Nightmares with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons (Horror and Scripture) 9781978703186, 9781978703193, 197870318X

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Praise for Nightmares with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons

“Scholars who study popular culture typically know nothing of biblical studies. Most scholars who delve into Ugaritic texts and pseudepigrapha won’t even admit to having seen a horror movie. Steve A. Wiggins is a rare scholar who walks in both worlds. Finally, there is a book that allows the reader to understand how the demonic has evolved across millennia, in a way that is smart, accessible, and complete.” —Joseph P. Laycock, Texas State University

“Perhaps we live in evil times, but Wiggins is always determined to make the best of it. Talk of demons is prevalent on the U.S. national stage, so Wiggins explores the timely topic by using the evidence of their activity in popular movies. He walks his readers down the dark and winding path of demonic forces in a variety of world traditions before settling in to focus on the Bible. He pays attention to the way that women are often at the center of this site of disorder. This well-researched, but pointedly non-academic, book helps readers identify demons and sort out possession and what they may have heard from history and Hollywood. Wiggins helps readers track the demonic in the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, New Testament, and Middle Ages, before showing how they jumped straight into our modern world. Comedies, Oscar contenders, and big box office draws all prove good places to find demons doing what they do, and they offer Wiggins plenty of opportunities to show that the nightmares have real insights on our confusing world. This book is a valuable companion to students of U.S. fears.” —Elizabeth Rae Coody, Morningside College

Nightmares with the Bible

Horror and Scripture Series Editors: Brandon R. Grafius, Ecumenical Theological Seminary, and Kelly J. Murphy, Central Michigan University Horror and Scripture publishes monographs and edited volumes examining biblical and theological themes and texts in the light of contemporary horror theory and monster theory, along with theory of “terror management,” trauma, and moral injury. The series also examines the reception and remixing of biblical themes in subsequent cultural, literary, and cinematic genres characteristic of horror.

Recent Titles Nightmares with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons by Steve A. Wiggins Reading the Bible with Horror by Brandon R. Grafius

Nightmares with the Bible The Good Book and Cinematic Demons

Steve A. Wiggins

LEXINGTON BOOKS/FORTRESS ACADEMIC

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic Lexington Books is an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2021 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wiggins, Steve A., author. Title: Nightmares with the Bible : the good book and cinematic demons / Steve A. Wiggins. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020. | Series: Horror and scripture | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Demons, as viewed through popular culture and history, are nightmares. This book considers demonic possession both historically and through the lenses of several popular movies that focus on exorcism”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2020038064 (print) | LCCN 2020038065 (ebook) | ISBN 9781978703186 (cloth) | ISBN 9781978703193 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Exorcism in motion pictures. | Demonology in motion pictures. | Bible—In motion pictures. | Horror films—History and criticism. | Monsters in mass media. Classification: LCC PN1995.9.E947 W54 2020 (print) | LCC PN1995.9.E947 (ebook) | DDC 791.43/6826594—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038064 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038065 ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

“Ah! but it was something to have at least a choice of nightmares.” —Joseph Conrad

Contents

Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1 Introducing Demons

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2 Possession 21 3 Demonic Beginnings

35

4 Developing Demons

53

5 New Testament Demons, the Devil, and Hell

67

6 Setting the Stage: The Long Middle Ages

87

7 Demons: No Laughing Matter

105

8 The Conjuring Universe

123

9 Amityville Horrors

141

10 Paranormal Activities

153

11 The Exorcist Franchise

169

12 Aftermath 183 Epilogue 199 Select Sources

203

Index 219 About the Author

225 ix

Acknowledgments

Appropriate to a book on demons, the great bulk of this book was written between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. before climbing onto a bus for work. My gratitude first goes to Kelly Murphy of Central Michigan University, who began a conversation about monsters with me that led to an exploratory session at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in 2017 and continued on after that. This series was announced by Fortress Academic and Lexington only after my previous book, Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies, had been put under contract to McFarland Books. Kelly and Brandon Grafius of Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Kelly’s co-editor for the series, graciously accepted my proposal for this follow-up volume. Brandon suggested some additional movies to consider and has also offered unstinting encouragement along the way. Both Kelly and Brandon sent clear-eyed suggestions and improved this book in countless ways. Neil Elliott at Fortress Academic/Lexington asked some probing questions and proved a supportive editor. Without knowing that he’d used demons in his classes to introduce the world of the New Testament, I sent him a proposal for a book addressing a similar topic. The anonymous reviewer pointed out aspects that helped shape the project and undoubtedly strengthened the final book in many ways. There’s no doubt that books like this benefit from discussions with academic colleagues. One of the biggest challenges in this regard is writing such a book from outside the academy. My thanks go to those who recognize that former academics still have something to contribute: especially James Watts of Syracuse University, Jeffrey Kripal of Rice University, and Joseph Laycock of Texas State University. Many academic colleagues fed my hunger in monsters of many varieties—Rhiannon Graybill of Rhodes College, Esther Hamori of Union Theological Seminary, and Christopher Meredith of the University of Winchester, especially. Graham Twelftree, although he’d xi

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admittedly moved beyond his research in demons, corresponded with me about them. Matthew Goff of Florida State University kindly sent me a syllabus for a related class he teaches on the subject. A number of scholars sent me copies of pieces I could not otherwise access, and I acknowledge their kindness here. For his consistent encouragement I acknowledge my colleague Robert Repino, author of a growing number of excellent novels and a teacher at heart. Along with my daughter Kietra and long-time friend Burke Gerstenschlager, he reminded me of the importance of persisting in writing, even when the going is rough. Especially when the going is rough. John W. Morehead, fellow traveler on this road, helped to keep the fires burning. He kindly conducted an interview about Holy Horror that helped clarify my thinking about many of these matters. Douglas Cowan at the University of Waterloo showed interest in my work and has crafted wonderful examples of how to write such books; I’ve learned much from him. David Koslow kept a steady stream of contemporary resources coming and asked questions that made me rethink some issues along the way. Elizabeth Rosen engaged me in email conversations that also helped clarify my thinking on these topics also. Dawn Keetley and the crew at Horror Homeroom provided an outlet for my ideas about religion and horror. To head off a potential criticism, I acknowledge that this book involves the input and mixing of the many books and articles I have read over the years. In my effort to avoid jargon and minimize footnotes, it might be supposed I am claiming all of these ideas for my own. Like all scholars, I live in constant mental dialogue with those whose work I read. As I am not afforded the luxuries of semester breaks, research assistants, or sabbaticals, I do not always note or recollect where I read something. If an idea seems controversial I tried to find the source. Otherwise I present this book for what it is: an ongoing discussion between religious studies and mass culture of which I am but one voice. If I have forgotten that your book is where I read something, my sincere apologies. Any errors are my own. Watching and re-watching a movie for content is quite a different experience than viewing for enjoyment. It is, in reality, a form of research to those with the mindset for it. My wife Kay has become a good-sported co-researcher in this regard. Not too many spouses who dislike horror films would go to see one on a dreary autumnal Saturday so that research for a book could be as complete as possible. I take seriously the basic rationale behind reception history—what the present-day interpreter sees is their reality. We’ve stumbled very near the precipice with the era of “alternative facts” and “fake news” through which we’ve been dragged. This nihilism regarding truth isn’t the same as reception history, however. Reception history credits the writers and directors of

Acknowledgments

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cinema with a conscientious effort to understand their subjects. Academics sometimes go too far in dismissing the assessments of non-specialists. This book finds true wisdom in what they do. I don’t know any of the writers or directors personally to thank, but I acknowledge their contributions collectively. The topic of demons is undergoing an academic renaissance. Just as this book was being submitted, Eva Elm and Nicole Hartmann’s Demons in Late Antiquity: Their Perception and Transformation in Different Literary Genres appeared. No less than three proposals for new books on demons landed on my desk at work. There’s no reason to think this interest will abate soon.

Introduction

Demons are real. As this book was being written Nikolas Cruz opened fire on his classmates in at Stoneman Douglas High School Parkland, Florida, with an assault rifle, killing seventeen. Just the day before Donald Trump signed a bill into law revoking restrictions on the sale of guns to mentally ill buyers, put in place by the Obama administration. When questioned why he committed the atrocity, Cruz initially said that demons told him to.1 Demons. They pervade our culture and popular media but remain largely ignored by academics and lie outside the purview of scientists. Dismissed as myths, fairytales, and irrational nonsense, they nevertheless lead to very real consequences. Whether they exist or not, demons are very real. But what are they? A moment’s reflection will reveal that the way popular culture projects demons and the way scholars of religion understand them are very different. Pop culture, for one thing, is more likely to consider them as objectively real. Scholars will trace their origins to beliefs about fallen angels or nature spirits, and will consign them to the realm of metaphor or psychology or alltoo-human illness. This book takes the popular culture viewpoint seriously, at least for defining demons. In fact, defining demons is one of the goals of this undertaking. “Reception history” is the idea that later interpretation of a phenomenon must be taken seriously.2 This book starts there. Ponder this a moment. Reception history of the Bible is a growing field, and since western culture got its initial ideas about demons from the Good Book,3 it will be central to this discussion. Where does the average person get her or his idea of what the Bible means? Some read it, of course, and others actually listen to sermons. Movies, however, reach large audiences, across faith traditions. The emotional intensity of cinema can bear a kind of authority not unlike a religious decree. Most 1

2

Introduction

moviegoers know what it’s like to leave a theater completely blown away by what they’ve experienced. Movies gather “cult followings.” The Bible in general and demons in particular are shown time and again in cinema conforming to what is essentially a reception history of ideas developed in Judaism and Christianity. When it comes to demons this is complicated by the fact that the Good Book says so little about them. And movies say so much. The average consumer of pop culture isn’t a seminary graduate. Pop culture is offered for consumption in many easily digestible forms. The Bible is often an ingredient of pop culture and those without an academic background don’t turn to jargon-filled academic monographs and journals to learn more about it. They really don’t need to since cultural objects such as movies give them the information they need to comprehend it within the pop culture context. This is not a comprehensive book. The topic of demons is immense and has tendrils reaching into many other areas—the Devil, the Faust legend, conceptions of Hell, the problem of evil, doctrines of salvation, monster theory, and the list could go on. This study is intentionally selective since each chapter could be a book. Think of it as a series of soundings into a substrate that crosses over four millennia. Many topics could have received fuller treatment. It’s important to note that the ideas presented here came about in an unconventional way. Many of the sources cited in the footnotes and bibliography were read while commuting to my day job in New York City, resulting in concepts coalescing from diverse sources being brought together.4 Like monsters, they’re hybrids borne of many hours of disparate materials sloshing around together in a sealed container. I make no claim to have derived all the ideas presented here independently. A brave cohort of scholars rushed the gates of academic respectability to bring monsters into the academy— Noël Carroll, Timothy Beal, David Gilmore, Richard Kearney, David Skal, Jeffery Jerome Cohen, Douglas Cowan, Scott Poole, Stephen Asma, and others among them. Their works influenced my thinking in many ways and although they’re not cited frequently here (not having written much directly on demons) this book could not have been written without their insights. This is also not an academic book about demons; it is an exploration about popular perceptions of demons written by an erstwhile academic. There is a difference. The point of this study is to demonstrate that popular culture drives theology, not the other way around. (The shrinking relevance of theology even in the academy attests to this.) Each of chapters 2 through 6 (Antiquity through the Middle Ages into Early Modernity) is a distillation of massive sources in an effort to offer a readable narrative arc. Notice that after the Middle Ages, when the Enlightenment dawned, people began more and more to rely on folk tradition—popular media—to learn the truth about demons. Finding the supernatural somewhat embarrassing in the light of rationalism, even the church tended to distance itself from talk of demons,

Introduction

3

but the average person still thought of them once in a while. As will become clear, when The Exorcist breached the levy, media became the mediator of knowledge of demons. From the early 1970s on, that film and its spawn created a canon, incarnating our worst nightmares.5 Even as seminaries were teaching that biblical demons were epilepsy, cinema was presenting them as malevolent spiritual entities. NIGHTMARES Demons are complicated. Throughout time there’s never been a single definitive idea of what demons are. In an oversimplified schematic, Greek demons were different than Hebrew demons, New Testament demons were different from Hebrew Bible demons, Protestant demons were different from Catholic demons—you get the picture. Since this book is a synthesis of history and pop culture, many of the statements I make below could be further qualified. That would make for tedious reading, however, so I’m stating upfront that much of the history here has been distilled so as not to lose the flow of the narrative. For those who want to learn more specific, and often conflicting, outlooks on demons in any historical period, the bibliography will be a starting point. In other words, this book, like any book on demons, isn’t the final word. To borrow some language from one of those sources, my narrative follows a script largely composed in Hollywood.6 In general, demons are your worst nightmare. This book explores demons and the way they’re presented in pop culture.7 I do this by means of two intermediating agents—the Bible and cinema. Demons, in popular imagination, are biblical monsters whether they derive from the Bible or not. Exploring their origins may reveal some surprises. Even at the end questions will remain about what they are. Regardless of the answer, they can be dangerous. Take just one example: Perhaps the most famous case of death associated with demons is that of Anneliese Michel. Popularized by the movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose, the documented case of Michel was the subject of a court case in Germany regarding the negligent homicide of a young woman who believed she was possessed.8 At least two of her spiritual advisors also accepted this diagnosis and Ms. Michel underwent several months of exorcisms to rid her of her demons. Those who know the phenomenon primarily from The Exorcist might think the rite is a single, intense showdown between good and evil. Those who write about their experiences with exorcism, however, indicate that it’s a process and it can be quite prolonged. At the end, no matter whether there were demons or not, Anneliese Michel was dead. A nightmare come true.

4

Introduction

We can’t definitively learn what demons are, but we know they’re deadly. The horror film genre thrives on the showdown between good and evil. In ninety minutes or two hours’ time, a clash occurs that will either cast the demon out or will leave the viewer wondering where it is. One of the tensions of such films is precisely this—it’s unclear at the start whether an exorcism will be successful or not.9 The exorcist—often a priest—knows what demons are. We, the viewers, are given only hints. Demons are creatures of darkness, nighttime. It’s almost as if demons are the fear of darkness personified. They attack at night, often just after the dead of night. Technically “the dead of night” lasts from midnight until 3:00 a.m.10 Horror teaches us that attacks around 3:15 (The Amityville Horror), or 3:30 (The Exorcism of Emily Rose), or 3:33 (The Conjuring) are associated with demonic oppression. The reason supplied is that Jesus’s crucifixion led to his death about the ninth hour, or 3:00 p.m. To make a mockery of this, demons come around at the exact opposite end of the clock. 3:33, of course, is half of 666 (which doesn’t work as a time signature). In most of the inhabited world it is never light at this time of day. Darkness veils demonic identity. Real or not, people suffer from demons. In popular culture, demons are frightening, at least in part, because of the belief that their ways are secretive. When you leave the theater thinking, “Now they know I know . . .” the chain of reasoning suggests they’ll want to silence you. And if they’re really real, they know just how to do it. That’s the way of nightmares. Demons, perhaps more than any other monster, take on the shape of modern people’s fears. Part of their nightmarish quality results from the fact that the Bible reveals so little about them. WITH THE BIBLE Demons are a dark subject. Reading about them can feel oppressive. No matter how much science you accept or how many degrees you accumulate, that nagging “what if. . .” swirls around the back of your head. Perhaps it’s the veracity of those who witness such things—the books written by believers can be downright terrifying—or perhaps it’s the fact that science can’t measure the immaterial, leaving the door open for demons. Whatever the source of this fear, there’s a reluctance to walk into this dark topic. What if there really is a spiritual world? If there is, what can we know about its various denizens? Science can’t reach the incorporeal. People still report possessions. Anthropologists attest to things their training told them could not be.11 Hardened policemen, psychologists, and journalists witness things they can’t explain. If science can’t help, where can we find answers? Why not the Bible?

Introduction

5

American culture is profoundly biblical.12 It is also largely Bible-illiterate. Demons are given veracity by their appearance in the Good Book. Nobody in the biblical world questioned their reality. At the same time, the Bible says little about demons. The idea here is fairly simple: if Americans don’t read the Bible they can get their information on demons from popular culture. The specific form explored here will be movies. The Good Book appears frequently in film.13 Often cinema takes considerable license with America’s iconic book. A flash of the Bible on the screen and what follows becomes, in the suggestible mind, biblical. The understanding of the Bible mediated by cinema is a form of reception history. Reception history recognizes that people learn about the supernatural from extra-biblical sources. Scripture in this case requires supplementation. Demons were a fascination for people in the age of the Good Book. Many other ancient sources contribute to our knowledge regarding what biblical writers likely believed about demons. Extra-biblical sources such as 1 Enoch present ideas about them that survive into modern popular culture. Enoch, who traveled heavenly realms, knew about such things. Interestingly, Solomon early on became another source of demonic knowledge. This is reflected in The Testament of Solomon, which led, through various routes, to The Lesser Key of Solomon. For a culture that doesn’t know the Good Book, these sound like they might be part of the Bible. They participate in the milieu of material that became biblical. They contain differing views of what demons may be.14 Demons predate the Bible, of course.15 They’re part of the biblical fabric, but they continue to come off the loom into the Middle Ages and Early Modernity. The tapestry has a jarring shift of pattern into popular culture with The Exorcist, and the latter half of this book focuses on that cultural engagement. There’s an embarrassment of riches regarding demons in pop culture. Supernatural television has a regular showcase of them. Supernatural, Sleepy Hollow, The Exorcist—these series and many more introduce demons into everyday consciousness. Movies, which are the main form of pop culture explored here, grapple with them frequently. Novels and books that lay claim to being nonfiction while stocked on the literature shelves explore what it means to be possessed. They’re all part of the reception history of biblical demons. GENDER AND CINEMA Books on demons explain them in various ways—demons are the “embodiment” of evil, entities that were never human, fallen angels—but all tend to agree that they’re spiritual beings. They, however, tend to be gendered. In biblical and other early materials they afflict both sexes. Over time, however,

6

Introduction

they will mostly possess women. They’ll become associated with witches, the majority of which will be female. Yes, there are possessed men, just as there are male witches. Most often, however, we’ll find demons clustered around and invading females. While many origin myths of demons coexist, we’ll see that one of the most enduring tales is how they spring from fallen angels and their lust for human females (an idea whose prominence in modern culture can be traced to Milton’s Paradise Lost).16 While there are certain sociological and psychological explanations for this perception, here it will be tied to a literary one. Two main foci will be interwoven through this book: trying to define demons, and unpacking their preferences for female victims. Both features shift over time, and since our main text is cinema we have to consider the raw material with which it works. A roughly chronological treatment, with the insistent question of gender, will provide the background for demons in celluloid. The Exorcist, the “scripture” of the genre, will be kept as the climax of the study. This allows us to observe its influence and ultimately its canonical status. It won’t name its demon. Demons are ultimately irrational. There are so many splinters of interpretation that every historical age warrants (and has been served with) entire books to sort it out. Few scholars of religion have paid serious attention to the reception history of demons as represented in cinema. Movies, like interpreters throughout history, present them in a wide variety of ways. It’s clear the havoc they wreak is irrational, like the answer given to Job sitting on his ash-heap. This book will take film as a serious effort at reception history and introduce a rational way of understanding the irrational. As we’ll see, there’s no straightforward, linear development of either demons or the Devil. Unless there’s an ultimate deciding authority (such as some Christians treat the Bible, or Catholics recognize in the Magisterium) there’s no single narrative into which every episode fits. At each stage, folklore plays into the idea of demons just as much as official religious pronouncements. Demons are all about chaos. While these many loose threads may be woven together, it must be kept in mind that our sources are indeed dangling strings. This also holds true in reception history as reflected in cinema. Nobody controls the overall narrative. Such a lack of authoritative pronouncement about demons makes them even scarier. Any horror fan knows the unseen monster is the most frightening. This book is not primarily about whether demons are real or not. The question is difficult to ignore since horror films are more intense when we believe they might be possible. In the world of cinema, demons are real. In popular thought they’re biblical monsters. We’ll trace them through history into popular culture. Demons are the Bible’s nightmares. They continue to be nightmares today.

Introduction

7

NOTES 1. Information on the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and Nikolas Cruz claim about demons may be found at https​:/​/ww​​w​.the​​sun​.c​​o​.uk/​​news/​​55833​​35​/fl​​orida​​ -scho​​ol​-sh​​ootin​​g​-sho​​oter-​​nikol​​as​​-cr​​uz​-de​​mon​-v​​oices​/ and http:​/​/www​​.nyda​​ilyne​​ws​ .co​​m​/new​​s​/pol​​itics​​/flor​​ida​-s​​chool​​-shoo​​ter​-t​​old​-c​​ops​-d​​emons​​-forc​​ed​-​ki​​ll​-ar​​ticle​​-1​.38​​ 23837​(both accessed 2/17/2018). 2. As an interpretative movement Reception History began in earnest in the late twentieth century, see Jonathan Roberts, “Introduction,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible, ed. Michael Lieb, Emma Mason, and Jonathan Roberts (Oxford University Press, 2011). 3. I use the term “Good Book” to refer to the Bible as an acknowledgement of the importance of popular culture. The Good Book is a folk term for the Bible that has been used in nonacademic circles for well over a century. 4. If you’ve ever tried to take notes while riding on a New Jersey Transit bus, you’ll understand. 5. Michael W. Cuneo, American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty (Doubleday, 2001), makes this point clearly. It will be seen in other sources explored in chapters 11 and 12. 6. Brian P. Levack, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (Yale University Press, 2013) emphasizes the idea of exorcism scripts. 7. One such topic is monsters in popular culture. Although they don’t specifically address demons, consider Stephen T. Asma, On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (Oxford University Press, 2009); Timothy K. Beal, Religion and Its Monsters (Routledge, 2002); David D. Gilmore, Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003); Richard Kearney, Strangers, Gods and Monsters (Routledge, 2003); W. Scott Poole, Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting (Baylor University Press, 2011). 8. The main source on Anneliese Michel is the anthropological study Felicitas D. Goodman, The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel (Wipf & Stock, 2005). This book was originally published by Doubleday and Co. in 1981. See also Edward Justin Modestino and Christopher S. Halloran, “Michel, Anneliese” in Spirit Possession around the World: Possession, Communion, and Demon Expulsion across Cultures, ed. Joseph P. Laycock (ABC-CLIO, 2015), 233–235. 9. Chris Vander Kaay and Kathleen Fernandez-Vander Kaay, Horror Films by Subgenre: A Viewer's Guide (McFarland, 2016). 10. Ekirch, A. Roger, At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past (W. W. Norton, 2005), discusses the breakdown of nighttimes. For a more positive assessment see Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark (HarperCollins, 2014). 11. Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic (Simon & Schuster, 1985); Felicitas D. Goodman, Where the Spirits Ride the Wind: Trance Journeys and Other Ecstatic Experiences (Indiana University Press, 1990).

