The original Exorcist didn't scare me that much. The make up they put on Linda Blair seemed fake to me.
Well, I didn't find it that terrifying either, but bear in mind that I was way too young to see it when it first came out. I don't think I actually saw the film until 20, 25 years after it was released. I had read the book, however, back in the mid 1980s. From what I understand, the movie was quite a sensation when it was released in 1973, but the stuff that's come out in the 50 years since then has rendered the original rather tame by comparison. I don't say that as a positive development, but there it is.
What I find interesting is the difference in the stance of the Church between then and now. In the book (released in 1971), and the film both, exorcism is treated by the institutional Church as a kind of an embarrassing remnant of medieval superstition; something grouped in with witch burnings and magic circles to ward off evil spirits. In both the book and the film, when Chris MacNeil approaches Father Karras and asks him how she would go about obtaining an exorcism, the priest looks at her like she has two heads and says, "Well, first of all, you'd have to build a time machine and go backwards about 500 years. That sort of thing just doesn't happen any more, Mrs. MacNeil." He then advises her to take Regan to a psychiatric hospital, and Chris responds by screaming in despair, "I've
taken her to every [expletive] hospital, shrink, and witch doctor in the world---they sent me to
you! Now you want to send me back to
them! Isn't there
anybody who's willing to help me?!?" It's only after this outburst that Fr. Karras agrees to check into the case.
And at the time, that viewpoint was fairly prevalent; this was less than ten years after the end of Vatican II, remember, and the Church was trying to "modernize" itself, at least in the social consciousness of the public, and belief in things like demonic possession was at pretty low water. In 1971, Sigmund Freud probably held more sway in the minds of most bishops than Thomas Aquinas; odd behavior was something to be treated in a psychiatric hospital, rather than by a priest with a blessed candle and a vial of holy water. A lot of young priests at the time literally didn't even believe there
was an actual devil; asking the Church for an exorcism was like asking a chemist to turn iron into gold.
You find that same attitude reflected in a lot of the other accounts at the time, as well: the situation faced by Jack and Janet Smurl in their West Pittston, PA, home in 1974 was pretty much the same thing---foul odors, loud disruptive noises, physical attacks, destruction of items in the home, levitating mattresses, and, in the case of Janet Smurl, invisible rape, caused the family, devout Catholics, to seek an exorcism for the home. The Diocese of Scranton steadfastly refused to accept that there was anything amiss in the house, and more or less dismissed the family as being slightly odd. Fr. Alphonsus Trabold, OFM, a theology professor at St. Bonaventure University, dryly opined that there were probably "other, less demonic" explanations for the disturbances. The only thing the Church ever did was send out a few priests from time to time to bless the house, but every one of them stated that they noticed nothing unusual while they were inside the home. Professor Paul Kurtz of the State University of New York, Buffalo, characterized the Smurls' claims as “a hoax, a charade, a ghost story,” and offered his opinion that the family's claims were possibly due to delusions, hallucinations, or brain impairment, and advised that they submit themselves to psychiatric and psychological examinations. Robert Gordon, a prominent Allentown, PA, psychologist, commented that “people often look at demonology to explain many tensions that they experience as individuals and within their families”.
Contrast that with some of the cases that have come along in the last twenty years or so, however, and you see a sea change in the attitude of the clergy, at least in the Catholic Church. Exorcisms, once looked at with distaste and embarrassment, are now openly acknowledged, and, while not common, every diocese under the amended 1999 Rites of Exorcism is required to have at least one priest who is specifically trained to deal with cases of demonic activity. Psychiatric examinations are still required to rule out non-malignant causes, but the days when an exorcism was nearly impossible to obtain seem to be long gone. Ironically, in some cases, like the 2011 Latoya Ammons case in Gary, Indiana, the local Catholic priest, Father Michael Maginot, was the only one who agreed to help the family, eventually performing a total of three exorcisms, even though the family wasn't even Catholic. The Ammons family met with the same type of institutional stonewalling that the Smurls did nearly 40 years before: their family physician believed the children in the family acted "delusional", and claimed he experienced nothing in the home when he stopped by there.
Eventually, after the children missed a good deal of school due to the upheavals in the home, the Indiana Department of Child Services got involved, with the state's psychologists dismissing the children's accounts as "deceptions, delusions, and hallucinations". The landlord of the property said he believed Latoya Ammons was "perpetrating a hoax". The police officers who had been called to the home stated they experienced nothing out of the ordinary while there, although Captain Charles Austin, a 37-year police veteran, was definitely unnerved by the atmosphere he felt while inside the house. The Department of Child Services determined that the children were "performing for their mother" and that nothing unusual was going on, even though there were sworn witnesses who observed such phenomena as the 12-year old daughter levitating above her bed while completely unconscious, and the youngest boy, while in a hospital waiting room, walking up the side of a wall backwards, an event that was actually seen by DCS personnel, but never officially commented on. After the exorcisms performed by Fr. Maginot, the disturbances ceased; and a year later the family moved to Indianapolis.
That just kind of shows you how the viewpoint with regards to exorcisms has changed over the years.
thecinemanews.online
