recent update, which is fascinating over the thousands of years of these institutions that we're kind of charting.
JULIA: Yes. And I also, like— I want to point out, obviously, the Catholic Church has its problems, and it is not a uncorruptible system or like hierarchy of power. Like, it is very clearly had its issues in the past, has its issues now. But at the same time, I do want to, like, point out that they are trying to create a system in which hopefully abuse does not happen.
AMANDA: Yeah, it's not a monolith. And there are people doing important reformational work right now. And there are, you know, important oversights and harms that, you know, we can't really overlook in every institution. And especially one as powerful economically, socially, you know, socio-politically as the Catholic Church.
JULIA: Yes. So I feel like we've kind of not been skirting around it, but we haven't really discussed what a exorcism truly looks like. But I wanted to say, first off, like I mentioned before, Catholic Church very rarely authorizes exorcisms nowadays. At the same time, anyone who's familiar with exorcism might also be familiar with the name Father Gabriele Amorth, who was a Italian Catholic priest, who was the exorcist for the Diocese of Rome, which is Vatican City. And he claimed during his tenure as the exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, to have done over 10,000 exorcisms, which keep in mind, this man— I'm— I'm saying here, they don't do a lot of exorcisms at the Catholic Church. This man is out here claiming he's done 10,000.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: He also says that each prayer said count towards his count as exorcism. So I'm like, "Alright."
AMANDA: But that's— that's one a day for 27 years. Alright, I've—I've done the math.
JULIA: Yeah. And that's also like— this is a man who said that doing yoga is basically worshipping Satan.
AMANDA: Oh, great. So I don't have to give a shit about anything he says.
JULIA: I will take his opinion and thoughts with a grain of salt. But if you want to read a unhinged book, he did write a book about his experiences there before he passed away, so— and they also made a movie with Russell Crowe playing him called The Pope's Exorcist and I haven't watched it, and I probably won't because it looks terrible.
AMANDA: I— I have a real fondness in my heart for, like, B-movie with now A-list or former A-list stars about— about some amount of, like, historical figures, so perhaps.
JULIA: Perhaps, perhaps. So, Catholic Church very rarely authorizes exorcisms nowadays, but if it does get to the point where it has been approved, the Catholic Church believes that the power to perform an exorcism comes from two primary things. Basically, the authorization of church authorities. Makes sense. You have to be authorized by the church. And the faith of the exorcist, which is something that fictional exorcisms in media tend to play on quite a bit, including 1973's The Exorcist. It's always kind of about the actual internal struggle of the priest who is performing the ritual and less about the person that they are performing the exorcism on. It's very much like a plot device in a lot of ways.
AMANDA: That makes total sense because it also gives main character energy to the priest and not the, you know, person who is experiencing you know, a crisis.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. Which— that's Hollywood for you, baby.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So the actual ritual of exorcism can begin— doesn't necessarily have to begin with, but can begin with the possessed person being restrained, though, not always. The logic being that the possessed person, or rather the demon possessing the person might harm themselves or those present during the course of the exorcism. If this person has consented to it, great. If not, we see the problems there. But the priest leading the exorcism will call for demons to retreat from the body of the possessed. They will recite certain prayers such as the Lord's Prayer or Hail Mary, and the Roman Ritual, which we talked about before, but it's one of the official books of the Catholic Church regarding exorcism, provides procedures for the priests to follow during the ritual. However, I have noted that there's several instances where experienced exorcist use it as a starting point rather than an exact formula following the rite.
AMANDA: I mean, that makes sense. Like lots of things, you know, you— you give an outline and a skeleton and then you sort of improvise or, you know, you add on to it over time. But again, the thought of doing this, especially for Catholics in a ritual makes me— it's just like not a thing I would guess.
JULIA: However, also Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications provides an additional variety of prayers, psalms, gospel readings, and texts that can be utilized as necessary during the ritual. So if you're going to improvise, they've got a selection for you to— to use there. And the hope, basically, at the end of the exorcism is that after the exorcism is done, the person possessed will feel a quote, "kind of release of guilt and feel reborn and freed of sin." Which I would hope is kind of the case after all of that. However, sometimes a single exorcism does not remove the demon from the possessed person to the satisfaction of the priest performing the ritual or to the person who is experiencing the possession. And instead, it may require an extended period of time of prayer and exorcism. So kind of a repeated treatment situation.
AMANDA: That makes sense.