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Introduction

12. See, for example, the essays in Philip Goff, Arthur E. Farnsley, and Peter J. Thuesen, eds. The Bible in American Life (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Paul Gutjahr, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in America (Oxford University Press, 2017). 13. See Steve A. Wiggins, Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies (McFarland, 2018). 14. Among the most comprehensive treatments is the five-volume series of books by Jeffrey Burton Russell published by Cornell University Press. They are (chronologically) The Devil (1977), Satan (1981), Lucifer (1984), Mephistopheles (1986), and The Prince of Darkness (1988). Russell suggests the Devil is the embodiment of evil. His set of books is almost rivaled in extent by Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford University Press, 1997). 15. Anne Marie Kitz, “Demons in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East,” Journal of Biblical Literature 135 (2016): 447–464; Gina Konstantopoulos, “Deities, Demons, and Monsters in Mesopotamia,” in Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks: Highlights of the Yale Babylonian Collection (Yale University Press, 2019), 44–55. 16. Russell, Mephistopheles.

Chapter 1

Introducing Demons

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming. —Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”1

Do demons have nightmares? If so, do they involve exorcists as monsterhunters? What is a demon anyway? What modern people think of as demons is a bizarre mix of concepts, largely mediated through popular culture, including movies. This chaotic view of demons is natural enough as they are invisible entities, not admissible to scientists and frequently denied by theologians. Their origin stories are multiple and diverse. Who can define a demon? Caught up in the craze of reality television ghost hunter programs, many viewers hear of demons as “nonhuman entities.” They haunt like ghosts, but they “have never been human,” and are, therefore, very nasty to those of us who are.2 They’re also a far cry from the Devil and his angels taught in Sunday School. Popular media drives this definition. The “nonhuman entities” references among modern ghost hunters go back to Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Warrens were early paranormal investigators. Their legacy is massive and continues to grow. Roman Catholic supernatural specialists, Ed categorized himself as a demonologist, and Lorraine herself as a clairvoyant. Together they investigated some now classic cases of haunting and/or possession. Their most famous case was likely that of 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. The Warrens didn’t write their own books. They participated in “ghost-written” volumes that featured their cases. Their work was controversial from the beginning. Belief in ghosts and demons, after all, is hardly sophisticated. Their views hit the mainstream with The Conjuring franchise, explored in chapter 8.3 9

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Chapter 1

The Warrens popularized the “entity that was never human” explanation of demons. Among their written accounts are occasional interviews. When pressed on the question of whence such nonhuman entities come, their ultimate origin appears to be fallen angels.4 The Warrens were personally religious, and God featured in their explanations of what they encountered. As the founders of the oldest New England ghost hunting group, The New England Society of Psychic Research,5 their work has continued with a strong pedigree into current investigations into demons. Another formative influence in the popular culture view of demons was Malachi Martin. A controversial Roman Catholic priest, Martin was nevertheless credentialed. An erstwhile Jesuit, he held a doctorate from the Catholic University of Louvain, and he had studied at Hebrew University and Oxford University. He held a doctorate in archaeology, with shades of William Peter Blatty’s Fr. Merrin; he was also an exorcist. His bestselling Hostage to the Devil, along with Blatty’s The Exorcist, is credited with rebooting interest and belief in demons in the last quarter of the twentieth century.6 Martin reportedly collaborated with the Warrens, and he also had his own followers, including Ralph Sarchie, a New York City policeman who wrote a book about his experiences with what he considers demonic. His influence can be seen in the film Deliver Us from Evil, based on Sarchie’s book, discussed in chapter 12.7 Another influential writer on demons was Fr. Gabriele Amorth. Amorth was an Italian Roman Catholic priest and noted exorcist, but not the “official Vatican exorcist,” as he is sometimes billed. Amorth is reputed to have exorcised thousands of demons in his lifetime.8 He wrote books on his experiences which often delve into the theology of Marian devotion and the roll of angels. His work has influenced exorcism films, particularly those set in Rome, such as The Rite, based on the book by journalist Matt Baglio.9 While Martin could claim a doctorate in archaeology, one thing generally held in common by these popular demonologists is that they were not among the ranks of academics. Their interest in demons strains credibility. Official biographies aren’t written on them. Yet their books sell. Movies are made. And there’s no consensus on what demons are. In fact, the present-day interest in demons largely goes back to a bestselling novel based on a true story and its amazingly influential cinematic presentation. THE EXORCIST Imagine a dark room. A movie theater. You’ve waited in a line that stretched out the door and down the block. You can’t believe what you’re seeing on the screen. A little girl is being tormented by a demon. She projectile vomits pea soup onto a priest. Her head turns all the way around. Her voice is

Introducing Demons

11

not her own. She levitates off her bed in an ice cold room. The words “help me” appear on her skin although her arms and legs are tied to the bed posts. You’re horrified. “Based on a true story,” the movie claims, but you never knew such things could happen. You’ve heard of demons before, but you never really thought about them. It’s the early 1970s. The Exorcist was an awakening. Many people had assumed that since science had put us on the moon we’d safely shut away all that supernatural stuff. This movie, at least among those disposed to see horror films—and a wider audience besides—awakened a new concern about the reality of demons. The terror of possession, along with a new kind of monster-hunter—the exorcist—had been born. The template would be stamped and restamped for decades, reintroducing a medieval concept of demonic possession into popular culture. William Peter Blatty, like the other influencers in this arena, wasn’t an academic. Having studied at Georgetown University, Blatty was a writer with experience in screen writing. While a student at Georgetown he encountered a story of a recent (at the time) exorcism that took place in nearby Maryland. The idea of writing an account of this highly unusual incident persisted and when his clerical advisors couldn’t get approval for a nonfiction account, he recast the story as a novel.10 The Exorcist was born. Although it had a slow start, the novel became a bestseller. The movie propelled it to a cultural phenomenon. Blatty’s personally chosen director, William Friedkin, made one of the most influential films of the seventies.11 This single movie, with its box-office success, provided a new cultural definition of “demon.” Well, it wasn’t exactly new, but the nature of demonic possession revealed its natural flair as prime drama. Exorcisms have always been about drama.12 Even before the film Blatty’s novel had spent weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. In Roman Catholicism a little-known and infrequently invoked rite of exorcism had quietly existed for centuries. Requests for exorcisms began to rise. The fearful faithful now had a new explanation for the evil in their lives.13 At the same time scholars of religion, studying ancient accounts of Jesus casting out demons, were being taught that epilepsy and mental illness were the real culprits. Medical science could explain this. Not necessarily for Regan MacNeil, but for the dramatic exorcisms of the gospels. Those benighted people of ancient times had only rudimentary science. Theirs was a “demon-haunted world.” They saw spirits under every rock and in every tree. We now knew better, so the thinking went. Scientific, medical explanations could explain Holy Writ. But then The Exorcist complicated things. Perhaps the main complication is that we now read its version of demonic possession back into the Good Book. Our understanding of “demons,” although it grew from the biblical worldview, is quite different than the way demons were understood in antiquity.

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After so much time has passed and horror films have become even more intense, it’s difficult to recapture the raw fear generated by The Exorcist. There had been, up until 1973, nothing like it.14 The Zeitgeist lent itself to fear. In 1968 Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Ira Levin’s novel Rosemary's Baby made the Devil seem believable in the midst of New York City. Serious-minded people soberly contemplated the end of the world in a society saturated with Hal Lindsey’s extremely influential The Late, Great, Planet Earth.15 The war in Vietnam was daily showing how barbaric people could be, even in the latter half of the twentieth century. Although today first-time viewers sometimes laugh16—yes, the special effects have been outdone; CGI has altered perceptions of reality—The Exorcist maintains its cachet as horror. Despite it being clearly a puppet turning her head 180 degrees and the high-end demonic voices being distorted by the technical inferiority of period microphones, it maintains its ability to frighten. The fact is The Exorcist changed things. New, sensationalist accounts would appear from time to time, even as science made further inroads to explaining just about everything. Pop culture interest in demons led to new books and renewed claims of veracity even while DNA reluctantly yielded up the sequencing of the human genome, and computers around the world were being linked up by something called the Internet. Probes had been successfully landed on Mars and others have flown by every planet in our solar system. Still, people wonder: are demons real? Does possession really happen? Published accounts of exorcisms often follow a script.17 This book is an attempt to understand the history of demons, through the eyepiece of the cinematic camera tempered by history. Where did the idea of demons originate? How did they evolve, historically? What different views of them exist today in the western world? Why do they appear so frequently in horror films? Before we address these kinds of questions, it is essential to acknowledge that “demon” is an inchoate category for a variety of spiritual—and sometimes physical—entities. As we’ll see shortly, demons may be nature spirits (elementals), rebellious angels, other nations’ gods, the spirits of the dead, and personified disease. There are likely further entities that came to share their title. As movies teach us, they love theater, and they prefer women. POE’S INSIGHT This chapter began with an epigraph by Edgar Allan Poe. The quote from “The Raven” underscores the drama inherent in the subject.18 Poe did not write much about demons,19 but he nevertheless had insight into what would become an essential part of the possession narrative in cinema. Although by

Introducing Demons

13

no means any kind of law—demons enjoy chaos—the victims of demonic attack and possession are predominantly female.20 In The Exorcist, a young woman is an iconic target. Throughout this exploration I’ll be noting various aspects of this gender dynamic. At the outset, however, I would suggest that Poe published a key psychological insight into this. In his essay “The Philosophy of Composition,” he famously wrote that the most poetic topic is the death of a beautiful woman.21 Perhaps Poe was simply as patriarchal as his age, but that doesn’t invalidate his observation. Since we’re exploring demons as perceived in cinema, it will become clear that the victims are largely female. Poe’s essay anticipates that choice. The directors (mostly male) follow Poe’s lead regarding the gender of demonic victims. Throughout this study I’ll make bold to update Poe just a bit. Ideas of both femininity and masculinity are (and always have been) in flux. At the time of the films discussed here, feminine beauty is generally associated with youth. That’s not to suggest anything more than a recognized media projection; Poe’s beautiful woman is, for purposes of this book, a young woman. Although Poe’s genre of horror is often coded as masculine, the tragic threatening of a young woman raises alarum bells in the mind of horror viewers. There’s no lack of male corpses in the genre, but demons are all about threats, particularly against females. Note, for example, although the demon’s target in The Exorcist is the two male priests the victim that draws them into the fray is a young girl. A girl who survives the ordeal with no memory of it. The movie revolves around her body. The “true story” victim was a young boy. There is a perhaps unconscious projection that young women are capable of bearing children—a fact that makes men somewhat expendable, apart from actual impregnation. The threat to women is thus a direct threat against the human race. This plays out frequently in the movies we’ll see here. It will also appear in some ancient texts as well as in the medieval penchant for accusing women—especially those beyond reproductive years—of being witches. No doubt this is a complex phenomenon and I make no claim to have “solved” why this might be. Demons, in cinema, prefer ladies. Poe is being appropriated here as a binding element. Although he didn’t write much about demons, his stories tend to be classified as “horror,” and his “Philosophy of Composition” essay appeared not long before the advent of earliest attempts at cinema. Possession movies tend to select female victims. They’re reaching for the same kind of pathos that Poe achieved in “The Raven,” which is the subject of his essay. For some of us Poe is the gateway to the horror genre. Since demons prefer to target females, another contributor to this discussion must be introduced. Carol J. Clover is an academic. Her book, Men,

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Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film,22 introduced the trope of “the final girl.” It has become an essential part of every serious discussion of horror cinema since its publication. Although Clover’s argument is more nuanced than just the introduction of “the final girl”—she sees this metaphorically—her observation draws attention to the gender of victims. Possession victims aren’t classical final girls, but Clover’s ideas follow on logically from Poe’s insight. Because of this gender concern we will deal to a certain extent with witches (but not demons’ other supernatural kin—poltergeists and aliens). Witches are intimately associated with either the Devil or the demons, and in the Middle Ages were often believed to be behind possessions.23 This connection is often taken up in horror films, and it sheds light on gender concerns. This association remains an active one in the popular imagination, despite our scientific worldview. SCIENCE AND DEMONS Sunset Park is a popular location with young romantics. High on one of Ithaca’s many hills, it overlooks serene Cayuga Lake in upstate New York. The water stretches off to the north, cradled in the gorges left by the tremendous forces of geology over unimaginable ages. On the far side rests The Museum of the Earth, documenting this ancient landscape and the now extinct creatures that once made it their home. Science has tamed this mysterious land of gorges and waterfalls into a rational, logical set of natural processes. Indeed, if you take a brief walk down Wyckoff Street, you’ll find an unassuming gravestone marking the resting place of Carl Sagan in Lakeview Cemetery. An astrophysicist at nearby Cornell University, Sagan was a great popularizer of science, primarily known for his television series Cosmos, and as the author of the novel Contact. Sagan’s final book was The DemonHaunted World. This study celebrates how science has brought us out of the mindset of a world populated with supernatural beings into a rational one.24 A powerful case for the benefits of the scientific method, it’s telling that the chosen title utilizes the word “demon.” Its use was both metaphorical and literal. Even as this book is being written, requests for exorcisms are on the rise.25 A rite that had existed in Catholicism for centuries, nearly forgotten, has been rediscovered. Once people knew demons were a potential threat, they wanted them expelled. Sagan’s vision still struggles for acceptance. Why? Many eyewitness accounts of demonic possession have been recorded. Demons serve as an explanation of what’s going on in such cases. Instead of

Introducing Demons

15

addressing the eyewitness accounts directly, science insists on replication in a laboratory. Since demons, if there be such, don’t play by human rules, we are left with questions, not answers. What have western religions historically said about demons? What do modern movies say? What saith the Good Book? What are demons? Their reality can’t be judged empirically—the scientific method doesn’t apply to what’s classified apart from the natural world. Science never developed a means for assessing the existence of the supernatural world, if it exists. Although Carl Sagan may not’ve been pleased, belief in demons remains fairly universal in an age of science. Cultures around the world recognize malevolent beings that are exorcised when they’re found. They possess people and destroy property. They bring sickness and disease. They manifest in mental illness. Sagan might’ve underestimated the power of cinema in directing belief in an age when experts are treated with suspicion.26 This is complicated by the difficulty of sorting out what exactly is meant by “demons.” THE MATRIX OF DEMONS Angels, the Devil, Hell, possession, and the origins of evil are all part of the matrix of demons. They all enter the stage at different parts of the story and we’ll consider them when they arise. Demons, in their earliest form, weren’t evil. If they didn’t possess people and houses we’d probably show little interest in them today. Angels, however, in popular belief, keep us safe—it’s worth paying attention to them. If angels are in their heaven, there must be a Hell in which demons reside, right? We’ll tease all of these apart as the book progresses. Demons are assumed in the world of the Bible, but the Good Book doesn’t say much about them. It never directly states their origin or even their nature. Demons rarely show up in the Hebrew Bible. In the New Testament Jesus expels them, and Paul briefly touches on them here and there. We’ll see in what follows that this lack of an “authoritative,” biblical description adds to the chaotic treatment of demons in horror films. The focus of this book is on western demons. It should be kept in mind, however, that the picture changes when the focus is broadened. Even within “western” conceptions there’s no uniformity. What’s thought of as demonic activity depends on the specific culture that perceives it. These days demons in the western hemisphere possess people. They also haunt houses. They are monsters that we expect from scary movies and horror films. What the Devil are they? The Devil only further complicates things. Even in western culture one single narrative doesn’t fit all accounts. We’re so used to thinking of one source leading to one result—action and effect,

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cause and consequence—that it’s difficult to recognize that some ideas come from several sources and lead to different outcomes. Demons are one such phenomenon. Their avoidance of Occam’s razor makes them difficult to define. The problem is demons are as chaotic as nightmares. When the people of antiquity wrote their accounts, demons didn’t need to be explained. We’re not in the know, however. Their backstory is complicated. Demons can’t be empirically observed. Many scientists, like Carl Sagan, believe they’re simply a way of explaining medical aberrations, not actual spiritual beings. Some theologians and religious practitioners tend to agree. Popular culture tells us something completely different. Some vocal priests, pastors, and psychologists insist demons are real.27 How do we get information on nonphysical beings that few professionals believe in? One source is cinema. That’s why this book progresses from antiquity to celluloid. “Demons, diablo, the Devil,” mutters Fr. Lucas Trevant. In popular culture the Devil possesses people. In horror movies about possession, particularly those in which Catholic protagonists face off against the diabolical foe, it isn’t at all unusual for the comment to be made that the Devil himself possesses the victim. Or the word “devils” might be used as a substitute for “demons.” The precise cataloguing of the spiritual world can only ever be a matter of opinion. Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval Catholic theologian, gained great status (and a sainthood!) largely for his Summa Theologica and Summa contra Gentiles. He also developed impressive descriptions of the orders of angels and demons that grew to the level of orthodoxy.28 Like others, however, his schemes were based on speculation, not observation. His opinions were very influential. Others, however, disagree. Part of the trouble here is that nobody has the undisputed truth about demons. Protestants may differ from Catholics on the subject, and the Bible is a poor arbitrator on this point. Other religions have different ideas about demons, especially if they consist of non-monotheistic belief structures. Secularists will differ with religion and yet there’s no way to test for demons scientifically. It can be asserted that they don’t exist, but since a negative can’t be proven, we simply don’t know. This ambiguity plays quite well into horror. POSSESSION AND EXORCISM Possession isn’t exclusive to demons, as we’ll see in the next chapter. Many traits of possession resemble Dissociative Identity Disorder, or what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder.29 Regan isn’t the same girl she used to be. The voices she uses aren’t familiar. What looks like Regan is possessed

Introducing Demons

17

by a different, malevolent, willful entity. Demons are possessing spirits, and such a spirit is “somebody” with whom an exorcist can communicate, and fight. If they lacked personality, they’d simply be another unfortunate disease. Exorcists have existed from the earliest historical times, and their role changes to match the definition of demons in a particular culture. Mesopotamians had exorcist priests, but their idea of demons was quite different than that which would develop in Christianity.30 In many ways Jesus provides the basic role model for the present-day exorcist—speaking to demons with authority and casting them out. (And he’s male.) But the accounts in the Bible don’t go into a great deal of detail either about who these demons are or exactly how Jesus exorcised them. The gospels seem to indicate they leave because they recognize his divine status. One of his gifts to his followers was the ability to exorcise. To cast out demons you need to know who they are at the moment. John Constantine sees them as gargoylish denizens of a burning Hell.31 In the New Testament world they could be “powers”—part of the spiritual hierarchy of the universe. “By the powers,” says Long John Silver (Tim Curry) in Muppet Treasure Island, upon discovering Jim Hawkins (Kevin Bishop)’s father was also a first mate. The phrase “by the powers that be” derives from Romans 13:1, which refers to human governments. The idea, however, is much older than Paul and is related to early ideas about demons.32 The word “powers” was a designation for territorial spirits. These entities came to be understood as guardian deities of certain places—Humbaba of the Gilgamesh Epic was a “demonic” guardian of the cedar forest, for example. Powers could also be national deities. The gods of nations, once monotheism developed, were naturally demoted. They lived on, however, in the idea that powers exist in nature. Some even suggest that these gods became demons.33 Taking a rainstorm personally or supposing that an erupting volcano reflects the anger of a deity personifies the powers of nature. By the time of Paul “powers” also included spirits and demons—a topic on which the apostle is mostly silent. According to Acts 16, he exorcised an annoying spirit with a single sentence. (And notice, the victim was a girl.) Demons possess, but defining them requires flexibility. They are one of the several kinds of “powers” in the universe. They may be minor deities, “foreign” gods, fallen angels, or even spirits of the unruly dead. In more recent treatments they’ll be described as entities that were never human. They torment people, especially young girls, and their predators are exorcists. Let’s come back to Poe’s observation before we turn our attention to possession in the next chapter. The gender dynamic noted above has become a formula for horror film success: a young girl must be rescued by the exclusively male exorcist. Consider Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters, Bethany in Dogma, the eponymous Witches of Eastwick, the Blair Witch 2, the victims

18

Chapter 1

of The Conjuring universe, Kathy Lutz, Kate of Paranormal Activity, Regan MacNeil, Emily Rose, Nell Sweetzer, Em Brenek, Isabella Rossi, Christine Brown. With the exception of the 2017 remake of Ghostbusters (and arguably Dogma), the deliverers, Catholic or not, are always male. We’ll keep this gendering of the possessed in view. This book covers a variety of diabolical creatures somehow associated with the Bible. In the broader realm of horror entities as diverse as poltergeists and aliens mix readily with demons. There are paranormal investigators that suggest poltergeists and aliens are nothing but garden variety demons.34 In fact, “demon” can be used as a surrogate term for “monster,” as Mary Shelley demonstrates throughout Frankenstein. This book will track the trail of demons as malevolent spiritual entities that are in some sense the enemies of God. Poltergeists and aliens, as interesting as they are, go beyond this remit. Neither of these entities generally possesses their victim. And possession is no simple phenomenon.

NOTES 1. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is in the public domain. It was first published in The American Review in 1845. 2. The “nonhuman entity” definition of demons may be heard repeatedly by binge watching the series Ghost Hunters, from the Sci-Fi channel (now Syfy). A good, and popular example of this may be found in the mass-market paperback nonfiction account: Bob Cranmer and Erica Manfred, The Demon of Brownsville Road: A Pittsburgh Family’s Battle with Evil in Their Home (Berkeley/Penguin, 2014). 3. For sources see chapter 8. 4. See, for example, Lorraine Warren’s comments in that regard, in Ed and Lorraine Warren, and Cheryl A. Wicks, Ghost Tracks (Graymalkin Media, 2016). 5. Alan Brown, Ghost Hunters of New England (University Press of New England, 2008). 6. Cuneo, American Exorcism. The point is also made by Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart (Routledge, 1990). Malachi Martin, Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans (HarperOne, 1992). 7. Balanced information on Malachi Martin is likewise difficult to locate. Much of the information presented here is from Cuneo, American Exorcism. See also Sean P. Phillips “Martin, Malachi,” in Laycock, Spirit Possession, 237–239. 8. Joseph P. Laycock, “Amorth, Gabriele,” in Laycock, Spirit Possession, 9–10. 9. Fr. Gabriele Amorth has likewise not been given academic treatment. A documentary was made on Fr. Amorth and exorcisms—The Devil and Father Amorth—directed by none other than William Friedkin (https://www​.imdb​.com​/title​/ tt6883152/) accessed 10/1/2018. The rights to his “case files” have also been acquired for movie exploitation http:​/​/dea​​dline​​.com/​​2018/​​05​/fa​​ther-​​gabri​​ele​-a​​morth​​-movi​​e​

Introducing Demons

19

-dea​​l​-vat​​ican-​​exorc​​ist​-s​​ony​-s​​cr​een​​-gems​​-1202​​38208​​6/ (accessed 10/1/2018). See Laycock “Amorth, Gabriele.” Baglio’s book is The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist (Image/Doubleday, 2010). 10. William Peter Blatty, I’ll Tell Them I Remember You (Barrie & Jenkins, 1974), Murray Leeder, “Blatty, William Peter,” in Laycock Spirit Possession, 43–45. 11. Two of the standard treatments are Mark Kermode The Exorcist (Palgrave Macmillan, 1998), and Bob McCabe The Exorcist Out of the Shadows: The Full Story of the Film (Omnibus Press, 1999). Much of the information on William Peter Blatty was largely drawn from them and from Leeder, “Blatty.” See also Blatty I’ll Tell Them. 12. Brian P. Levack, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (Yale University Press, 2013). 13. Carroll, Philosophy, and Cuneo, American Exorcism. 14. The interest in demons was already present among charismatics in the 1960s; see Bill Ellis, Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media (The University Press of Kentucky, 2000). Its cultural impact had to await The Exorcist, however. 15. Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth was incredibly influential in the 1970s. See Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (Harvard University Press, 2014). 16. Adam Rockoff, The Horror of It All: One Moviegoer’s Love Affair with Masked Maniacs, Frightened Virgins, and the Living Dead (Scribner, 2015). 17. Levack, Devil Within. 18. Many books exist on Edgar Allan Poe including Harry Lee Poe, Evermore: Edgar Allan Poe and the Mystery of the Universe (Baylor University Press, 2012) and the “standard” biography by Kenneth Silverman, Edgar A. Poe: A Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance (Harper Perennial, 1991), well stocked at Poe’s alma mater, the University of Virginia’s bookstore. 19. It has been suggested that he didn’t really write horror either (W. Scott Poole, “An Unrequited Obsession: Poe and Modern Horror,” The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe (Oxford University Press, 2019), 641–658). My purpose in bringing him into the discussion is his observation on poetic topics proves immensely informative for the study of modern concepts of demons. Poe might not have wanted to be associated with these topics, but his observation still applies. 20. Poe was the consummate mood setter, and his observation about women and poetic tropes is foundational. There are other entry points for gender and horror, but Poe dangles a thread here that helps tie this study together. The issue of gender in horror was largely introduced in modern times by Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton University Press, 1992). 21. Graham’s Magazine 1846. 22. See note 20. Other sources on gender in horror, somewhat more theoretical, are Judith Halberstam, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (Duke University Press, 1995), Cynthia A. Freeland, The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror (Westview Press, 2002), and Edward J. Ingebretsen, S. J., At Stake: Monsters and the Rhetoric of Fear in Public Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2003).

