The Exorcist

[MParedon]

I watched a documentary about The Exorcist and it said that the inspiration for the movie came from a real story about a boy. He was Lutheran and when his ministers (is that the right word?) weren't able to help him fully at first, they asked for help from Catholic priests.
I can not remember precisely, but I think they mentioned the diary of either the ministers or the priests that was published and available.

Does anyone know about this?

 

[Dream]

Yes, it was based on a true story, but it wasn't nearly as dramatic as the movie made it seem. From what I remember, the exorcism that was performed was more of a routine thing that took months to complete.

 

[MParedon]

I never watched the movie. I did see the sequel to it on TV, but I only saw very small parts of it while I would switch through the channels.

 

[pro_odeh]

Yes, i've heard that it was based on a true story. But exorcisms are done all the time. Still people are being posessed by deamons..

 

[FullyMT]

They had a documentary on it on the Discovery Channel, and I must say that, more or less, the Catholic Church was never put into a bad light, although they did have people randomly adding their opinion that the boy could have just been faking everything and the "bed lifting from the ground" and bottle of holy water flying across the room could have been exagerations or things that the priest and seminarian in the room thought happened for no reason, or that they didn't know was hit, etc.
The boy converted Catholicism (whether or not his parent's did, I don't remember, I also don't know if he's practicing...I pray he is though!), but he has had no recollection of what when on during the possession. Supposedly the possession had started after he did some game or something with his aunt who used tarot cards, uijia board, etc.

 

[MParedon]

I think I saw a different documentary, actually it didn't say much about the Catholic Church, it was more about what was happening to the boy, like the marks on his skin and the things that happened to him. It might have been on PBS, but then again I saw this a long time ago and I don't remember if I saw the whole thing.

I'm going to go to Amazon to see if I can find the book.

Thanks for the responces .