JULIA: So to a certain point, the origin of the exorcism is, in my opinion, somewhat understandable, especially in an early world where mental illness is not as understood as it is now, you know. When used with the best intentions, people outside the church, including many anthropologists and psychologists see exorcism as working as almost like a placebo effect. The idea that if something is wrong, a very religious person might see an exorcism as a cure to emotional or mental distress.
AMANDA: And I would argue, like many things, you know, going through a ritual has real effects, like just because— you know, like you're saying, just because it is a placebo effect, meaning, like, going through the steps has an effect just like, you know, a thing with a demonstrable, you know, medical effects when taking a medicine, for example. That doesn't mean it's not real. And I— I definitely feel this myself of like, you know, I'll go to therapy and, like, dump out a bunch of things bothering me. And before my therapist responds, I feel better because I've said them. You know, I— I pray not because I personally believe that I will, you know, get any outside intervention, but because focusing and saying the things that I want and need, or fear, or hope has a real effect on what I can do and what I can influence. And that is a continuum. Like those things are always linked. They have— they have never not been.
JULIA: Yeah. And I— I think this is part of the reason, too, that the church is kind of so adamant about determining that possession is not undiagnosed mental illness before engaging in exorcism. But, of course, like that doesn't stop people from kind of taking things into their own hands. Movies like The Conjuring, which we've talked about here on the show before, have these like kind of fictionalized, unsanctioned exorcisms that are portrayed as this dramatic necessity. But in reality, these can have, like, really serious consequences. They can even lead to death for people who are thought to be possessed, but are instead either ill or quote-unquote, “other”. And, like, even though the Catholic Church has codified and updated their standard practices around exorcism and determining the validity of possession claims, like I said before, it really doesn't end the practice of unsanctioned exorcism in the world. It just— is creating an ideal scenario for them. But exorcism is from both an anthropological and Religious Studies perspective. A really interesting representation of how religion can have considerable sway over people's lives. Priests, especially ones in an hierarchical system like the Catholic Church, are able to wield influence in determining what is the norm versus what is, quote-unquote, "other within their communities". And so to act outside of the norm, can therefore have someone be accused of demonic influence or possession further othering it, making it out to be like basically a disease that can be cured. And so to quote-unquote, “cure a possessed person through exorcism” is to bring them back into the community that they supposedly strayed from, which for some, that's a good thing, but for others, it's a form of persecution.
AMANDA: Yeah, totally. There's a lot that I imagined scholars and people with firsthand experience have said about placing all inspiration or blame for behavior that a certain you know, society or institution says is not welcome on an external force. You know, there—there is a real like, to side, I kinda grew up around a lot of specifically Catholic homophobia, and, you know, for me, this is reminiscent of some of the ways that I experienced the hate the sin, love the sinner, sort of method of denying, you know, in my case, queer peoples, but trans peoples and many other, you know, other groups, autonomy, and— and personhood, and knowledge of what they are experiencing. So it's— it's— again, couldn't be more tied up in, like, every single social issue that can affect a person and how they are accepted in the world. And I think you're right. I think there are ways in which that is really useful. Are there— you know, I wish I could look back and say that all the things that I did that I'm not proud of, somebody else did. And for me, it's a— it's a complex, but ultimately, healing thing to say, "No, no, that was me." And— and that was my— you know, the same— the same parts of me that I like lead me to do things I don't like. And, you know, kind of owning that and figuring out how to dial up the results. Like, how to get more results that I'm proud of and fewer that I'm not, is, you know, a thing that I'm working on. But that's something we should think and talk about.
JULIA: It really is. And at the end of the day, the ritual of exorcism is a complicated one with a complicated past and a complicated present. I— I think that the type of exorcism we see in Hollywood is obviously a fantasy, where good prevails over evil and that simplification really does take away from the nuance of this conversation. So, next time you're watching an exorcism movie conspirators, I want you to think about what you learned in this episode and, you know, look at it with a bit more of a critical lens. That's all we're asking.
AMANDA: And as always, this conversation inspiring you to seek out more writing perspectives, especially by folks with skin in the game is a really good outcome of an episode of Spirits to us. And I know— as usual, I have about 15 tabs opened from our conversation today. Things that I'm looking forward to researching and learning more about. So, Julia, thank you for inviting me into the space and sending me down this research rabbit hole.
JULIA: It's always my pleasure. And remember, listeners, when you are going down your research rabbit hole, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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