20

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23. Clark, Thinking with Demons. This association is extremely ancient; see Konstantopoulos “Deities, Demons, and Monsters.” 24. Carl Sagan doesn’t exactly address demons in The Demon-Haunted World (Ballantine Books, 1996), but it is an eloquent argument concerning the dangers of irrational thinking. 25. Mike Mariani, “Why Are Exorcisms on the Rise?” The Atlantic 322/5, December 2018: 62–70. See also http:​/​/www​​.wbur​​.org/​​herea​​ndnow​​/2018​​/04​/2​​0​/exo​​ rcism​​s​-dem​​and​-c​​​athol​​ic​-pr​​iest and https​:/​/ww​​w​.new​​sweek​​.com/​​vatic​​an​-tr​​ainin​​g​-mor​​ e​-exo​​rcist​​s​-rep​​orts-​​demon​​ic​-po​​ssess​​​ion​-s​​oarin​​g​-819​​139 (both accessed 12/2/2018). 26. Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters (Oxford University Press, 2017). 27. M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (Simon & Schuster, 1983) and Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist’s Personal Accounts of Possession (Free Press, 2009); Ken Olson, Exorcism: Fact or Fiction? (Thomas Nelson, 1992). Olson is a problematic source, given his admitted biases. Still, his book is an example of how a “believer” problematizes those who approach demons from a materialist perspective. 28. The literature on Thomas Aquinas is vast. To see him discussed in the context of demonology, consult Euan Cameron, Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason and Religion, 1250–1750 (Oxford University Press, 2010), and for information in general, Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford University Press, 1993), who makes the point that Aquinas was one of very few saints canonized for their theological work. 29. Baglio, The Rite. 30. Jean Bottero, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia (University of Chicago Press, 2001). 31. Constantine (2005). 32. The subject is discussed in Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities & Powers in Paul’s Letters (IVP Academic, 1992) and treated somewhat more extensively in Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Fortress, 1984), Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Powers That Determine Human Existence (Fortress, 1986), and Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Fortress, 1992). 33. Dale Basil Martin, “When Did Angels Become Demons?” Journal of Biblical Literature 129 (2010): 657–677. 34. See, for example, Nick Redfern, Final Events and the Secret Government Group on Demonic UFOs and the Afterlife (Anomalist Books, 2010).

Chapter 2

Possession

Buddy Love (Eddie Murphy) stands on stage at the alumni ball. Right on cue his trim, athletic body begins to balloon out into obesity and shrink immediately back to his slim self. Repeatedly. Each time the transformation is more grotesque. Not knowing it’s his son on stage, Mr. Klump (also Eddie Murphy) calls out, “Someone had better go and call the Exorcist!” The retired construction worker has assumed the shape-shifting of his unrecognized son is demonic possession. A modern version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Nutty Professor nicely demonstrates the ambiguity of possession. What is it? Is it always bad? Can it sometimes be funny? GOOD OR BAD? A starting angle of approach to modern demons is possession, their primary cinematic activity. Possession may be controversial, but it’s a phenomenon known from antiquity to the present and across religions and cultures. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Gods can, according to some outlooks, possess human beings.1 So can spirits. Those spirits are sometimes evil. Sometimes demons. Possession, simply put, is being taken over by a will not one’s own.2 This taking over may be invited or extorted by deception. In the latter case, it’s bad; in the former, it’s often good. Anthropologists who’ve explored shamanism have often also noted possession by gods as part of that tradition.3 To understand this we need to take a step back and look at shamanism and what it claims. Among academics it’s still debated. Shamanism isn’t well defined. First of all, shamanism isn’t an organized religion. Like many common terms, it’s a label applied to a wide variety of religious practices in disparate 21

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indigenous cultures.4 To make sense of all of this, we have to remember that “a religion” as a set of “orthodox” practices is, essentially, a western, Christian concept.5 Think about it: one of the earliest distinguishing features of Christianities growing out of Judaisms was the obsession with right teaching. Those who think differently are heretics. Heretics threaten the constructions of “orthodoxy” (“right teaching”). They must be rooted out and, in some cases, destroyed. The belief in a single god—monotheism—carries with it the implication that this one God instituted only one correct way to please him (and inevitably the deity is thought of as male). One god, one worship. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:5) about sums it up. Any aberration risks angering the deity, and an angry god delivers wrath in biblical proportions. Although it would splinter repeatedly over history, this “orthodox” Christianity ideal came to be applied to other religions as well. It was the template around which the scholarly field of religious studies was molded. As other world religions entered Christian consciousness—apart from Islam and Judaism, which had been long known—these belief systems had to be categorized. Other religions were forced into pigeonholes similar to western “religions.” Sometimes they don’t fit. Hinduism, for example, has never been a unified religion. It’s the name given to a wide variety of religious and spiritual practices with very early roots in India. The lens of discrete religions coerces Hinduism into a belief system with an artificial unity. From this perspective major world religions were those with a significant number of “believers.” Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism. Shinto? That last one smacks of folk practices. What about those other tribal cultures that have been widely separated from each other and have very little in common? In the nineteenth century, anthropologists decided that an amorphous belief in spirits was the earliest form of religion.6 It feels better with an “ism” on the end, so let’s call it animism. Animism is the term for religions that “believe in” spirits animating nature. These religions have neither creed nor doctrine. They seem to follow the lead of practitioners who, in Siberia, were called shamans. Other cultures had names for such leaders that came down as pejorative in western lingo such as “medicine men” or “witch doctors.” No bishops or popes here. Not even a Baptist association. These were completely independent religious practices. And since there was only one true god, in Christian eyes, these religions were necessarily heathen and pagan, or worse. For the sake of convenience “shaman” will be used here to designate such unaffiliated, “native” practitioners in general. Sorry for all the scare quotes— they should be an indication of how biased toward monotheistic thought this area of study is! One fairly common aspect of shamanistic religions is positive possession. Being possessed by a god or helpful spirit is a boon to

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humans. Such good possession is characterized by the loss of conscious control of oneself. The body of the possessed is taken over by another entity for sacred purposes.7 Different entities have been considered powerful enough to possess a person. Even in monotheistic religions, early forms of prophecy involved a form of possession by gods. Healing could result from the possession of a beneficent spirit. Destructive behavior indicated an evil or “unclean” spirit. In seventeenth-century New England it was believed that witches could possess a person.8 In some cultures evil ghosts may do so.9 The human body is porous and prone to invasion. Generally possession involves a spiritual being taking over a physical one. Modern American culture, largely through the influence of popular media, equates possession to the demonic variety. God may inspire, but the Devil possesses. A great deal of this outlook on supernatural functioning goes back to the 1971 novel by William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist. Exorcism had, of course, existed long before this and across the spectrum of religions. Malachi Martin, for example, had begun work on his best-selling Hostage to the Devil in the 1960s. (It wasn’t published, tellingly, however, until 1976.) The Exorcist took public imagination by storm. In the American mind possession was diabolical. Mainstream Christianities tend not to admit of divine possession. The concept is too closely tied and possibly confused with incarnation—the belief that God “became flesh” in the form of Jesus. Christian theologies expend considerable energy in parsing very finely how such a mystery might occur and what forms of it may be considered heretical. The idea that God might possess a person would be dangerously close to the potential misunderstanding of one of the key doctrines of Christianity. Exorcism indicates by its very existence that possession is seldom a positive phenomenon. Demons are cast out, expelled. In some shamanistic traditions, however, positive possession by gods still occurs. Since the focus here is on movies from The Exorcist’s family tree, there isn’t space for extensive treatment of positive possession, so a couple of examples from the history of religions will have to suffice. These generally occur in traditions outside monotheism.10 NON-MONOTHEISTIC POSSESSION A culture that developed independently of biblical tradition, Chinese folk religion is a complex blend of ideas. As with many fields of religious studies, specialists tend to object to calling such outlooks a “religion.” More akin to the accepted parameters of a culture than a belief system, these ideas about

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the nature of the world nevertheless fall under the western category of religion. Like many traditional ways of thinking, ancient Chinese worldviews included belief in spirits. While this is an area beyond my own expertise, even a cursory reading of the foundations of traditional Chinese religions demonstrates that possession by spirits is a common phenomenon.11 Furthermore, such possession may be positive as well as negative.12 While some forms of religious thought in China eventually allowed for atheism (Buddhism isn’t inherently atheistic, although it doesn’t require the existence of deities), folk belief, as in similar traditions worldwide, tends to accept spiritual powers.13 Those powers can take over an individual and lead to contact with ancestors, or, in some cases, provide exceptional physical prowess. Even as late as the Boxer conflicts, the popular notion existed that fighters could be “possessed” by spiritual entities that gave them success in battle.14 Such ideas are neither isolated nor limited to China. Another familiar example derives from the Caribbean. Haitian religion is sometimes castigated as “syncretistic.” Based on an unrealistic concept of “pure” religions, scholars tend to note carefully when one religion adds on beliefs or practices from another. This addition is called “syncretism.” This pulling together of religions is now often viewed as a form of compromise of the “one true religion.” What was once “pure” has become “tainted” with other elements. In fact, no religion exists without input from other belief systems. The fiction of a pure religion, however, has led to frequent disparagement of religions such as Haitian Vodou as syncretistic. Vodou, more commonly called “Voodoo,” originated in West Africa.15 The evils of the slave trade brought tribal West African religions into close contact with Christianity, particularly of the Roman Catholic variety. Oppressed people aren’t quick to abandon their religion, but non-Christian religions don’t share the fear of amalgamation that self-declared “pure” religions do. Often forcefully Christianized, slaves blended this new religion with their traditional beliefs. A number of hybrid religions emerged, Santeria and varieties of Vodou among them. They’re often classified as African dispersion religions.16 Anthropologists studying Haitian Vodou have noted that being possessed, or “ridden” by spirits or the gods (loa) is one of the religion’s goals.17 Detailed accounts of such possession have been penned by anthropologists, and, no matter what one might make of the more extraordinary claims, it’s clear that possession is part of Peristil (temple) ceremonies. This possession is positive and leads to spiritual benefits. Entire books can and have been written on this, but the reason for including it here is to make it obvious that possession, on its own, may be a positive event. In the religion of ancient Israel a similar phenomenon was recognized. While not history, the stories of Samson in the book of Judges are a good place to start.

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HEBREW BIBLE POSSESSION The Hebrew Bible has no single word for “demon,” but it knows of an active spiritual world.18 Many stories include what we would classify in modern terms as “possession,” including Samson. Best known as a strong man, Samson was subject to possession. Judges, such as Samson, were traditionally local rulers in pre-monarchic Israel. There was no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes, with predictable results. According to Judges, Yahweh, Israel’s god, raised up ad hoc rulers as the situation demanded. Although Moses was considered a prophet in an earlier time period, prophets had not yet become established as spiritual leaders in any kind of extensive way. “Charismatic” is a word often used to describe the Judges. The word goes back to the concept of charism or “grace.” A leader full of divine grace could address any number of evils. Samson is singled out here because Judges uses a number of unusual phrases to describe his unique leadership style. Before we get into that, however, note that the Bible doesn’t present Samson as a muscle man.19 Try to picture a young Woody Allen rather than a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. What made Samson strong wasn’t powerlifting and a low carb diet. He was a poet who had a weakness for prostitutes and a sweet-tooth. What led to Samson’s great strength, rather, was being taken over by God. The vocabulary to express this relates to possession. At first the spirit of Yahweh began to “stir” him (Judges 13:25). Then it “rushed upon” him (14:6, 19; 15:14). This second verb is often interpreted in the sense of possession—it’s a military term for conquering, taking over. Samson the human isn’t able to rip a lion apart with his bare hands, but “possessed” Samson is. The same is true of his killing a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. This is manic possession. Extraordinary strength is associated with possession in the New Testament as well. Note that it’s naturally theatrical.20 Possession is related to spectacle. Other clues to divine possession lurk in the Hebrew Bible. We aren’t often informed of the mechanism of prophecy—prophets simply declare the word of Yahweh. Once in a great while, however, the Good Book says something about how this happens. Prophecy, as an umbrella term, used to describe many activities that were directly inspired by Yahweh, developed early in Israel’s history. In addition to speaking the mind of God, prophets were wonder-workers, at times very similar to what we today would call psychics, or, to use the term applied to Lorraine Warren, “clairvoyant.” When this happened it was generally, according to Holy Writ, for a specific instance in which a short-term outcome was announced beforehand. Its purpose was often to convince wayward kings that Yahweh was really in charge.21

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In one rather strange story King Jehoram of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah decide to invade Moab, a neighboring territory (2 Kings 3). Somewhat inexplicably, they forget to take water into the arid wilderness. Fearing they’ll be defeated by thirst, Jehoram summons the great prophet Elisha. A recognized miracle-worker, Elisha is a bit put off at being called to help, but he agrees and calls for a musician. As music plays, prophecy comes to him. Is this a form of possession? An external stimulus leads to a direct connection to the divine. Not as theatrical as Samson, for sure, but it demonstrates the subtlety of the hints we find in the Bible. Prophecy shades into possession. And this shading suggests that even ancient Israelites thought it possible for God to possess. Consider King Saul. Just after Samuel anoints him king, the spirit of Yahweh “rushes upon” Saul (1 Samuel 10:6, 10). The image is violent and theatrical. When he leads the Israelites against the Ammonites, the spirit of Yahweh comes upon him in power (11:6). These are positive possessions described in language similar to that of Samson, and seem to be closely related to beliefs about prophecy. The Good Book doesn’t explore in any detail how such possession transpires, just as it doesn’t reveal specifically how prophecy works. Saul is an instructive case since he not only experiences divine possession but also spirits of a more insidious kind. UNCLEAN SPIRITS No actual word for “possession” occurs in the Hebrew Bible. Part of the reason for this may have been that the perception of humans neatly divided into bodies and souls—a kind of dualism—was not native to early Semitic thought. The word generally translated as “soul” in the Hebrew Bible may also be translated as “wind” or “breath”; that is, it could be a physical thing. The body isn’t so much the house of a soul as it’s a soul in physical form. Body and soul are in a sense inseparable. A spirit “possessing” a body doesn’t neatly fit this outlook. That doesn’t mean that demons of some description didn’t exist. Just as the Hebrew Bible doesn’t have a single word that translates to “demon,” it doesn’t have a single concept of what they are. And there are no possession stories like we find in the New Testament. This isn’t to suggest that supernatural tormentors didn’t exist. The classic case of such entities develops again in the story of King Saul.22 Saul was apparently a troubled man. Although a charismatic and manic leader, Yahweh rejects him. Not only rejects, but sends an “evil spirit” to torment him. This sounds an awful lot like the contemporary category of demonic oppression. Violent mood swings strike Saul. The only thing that seems to soothe him is music (remember Elisha). Thus David is brought into the picture. When the evil

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spirit comes upon Saul, David plays. He uses the lyre as a kind of exorcistic device that causes the evil spirit to flee (1 Samuel 16:23).23 After the Goliath incident, however, the evil spirit rushes upon Saul throwing him into a murderous rage. Holy Writ doesn’t directly call this evil spirit a demon (lacking a word). In fact, beyond the torment it causes, it isn’t described or explained at all. It is specifically sent by God (16:14). No Devil yet exists in the Hebrew Bible, and evil comes from the inscrutable will of Yahweh. Saul seems to be possessed, or at least oppressed, both for good and for ill. The theatrical results are evident in the text. Centuries later King Ahab decides to go to war against Aram. Once again King Jehoshaphat of Judah is part of the picture. Jehoshaphat, a good, Yahweh-fearing king, wants to consult the prophets before going to battle. Prophets at this time functioned in large groups. Worked into a frenzy they would proclaim the will of the gods collectively.24 Jehoshaphat, however, wants to consult an authentic prophet of Yahweh and the otherwise unknown Micaiah ben-Imlah is called. The story is odd to monotheistic eyes: Ahab’s 400 prophets collectively proclaim that he should ride into battle for he will emerge victorious. At first Micaiah imitates the others, but when Ahab insists on an authentic oracle, Micaiah describes what has happened among the council of the gods. Wait—what? Council of the gods? Like others in ancient western Asia, Israelites believed that gods met in councils to discuss the affairs of people. We also see this in Job. In 1 Kings Yahweh announces to the council that he wishes Ahab to be defeated in battle. But how to do it? Micaiah says a “lying spirit” volunteers to enter the mouths of the 400 prophets to convince the ill-fated king to go to war. Yahweh approves, and the plan works (1 Kings 22). Quite apart from the implications for prophecy, the idea of a dishonest spirit being used by Yahweh to doom a king is troubling. Once again, this is not called a “demon.” The spirit does “enter” the prophets—the language used of possession. The Hebrew Bible comes close to describing possession, but is never explicit about it. The New Testament will describe what we recognize as full-fledged possessions by demons (see chapter 5). Other cultures, as we’ve seen, understand possession in a positive light. The Hebrew Bible, while not giving much information on it, seems to agree. A divine spirit coming upon Samson, and occasionally Saul, can lead to good results. An unclean spirit, however, leads to real trouble. One more episode between Saul and Samuel should be considered. After David’s flight, following Saul’s murderous spiritual oppression, the king requires advice. Samuel has died and Saul has banished all necromancers, but there’s one left in Endor. Disguising himself, he asks her to raise Samuel. The prophet, predictably, declares doom on Saul.25 The text is pretty clear that this

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is the ghost of Samuel that’s been raised (1 Samuel 28). That point, however, involves a further consideration; in some forms of Judaism spirits of the evil dead become demons.26 Not fallen angels, these are an alternative explanation of whence comes misfortune. That may not be the case with Saul and Samuel, but the results aren’t so different. RELIGIOUS EXPLANATIONS Lia Lee was an Hmong child with severe epilepsy, and she was caught between the culture of her parents and that of modern medical science. According to Hmong culture, such epilepsy is considered a divine gift. This isn’t far from some ancient Greek ideas. At least some among ancient writers recognized “biological” causes for what we would probably classify as epilepsy or Dissociative Identity Disorders.27 That didn’t mean that supernatural causes didn’t also exist. Such ideas persist today, as the award-winning The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down illustrates.28 Demons fall into that same space between worlds.29 If these clashing worldviews persist into the present day, we can imagine the breadth of interpretative differences that might’ve existed before instant communication across vast distances, let alone before the printing press and widespread literacy. Demons were one of the ultimate causes with explanatory value. Epilepsy was likely one explanation for demons. Other physiological causes are also cited, generally involving imbalances in brain chemistry. Ancients often turned this around: epilepsy was caused by demons. This outlook fits well in cinematic exploitation of demons, for the symptoms of epilepsy are frightening. Why not blame a monster? Exorcism implies spiritual beings. In The Exorcist the panel of doctors consulting Chris MacNeil can’t help disavowing exorcism as a purely psychological source of relief. “Possession” can’t be real since spirits aren’t real. In a kind of eagerness to be viewed as modern and rationally acceptable, many biblical scholars try to diagnose the New Testament demoniacs using medical understandings. There can be no doubt that some biblical possession episodes describe the victims in terms that could well be epilepsy. Up until modernity, however, the supernatural was assumed. The idea that diseases like epilepsy were “only” physical is very recent in the span of human history.30 There are still cultures that call it “the divine disease”—it has the marks of the gods all over it. In Greek culture, as we’ll see, demons weren’t evil. Translated into the mix of worldviews present in the biblical texts, however, the grand mal seizure looks diabolical. Positive possession, however, simultaneously existed, if known by other names.31 The very concept of inspiration involved the “breathing in” of

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positive spirits. Those who watch the movies know this isn’t far from what cinema presents regarding demons. In more recent times, after exorcism began its modern revival, evangelical Protestants devised “deliverance ministry,” a means of ending possession without the Catholic ritualism.32 Even so, some Pentecostals33 understand spiritual gifts as a positive form of possession (called “indwelling” of the Holy Spirit).34 Possession is still, although hidden by terminology, both potentially good and evil. Our view of ancients as unsophisticated rubes is unjustified. The Bible itself reveals that mental illness wasn’t automatically associated with demons. While the pathological causes of diseases like epilepsy weren’t comprehended, the fact of the disease was known. Demons were sometimes blamed as the cause for its symptoms. What we don’t know is how consistently this explanation might’ve been used. One size doesn’t fit all for explanations. It’s clear that the concept of “possession” changes with evolving understandings of the world. As a result the present-day category of possession is both the same as and different from ancient outlooks. It must be kept in mind that “possession,” as a modern concept, is often read back into biblical stories. Our idea of possession largely comes mediated through the lens of The Exorcist. The intense, sacrilegious horror of a monster who’s hunting priests has informed the phenomenon since the 1970s. It has even been suggested that the modern concept of possession is the acting out of a script by those who know the role of the possessed, whether consciously or not.35 The Bible, while referring to demons, doesn’t use the language of “possession” as we use it. Several gospel characters “have” a demon or unclean spirit that can be cast out, but the Good Book doesn’t called such people “possessed.” In fact, demons are treated like other illnesses—cases to be healed. What makes them different is that their illnesses are personalized. Since everybody believed in demons there was no hesitancy in recognizing them where they obviously existed. When we hear “demon” we think of “possession,” Exorcist-style. One of the key elements of the movie is that medical doctors can’t cure Regan. She undergoes extensive medical tests without results. For a society that takes its cues from this movie, possession isn’t medical. It’s demonic. INVITING POSSESSION Possession occurs. What it actually is, however, is open to debate. Evil, we know from experience, exists. Are there beings who cause it, or is evil simply part of life in a valueless universe? Demons help answer that. In some traditions demons must be invited. If possession requires invitation, why would anyone ask for it? As we’ve seen, possession isn’t necessarily negative. In the

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biblical world it comes close to inspiration, should the source be divine. Even in Saul’s torments, the spirit was sent by God. In religious traditions widely dispersed, beneficial spirits may be invited to possess, sometimes providing tangible rewards. For this book with its cinematic referent, the focus will be on negative or demonic possession. In those cases demons are liars and invited because they deceive.36 Traditionally, in postbiblical Christianity, a demon can only possess a person with an invitation to do so.37 There are stages of demonic attacks, leading up to possession. They are sometimes termed infestation, oppression, and possession. Others, in keeping with the chaos demons generate, add a fourth stage: obsession, after oppression, and others finish with a final stage of death (the demon kills the victim). Infestation, also called “manifestation,” is when a demon is attracted to a person, or sometimes a place. This is where the danger appears, since even thinking or talking about it can initiate this stage. Strange things begin to happen, often sacrilegious events accompanied by a horrid stench. If unchecked, this can move on to oppression. At this stage a demon can physically harm a person and some of the most spectacularly scary stories about them occur at this stage. Possession is when a demon or demons take over a person’s body, displacing, in a way, that person’s soul. Why would anyone invite a demon (apart from being deceived)? In the occult community demons are considered a source of great power,38 akin to the Greek ideas we’ll explore. Rituals and rites were devised to raise demons so that they might lend their power to the conjurer. This practice goes back to the Testament of Solomon at least. In more recent times the invitation can be far more subtle, and perhaps unintentional. One common means of leading to oppression, according to religious investigators, is the use of ouija boards. Spirit boards have a history that goes back, in some form, to at least the twelfth century in China.39 Their present form and function took off during the rise of Spiritualism in the nineteenth century in the western world. A flat board with the alphabet, numbers one through zero, and often “yes” and “no” printed on them, they are a means of obtaining answers from spirits. Like many aspects of the occult, ouija boards haven’t received a ton of academic attention. As with the internet it’s sometimes impossible to verify with whom you’re conversing via ouija board or other means of spirit communication. The idea among Spiritualists was that you could contact the beloved departed in various ways.40 Some Christian groups suggest that demons could be responsible for the insights coming from ouija boards or seances. The door to possession, they claim, may be opened through such means. In its most basic form, the ouija board is a form of divination. Divination is an ancient method of communicating with the gods. In prebiblical days there were plenty of means available for learning the hidden will of deities. A diviner could watch the flight of birds, observe the way smoke arose from

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a sacrificial pyre, or, perhaps most precisely, examine the liver of an animal.41 Signs could be hidden in these and in other places, and diviners learned to read such signs. Divination priests knew sheep’s livers like a hematologist would today, only their explanations were quite different. Clay tablets with detailed descriptions and their divine prognostications survive. Models of animal livers—clay, and sometimes metal—were made, with notes regarding anomalies inscribed upon them. Diviners could read the will of the gods written on the insides of living animals. This idea, which supposedly died out with the ascent of prophecy and then authoritative scriptures, nevertheless survived. The Bible describes how the high priest carried the urim and thummim in his breastplate.42 A form of divination, these mysterious objects seem to have been for answering yes or no questions. And this was commanded by Yahweh himself. Receiving messages from “the other side” has been a preoccupation of humans from earliest days. Although ouija boards, tarot cards, seances, and other means of spirit communication, became popular in their present incarnations only in the nineteenth century, they share an ancient pedigree. Today, however, they’re sometimes understood to connect the user with demons. Even a quick glance through books on ouija on Amazon will reveal page after page of warnings and scary stories based on such devices. At least since The Exorcist the ouija board has been labeled a prime form of unintentional demonic invitation. Often, but not always, the perpetrator is a curious young woman. CONCLUSIONS Possession, as we know it, is not a number of things. It is not biblical—the Good Book doesn’t regularly use the word to describe what evil spirits do. It is not necessarily bad—religions across the world recognize that spirits can possess humans for good purposes. It is not incidental—it is invited in some way. These negatives indicate just how deeply the cinematic view of demons is read into religions based on the Bible. Scripture has individuals plagued with evil spirits. We’ll explore the terminology of this a bit further in the following chapters, but although the word “possess” isn’t used, the results are similar to what we’ve come to expect. A person loses control, or appears to be directed by someone not their usual self. While Hollywood, taking a trustworthy tip from Poe, makes victims predominately female, biblical accounts have victims of both genders. Ancient cultures recognized that madness occurred—they may have attributed it to demons, but not all madness led to diabolical acts.43 Epilepsy was at least on occasion supposed to have been caused by demons. A dramatic grand mal seizure fits that worldview.

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The Bible says very little about the mechanics of inviting demonic attention. The material in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament simply assumes demons are a fact of life, with differences being discernible within the timeframe between Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The invitation element seems to have developed in postbiblical periods. When it did, it took cues from the practice of divination. In the Good Book divination takes both good forms and bad, indicating that the entirely negative view of “occult” practice develops later, along with an overwhelmingly negative outlook on possession. Much of this devaluing of communication with deities coincides with the growing interest in monotheism. This concept automatically demotes other deities and discourages human interaction with them. In some ways of understanding demons this too has both positive and negative elements—other gods may be demons, or they may be angels. To go any further we need to delve more deeply into the Hebrew Bible. NOTES 1. Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2003). 2. A major source on the phenomenon is the two-volume tome, Patrick McNamara, Spirit Possession and Exorcism: History, Psychology, and Neurobiology (Praeger, 2011). The edited reference volume that addresses this phenomenon is Laycock, Spirit Possession. 3. This is so widely recognized that dispute is untenable. See Karen McCarthy Brown, Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn (California University Press, 2001) and Goodman, Where Spirits Ride. 4. Margaret Stutley, Shamanism: An Introduction (Routledge, 2003). 5. Daniel Dubuisson, The Western Construction of Religion: Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). 6. This idea is generally traced to Sir Edward Burnett Tyler, Primitive Culture: Researches Into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom (John Murray, 1871). 7. For Christian examples see Caciola, Discerning Spirits; and Kristin C. Bloomer, Possessed by the Virgin: Hinduism, Roman Catholicism, and Marian Possession in South India (Oxford University Press, 2018). 8. Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (W. W. Norton, 1987). 9. J. H. Chajes, Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (Penn University Press, 2011). 10. An exception to this is mysticism, but that’s another whole book. 11. A useful introduction to Chinese religion is Joseph A. Adler, “Chinese Religion: An Overview,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Lindsay Jones (Macmillan Reference USA, 2005). For spirits specifically see Stephen F. Teiser, “The Spirits

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of Chinese Religion,” in Religions of China in Practice, Donald S. Lopez, Jr. ed. (Princeton University Press, 1999), and Barend J. Ter Haar, “China” in Laycock, Spirit Possession: 76-80. 12. Teiser, “The Spirits.” 13. Many useful sources exist for introducing Buddhism. Charles S. Prebish and Damien Keown. Introducing Buddhism (Routledge, 2006); Paul Williams. Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (Routledge, 2009); and Richard F. Gombrich, Theravāda Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo (Routledge, 2006) are recommended. 14. Larry Clinton Thompson, William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion: Heroism, Hubris and the “Ideal Missionary” (McFarland, 2009). 15. See the various essays in Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Michel, eds., Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality (Indiana University Press, 2006). 16. Vodou (also called vodun) should be understood here specifically as Haitian vodou since there are many varieties of African diaspora religions. The classic anthropological text on vodou is Brown, Moma Lola. Another treatment, dismissed by some scholars (and later made into a fictional horror movie) is Davis, The Serpent. See also Bettina E. Schmidt, “Loa” in Laycock, Spirit Possession, 216–218. 17. Davis, The Serpent. 18. The word shedim, often translated as “demons,” occurs only twice in the Hebrew Bible and is of uncertain meaning. See Zvi Abusch, “Exorcism. I. Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible/Old Testament,” in The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, vol. 8 (Walter de Gruyter, 2014), 513–519. 19. Many commentaries on Judges and countless journal articles treat the Samson story. See Gregory Mobley, Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East (T & T Clark, 2006). For a source that addresses the gendered theme, see Stephen H. Wilson, Making Men: The Male Coming-of-Age Theme in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2015). 20. The theatrical aspect of exorcism is noted in Levack, Devil Within, Chajes, Between Worlds, and Sean McCloud, American Possession: Fighting Demons in the Contemporary United States (Oxford University Press, 2015). 21. Biblical themes such as prophecy have been treated (and retreated) many times in the scholarly literature. See James M. Ward, Thus Says the Lord: The Message of the Prophets (Abingdon Press 1991). For a more comprehensive treatment see Carolyn J. Sharp, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Prophets (Oxford University Press, 2016). 22. For Saul the work of David M. Gunn, The Fate of King Saul (JSOT Press, 1980) is standard. 23. 11QPsalmsa cites David as an exorcist, therefore Saul was apparently considered possessed in the Qumran community. 24. The group function of prophets is discussed in Joseph Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel (Westminster John Knox, 1996). 25. For this episode, Willem Beuken, “I Samuel 28: The Prophet as ‘Hammer of Witches.’” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 3 (1978): 3–17.

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26. Chajes, Between Worlds. 27. See J. M. S. Pierce, “A Disease Once Sacred. A History of the Medical Understanding of Epilepsy.” Brain 125 (2002): 441–444 and the underlying book of the same title by J. Eadie Mervyn and Peter F. Bladin, A Disease Once Sacred: A History of the Medical Understanding of Epilepsy (John Libbey, 2001). 28. Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). 29. Divine disease is also addressed by Levack, Devil Within. 30. Mervyn and Bladin, Disease Once Sacred. 31. Caciola, Discerning Spirits, points out that divine possession reentered Christianity in the thirteenth century and was mirrored by non-Christian divine possession. 32. McCloud, American Possession. 33. On Pentecostals, see Frank D. Macchia, “Pentecostal and Charismatic Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, ed. Jerry L. Walls (Oxford University Press, 2007): 280–294; Cuneo, American Exorcism and Ellis, Raising the Devil. 34. French L. Arrington, “The Indwelling, Baptism, and Infilling with the Holy Spirit: A Differentiation of Terms.” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 3 (1981): 1–10; Macchia, “Pentecostal.” 35. Levack, Devil Within. 36. This is clear in materials “by” Ed and Lorraine Warren (see chapter 8). These aren’t academic sources, but academic treatments do not take possession as a spiritual phenomenon. 37. Or if they are cursed. See Fr. Gabriele Amorth, An Exorcist Tells His Story (Ignatius Press, 1999); and An Exorcist Explains the Demonic: The Antics of Satan and His Army of Fallen Angels (Sophia Institute Press, 2016). 38. Claire Fanger, ed., Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). 39. Mitch Horowitz, Occult America: White House Seances, Ouija Circles, Masons, and the Secret Mystic History of Our Nation (Bantam, 2010); Ellis, Raising the Devil. 40. Ellis, Raising the Devil. For an accessible treatment of spiritualism see David Jaher, The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World (Crown, 2015). 41. See, conveniently, Sarah Iles Johnston ed., Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (Harvard University Press, 2004). 42. The oracular use of urim and thummim was discussed as early as W. MussArnolt, “The Urim and Thummim. A Suggestion as to Their Original Nature and Significance,” The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 16 no. 4 (1900): 193–224. 43. For the history of recognizing insanity see Theodore Millon, Masters of the Mind: Exploring the Story of Mental Illness from Ancient Times to the New Millennium (Wiley, 2004); or more theoretically, Michel Foucault, History of Madness (Routledge, 2006).

Chapter 3

Demonic Beginnings

One of the problems with demons is that no definitive source exists from which to learn about them.1 The Bible can’t be given a privileged position here—it says little about what demons are—as it stands among other ancient sources. Consistency doesn’t exist among ancient texts. Science is of no help. Even if demons weren’t dismissed out of hand by science, they’re willful, uncooperative spiritual beings who can’t be subjected to empirical tests. Modern ideas of demons derive from a combination of the biblical world and pop culture, mediated through centuries of theology. If the Good Book says very little about what demons are movies say a great deal. As we saw in the last chapter, the Hebrew Bible lacks a word equivalent to “demon.” The New Testament has many exorcism accounts, and the extra-biblical material that spans this time period contains conflicting treasure-troves of demonic lore. A linear progression doesn’t exist because the belief in demons was never based on scripture until recent times. It happened the other way around. Demons were assumed in the ancient world. Like the wind, nobody doubted that demons were real just because they couldn’t see them. The wind could be felt and it could be destructive. So could demons. Ancient texts presume that readers know what demons are. Some sources, such as The Book of the Watchers, will bravely attempt to explain their origin myths but even such accounts are inconsistent and mix with differing cultural understandings. This and the following two chapters will try to piece together what demons seem to be in the biblical world, based on surviving sources. This isn’t a comprehensive treatment—too many sources exist for that. It will become clear that demons are characterized by a blend of confusion and conservative cultural outlooks. And that they’re very dangerous.

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BEFORE THE BIBLE In the beginning there were monsters. Mesopotamia represents the earliest civilizations in the biblical world. The people of that region invented writing and they left a rich offering of art sources. Their spiritual world influenced that of the Bible. It was a universe filled with gods and other supernatural entities.2 Monsters and demons, for Mesopotamians, were easy to tell apart. Monsters walked on four legs, and demons on two.3 Another distinction was where they lived: monsters in borderlands and demons in the netherworld.4 Otherwise they were quite similar in their iconography. Both were strange mixes of animals that suggested unpredictability and danger. These creatures weren’t believed to be exactly evil. Demons were more like forces of nature. Sure, they could cause damage, or even kill you. That doesn’t mean they’re evil. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. Morally, however, they were neutral. Before we get too far, let’s consider Mesopotamia itself. The word means “between the rivers.” It was the name the Greeks later gave the region around the Tigris and Euphrates. It generally corresponds with what is today called Iraq and part of Syria. The world’s earliest civilization grew up in the southern part of this region, among a people known as the Sumerians. They seem to have been the first people to have lived in permanent cities. Although places like Damascus in what’s now Syria and Jericho in what’s now Israel/ Palestine had been cities even earlier, Sumer represents the earliest stable conglomeration of cities in the history of the world. Sumer was long gone before the Bible began. The area of Sumer was overtaken by an unrelated people we know as Babylonians. This name comes from one of their strongest cities—their capital Babylon. The Bible calls it Babel early on in the book of Genesis. Babylonia was interested in empire-building but it was separated from Israel by both a desert and by other considerable powers that stood between them. One of those powers, just to the north and a bit to the west, was Assyria. Assyria was likewise named after one of its major cities, Assur (itself named after a god). Like Babylonia, Assyria was interested in being an empire. The two fought back and forth, but they also expanded. One of the natural areas of acquisition was what we sometimes call the Levant. These three peoples—Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians—are collectively known as Mesopotamians. When William Peter Blatty wrote his breakout novel The Exorcist, he opened the story in Iraq (Mesopotamia) where Fr. Merrin encounters a demon named Pazuzu. Since his novel largely led to the modern interest in exorcism, this is worth noting from the beginning. Back to our tour.

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The Levant (a typically Eurocentric term meaning “rising” or “east”) is the region stretching from Turkey to Egypt along the eastern Mediterranean coast. Many peoples lived here in antiquity, related but not necessarily organized into large groups. One of the most politically powerful was the northern collective known as Aram. Aram gives us the word Aramaic, their language. It’s closely related to Hebrew, spoken by the people south of them called Israel. Israel later adopted Aramaic, along with much of the rest of that part of the world. Jesus spoke Aramaic. Aram was mostly in what is today called Syria. One more area to keep your eye on. To the east of Mesopotamia were the people the Bible calls Medes and Persians. Their homeland is mostly what we today know as Iran. From the perspective of the Bible they didn’t do much until after Israel had been overrun by Assyria and Babylonia. The Persians followed a religion devised by a prophet known as Zarathustra, or, in Greek, Zoroaster. Zoroastrianism will become essential in understanding modern concepts of demons. Watch this space.5 So, what did Mesopotamians believe about demons? Like most ancient peoples Mesopotamians were polytheists. Since there were many gods they had no real concerns with what would come to be called “theodicy”—the question of how evil can occur when an all-powerful deity is also completely good. The gods of ancient Iraq were many, and as when you get any large group of type-A personalities together, there were bound to be disagreements and squabbles among them. They were very much like people, with the notable exceptions of being incredibly powerful and generally immortal. Evil could come simply by being caught in the crossfire of bickering divinities. None of them were completely good, and none all-powerful. Some were high gods living way up in the sky, while others lived in the realm of the dead, right under your feet. Yet others were messengers gods taking communications back and forth in the pre-Internet days.6 With a bureaucracy of supernatural beings, evil could happen for any number of reasons. So why did the Mesopotamians have demons? The most obvious answer is that they had demons because they believed in demons. The raw forces of nature require no proof—humans struggle against them constantly. Who hasn’t stood at a bus stop on a cold, windy morning with rain pelting down and not thought that the weather was somehow conspiring to make her miserable? Or who has trouble conceptualizing a willful wind when it buffets him again and again, seeming always to come straight at him no matter which direction he turns? And regardless of how random an earthquake may be, you take it personally when your friends and relatives die in it. Demons could explain that. If, like many Americans, you’ve ever watched a reality TV show about chasing ghosts, you’ve likely heard the term “elementals” used. Most often

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the word describes demons. It’s a concept Mesopotamians would’ve understood. Elementals are nature spirits. Morally they’re neutral, the Switzerland of the spirit world. They are quite powerful, and they do as they please for reasons only they understand. When it comes to ghost hunters, however, some of elementals are distinctly evil. These are the demons among them. Mesopotamians thought about them in similar ways, but with notable differences.7 In a world of constant conflict, where disease is understood as divine smiting (van Leeuwenhoek won’t turn up with his microscope for thousands of years), and there are still lions roaming around outside the city walls, misfortune is pretty self-explanatory. Life expectancies were closer to the biological imperative of reproduce before you die than reflecting leisurely retirement. Most men were dead by forty. Most women by twenty. Perils were everywhere. The best you could do was, pick a god and pray it was the right one for the occasion. Demons fit naturally into a world like this. While they’re less powerful than gods, they’re far more powerful than humans. Their unpredictable nature made them the objects of fear.8 Just because death came easily didn’t mean you wouldn’t fear it. There was much to fear. Demons looked scary. Without a single, monotheistic deity to combat, they took their place among the ranks of any number of things that might possibly go wrong. You could pray to demons or make sacrifices to them. Since, however, the gods had some measure of control over nature it made more sense to appeal to these anthropomorphic beings who were stronger than demons. The gods were more like us. They could feel pity. More than that, they could feel a sense of obligation if you gave them gifts.9 Demons were very good for explaining things. Their effects were obvious. Nightmares have been a plague faced by humanity from the earliest days of dreaming.10 With their mixed forms and ability to terrify, demons are almost nightmares personified. Other ancient cultures from southern and eastern Asia also believed in them, as did the Greeks from classical times and before. Jung might’ve deemed them an archetype. Throughout human development, it seems, we’ve just known they were there. Think about The Exorcist again. Fr. Merrin is excavating in Iraq as the movie opens. He finds a demon statue there. Although the movie indicates this is the Devil, the image Blatty used in his novel was a minor Babylonian demon known as Pazuzu. Like all demons Pazuzu looked scary. His malevolent appearance was nightmarish. Mesopotamian ideas about demons continued more or less unchanged, into the Hebrew Bible. Israel knew about Mesopotamia. The Israelites could hardly avoid them. Assyria and Babylonia were the two major dangers that came from the north. (Babylonia was more to the east, but to reach Israel you had to travel north with the rivers that gave the region its name, so from the

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Bible’s point of view, they were north.) As empires, the powerful cultural ideas of Assyria and Babylonia influenced biblical thought. This included their ideas about the divine realm as well as the physical world. People in ancient times didn’t write as much about demons as they did about gods. This is reflected in the Good Book. Later Christians tried to organize a large set of disparate ideas—demons take their orders from the Devil, they’re associated with Hell, they’re up here to possess people, they can get sent out of a person but we don’t really know where they go—into some kind of logical order. It’s confusing because the Mesopotamians didn’t synthesize all of this. As in the Hebrew Bible, Mesopotamians had no Hell. Demons are the embodiment of chaos. So what does the Hebrew Bible say about them?11 HEBREW BIBLE DEMONS As noted in the last chapter, there is no generic word for “demon” in the Hebrew Bible. Instead, a survey of the spiritual landscape looks like this: Each nation had its own deity. Most had sets of gods. Among these “pantheons” one divinity was usually stronger than the others. This superior being was the patron god of the nation; you didn’t want an inferior god as your protector. This situation applied to Israel before the idea that there was only a single god developed.12 The divine world was populated with various kinds of beings. Angels, whose role was analogous to human messengers, carried divine communiques to people. They also carried messages from god to god. They were supernatural, but often in the Good Book you can’t tell them apart from human beings, by appearance. At other times they look different, but the Bible doesn’t say exactly how.13 The word shedim, which is often translated “demons,” occurs only twice in the Hebrew Bible and its denotation is uncertain.14 Without getting lost in the linguistic weeds here, it’s sufficient to say the etymology of the word is disputed and that the concept of “demons” (for it always occurs in the plural) is not the same as the post-Exorcist reader supposes.15 Remember, the Good Book doesn’t lay out a systematic theology—that was a much later concern.16 There also seem to have been what we call nature spirits in the biblical world. These were beings who are frustratingly mentioned without description. That can make them scary. For example, when the scapegoat ritual is being described in Leviticus 16, two goats are prepared for sacrifice. One is slaughtered at by the priest, but the other is sent out into the wilderness for Azazel. Who’s Azazel? The Bible doesn’t say. In later texts Azazel turns up as a demon.17 The desert, although not encompassing all of Israel by a long shot, challenged survival. Turning once again to the prophets, and to Edom, we find a

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curious verse nestled in the book of Isaiah. The three major prophetic books (Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel) all contain sections called “oracles against the nations.” They’re filled with the standard curses you’d expect to cast on your enemies. In Isaiah 34:14 there’s an oracle against Edom. Describing with obvious Schadenfreude the horrors to fall on this already arid kingdom, it notes that it’ll become the haunt of jackals, hyenas, wildcats, ostriches, owls, and buzzards. These were unclean and strange animals. Any carnivore was unclean because you could never tell what kind of animal it’d been eating. They’re out there in the wilderness that Edom will become.18 Things get interesting as the prophet goes on to declare the “goat demons” and Lilith will invade Edom as well. This is the only biblical mention of either goat demons or Lilith. That’s important because when we try to understand an ancient document in a dead language, the way to figure out what rare words denote is to compare how they’re used elsewhere. When a word occurs only once or twice and it’s unclear what it’s supposed to indicate, we have to guess a little, as with shedim. Our guesses with Lilith are helped out by later Jewish tradition.19 A myth that Lilith was Adam’s first wife eventually emerged. She left Adam, according to some versions of the story, because he refused to allow her to be on top during sex. She fled to the wilderness where some accounts say she cohabited with the Devil. A few things to note: first of all, this story is not in the Bible. According to Genesis, Adam had only one mate, Eve. The Devil, as a character, is unknown in the Hebrew Bible. He shows up by the time of the New Testament, however. Ancient people had even less of an understanding of sex than we have, but they thought it attracted demonic interest. This once again ties demons into sexuality early on. And note here, the “disobedient” partner is female. Sex was mysterious. Although sperm and eggs are both invisible to the naked eye, men produced semen and women produced blood. Ancients thought a variety of things about this: some believed babies came from the mixing of semen and blood, while others postulated that semen was fully formed little people and that all the women contributed was a place for the baby to grow.20 In either case, semen was essential. It was important not to waste it. Even so, men had nocturnal emissions, often accompanied by erotic dreams. What was happening here?21 Lilith was one explanation. Her name is related to the word “night” by popular etymology. Rejected by Adam, she became “the night hag” in the Revised Standard Version.22 She visited men in the night, becoming the first wife of all males through nocturnal emissions. She therefore had a claim on all children born. Clearly she’s taken on some demonic characteristics, but she doesn’t possess anyone beyond in a strictly sexual way. In later traditions succubi took on this role.

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“Goat demons,” sometimes translated “satyrs” (as in the Revised Standard Version) are named but described nowhere in the Good Book.23 Some scholars connected them with Azazel,24 another word that occurs only once in the Bible, but that also occurs in non-biblical texts. Satyrs are creatures of Greek mythology and there are no scriptural descriptions of such things. The Hebrew word itself is apparently derived from the root meaning of “hair.” Hair had connotations for ancients that it lacks for modern people.25 Goats were described as hairy. A kind of love-hate relationship existed between Israelites and their goats. They used them for milk and skins, but a kind of horror also accompanied them. In Isaiah these goat demons cry out to one another in the wilderness, adding the frisson of an unknown animal call in the desert night.26 Although “goat demons” occur nowhere else in scripture, the same Hebrew word is used to denote foreign gods. The Bible’s not an illustrated book. Images were frowned upon by the establishment. In the wider world of ancient western Asia images of monsters—some of them goat-based—survive.27 Problem is that inscribed or labeled images are extremely rare. We can guess if some of these forms might be related to the “goat demons” of Isaiah, but we can never know. Were Lilith and “goat demons” spiritual beings? All the other desert animals listed in this part of Isaiah are natural, physical creatures. Although not proof, this suggests that these two may also exist within the creepy, but natural category of wilderness-dwelling animals. THE HEBREW BIBLE AND MONOTHEISM The Hebrew Bible wasn’t always monotheistic.28 Despite what Holy Writ says, Israel seems to have been one of the peoples known as Canaanites. Never organized into a unified nation, state, or country, the Canaanites were related peoples wedged into part of the fertile crescent that formed a natural highway between major powers like Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the people of ancient Turkey (they were called the Hittites—we’ll run into them later on). Because these smaller “Canaanite” nations weren’t really organized and they lived on a natural thoroughfare, their real estate was controlled by others for centuries at a time. The nearest major nation to Israel was Egypt. Although Israel never took an historical exodus from Egypt,29 they did pay tribute to their southern overlords. Every once in a while, after Israel grew to have its own kings, they were able to be somewhat independent. Mostly, however, they were paying tribute to somebody. During the time of the Hebrew Bible the imperial powers claiming goods and services from Israel were, in chronological order: Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and

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finally, the Greek-speaking Hellenistic Empire forged by Alexander the Great. By the time of the New Testament the Greeks had been overrun by the Roman Empire. What that means for demons is that lots of different ideas got thrown into the mix, including those of the loosely organized peoples of the Levant. For ease of expression I will be calling this people “Israel” in this book. Holy Writ describes two nations that use this name but the precise nature of their relationship has been called into question by historians. One, obviously, is Israel. South of them stood a smaller country called Judah. In Roman times it was called Judaea. At times in their history they called themselves “Israelites.” Occasionally they used “Hebrews.” As far as historians can see, Israel was culturally and linguistically very much part of the mix that the Bible calls “Canaanites.” The main difference was they came to worship one God only. So great was the influence of this idea that today in the western world it is this same deity that people generally mean by the word “God.” Although the Good Book doesn’t use this specific term, that system of belief was called “monotheism.” Monotheism, literally “one-god-ism,” wasn’t the default Israelite belief system. As Canaanites, the people of Israel originally recognized many gods. The Good Book shows this clearly. Names of other deities like Baal, Astarte, Moloch, and Asherah occur. There were many, many others. The natural tendency of people is to see conflicting divine wills in the forces of nature that daily threaten us. When we take our eyes off ourselves, these forces seem to fight each other. Rain versus clear skies. Wind versus established trees and plants. The sea versus dry land. Volcano versus solid rock. And consider the animals—lions and leopards and bears attack and eat other animals. Conflict seems built into this system. The gods must be bickering. People of ancient times didn’t see this conflict as bad or good. It was simply the way of the world. Many natural phenomena were consigned to the control of spirits. Nature spirits were morally neutral. They were more powerful than people, to be sure. Just as in Mesopotamia, gods were stronger than these intermediate entities. People didn’t see them, but if you kept them happy they could make life a lot more pleasant for you. In a world like this, monotheism is an outlier. One god? How does this explain the conflict in nature and among humans? If there’s one god only, why isn’t harmony evident everywhere? The fact is, monotheism came to Israel in a moment of crisis, as we’ll see. Besides gods of natural phenomena, each territory had its own patron deity. The God of Israel was called Yahweh. For most of its history Israel recognized other gods alongside Yahweh; Israel was controlled by Yahweh, and Israelites were devoted mainly to him. Israel’s God fought against Baal constantly. Yahweh was strong and good. When nations clashed, however,

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it was more than just humans fighting. The national gods were doing battle.30 Israel, as we’ve already seen, was conquered time and again. Eventually the people of Israel came to believe that Yahweh preferred Jerusalem to any other city. They built a great temple to him there. Although the kingdom had been conquered a time or two, Jerusalem remained and its temple stood. Yahweh was on his throne and the world was as it should be. Then the unthinkable happened. Jerusalem itself was destroyed. The leading citizens were hauled into exile. Had Yahweh been defeated for good? Ancient theology would’ve drawn that conclusion. Israel—the people who were now fast becoming the Jews—living in exile, came up with a different solution. Yahweh had not been defeated by Marduk, the god of Babylon. In fact, Marduk wasn’t a real god at all. None of them were, save Yahweh. One God, Yahweh, hadn’t been defeated by another god. Instead, Yahweh had allowed this defeat of his own people. It was his idea. He’d decreed it. The people of Israel had sinned and Yahweh was punishing them. Yahweh controlled even the actions of Babylon! Monotheism had been born. But what to do with all those other gods? As mentioned above, even Israel recognized lots of gods throughout much of its history. Those deities didn’t suddenly disappear when monotheism emerged. There was an embarrassment of divinities. Not only did nature have deities and spirits for every phenomenon, each nation, region, and major city had its own gods. Given that these gods had differing wills and aspirations, conflict was inevitable. Gods were like people—when you had lots of them together, they had disagreements. Like human beings they were stubborn and opinionated. Remember evil, from a human perspective, could come about simply by being caught in divine crossfire. What looks bad to us may be easily explained as the fallout of divine disagreements. Even the gods of death—Mot (“Death”), or the more familiar Hades to the Greeks—weren’t evil. Death was a fact of life and somebody had to oversee the realm of the deceased. No gods were purely evil. None was absolutely good, either. Monotheism now had to explain this world under a single deity. Some of those remaining gods were recast as demons. For example, in Ugarit, a city-state in what is now northern Syria, a god named Hadad—his main title was Baal, or “Lord”—was champion of the people and their morality. These people weren’t debased “pagans.” Like all people, they tried to be good and their gods wanted them to be good. Baal was one such god. But he was an enemy of Yahweh. Baal’s often considered a demon in a monotheistic world.31 The closest such “other gods” came to being evil was the chaos dragon. This stock character goes by many names, and, if viewed closely enough, it wasn’t really evil either. The universe, it was believed, was primarily made of unruly water. This sloshing, swirling, unstable substrate had to be tamed

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for a solid earth to become fixed so that building could take place. The Mesopotamians called this dragon Tiamat.32 She was the mother of the gods. When her consort Apsu, father of the gods, advocated retroactive birth control (he wanted to kill the gods because they were too noisy) the younger gods killed him. This turned Tiamat into an angry dragon and she was slain by Marduk, a major Babylonian god. He divided her watery carcass into two to allow for a place where dry land might appear. That’s the basic story. Tiamat was hardly all evil: she was the mother of gods.33 Similar dragon figures were known by different names among Israel’s neighbors: Yamm, Lotan, Tannin.34 In the Bible the dragon is called Rahab, but the name which it lent to a demon is much more common—Leviathan. Scripture has only very abbreviated versions of the story, but clearly dragon-slaying was part of the divine job description for keeping watery chaos—which eventually became evil—at bay. Leviathan also became a demon over time.35 What’s so bad about chaos? In the ancient mind creation wasn’t the making of something out of nothing. It was constructing order out of disorder. Liquid water can be deadly to humans. You need it to live, but you can’t build on it. It can wash away entire cities in a flood. In fact, down on the shore you can see it trying to overcome dry land with every breaking wave. While not exactly evil, water wants to take over and has to be held in check. The sky is blue because there’s water out there beyond the dome of the sky. Water, water everywhere. Chaos. Demons were also associated with chaos. With monotheism something had to be done with all these other leftover gods. The process took centuries. Some of them simply faded away while others became angels and demons, or later in Christianity, saints. Saint George the dragon-slayer is, after all, a modern form of Marduk or Baal, the defeaters of serpentine chaos. But monotheism had a larger problem than other gods. If there’s just one God, and that deity is good, why is there evil at all? Religious responses to evil—Where does it come from? Why does it exist? Can’t God do anything about it?—turn theological and try to justify monotheism (this is called theodicy).36 We’re not going to get into all that. The point here is that once you bottleneck down to one deity you’ve got the problem of evil on your hands. The solution to the problem of evil and one god was explored by an obscure but enormously influential prophet who lived perhaps in what we now call Iran or Afghanistan. His name was Zarathustra. ZOROASTRIANS AND THE DEVIL Zoroastrians, it will become clear, had a huge impact on modern ideas of demons, the Devil, Heaven and Hell, and even beliefs about the end of the

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world. The origins of Zoroastrianism are literally lost in time. Founded by an Iranian prophet (long before there was a modern Iran) named Zarathustra, Zoroastrianism takes its name from the Greek form of the prophet’s name (Zoroaster). Nobody is certain of when Zarathustra lived. Estimates range from the fourteenth to the seventh centuries BCE. Situated when and where he was, however, Zarathustra managed to impact both Western and Eastern religious thought. What was then Persia fell between the cradles of western (Judeo-Christo-Islamic) and eastern (Indic) religions. Zoroastrian influence went in both directions.37 Zarathustra came up with a religion that has been described as both monotheistic and dualistic. The dualistic aspect caught on in early Judaism and influenced developing Christianity. In fact, much of the framework of the thought-world of the new Christ-followers of the first century CE was based on ideas that had originated in Persia. Why Persia? After the Persian Empire defeated the Babylonians (who had conquered Judah) the entire eastern Mediterranean world fell under Persia’s sway. The official religion of the Persian Empire was Zoroastrianism. In fact the “wise men” from Matthew’s Christmas story in the New Testament are called “magi”—Zoroastrians. Zoroastrian outlooks were dualistic. Dualism is simply the belief that there are two basic realities in conflict, one good and one evil. It can also refer to the human person as essentially two parts: body and soul. This body and soul concept comes more from the Greeks than the Zoroastrians, so we’re mainly looking at good and evil here. Judaism was mostly monotheistic by the time it came into contact with the Persian religion. It was also war-weary and trying to understand the evil that had happened to it. Remember, Israel had been under the rule of other empires before the Persians came along. Theology demands that you come up with some way to understand this. It was challenging to do so with a single deity. Either your god’s not very strong or not very good. Monotheism has trouble with evil. Zoroastrianism teaches that there is a supreme good god, Ahura Mazda. He is, however, beset by an evil, ignorant god of considerable strength, Angra Mainyu. These two are in constant conflict. Ahura Mazda created the world pure. Angra Mainyu polluted it. This struggle between good and evil led to the idea in Judaism that an adversary, the Satan, was a very real, very powerful foe.38 Almost as strong as Yahweh. You see where this is going—Judaism needed a Devil. Many people are surprised to learn that the Hebrew Bible doesn't mention “the Devil.” Not once. The reason? Simple: there was no such character then. The closest that the Old Testament comes to the Dark Lord is “the adversary,” or “Satan.” This title always, with one exception, occurs with the definite article—“the satan.”39 And he appears in only three books: Job, Zechariah, and 1 Chronicles.

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Zechariah and 1 Chronicles are late books—that is to say, they were written near the end of the Hebrew Bible’s composition. That is, after the Persians had taken over. Job may very well be a late book as well, but it has proven notoriously difficult to date, with no scholarly consensus. We’ll begin there. The story of Job is simple: a good man loses everything and yet neither blames God nor sins. The story is elaborately set up in a prologue. Yahweh is meeting with the divine council.40 Divine council? Yes, the book of Job is not monotheistic, which is one of the reasons it’s sometimes thought to be an early book. The divine council is the gathering of gods where the affairs of humankind are discussed. During a divine council meeting the satan appears. Yahweh asks what he’s been up to, and it turns out that he’s been doing his job—looking for sinners to accuse. The adversary is kind of like a prosecuting attorney; he isn’t evil. He makes accusations of wrongdoing before the deities.41 Yahweh provokes him: have you considered Job? Job lives a perfect life. The satan comes back at Yahweh—Job lives a perfect life because God protects him. Confident in Job’s steadfastness, Yahweh gives the satan permission to torment him. He takes away everything he has, including his children. He afflicts him with horrible diseases. Then Job speaks his mind to his friends and the satan falls out of the story. The adversary is not evil here. Like Sergeant Friday he’s only doing his job. He’s Job’s adversary and inflicts suffering on him, but the purpose is to show whether Job’s devoted to Yahweh or not. There’s no afterlife, so this isn’t an attempt to get Job to go to Hell. This is no Devil. Zechariah was a prophet late in the history of Judah. The kingdom of David had been destroyed by the Babylonians, the elites had been dragged into exile, and now were being permitted to return home by the Persians. Zechariah encouraged the people to accept Joshua as the high priest. (This isn’t the same Joshua who “fit the battle of Jericho.” Joshua was quite a common name. So common, in fact, that the New Testament son of Mary and Joseph would bear it. “Joshua” in Greek is “Jesus.”) As Zechariah advocates for Joshua, the satan accuses him of wrongdoing. Again, this isn’t evil. The divine adversary is simply doing his job. The final reference, in 1 Chronicles, is the only Hebrew Bible citation of “Satan” without the definite article, and may be intended as a name.42 Chronicles was a Persian-era book. Here King David is inspired by Satan to take a census of Israel. The interesting thing is, the same story is told in 2 Samuel, a much earlier book. In that account Yahweh inspires the census, not Satan. (What’s so wrong with a census anyway? Should you lock your door when the census taker comes? No. Nobody’s really sure what the problem was. A reasonable suggestion is that by counting his people David’s trusting

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in human rather than divine protection. It makes God really angry. Thousands die.) There is no Hebrew word for “Devil” and there is no anti-god in the Hebrew Bible. The book of Daniel, the very latest book of the Hebrew Bible, has the angel Michael square off against “the prince of Persia” (Daniel 10:13), but this supernatural being is not named as the Devil. He may have been a form of Angra Mainyu. By the time of the New Testament—the earliest books were written about two centuries after Daniel—we have a character named Satan who’s interchangeable with “the Devil.” This is similar, by the way, to using the words “God” and “Yahweh” to identify the same character. God is a title and Yahweh is a name. Likewise “Devil” is a title and now “Satan” has become a name. The Devil may also acquire other names as well—Lucifer, “the light-bearer,” for instance. Two centuries is a long time. Still, during that time between Daniel and Paul (the latest writer of the Hebrew Bible and the earliest writer of the New Testament), quite a lot was happening in the divine world. Many books, most of them not in the Bible, were written. Lots of them made reference to the diabolical realm.43 From the Christian point of view this complicates things. Christians believe in the inspiration of the Bible. Some, such as Roman Catholics, include the Apocrypha, but even beyond the Apocrypha there are lots of texts not in the Bible that reflect the developing New Testament ideas of who this Devil we’re talking about is. Not scripture, these texts nevertheless inform us about the world of evil. What are these books? There’s no uniform name for them. Sometimes they’re called Pseudepigrapha (“false writing,” or falsely attributed books). At other times they’re called the texts of early Judaism or documents of the Rabbinic Period. Still others refer to them as Second Temple Period texts. There are a lot of them. Some of these writings clearly reflect the thinking about the Devil in Judaism at the time, as we’ll see shortly. Zoroastrian influence continued. The latter also helped to develop the idea of Hell. HELL The movies, as we’ll see in following chapters, tell us that demons generally live in Hell. They want to escape, of course, but it’s their divinely decreed fate. Readers of the Bible are confronted with a strange paradox, however. The Good Book says surprisingly little about Hell.44 In fact, it’s not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible at all. The New Testament gives us glimpses, but no detailed typography that we might piece together like the Hades of classical Greek writers.45 It all depends on what happens when you die.

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Before heavy Persian and Greek influences on Judaism, views of the human experience of death were dull. Perhaps even miserable. Not exactly hellish, though.46 Remember that these are flat-earthers we’re talking about. Some ancients thought of the world as a globe, but most considered it as flat as it appears to be. Yes, there are hills and mountains, but overall the visual effect is that of a plane. Obviously it’s not endless because you come to some parts where all you can see is water. All land ends at some kind of water, and the part humans live on is generally flat. Remember, water is chaotic. Looking at that water, it’s roughly the same color as an unclouded sky. That makes sense, because it’s water up there too. The water is kept out by some kind of dome, or series of domes, in which the sun, moon, stars, and high gods live. This is simple observation. When someone dies, we bury them. Even finding the carcass of an animal killed by predators makes it clear that the body goes down into the earth eventually. So humans after death enter an underworld. All of this conforms to observation of the natural world. It’s a little lacking in theory, though. Nobody’s ever come back from this underworld so we can’t know exactly what it’s like. In the Bible and other ancient sources it’s described in a couple of ways: dry and dusty, or damp and dank. Both versions, of course, assume that it’s dark down there. From the bits and pieces of information we have, some believed the dead may require food, at least for a while. They are very sleepy, but their existence isn’t completely obliterated. As people who remembered the dead died off memories of them would’ve faded. Although strictly forbidden, the recent dead could, with great effort, be brought back into the world of the living, as the case of Samuel shows. The Hebrew Bible doesn’t say what demons are, but the dead played a role in the developing tradition. A number of Second Temple Jewish sources indicate that demons are the souls of dead human beings. Some Jewish beliefs existed that the evil dead become demons.47 They did not rest like the dead should. We have no hints in the Hebrew Bible that this underworld, called Sheol, was a place of torment. Nor was it populated with demons. The dead were there, and in some cultures also the guardians of the dead. The Mesopotamians, for instance, had a queen of the dead named Ereshkigal. The Hebrew Bible leaves such a role unfilled. Over time it will become Hell, the haunt of demons, presided over by the Devil. CONCLUSIONS The Hebrew Bible, and its surrounding cultures, then, leave us with hints of their worldview. It’s not a unified picture:

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Gods are the most powerful entities. There may or may not be other gods besides Yahweh. If there are, Yahweh is the strongest one. Between human beings and God there are intermediary supernatural beings—spirits and angels. Spirits come in many varieties. The dead, who go to Sheol, can be summoned back, at least for a while. That’s one kind of spirit. Although not in the Bible, some believed these spirits could become demons. God can send messages to people and they might be delivered by an angel. Fallen angels, also not in the Hebrew Bible, could become demons. Prophets are another kind of receiver for divine messages. Prophets tend to be good. The spirit of God can actually take over a person, like Samson. Supernatural beings can also be bad. The Hebrew Bible tends to call them “evil spirits.” They can oppress people, as in the case of Saul, but they don’t really possess them, as in The Exorcist. These evil spirits can be calmed by a kind of music therapy, but they don’t seem ever to be permanently banished. There’s no single word for “demon.” The words sometimes translated as “demon” are quite rare in the Hebrew Bible. Demons were nevertheless recognized in the earliest cultures. Written records from Mesopotamia show them already present, but not entirely evil. These demons can be expelled by exorcist priests, but “possession” as it’s currently understood didn’t really exist. The ancient Israelites, like their neighbors, recognized that the world was full of spirits. They may not have had a word for “demon” but they recognized that some spirits were malevolent. They helped to explain evil once monotheism emerged. Bad things happen to good people. Generally it’s because sin bears its own punishment; sinners reap the rewards of their bad behavior. When good people suffer, however, this equation can’t be solved. Early on in these cases other gods might be blamed. After monotheism these deities will be demoted to “spirits.” One of them is known as “the accuser” or “the adversary”—the Satan. He’s not evil. His job is to accuse those guilty of sin. Yahweh, however, can bait him. The only response when that happens is for God to declare humans incapable of understanding the divine viewpoint, at least according to the book of Job. There’s no judgment after death, at least until quite late. Good and bad both end up in a place called Sheol that’s described in vague terms. It’s not punishment; it’s simply a vague afterlife. A few exceptional people avoided it—Elijah, for one. Perhaps also Moses and Enoch. All of this changed with the influx of Zoroastrian ideas. After the influence of this Persian religion made itself felt, a kind of dualism developed. In addition to the powerful, good God, there was a powerful evil god. Their struggle against each other was real and of high stakes. There’s little doubt the good god will win, but until the final victory evil will be part of worldly existence. Judaism saw the wisdom in that. Evil beings

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would become demons in the employ of Satan. We’re not quite there yet, but as the next chapter shows, with a bit of nudging these ideas start to fall into place. When Christianity first kicked off there was a Devil and Hell and demons already established. Before the New Testament, however, there were other books in the tradition that demonstrate the development of these ideas. These are the apocryphal books of early Judaism. Let’s now turn to them and see how demons became nightmares.48 NOTES 1. Although written independently, before the publication of Ryan E. Stokes, The Satan: How God’s Executioner Became the Enemy (Eerdmans, 2019), much of the material covered here is addressed in his third chapter on demons. 2. Some useful resources on the pre-biblical materials are Konstantopoulos, “Deities, Demons, and Monsters” and Kitz, “Demons in the Hebrew Bible.” 3. Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary (University of Texas Press, 1992). 4. Konstantopoulos, “Deities, Demons, and Monsters.” 5. Russell, The Devil, focuses on this period. 6. A. Leo Oppenheim and Erica Reiner. Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (University of Chicago Press, 1977); Tammi J. Schneider, An Introduction to Ancient Mesopotamian Religion (Eerdmans, 2011). 7. Some basic sources on Mesopotamia and Sumer are Oppenheim and Reiner, Ancient Mesopotamia, Nicholas Postgate, Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History (Routledge, 1994); and Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (University of Chicago, 1971). 8. Black and Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols. 9. Johnston, Religions. 10. Nightmares are described in ancient literature from the Epic of Gilgamesh through the book of Job. See Scott B. Noegel, Nocturnal Ciphers: The Allusive Language of Dreams in the Ancient Near East (American Oriental Society, 2007). 11. See Armin Lange and Hermann Lichtenberger, eds., Die Dämonen: die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt = Demons: the Demonology of Israelite-Jewish and Early Christian Literature in Context of Their Environment (Mohr Siebeck, 2013) as background for much of the following. 12. Bernard J. Bamberger, Fallen Angels: Soldiers of Satan’s Realm (Jewish Publication Society, 2006) discusses Jewish concepts of demons. 13. The literature on this is massive. For a good introduction see Lowell K. Handy, Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy (Eisenbrauns, 1994); Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (Eerdmans, 2002).

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14. DDD; Ben-Amos, Dan. “On Demons” in Creation and Re-creation in Jewish Thought: Festschrift in Honor of Joseph Dan on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, eds. R. Elior and P. Schäfer (Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 27–38. 15. Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence (Brill, 2015). 16. The two words most commonly translated “demon” are shedim (spirits) and se’irim (he-goat). Neither term is equivalent to the Greek concept of daimon, which, in turn, is not the same as the modern concept of “demon.” 17. Bamberger, Fallen Angels; Archie T. Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6:1-4 in Early Jewish Literature (Fortress, 2015). 18. Peter D. Miscall, Isaiah 34-35: A Nightmare/A Dream (Sheffield Academic Press, 1999). 19. Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Wayne State University Press, 1990); Howard Schwartz, Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism (Oxford University Press, 2006). 20. For a discussion of ancient sex, from a slightly later period, see Alicia D. Myers, Blessed Among Women?: Mothers and Motherhood in the New Testament (Oxford University Press, 2017). 21. Michael Coogan, God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says (Twelve, 2011). 22. For night demons see David J. Hufford, The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989). 23. For satyrs, to start, see DDD. 24. Ben-Amos, “On Demons,” Kelly J. Murphy, “Azazel,” in Spirit Possession, 23–26. 25. Susan Niditch, “My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man”: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel (Oxford University Press, 2008). 26. Miscall, Isaiah 34-35. 27. Konstantopoulos, “Deities, Demons, and Monsters.” 28. Johannes C. de Moor, The Rise of Yahwism: The Roots of Israelite Monotheism (Peeters, 1997); Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford University Press, 2003). 29. William H. Stiebing, Out of the Desert?: Archaeology and the Exodus/ Conquest Narratives (Prometheus Books, 1989). 30. For the gods of the nations see Smith, Early History of God, and DDD. 31. Russell, Lucifer. 32. The story of Tiamat, from the Enuma Elish, can be found in Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford University Press, 2009), among many other sources. 33. Schneider, An Introduction. 34. Ugaritic (“Canaanite”) religion is summarized in any number of places but Smith, Early History of God, is a good place to start. For Leviathan see Koert van Bekkum, Jaap Dekker, Henk van de Kamp, and Eric Peels, eds., Playing with Leviathan: Interpretation and Reception of Monsters from the Biblical World (Brill, 2017).

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35. Russell, Lucifer. 36. James L. Crenshaw, Defending God: Biblical Responses to the Problem of Evil (Oxford University Press, 2005). 37. Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (Routledge, 2001) remains the standard source. 38. Stokes, The Satan. 39. Even this reconstruction has been seriously questioned; see Peggy L. Day, An Adversary in Heaven: Śāṭān in the Hebrew Bible (Scholars Press, 1988) and Stokes, The Satan. 40. E. Theodore Mullen, The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (Scholars Press, 1980). 41. For specifics on the Satan character in Job consult Day, An Adversary, and, although with an argument that he is an executioner, the recent treatment of Stokes, The Satan. 42. Stokes, The Satan, suggests otherwise. 43. Wright, The Origin; T. J. Wray and Gregory Mobley, The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil’s Biblical Roots (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 44. Hell is discussed extensively in Alan E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Cornell University Press, 1993), Hell and Its Rivals: Death and Retribution among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Early Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2017). Appropriate for movies, the American aspect specifically is considered by Kathryn Gin Lum, Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2014). 45. Bernstein, The Formation, and Hell, gives a great deal of information about Hell. 46. For information on the biblical underworld, Nicholas J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old Testament (Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969) is a classic. A more up-to-date exploration is Matthew J. Suriano, A History of Death in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2018). 47. Chajes, Between Worlds. 48. For the comparison with nightmares see Hufford, The Terror; and Ekirch, At Day’s Close.

Chapter 4

Developing Demons

Early Judaism reflects the inevitable blending that results from multiple foreign invasions. Ideas from conquering nations contributed to what Israel recognized as demons. The concept developed considerably in the Second Temple period—between about 535 BCE and 70 CE.1 There had been two major temples in Jerusalem; the first was built, according to 1 Kings, by Solomon. Solomon will eventually be closely associated with demons.2 His temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. A second temple was founded about a half-century later, and was elaborately refurbished by King Herod the Great. This temple lasted until 70 CE when it was destroyed by the Romans after one of the Jewish revolts. By that point, Christianity was underway. The many documents of Second Temple Judaism are undergoing a renaissance of scholarly interest.3 This chapter will be necessarily selective in the sources it considers as many period texts consider demons at various points. Since the focus in this book is broadly biblical, the main texts here appear in at least one canonical tradition, with one exception; Tobit is included in the Roman Catholic canon, and 1 Enoch and Jubilees are canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The Testament of Solomon, while not canonical, is included due to its importance, as well as its pseudepigraphical attribution to Solomon. Others have catalogued the many comparative resources here—the Dead Sea Scrolls, or magical papyri, for example, or Josephus—but in order to permit space for the modern lens of cinema, the focus here will necessarily be tight.4

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DEMONS AT THE CROSSROADS During this period when the second temple stood, Jewish writing flourished. Comparatively little of this material made its way into the Hebrew Bible. Two particular motifs hinted at in texts that would become the Bible contributed to ideas about demons: a war in the heavens, and angels marrying human women. The story is complex, but painted with broad strokes it goes something like this: Foreign influence, while not always welcome, was nevertheless fairly constant. The influx of ideas from other cultures clearly impacted ancient Israel as much as it did any other culture, ancient or modern. Zoroastrian thought had a wide appeal, and mixed with native Semitic thought and Greek ideas, it grew into what is now a familiar dualistic system of evil and good. Greek concepts of demons were distinctive and also influenced biblical thought. Since others have documented demons in Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, they will not be considered in detail here, although they are obviously important.5 The literature of early Judaism was composed under influence from both east and west. A remarkable amount of material survives from this time period. The non-canonical texts of early Jewish writers overlap with both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The American mindset sees the Bible as the book from this time period. Many have heard of the Apocrypha, but it isn’t widely read or quoted. On beyond the Apocrypha other apocryphal literature exists, some of it addressing demons. Generally these texts are attributed to people who didn’t write them—Enoch and Solomon, for example. Many of the documents were eventually lost and some have been recovered. Certainly other Second Temple writings that haven’t survived were composed.6 Although the Jewish canon wasn’t officially closed, many of these extra texts were preserved by Christians.7 Originally authored by Jewish writers, some of them were Christianized in the copying. As Judaism moved toward recognition of what would become their Bible, the Christian “Old Testament” circulated some additional books. Together with the Bible, these pieces reflect speculations about demons. Early Christianity took a great interest in unifying an official position on issues such as just who Jesus was and how he fit into the divine economy. Outlier ideas—so-called “heresies”—would became anathema. Extra-canonical books preserved some unorthodox ideas. As the groups that believed these ideas diminished, their supporting documents disappeared. The western Christian canon was considered closed by some at the Council of Rome (382 CE).8 This wasn’t a universally accepted council, so questions remained about whether certain books should be included in the Bible.

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This council included the texts that Protestants would later categorize as the Apocrypha. Over a millennium later Protestant leaders correctly noted that the apocryphal books, the Catholic deuterocanon, had never been part of the Jewish Bible. Reformers stripped these books, known only in Greek at the time, from their canon. Once the Enlightenment took hold in Europe, and travel to remote locations such as western Asia and northeast Africa became possible, scholars started to find copies of many books lost to Europeans such as Jubilees and the books of Enoch.9 Popular publications featuring “lost books of the Bible” began to appear in the nineteenth century, although most of the texts had never been part of the canon.10 The public was hungry for the untold story. These books weren’t in Scripture, but they were clearly related to it. Their very unorthodoxy was titillating. Angels having sex with women? War in heaven? Sects and violence in the ancient world were fascinating. Much of this extra-biblical literature obsessed over the unseen spiritual world. Among the more important esoteric documents are the books of Enoch. Enoch,11 as a character, captured the imagination because of the cryptic description of his “short” life in Genesis: “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (after only 365 years).12 Traditionally Enoch never died, and this gave his character all kinds of possibilities.13 Having been to the heavenly realms (after all, God “took him”) he became the basis for an extensive mythology including at least three “books of Enoch.” Angels abound in them. Angels were heavenly creatures, and the Good Book itself is frustratingly coy on who and what they are. Think of it this way: everyone in the biblical world knew what angels were. Why would they have to write a description of something so obvious? We, on the other hand, have a few millennia of accretions to that tradition, growing like a stalagmite out of touch with its stalactite. The books of Enoch—only one of which (1 Enoch) made it into a Bible (the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Bible)—address some of these questions extensively.14 They don’t tell us what angels are, but they do address questions such as where demons come from. We’ll look at 1 Enoch shortly. A word of caution here. Unlike numbered biblical books (1 and 2 Samuel or 1 and 2 Corinthians) the books of 1, 2, and 3 Enoch are not sequential. They are separate books—widely separated—that were later brought together because they feature this same mysterious Enoch. Even 1 Enoch consists of separate sources brought together. Ancient texts, unlike those of the medieval period, were not written as systematic theologies like the famous Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. They simply reflect the view of their individual authors. Those authors were closer to biblical times than we are, so presumably they understood its worldview somewhat better.

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For purposes of comparison, the book of Jubilees will be included in this discussion. Sometimes called “the little Genesis,” or Leptogenesis, Jubilees is a retelling of the canonical Genesis and part of Exodus. It’s also included in the Ethiopian Bible. Since the main discussion of 1 Enoch will focus on the Genesis 6 account of the sons of God and daughters of humans, Jubilees will provide a helpful perspective for comparison. Another book, this one among the Catholic deuterocanon, reflects the development of demons. As a book from the Hellenistic period with both an archangel and a demon, Tobit contributes to the larger mosaic that will emerge in Christianity. Much of the extra-biblical material addresses demons, and many of the sources have been surveyed by others. Not all of it will be covered here, but we will consider The Testament of Solomon. At some point, likely after the New Testament books were finished, The Testament of Solomon demonstrated how far David’s heir wandered into the realm of demons. It shows that a somewhat developed demonology was already emerging, especially in esoteric circles. The connection of demons with Solomon will continue into the Middle Ages and will contribute to some influential grimoires such as The Lesser Key of Solomon, as we’ll see in chapter 6. Demons are chaotic. The idea of “Scripture” gives them a kind of official sanction, but there’s no single voice saying “this is what demons are, really.” Although many of our ideas of demons may have evolved from these accounts, it’s important to remember that these texts may not be the sources of the ideas they present. In all likelihood written records mirror what was generally believed about demons at the time. Such beliefs need not be uniform, “orthodox,” or authoritative. Demons participate in folk belief as well as official religion.15 These texts attest to some of the ideas about demons current at the origin of Christianity. Their accounts, like their actions, are chaotic. Demons, the Devil, and Hell—these three related concepts will concern us as some forms of early Judaism become Christianity. If pop culture tells us anything, these three ideas are closely interrelated. They slowly converged to create a medieval model of sovereign, servants, and kingdom. Early Christian writers borrowed freely from the Hebrew Bible, early Jewish writings such as Jubilees, 1 Enoch, Tobit, and other texts. As we’ll see in the next chapter, the New Testament reflects diverse views about this world. But first, let’s head to Ecbatana. TOBIT Demons dwell in spaces that are in-between. “Interstices,” as scholars call these spaces. The Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal books are in-between

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spaces. In the Roman Catholic canon but not in “the Bible” known by most Protestants, these books may have been originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, but they were preserved in Greek. The Reformers, rightly noting that the rest of the “Old Testament” was also recognized by Jews, questioned whether these books belonged in the canon. After the Protestant leaders declared they were leaving them out the Council of Trent in 1546 declared them definitively in for Catholics. The Bible isn’t a simple document. For purposes of western Christianity there are two basic biblical canons: those with and those without the Apocrypha. The deuterocanon (“second canon”) includes two books that are usually categorized as novellas, or short fictions: Judith and Tobit.16 Although not factual, Tobit involves both an angel and a named demon.17 The story goes like this: Sarah, a faithful Jew in the Persian Empire, is a man-eater. Married seven times, she’s still a virgin. The demon Asmodeus18 kills her husbands on their wedding nights, and now nobody, understandably, wants to marry her. Meanwhile Tobit sends his son Tobias on an unrelated mission to retrieve some money for which he will pass through Ecbatana, Sarah’s town. Raphael meets the boy but doesn’t reveal that he’s an angel. On the way to Media he instructs Tobias how to defeat the demon. Being Sarah’s nearest surviving kinsman, Tobias claims her for his bride. Following Raphael’s instructions he banishes Asmodeus from the bridal chamber. Although this story’s brief and Asmodeus is a minor character, there’s a lot going on here, much of it familiar from folklore.19 Tobias doesn’t recognize Raphael as angel, but when the latter reveals himself he states that he’s one of the seven angels who enters God’s presence. This reflects the beginnings of the seven archangel tradition. Tobit is also the earliest known mention of Asmodeus in a written source. Asmodeus is apparently a Zoroastrian demon.20 His name derives from either the Persian word “wrathful” or perhaps the Hebrew word for “destroyer.” Either term works to describe his deeds here. Also noteworthy is that he is consistently cited as the “wicked demon” Asmodeus in the Greek of Tobit. Remember, “demon” by itself doesn’t imply evil yet, so the noun has to be qualified. The story suggests that Asmodeus is in love with Sarah. This reflection of Poe’s observation will reappear in cinema. Recall that Poe suggested threats to beautiful women were poetic; a demon actually in love illustrates that quite well. The text also reveals something about banishing evil demons. On their journey, Tobias is attacked by a fish that Raphael instructs him to catch. The angel has the boy remove the heart and liver (and gall, for healing blindness) for medicinal purposes. Burned in a room, the fish heart and liver expel the demon. Raphael explains the rank smoke banishes a demon or evil spirit.

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Ironically, demons will eventually come to be recognized, in part, by their own horrible scent. Again, demons aren’t purely evil yet. Other period writers, such as Josephus, share the idea that demons may be good or bad.21 The entity in Tobit doesn’t possess as much as “oppress” the girl (in the modern terminology of demonic activity). Of course, for Sarah’s husbands this is fatal. On their wedding night, Tobias burns the fish innards and the demon flees to the remotest part of Egypt. The text specifies where the demon goes, and it’s in keeping with the idea that a demon’s natural location is the wilderness—away from human habitation. Asmodeus doesn’t move to any of Egypt’s great cities, but to its remotest parts—the desert. There he apparently maintains an afterlife in rabbinic tradition where the king of demons is named Ashmedai.22 This desert location of demons may be pointing to the earliest traditions about them. Like the Mesopotamian demons, they are personified forms of what we might call “the laws of nature.” Not evil, they are savage and cruel in human eyes and they reign where civilization hasn’t taken hold. To borrow from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, nature “red in tooth and claw”23 is demonic. It can be mythologized in many ways. There’s no doubt that the Deuterocanonical books date from the Persian or later periods. Zoroastrianism, as we’ve seen, had a significant impact throughout this era. A wrathful demon, Asmodeus represents those who choose the path of Angra Mainyu over that of Ahura Mazda. He becomes one of the main evil beings of the divine world. Significantly, in Tobit he’s in Ecbatana. The demon is in Zoroastrian territory. Later Asmodeus will become a regular fixture in folklore, but here he stands as a rare instance of a named demon in the canon of the largest Christian denomination’s Bible. Asmodeus functions as a torment to a righteous Jew. The text doesn’t specify that Sarah has done anything to attract him. This is also one of the early instances of demons oppressing women, perhaps because the demon is in love. The entity haunts Sarah’s bedroom specifically targeting her grooms. Another folkloric tradition, this story sheds some light on how demons can be used to explain misfortune as well as nuptial anxieties. The tale also raises the issue of gender bias. Although she has nothing to do with it, Sarah is blamed for the death of her husbands. In the ideology of the time, wives were possessions of their husbands but this one’s been claimed, but not possessed, by Asmodeus. Remember Edgar Allan Poe’s assertion about beautiful women. While Sarah doesn’t die here, Poe’s thesis clearly adapts—the story is poetic. We’ll see example after example of how his observation plays out in accounts of demonic possession, although Poe himself seldom wrote of demons. Consider the poignancy of another deuterocanonical tale, the story of Susanna. When she won’t give herself to the lecherous but respectable men of Babylon, they

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accuse Susanna of adultery and sentence her to death. This idea retains the “poetical” pathos we see in stories of demons. In modern horror, the favorite victims of demons are young females. Sarah’s a victim. She’s not so much rescued by Tobias as she is by an angel. And angels will play a major role in the origin of demons that we’ll encounter in 1 Enoch and Jubilees. THE WATCHERS: 1 ENOCH AND JUBILEES Genesis is perhaps the most influential book of the Hebrew Bible for American culture. Many of the hot-button political issues into which the Bible is drawn have historically been based on the early chapters of this book. Both 1 Enoch and Jubilees revisit that territory. And they’re big books. Consisting of 108 chapters, 1 Enoch is comprised of five booklets, or sections. These sections, historically, come from different authors at different times.24 What brought them all together was the spurious tradition that they were written by heaven-traveling Enoch.25 In ancient times it was considered perfectly fair to claim to be someone you weren’t in order to give your “book” credibility. It even happens in the Bible itself. Although 1 Enoch failed to attain scriptural status in the west and lost the interest of many early Christians, the traditions it reflects thrived. The book itself survived, but was barely known—it was virtually forgotten in western Christianity. It was rediscovered in the 1800s after being out of the European consciousness for over a millennium. What this means is that medieval demonologies were largely written without the benefit of this text, but the ideas it had represented clearly continued to grow even after the book itself was forgotten. In fact, demons are among the spiritual entities that have proven to be most adaptable to widely differing traditions and newly developed outlooks. The section of 1 Enoch that deals most directly with demons is The Book of the Watchers or the first thirty-six chapters of the book. Much of this booklet goes back to ancient traditions surrounding the early parts of Genesis, particularly up through the flood story (Genesis 6–9). The broad sweep, according to the Good Book, goes like this: God creates the world, including human beings. Adam and Eve disobey and are thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Their first son Cain murders their second son Abel. Cain marries, Adam and Eve have another replacement son, Seth. The population explodes. The sons of the gods interbreed with the daughters of humans. The wickedness of humanity is so bad that God sends a flood to kill everyone except Noah and his family, who survive by building an ark. Ancient readers found the traditions behind this early part of Genesis irresistible. What’s going on with the sons of God and daughters of humans episode? These “sons of God” came to be called “Watchers.”26

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Watchers are, like Hellraiser’s cenobites, “Angels to some, and demons to others.”27 Also known as Grigori, they become one of the choirs of angels. As the bringers of forbidden secrets to humans, they function almost like Prometheus in Greek myth. As angels lusting after human women they become the fathers of giants and/or demons. One of the origin stories of demons is that they are the children of these fallen angels.28 Remember, there is no single origin myth of demons in the biblical world. 1 Enoch introduces the Watchers after an opening parable. The account is similar to Genesis, but with a lot more detail. The number of Watchers who decide to sleep with human women is 200. The names of twenty of them are given. (The Good Book, by comparison, doesn’t name any names.) These Watchers swear an oath to do this deed together so no single one can be blamed, and 1 Enoch makes explicit what Genesis only implies: the giants are the children of these unions. And what giants they are! Voracious, they steal and eat the food of humans. Then they eat humans. And all kinds of animals, including the unclean sorts like reptiles, along with their blood. These giants then eat each other. Azazel29 (not one of the original Watchers, so presumably one of their offspring) teaches humans metallurgy and how to fight each other in wars. (If this sounds familiar you may have seen the 2014 movie Noah, which draws from this version of the story.) Yahweh has the archangel Uriel warn Noah to hide away from the evil of the age. Raphael is sent to bind Azazel, imprison him in the desert, and heal the earth. There’s a lot going on here, so we need to stop a moment and sort it out. First of all, Azazel30 is known from the book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible. The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur—the holiest day of the year— had an elaborate ritual spelled out for removing the sin of the nation.31 One part of that ritual is confessing national sins over a goat that is then driven out in the wilderness for Azazel; this is the famed “scapegoat.” The Good Book never says who or what Azazel is. Presumably the original readers already knew, so no explanation was necessary. It’s been conjectured that Azazel was a kind of goat demon that lived in the desert. 1 Enoch, compiled a few centuries after Leviticus, may be presenting a version of this backstory. Of course, it reflects the views of its own time period, but it gives some idea who Azazel might’ve been. A demonic child of Watcher and woman. Even in 1 Enoch, however, that isn’t laid out clearly. Note that “demons” like Azazel are “bound” by angels. This binding language remains in use in some modern exorcism traditions. What about Uriel and Raphael? These two angels aren’t in the Protestant Bible, but Raphael appears in Tobit as a healing angel. His name goes back to an ancient Canaanite god, Resheph, who was a north Syrian deity of healing.32 This complex god was associated with war, plague, and the afterlife as well. The one who inflicted suffering could also heal it. Raphael seems

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to have retained this salubrious nature. Uriel is biblical only in the Ethiopic canon, and he is also mentioned in 2 Esdras. He often becomes one of the seven archangels along with Raphael.33 Back to 1 Enoch. Gabriel complains to Yahweh about the Watchers and Michael is sent to bind Semjaza—their leader—and the rest for seventy generations. They will then be judged and sentenced to the abyss of fire. Both Michael and Gabriel appear in the book of Daniel. Michael is the warrior angel who battles the prince of Persia—later sometimes interpreted as the Devil. The binding for a period of time is reflected in Revelation (20:2) also, where Satan is entrapped for a millennium before being released again for a short time. The earth, in any case, according to Enoch, requires cleansing. Enoch, who has been witnessing this, pleads the case of the Watchers to God, who refuses to give them a reprieve. This comes in a dream-vision, common for this kind of apocalyptic literature.34 In the course of his explanation to Enoch, Yahweh declares that these giants, the sons of Watchers and women, will become evil spirits. Remember, the word “demon” only came in common usage to describe such evil spirits around this time period. These once spiritual beings—and the text clearly wrestles with this flesh-versusspirit issue—are sent out where they will torment human beings. Taken on a tour of the wider universe, Enoch is shown the utterly barren wilderness where demons are locked away. Already in the Hebrew Bible we’ve seen evidence that the desert was the original haunt of evil spirits. Betraying Greek influence, Uriel tells Enoch that the women who mated with fallen angels will become sirens.35 Sirens, of course, tempt Odysseus on his famous odyssey home from the battle of Troy.36 The Book of the Watchers ends with an extended tour of the ends of the earth. Notice that while the account spends considerable time with the Watchers and giants, it isn’t explicit about demons. It reflects the idea that demons are children of illicit unions, or the souls of giants when they die. They tend to oppress women, something that will become more or less standard in horror films, as Poe anticipated. Similar ideas occur in other sources from the Second Temple period. The Book of Jubilees,37 also based on Genesis (and the first chapters of Exodus), shows an interest in demons from the beginning. Demons are mentioned in the context of God’s warning of human sinfulness and Beliar is named as the enemy of God in a few places. The intervention of the Watchers—for the good of humankind in this rendition—comes just before the birth of Enoch, who has already attained high status as the inventor of writing and the one who witnesses against the Watchers. In their first mention they are sent to teach humanity what everyone needs to know. Angels notice the beauty of human women and marry them. Their offspring are giants, so God orders that the errant angels be bound in the earth until judgment day.

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After the flood Noah warns his sons that demons have begun to tempt them to live in inappropriate ways. Temptation is the main role of demons, or spirits, in Jubilees. Their prince is Mastema, who’s sometimes equated with Satan, but this association isn’t explicit.38 Noah prays for his sons and binds all but a tenth of Mastema’s demons. They are children of the Watchers, as reflected in 1 Enoch. Unlike Genesis, Jubilees makes frequent mention of these spirits. Their goal is to lead people to worship idols or otherwise lead them into sin. Interestingly, when God commissions circumcision for Abraham he mentions that all other nations have spirits over them to lead them astray and these spirits are sent by God. Indeed, demons attack Noah’s descendants (Jubilees 10)—anticipating their role in later tradition. Mastema appears in this retelling of the binding of Isaac; it’s his idea to have God command the sacrifice. Clearly the demon exculpates God here.39 Mastema is the tempter to evil, but at the same time Satan is mentioned at several points as well, as a personification of evil. There is evidence of the interchangeability of idols and demons (Jubilees 22:17). In places where the justice of God might be called into question, Mastema serves as a surrogate. Mastema attacks Moses on his way to Egypt. This prince of demons gave the Egyptian magicians their powers to imitate Moses’s miracles. Mastema also killed the firstborn of Egypt. He has to be bound to prevent evil while Israel crosses the Red Sea. In these capacities he functions as a figure subtly metamorphosing into both the later Devil and the demons. He does the dirty work for God, and like demons, can be bound to restrain the chaos and evil he unleashes. Jubilees and 1 Enoch reveal an advancing demonology that makes sense of some difficult passages in Genesis and Exodus. They often do so by introducing figures who will later possess people in order to bring evil and chaos down to the scale of individuals. Demons are much more active in the Pseudepigrapha than in the Hebrew Bible, indicating an increasing interest in dark spiritual forces. They are not, however, organized systematically. Similar beliefs seem to have been held at Qumran; many copies of 1 Enoch and Jubilees were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Scrolls attest a lively interest in the realm of supernatural beings.40 Recall that Qumran was on the very edge of the wilderness, the natural environment of demons. Josephus and Philo of Alexandria also have much to say about them. Care must be taken not to assume that our framing of ancient thought reflects ancient religion. For example, it would seem natural enough to ask if Azazel, Beliar, Mastema, and Satan are “the same character.” Such a question takes a modern idea of one Devil and applies it to people who may have been comfortable with conflicting outlooks about these characters. Generalizing their understanding leads to distortion. Chaos is the realm of demons.

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Other apocryphal and Second Temple era books preserve parts of these legends also, but we now have a basic idea of the backstory of New Testament demons, as well as the Devil. One more ancient text, in no one’s canon, takes this to an all new level. TESTAMENT OF SOLOMON One post-biblical source also fits into this chapter due to its influence over developing ideas of demons and its use of a biblical protagonist. The Testament of Solomon is clearly influenced by esoteric sources, but may have been written as early as the first century CE or as late as the third. The author is unknown.41 It’s not in anybody’s Bible. As an ancient text, however, it reflects a lively interest in classifying—and more importantly, controlling— demons. Exorcism is a form of such control. Set up as a first-person account of King David’s son, the Testament states that God provided Solomon with a ring (later a key) to control demons. The narrative purpose of this is Solomon’s use of them, ironically, to build the temple in Jerusalem. This unusual document is a series of episodes where Solomon traps demons and asks them who they are, what they fear, and what they control. He then puts them to work. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a developing demonology. The main importance for this study is that it provides the names and descriptions of many demons that will reappear in pop culture. It also makes it very clear that demons are monsters; when their physical appearance is provided it corresponds to later medieval monsters or something from the imagination of Hieronymus Bosch. Solomon had clearly been courting a connection with demons, in this tradition. This will continue into the medieval period where one of the most famous grimoires will be known under the title The Lesser Key of Solomon. It too will seek magical control over demons. CONCLUSIONS Second Temple literature is vast in extent, and has been increasingly studied for the light it sheds on biblical beliefs. Space constrains the amount of material we can consider here—we haven’t touched Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, or the Dead Sea Scrolls—but other scholars have mined, and continue to mine, the many sources on demons from this time period. Sticking to those that are in some sense biblical, we can glimpse the general trends. Demons are now becoming personalities. In the sources examined here one backstory is the episode reflected in the first four verses of Genesis

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6—the sons of the gods event. The Bible reveals little, but the tradition of the Watchers grew into an elaborate mythology. Angels were tempted by women. Although Tobit doesn’t cite this backstory, Asmodeus appears to be in love with Sarah. In I Enoch and Jubilees Watchers and woman intermarry and their children may be giants or demons or both. It will take some time before Poe’s empathy with the female victim emerges, but it has its start here. This forbidden mixing of kinds brings forth evil. Many demonic names appear, narrated with the confidence of backstories that we simply don’t possess. This is a puzzle with many missing pieces. In sources we can’t examine in detail here, such as the writings of Josephus, another origin myth is developing. Demons may be the souls of evil humans. There’s nothing angelic about them. They will continue in the background of the media until the movie The Possession, where the dybbuk will once again come to public consciousness. Otherwise, the developments in pseudepigraphal literature contribute to the story of fallen angels and their offspring, making them distinct characters. It’s a faulty use of a modern lens to suggest all the “main demons” are “the Devil.” This equation isn’t made in the material we have, and we shouldn’t read it back into ancient sources. The Testament of Solomon isn’t in the Bible, but Solomon is. This king become associated with esoteric knowledge which came, perhaps as early as the time of the New Testament, to include the occult. Testament includes a sophisticated demonology with Solomon able to control these monsters through a miraculous seal-ring. Hidden from biblical eyes, this connection will grow into the influential medieval grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon.42 Utilizing these two sources the writers and directors of movies will have a list of “authentic” demonic names from which to draw. We will see many of them in the chapters looking at movies. Before we go to the cinema, however, we must consider Solomon’s heir who doesn’t require a ring to expel demons. The traditions about Jesus develop alongside those of the Testament of Solomon, creating separate tracks along which beliefs about demons might run. We don’t have the luxury of tracing those trails in detail, but by the medieval period some of the pseudepigraphal literature will have been lost, and some of it transmuted into goetic grimoires that were intended to control demons. Catholic Christianity, at the same time, was developing rituals to exorcise demons. Their efforts may be traced back to a monster-hunter from the town of Nazareth. NOTES 1. The work of Loren T. Stuckenbruck (for convenience see Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts (Eerdmans, 2017)) and Annette Y. Reed (likewise, conveniently,

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Annette Y. Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2005)) stand behind much of the material for this period. Both have written extensively and authoritatively on it. Instead of citing them in practically every paragraph, I note them here. 2. Steven Weitzman, Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom (Yale University Press, 2011). 3. Graham H. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist: A Contribution to the Study of the Historical Jesus (Wipf & Stock, 2010), Christ Triumphant: Exorcism Then and Now (Hodder and Stoughton, 1985); In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among Early Christians (Baker Academic, 2007); Reed, Fallen Angels; Wright, The Origin; Stuckenbruck, The Myth; Stokes, The Satan, and many others. 4. James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 volumes, Yale University Press, 1983, 1985); Susan Docherty, The Jewish Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction to the Literature of the Second Temple Period (Fortress, 2015); Alexander Kulik, Gabriele Boccaccini, Lorenzo DiTommaso, David Hamidovic, and Michael E. Stone, eds., A Guide to Early Jewish Texts and Traditions in Christian Transmission (Oxford University Press, 2019) for starters. 5. Twelftree, Christ Triumphant; Reed, Fallen Angels; Bamberger, Fallen Angels; Lange and Lichtenberger, Die Dämonen; Angela Kim Harkins, Kelly Coblentz Bautch, and John C. Endres, S. J., eds., The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Tradition (Fortress, 2014), Rebecca Lesses, “Supernatural Beings,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, second ed., Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler eds. (Oxford University Press, 2017): 682–688, Stuckenbruck, The Myth. 6. See, for example, Kulik, et al., A Guide. 7. Kulik, et al., A Guide, Klawans Jonathan and Lawrence M. Wills, eds., The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha (Oxford University Press, 2020). 8. Lee Martin McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Abingdon, 1988); Geoffrey Mark Hahneman, The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon (Oxford University Press, 1992). 9. Accounts of travel to west Asia can be found in Kuklick, et al., A Guide, and Janet Soskice, The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels (Vintage, 2010). 10. For example, The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden (World Bible Publishers, Inc., 1926, 1927). 11. James C. VanderKam, Enoch: A Man for All Generations (University of South Carolina Press, 1995). 12. Genesis 5:24, KJV. 13. VanderKam, Enoch. 14. See Bamberger, Fallen Angels, for why Enoch failed to engage the rabbinic imagination. 15. For demons in folklore see Ellis, Raising the Devil. 16. Lawrence M. Wills, Ancient Jewish Novels: An Anthology (Oxford University Press, 2002). 17. For Tobit an early but trustworthy source remains Bruce M. Metzger, An Introduction to the Apocrypha (Oxford University Press, 1957). More recent and focusing on the literary aspect of the book is Wills, Ancient Jewish Novels.

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18. For Asmodeus, DDD is a good place to start. See also Wright, The Origin. See also Klawans and Wills, Jewish Annotated Apocrypha. 19. For the folkloric aspect note again, Ellis, Raising the Devil. 20. DDD. 21. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist; Wright, The Origin. 22. Bamberger, Fallen Angels. 23. “In Memoriam A.H.H.,” first published in 1849. 24. E. Isaac, “1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of). Enoch” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, James H. Charlesworth, ed., Vol. 1 (Yale University Press, 1983): 5–89. 25. VanderKam, Enoch. 26. See Stuckenbruck, The Myth; Reed, Fallen Angels; Harkins, Coblentz Bautch, and Endres, The Watchers; Wright, The Origin. 27. Pinhead, Hellraiser. 28. Bamberger, Fallen Angels. 29. J. E. Hanauer, Folk-lore of the Holy Land, Moslem, Christian and Jewish, ed., Marmaduke Pickthall (Duckworth & Co., 1907); DDD. 30. DDD, Murphy, “Azazel,” Wright, The Origin. For a different point of view see Judit M. Blair, De-Demonising the Old Testament: An Investigation of Azazel, Lilith, Deber, Qeteb and Reshef in the Hebrew Bible (Mohr Siebeck, 2009). 31. For the Day of Atonement see Thomas Hieke and Tobias Nicklas, eds., The Day of Atonement: Its Interpretations in Early Jewish and Christian Traditions (Brill, 2011). 32. Edward Lipiński, Resheph: A Syro-Canaanite Deity (Peeters, 2009), differing on his demonic status, Blair, De-Demonising. 33. Gustav Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels (The Free Press, 1971). If Davidson is too dated, more up-to-date and controversial views can be found in the many books by Margaret Barker. 34. John J. Collins, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature (Oxford University Press, 2014). 35. For sirens see Robert L. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography, Volume 2: Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2013). 36. Barry B. Powell, The Odyssey (Oxford University Press, 2014). 37. Orval S. Wintermute, “Jubilees,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, Vol. 2 (Yale University Press, 1985): 35–142, Stokes, The Satan; and Matthew Goff, “Jubilees,” in Klawans and Wills, Jewish Annotated Apocrypha. 38. DDD, Stuckenbruck, The Myth. 39. Goff, “Jubilees.” 40. Geza Vermes, The Story of the Scrolls: The Miraculous Discovery and True Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Penguin, 2010). For these themes at Qumran see VanderKam, Enoch, and Wright, The Origin. Also treated extensively in Stokes, The Satan, chapters 7 and 8. See also Hanne von Weissenberg, “God(s), Angels and Demons in the Dead Sea Scrolls” (unpublished paper, 2011). 41. D. C. Duling, “The Testament of Solomon,” Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth, Vol. 1 (Yale University Press, 1983): 935–987. 42. Grimoires were books written for magical purposes. See chapter 6 below.

Chapter 5

New Testament Demons, the Devil, and Hell

Jesus came to fame partly because of his renown at driving out demons. Some analysts claim he wasn’t really an exorcist since he didn’t rely on any ritual or formula to cast out demons.1 As a divine being himself, the claim goes, his was a special case. Despite this technicality, his dealings with demons as reflected in the gospels tell us quite a bit about how this idea has developed.2 The New Testament world was indeed a demon-haunted place. The English word “demon” derives from the Greek word daimon. Although monotheism was basically a Semitic invention, many thinkers from a variety of traditions had come to the conclusion that an essential unity comprised the divine world. For some Greeks, for example, Zeus could be called God “with a capital theta.” Apart from the Olympians (some of whom shifted over time) there were other powerful beings. Although there were a multitude of deities, true authority derived only from a single ultimate authority.3 But still, there were other gods. Even with monotheism the divine world remained complex.4 Divine power was measured against human frailty. We’re prone to disease. If not for our brains we’d have trouble outpacing our predators. We have little in the way of natural armor or weaponry. Supernatural entities, however, didn’t share these deficiencies. They might exhibit human personality weaknesses, but not the physical limitations we face. Moreover, our society mirrored theirs. A king ruled. Under him other divinities had specialized roles and great power. Under them, lesser gods and spirits abounded, all more powerful than humans. Among these lesser supernaturals were nature spirits. In some sense they were responsible for the essence of things in the world. What makes a freshwater spring so inviting? Or a tree so desirable? Or fire both necessary and dangerous? Such lesser entities were daimones or demons.5 These demons weren’t evil. In fact, they were generally good. They were what came to be known as “elementals”—the elements of nature itself. In 67

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Philip Pullman’s Dark Material trilogy, as reflected in The Golden Compass movie, this conceptualization is used.6 The characters each have an animal essence called a daimon. Although they can change form, these daimons reflect the character of their owners. The etymology of the word derives from a root indicating “divinity.”7 They’re not evil. This is the classical understanding. The journey from good godlets to evil tormentors came about via a blending of concepts. Monotheism still allows for other divine beings, but lesser ones than the single God. Some of those lesser beings may be evil. In the case of Christian monotheism, gods from other cultures were sometimes considered real and relabeled as evil. Pagan deities could amount to nothing good. Demoted and literally demonized, they could become evil spirits. Another dynamic at work here was that early Christians lived in a Greek-speaking world. When they needed an equivalent term for evil spirits they borrowed the Greek world for elemental spirits, daimon. Since the spirits that Christians used this word to describe were already considered evil (that is, not “God”), the word took on a new connotation. The gospels continued to use phrases in keeping with their Hebrew usage—unclean spirit, for example—to describe such entities. The beings were personalized by this practice, but the borrowing of a new term led to a conflation of distantly related concepts. To the Greeks a daimon wasn’t evil. To a Christian it was, and for the specific reason that it now referred to an unclean spirit that was tormenting a human being. It is from this usage, preserved in the New Testament, that demons evolved in Christian belief. Exorcism scenes display an inherent theatricality whenever they’re narrated in any detail,8 demonstrating the superiority of the Christian over the pagan perspective. SYNOPTIC SURVEY By the time of the New Testament, demons had become much more personal. These demons can invade a body and take it over. It should be noted that ancient people recognized mental illness—not in the fine detail that modern medicine does, but they realized some people couldn’t function in society.9 This wasn’t the same as demonic possession, although possession might cause it. In fact, claiming someone “has a demon” seems to have been a colloquial expression like we might use to exclaim someone “is crazy.” Since the symptoms of possession resemble some aspects of epilepsy it has been suggested that this disease explains the phenomenon. Other pathologies have also been blamed. In the gospels, however, there’s more going on. According to Mark, the earliest gospel, Jesus’s first miracle was an exorcism (1:21–28). Detailed stories of exorcisms in the New Testament aren’t especially

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plentiful, but they aren’t uncommon in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). In Mark exorcism is Jesus’s most common type of miracle.10 The fourth gospel, John, stands out in many ways, one being that it has no exorcism accounts. Among the Synoptic Gospels exorcism and generic healing are sometimes referenced together, indicating that although demons were understood as agents of misfortune they could also be used generically to refer to sickness. The offending entities are called both evil spirits and demons. Possession was common enough that it wasn’t cause for surprise in the world of the Synoptics. Surveys of gospel exorcism accounts may be found in other sources,11 so briefly, here we’ll consider the demons as characters. To do this three major exorcism stories will be explored: the Garasene/Gadarene demoniac, the epileptic boy, and the blind and/or mute demon that leads to accusations of Beelzebub. We’ll treat them in reverse order. The story of the mute/blind demon that leads leaders to accuse Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebub is unusual in that it appears four times in three gospels (Matthew has two versions, in chapters 10 and 12; the accusation is also made in Mark 3 and Luke 11). The story is fairly simple: Jesus heals a mute/blind man who then speaks. The scribes, Pharisees, or leaders, accuse Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul, a name associated with demons. This prompts Jesus to utter his famous “house divided” saying. Beelzebul used to be considered an error for “Beelzebub.”12 The former had no known correlation while the latter meant “lord of the flies.” The latter also occurred in the Hebrew Bible (2 Kings 1). After a cache of clay tablets was discovered in northern Syria beginning in the 1920s, one of the titles of Hadad, “the thunder god,” was discovered to be “prince lord” or Baal Zebul. Now it could be understood that Beelzebub was likely an attempt at mocking Hadad (also known simply as Baal, or “Lord”). Both Beelzebul and Beelzebub remained names in circulation; they referenced one of the main Canaanite gods, not a spirit in charge of flies. In response to the accusation that he uses Beelzebul, Jesus substitutes the name “Satan” for it. In doing so, this character is wrapped up into a single package—Satan in this instance is Beelzebul/Beelzebub. The connection of demons with flies, however, will live on in cinema.13 Mark’s version of this story has the crowd say of Jesus, “he is beside himself” (3:21). The Greek root here gives us our word for “ecstasy,” but it’s also an accusation of being possessed, as the passage makes clear. This hints at what it means to be possessed—one is not oneself. Luke’s version adds that Jesus does this by “the finger of God” (11:20). The only one who can beat a strong man is a stronger one, which casts Jesus as a monster-hunter. We’re given a view of demons on a continuum toward God—strong, supernatural beings with an established hierarchy.

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Both Matthew and Luke note the consequences of exorcisms in this account. Jesus says that an expelled demon wanders dry places—recall that demons were associated with the desert in ancient Judaism—looking for a place to go. Demons aren’t cast out into Hell. In an anthropomorphic touch, the demon, finding no place to rest, gathers seven of his friends and finds the dispossessed swept clean, and all eight of them move in. This is a rare biblical glimpse into the mind of the demon. There’s an element of theatricality here: unwilling demons are cast out in small, dramatic battles by an even stronger being. This monster-hunting aspect of exorcism will reappear in The Exorcist and its cohort. And note that the victim here is male. The second major encounter is that of an epileptic boy (Mark 9, Luke 9, Matthew 17).14 Coming down from the mountain where the transfiguration took place, Jesus finds a large crowd arguing with religious officials about a boy who has an unclean spirit. The disciples can’t exorcise it. The boy’s father tells Jesus the spirit makes the boy mute, dashes him to the ground, makes him foam at the mouth, grind his teeth, convulse, and turn rigid. This sounds like a classic description of epilepsy, and this is the account that fueled that explanation for possession.15 Modern translations often use the word “epilepsy” explicitly. The father notes that his son’s been this way since childhood and sometimes falls into water or fire, unable to control himself. When Jesus addresses the spirit (without asking for or using a name) the child convulses so violently that the spectators think it’s killed him. He revives, however, and Jesus explains to his disciples that “this kind” is difficult to expel. Mark has the father say that the spirit throws his son into the fire or water specifically to destroy him—thus showing intention on the part of said spirit. Epilepsy was known as a disease in this region at this time, but Matthew actually says the boy is “moonstruck” (17:15). Older English translations use the politically incorrect—but accurate—“lunatic.”16 Remember that demons are used to explain illnesses. As modern readers we think the boy’s problem is simply epilepsy. According to Matthew he’s fallen under the baleful influence of moon and demon. The sun and moon occupy a realm of the upside-down bowl of the sky below God’s heaven from the New Testament’s perspective. In the ancient world the sun and moon were considered deities. The moon, in some cultures, could strike you mad.17 Matthew shows that this view was shared by at least some in the biblical world. The demon, in other words, seems to have been an explanation for lunacy. Luke also presents a short version of this account naming the cause as both a spirit and a demon. The dramatic contortions of modern exorcism accounts seem to have their roots in this particular episode. It’s the only gospel narrative with violent convulsions and rigidity as signs of possession. It’s also the only one to suggest different kinds of demons. What exactly Jesus meant by the phrase “this

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kind” hangs in the air unanswered. Are they demons mediated by exposure to the moon? Epileptics? We can only speculate. Some demons are more difficult to exorcise than others. The exorcism itself is simple. Jesus rebukes the spirit and, after convulsing the boy, it leaves. No dialogue takes place with the demon. The gathered crowd already hints at the theatricality of the event.18 The just transfigured Jesus casts out a lunatic demon with a single sentence. This victim is also male. The most dramatic, and detailed, of New Testament exorcisms is that of the Garasene demoniac. This account occurs in all three Synoptics (Mark 5, Matthew 8, Luke 8), and is also called the Gadarene demoniac story.19 We’ll follow Mark to start. After stilling the storm on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus comes to the place of the Garasene demoniac. The demoniac is described as a wild man who lives among the tombs. Breaking chains and shackles, he can’t be restrained. Like Isaiah’s “goat demons,” he howls and shrieks. When he sees Jesus, like the Capernaum demon earlier in Mark 1, he recognizes him as the son of God. He asks Jesus not to torment him. Here Jesus asks the name of the unclean spirit. The spirits answer that they are called Legion because there are so many of them. Begging Jesus not to send them, interestingly, out of the country, they ask permission to enter a heard of swine. When Jesus permits this 2,000 pigs race down the hill and drown themselves in the sea. Luke and Matthew change a few things. Luke uses the term “demon” to describe the entities rather than “evil spirit.” Luke also notes that the man was habitually naked, something only implied in Mark. When Legion begs Jesus to enter the pigs they ask not to be sent back into the abyss. Here their destination is developing into the idea of Hell.20 Matthew shifts the location from Gerasa to Gadara. Instead of one demoniac, there are two. They’re described as wild, but Jesus asks for no name and none is given. He commands the demons to leave, which they do, inhabiting the pigs. They don’t beg about where not to be cast, but ask specifically to go into the swine. Although clearly it’s the same story, the details have changed considerably. This is the only biblical story to reference the demand for a demon’s name to exorcise it. This set the template, at least among Christian exorcists, of asking for a name. It will eventually become orthodoxy in pop culture that a spirit can’t be cast out without knowing its name. This account also raises the question of where expelled demons go. As we read elsewhere in Matthew and Luke, they wander in desert places, looking for a home. The demons fear Jesus will torment them. How does one torment a demon? The gospels don’t say. These unclean spirits transition easily from human to swine hosts, but their ultimate destination is unaddressed as the pigs drown themselves. Where’d they go? Back to the dry places? Into other people? The abyss?

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The symptoms of this particular man (or men)21 appear less like epilepsy than forms of mental illness.22 More than that, he has supernatural strength and can break iron. This doesn’t resemble any natural pathology. Indeed, in the ancient perspective, the “natural world” is inhabited with spirits, so the neutral concept we call “nature” includes possessed objects. The divine world is complex. The story, no doubt, has theatrical elements.23 The isolation of a graveyard across a lake. A naked man out of his mind. A multitude of demons that make him impossible to restrain. A couple thousand pigs running downhill to drown themselves. The sudden change of character, leaving the man clothed and in his right mind. This is prime-time drama. For pop culture demonic possession, this account contributes quite a bit to the template. A person out of control, paranormal activity (a man strong enough to break chains), and demanding a demon’s name. To anticipate, possession movies—beginning with The Exorcist—reference this account in various ways. Pop culture is where people tend to get their information on spiritual realities. But note, here again we have a male victim.24 We’ll consider demon body-hopping in the next chapter, but note that there’s no uniform idea of where dispossessed demons go. Into the wilderness, out of the country, into the abyss, into animals. All remain options. No single view predominates. Beyond these three somewhat detailed stories there are many brief accounts of exorcisms and remarks about demons in the gospels. Others have surveyed them thoroughly.25 A few aspects should be noted, however. Mark routinely has demons that know Jesus is “the Holy One of God” and that he is able to destroy them. The gospels aren’t consistent on the fate of demons. They may be bound, if we try to systematize somewhat chaotic outlooks, until they are finally destroyed at the end of time. There are elements of Zoroastrianism behind this.26 Another feature of the gospels is that Jesus is able to cast demons out remotely. This happens in the case of a woman from outside Israel (the region of Tyre, in modern-day Lebanon). This account is a somewhat rare instance of a possessed girl. It is worth pausing over this for a moment. The modern horror victim is frequently female, and statistically more women request exorcisms than men.27 In the most dramatic gospel accounts, the victims are all male. There are other female demoniacs, for whom we have no backstory. For example, Mark and Luke mention almost as an aside that Jesus had cast seven demons from Mary Magdalene. This fact would seem to warrant more than a casual comment, but there is no detailed biblical account of this demonic dispossession. It lives on, however, in modern cinematic treatments. The afflicting agents in the gospels are called spirits, unclean spirits, and demons. What they actually are is not discussed. Their presence is detected

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by human infirmity and sometimes by the fact that they call out and challenge Jesus. The only demon to give its name in the gospels is Legion. The medical conditions of demoniacs goes beyond the range of epilepsy, although epilepsy seems to be one of the manifestations. Madness, blindness, deafness, muteness, violent behavior, superhuman strength, and generic torment are other demonic symptoms. The disciples, according to the synoptics, could cast out demons in Jesus’s name; they too are monster-fighters. Cinematic treatments rely on this. Luke alone, however, includes an episode of Jesus sending out seventy disciples (chapter 10). When they return, they’re thrilled that they expel demons in Jesus’s name. The evolving image of the Devil appears when Jesus replies to their joy at this ability by stating that he saw Satan fall from Heaven like lightning.28 The verse is intriguing and isolated. It seems to reference the myth of fallen angels which we examined in the last chapter. It also appears to connect the Devil and demons intrinsically. The detailed gospel narratives about demons are thus relatively few. Unlike present-day Catholic declarations, possession at the time of Jesus was fairly common.29 The Synoptics present Jesus’s ministry as lasting about a year, and many were healed of demons. While the remaining biblical references to demons aren’t gospel they’re nevertheless instructive. OUTSIDE THE GOSPELS According to the Acts of the Apostles, largely supposed to have been written by Luke as a continuation of his gospel, Paul of Tarsus also casts out demons. Two instances stand out. The first is the slave-girl of Philippi who “had a spirit of prophecy” (Acts 16). This is an instance of positive possession, and later Catholic proof of possession will include knowing events or information unknown to the person.30 This girl predicts the future for her owner’s benefit. Paul, vexed with her spoilers, simply expels the spirit with a command. A rather more violent episode involves the seven Jewish exorcist sons of Sceva in Acts 19. Exorcism was known in Judaism, of course. Remember, Jesus was a Jew! These seven were sons of a high priest, according to Acts. When the would-be exorcists confronted a demon in the name of Jesus and Paul, the demon answered that it knew who Jesus and Paul were, but it didn’t know the seven. It proceeded to beat them up so that they ran away naked and wounded. Once again we see demoniacs with supernatural powers. The failed exorcism itself isn’t described beyond the demon overpowering seven young men. Modern exorcists often insist on having strong assistants to restrain the possessed.31 As with the gospels, this scene is highly dramatic.

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In these two accounts we have a “possessed” female slave and a demoniac of unspecified gender. One is successfully exorcised and the other isn’t. The point of these accounts isn’t to inform us about demons, but to show the power of Jesus. Still, we have a rare positive possession here, as well as an extremely violent negative one. In the rest of the New Testament demons are often mentioned only in passing, increasing the air of mystery around them. Paul in his letters seldom mentions them directly and when he does he often implies they’re really non-entities.32 The concept of “the powers” mentioned in chapter 1 underlies Paul’s concept of the world.33 Paul also notes in 2 Corinthians 11:14 that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, something we’ll consider with discussion of the Devil. Paul claims Gentiles sacrifice to demons (other gods) and James writes that demons believe in God and tremble. Revelation also mentions demons a few times.34 Paul and the author of Revelation both mention the worship of demons in association with idols. An early concept developed into the belief, still current in some Christian groups, that the gods of other nations were actually demons.35 This is reflected in the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Since Paul obviously attributes no reality to foreign gods, this development seems natural enough. The Hebrew Bible is clear that other nations worshipped evil gods like Molech, who demanded human sacrifice. Perhaps these peoples had mistaken demons (which some Christian groups implicitly accept) for gods. Or, in the light of monotheism, other gods had been demoted. In either case, Paul and the author of Revelation saw the rhetorical value of equating idols and demons. In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul discusses meat sacrificed to idols. His argument is that idols are nothing, but he sets up the argument that such sacrifices are offered to demons to make his point. He doesn’t flesh this out at all, and the context suggests it’s literary license. In Revelation it’s difficult to know if anything should be taken literally.36 Revelation 9 references people worshipping demons in the context of their punishment by the sixth angel trumpet of the seventh seal. The meaning of worshipping demons isn’t spelled out, but is paralleled with worshipping idols as a sign of wickedness. When the sixth angel of Revelation 16 pours out his vial unclean spirits hop out of the mouths of the dragon, beast, and false prophet. The symbolism here is complex and although these spirits are referred to as demons, their identity remains cloaked in heavy metaphor.37 All of this takes place at the Euphrates, that is, in Mesopotamia. Likewise the demons mentioned two chapters later are the inhabitants of fallen Babylon. This refers back to demons dwelling in the wilderness, since Babylon has become a wasteland. In other words, this final biblical reference to demons takes us right back to where we started.

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Clearly an inchoate divine world was in development as monotheism struggled with how to handle other divine beings. These evil forces seem to have had a leader. How did the Devil play into all of this? NEW TESTAMENT DEVIL The Good Book, surprisingly, doesn’t say much about the Bad Guy. The word “devil” doesn’t appear in the Hebrew Bible. For one thing, the character hadn’t yet developed.38 Another factor is that the word comes from Greek. The root word for English “devil” is diabolos. It means, appropriately enough, “accuser.”39 This is the Satan’s role in early Judaism. As time goes on, however, he becomes more evil and more powerful.40 Instead of working with the divine council, he has rebelled against it. This rebellion idea grows out of the writings of early Judaism. Its roots, however, go back all the way to Genesis. The snake in the Garden of Eden is never called the Devil or Satan in Genesis, and the word “sin” doesn’t even occur in the story of the tree of knowledge. We examined the “sons of the gods” episode in chapter 4. The world became populated with the offspring of their mating with human women. The Good Book goes on to say “the nephilim” were in the earth then. Who are these nephilim? Their name means “fallen ones.” Genesis doesn’t say whence they fell. Since this story comes immediately before the flood account, it serves as one of the contributing factors to the deluge. Early Judaism preserves accounts of rebellion in Heaven. Since there’s only one god, the fallen ones could’ve been these quasi-divine creatures who rebelled. This isn’t the only source of demons, as we’ve seen, but it gets us near to the New Testament Devil (although it doesn’t explain demons in the New Testament period).41 The Devil isn’t explained in the Bible. Everybody knew who he was, so why honor him with an origin myth in sacred texts? There are tantalizing hints. As we saw in the gospels, Luke contains an episode with the seventy disciples. Jesus sends them out to preach and when they return they’re excited because demons come out at Jesus’s name. Then Jesus says, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” And that’s all he has to say about that. What’s going on here? The origin of this concept seems to be a passage from the prophet Isaiah. The prophets quite often have sections of their books that condemn foreign nations. Often singled out for judgment is Babylonia. Since we’re not sure when this passage in Isaiah was written, we don’t know which king it was, but the prophet says: How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast

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said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit (14:12–14, KJV). We have some unpacking to do. First of all, we have a new name here: Lucifer. Remember, the Isaiah passage is referring to a human king, not “the Devil.” Lucifer translates to “light bearer,” a rather strange designation for an evil being. It later becomes a personal name of the Devil denoting his original high (and good) status.42 Paul tells the Corinthians that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Notice the crime in Isaiah: the Babylonian king exalted himself above God. This kind of hubris is always trouble. Isaiah’s unnamed monarch wants to be like God and therefore has been deposed. The background here reflects ancient astronomy. Already in pre-biblical times, people knew the stars and planets well. After the sun and moon, the next brightest regular object in the sky is the planet Venus. Often appearing just before dawn or sunset, Venus is known as both the morning and evening star, although it isn’t a star at all. Because the orbit of Venus is inside that of the earth, if you watch it day after day you’ll notice something strange. Venus rises higher and higher and then starts to sink. In the morning all of this takes place just before the sun comes up. It looks rather like human behavior— exalting yourself until someone more important comes along. One of the myths preserved at Ugarit, an ancient city in northern Syria, involves a god named Athtar, who’s associated with Venus. When the chief god Baal (whom we’ve already met as Hadad) goes missing, Athtar rises to his throne. Then he leaves the throne and comes to the earth. The reason? The throne is too big for him. In other words, he can’t fill Baal’s shoes. Or seat. This was likely a myth explaining Venus—the bright star that rises only to go back down again. The humiliated king.43 Whoever was writing this prophecy in Isaiah seems to base it on a story like this. Jesus perhaps references this recycled story and makes the humiliated would-be king Satan. Notice also that Isaiah says the pretender will be brought down to “hell” in the King James Version. That’s Sheol, actually.44 It’s also called “the pit,” a term that will continue to be used in the New Testament. When Christians with an idea of Hell read this passage it was natural enough to equate Sheol with what they then recognized as Hell. So here we have the rebellious subgod being thrown down to the pit. The original writer had no concept of Hell. Jesus’s reference to “as lightning” could refer to the light-bearing aspect of this fall or its swiftness. The fact that Jesus says this in response to a statement about demons suggests that demons and Satan are already connected. It doesn’t mean that

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Satan’s just another demon, though. The fallen Babylonian in Isaiah is a king. Kings lead subjects, armies. In ancient thought monarchs are somehow more than mortals. In much of the ancient world, kings were either gods or became gods after they died.45 Satan is a king. The New Testament prefers, however, to demote him to the title prince. Numerous times in the gospels the words Devil and Satan occur close together. The connection was obvious at that time. The main gospel story connected with Satan is the temptation of Jesus. As related in the three Synoptic Gospels, just after Jesus’s baptism he goes into the wilderness where he’s tempted by Satan. Matthew and Luke go into some detail on this, describing three trials: the temptation to turn stones to bread, to throw himself from the temple tower and allow God to save him, and to worship Satan in return for all the kingdoms of the earth. This last one implies Satan rules all the worldly kingdoms. He’s called the prince of this world in the Gospel of John (12:31, 14:30) and “the prince of the power of the air” (apparently) in Ephesians 2:2. We can’t be sure this is the same being as the prince of this world; we don’t even know who wrote Ephesians. John also calls him a liar and the father of liars. Further New Testament verses use “the wicked one,” “the tempter,” and even the astonishing “god of this world.” The latter title comes from Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:4. In the same letter Paul also names Belial (6:15).46 The gospels utilize the name Beelzebul. The fullest explanation of who he is, if he’s a single character, comes in Revelation. There he’s called “the dragon” and “the ancient serpent” (12:9). The latter is a reference back to Genesis. Remember, the Garden of Eden story doesn’t state that the snake is Satan. Revelation makes that connection. The one who tempted humans to sin (he’s both tempter and liar) is the Devil. Revelation 12:9 also equates the Devil and Satan. He works with the false prophet and the beast. Together they’re thrown into the lake of fire, which we’ll discuss in the next section. This suggests, if all the references are to the same being, an entity of enormous power. Prince and god of this world, an adversary, tempter, and liar. The character has clearly become an anti-god.47 The abundance of personal names indicates that what we likely have here is a character that has pulled several ancient sources together into what was probably never thought of as a unified Devil before this time. Beelzebul was, as we’ve seen, the distorted form of a title of the ancient Ugaritic storm god Hadad (Baal).48 Lucifer was a name given to an unknown king of Babylon, off to the east. Was this king evil? If he conquered your country, yes. Among his own people? That depends. Some kings were highly regarded while others were despised. Belial may look like “Baal” in English, but it’s actually unrelated. Belial comes from two Hebrew words that together mean something like “worthless.”

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The word occurs as an adjective a number of times in the Hebrew Bible. In the Second Temple and Rabbinic periods, it had come to be associated with this growing personification of evil, the Devil.49 Belial may also be spelled Beliar, and it wasn’t a personal name until it came to refer to this Devil concept. It has been suggested that the fallen angel Samael of 1 Enoch was also the same character.50 At this point he doesn’t seem to be directly connected with Lucifer, but his fall from Heaven is based on lust, pride, or envy. Judaism didn’t yet have a clear leader of the fallen angels, and more than one type of entity might be considered demonic.51 You can start to see why Christianity wanted this all straightened out; with matters this deadly serious, you wanted to know for sure who the enemy was. This raises the question of the Devil as an entity. Pulling disparate references together to obtain a clearer focus can distort the evidence. Monotheism metamorphoses deities and entities into forms the ancients didn’t know. Occam’s razor nicks as you shave. The Devil, part Zoroastrian, part Greek, and part Jewish concept, isn’t quite coherent in the New Testament. By the time of the Middle Ages when the classical Devil was developed, many ancient sources had either been completely lost (the Ugaritic texts dealing with Baal, for example, had been missing since the twelfth century BCE and were recovered only in the 1920s (CE), some 3,000 years later), or forgotten. Medieval scribes simply didn’t have access to such sources. Books were also rare and the modern ease of access to them creates the illusion that monks in the Middle Ages could just “look it up.” What all of this means is that the Devil, who personifies evil, may not have been a unified character until well after the New Testament. As new sources are found, our vision of his early history becomes sharper. Eventually he became the leader of the demons. No one is said to be possessed by “the Devil.” A sketch of the Devil has been filled in a bit here. It’s important to remember that none of this represents a coherent, unified snapshot of what everyone in early Judaism and early Christianity believed about the Devil. He’s a protean character—shifting shape and names easily—if he’s even a unified entity. There were a host of creatures increasingly evil in the Second Temple Period. The fallen angels seek repentance in 1 Enoch, and they have a leader. The motivation for their fall seems originally to have been lust, but their leader had more insidious plans. Zoroastrian mythology had become part of the mix by this point, so the concept of an anti-god was in the air. While some, particularly in early Christianity, were extremely concerned to nail down the true nature of Satan, for the most part Judaism and Christianity were conglomerations of many ideas that had only a loose “orthodoxy” in overall shape. There’s no systematic theology to deal with evil yet.52 He’s not the Devil you know.

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Ancient views of the world didn’t have as much room as our infinite and expanding universe. Over the earth was a dome, or series of concentric domes. Consider, for example, Paul writing that he was caught up to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2). You could fall from one heaven to another, as the fallen angels were believed to have done. The “prince of the power of the air” seems to possess an airy body. Although it’s getting ahead of the story, people of the time appear to have believed spiritual bodies might’ve been made of air. Frustration attends attempts at systematizing any early theology. Most religions grow from folk beliefs that become fixed and perhaps “official” over time. Once the temple system caught on you had official religion supported by the government—there was no separation between religion and politics. The priesthood supported the king and gave him the backing of the gods, and taxes helped to support the priests.53 The temple, with the input of the king, set official belief structures in place. Dynasties changed, theologies changed. One thing we’ve determined about the Devil at this point is that he still wasn’t a single character with a fixed identity. The roles eventually attributed to Samael—tempting Adam and Eve to fall, associating with a serpent in the Garden of Eden, being an accuser of human beings—would become roles of the Devil. Other mythical beings participated in mischief, such as Azazel. After centuries they coalesced into “the Devil” and his followers, the demons. One thing they all have in common is that they’re male. For whatever reason Judaism never developed the same intense interest in the Devil as Christianity did. What this means is that the character of the Devil developed largely in a Christian context, even though earliest Christianity was a Jewish movement. A large part of this is due to the otherworldly focus of early Christians. With eyes fixed on Heaven, they faced an adversary blocking their way. And this adversary had to have some kind of headquarters. FROM SHEOL TO HELL How did Sheol become Hell? No one left a history of this development, so we have to try to piece it together from bits left behind.54 Ancient Egyptians dabbled in ideas of postmortem punishment, but when Jewish belief in Sheol came into contact with Zoroastrian thought during various episodes of Persian expansion Hell began to break loose. Following Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Jerusalem, the Persians overtook Babylonia and its conquered territories. This meant Judah was now under Persian control. The Jews had been scattered during the periods of invasion, so there wasn’t a unified Jewish view of things, and Zoroastrians had a dualistic outlook. Recall Zoroastrianism

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explained evil by the existence of Angra Mainyu, or Ariman. Angra Mainyu can be translated as “angry spirit,” and this powerful being introduced evil into a world created good by Ahura Mazda, the “wise lord.”55 This dualism took hold in some forms of Judaism. Zoroastrianism was an apocalyptic religion. That meant that the conflict between these two sides of good and evil would eventually lead to the destruction of this world. In that day fire would flow down to the lower parts to purify them.56 This image developed into a concept of a burning underworld—a form of Hell. Zoroastrians believed in the purifying nature of fire, so although not pleasant, the idea wasn’t one of eternal torment. That idea would only develop later, and would give children nightmares for centuries to come. Persian influence was strong in the period when the second temple was being built. In fact, the Persian emperor funded that project in the hope that grateful subjects would be less rebellious. Also during the Second Temple Period a number of Jewish apocalypses were composed, offering more elaborate views of supernatural beings and their environments, including material about demons.57 Some of these ideas are reflected in the New Testament. The gospels were written after the second temple was destroyed. Since this was about four decades after Jesus lived, they contain references to a more elaborate afterlife. This is largely because Christianity expected the resurrection of the dead. Judgment and either reward or punishment, as Zoroastrianism taught, filled in the picture. These ideas, which aren’t really systematic, include a place of burning for the evil dead. The word “Hell” doesn’t occur in the Bible. The words for the underworld in the New Testament reflect the Greek and Jewish cultural mix of the time—the three terms used are Gehinnom, Hades, and Tartarus. The King James Version of the Bible translates all three words as “Hell.” In the Greek original, that word isn’t used.58 Each of these three terms has its own history. Gehinnom comes from ancient Judaism.59 Hades and Tartarus derive from classical Greek mythology.60 All three represent underground worlds to which people go when they die. What happens there, however, was speculation. Gehinnom, also known as Gehenna, refers simply to the “valley of Hinnom.”61 This was located outside the walled city of Jerusalem and it was essentially a garbage dump. What’s so bad about a valley, even if it’s trashy? Gehenna’s evil association goes back to a god called Molech. Little is known of this deity and even the biblical accounts of his worship may have been fabricated. As the Hebrew Bible tells the tale, people “passed their children through the fire” during Molech worship. This was understood to be a form of human sacrifice. We don’t know whether it actually was, or if children were symbolically passed through the fire to dedicate them to the god.62 Either way,

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the Good Book didn’t like it. Worship of Molech traditionally took place in this valley. Garbage disposal wasn’t the same in ancient times as it is now. In Jesus’s day this valley had a continuously burning fire where rubbish was incinerated.63 Not being a consumer society, Jerusalem surely didn’t reach the volume of a similarly sized city today, but when you need to have something burned, you need to have it burned. This eternal fire element played into its association with the Hell we’ve come to know and hate. Hades was a Greek concept in many respects similar to Sheol. Not necessarily a place of punishment, it was where the dead naturally went. Dreary, yes. Everlasting torment? Not necessarily. A sleepy place where the barely conscious dead awaited their inevitable fading into nothingness, Hades wasn’t a place to fear, but it was nothing to look forward to either.64 Tartarus, also Greek, was far worse. Despite perhaps catching glimpses of the famous Sisyphus pushing his boulder up a mountain or Tantalus reaching for fruit that was forever out of reach, you’d only be there if you were scheduled for some pretty nasty stuff yourself. Tartarus was the place of everlasting punishment. Although this idea is foreign to the world of Hebraic thought, it became part of the developing Christian idea of Hell. The point of all of this is that Hell, as we think of it, isn’t an idea present in the Hebrew Bible. By the time of the New Testament lots of foreign influence had contributed to afterlife beliefs. Even the Good Book itself has differing views. The fact that there was an afterlife changed the dynamics. When the prospect for justice is realized, even if it’s too late for the living, it may change perceptions of what happens after you die. In 1 Enoch Uriel, the head of the archangels oversees Tartarus. The realm of demons is described as a burning abyss with great descending columns of fire. The angel Uriel explains to Enoch that this is the prison of the angels. For the human dead there are four chambers to separate the good from the evil—an early indication that Purgatory65 was already in the background to explain how the bad, but not truly evil, could be punished after death. New Testament views aren’t uniform. Remember, references to “Hell” in the Hebrew Bible are translations of “Sheol.” According to the Synoptic Gospels Jesus uses warnings of “Hell” (Gehinnom, Hades, or Tartarus) and its fire several times. He notes that God is able to destroy both soul and body there (Matthew 10:28), and combined with the rhetoric of fire, the meaning is pretty clear. He also mentions its gates (Matthew 16:18). Revelation 1:18 states that Jesus holds the keys to those gates. Most of the references come from Matthew. That’s about it. Then Luke has a story, unique to that gospel, where a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus both die (16:19-31). The rich man ends up in Hades while Lazarus is rocked in the bosom of Abraham. It’s the clearest gospel

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vision of Hell; the rich man is described as being in torment and yet is able to see across the gulf that separates him from the blessed. He begs Abraham to send Lazarus to him to dip his finger in water and place it on his tongue because the flames are so terrible. The parable moves on from there to make the point that those inclined to believe will believe, but even with proof those who’re disinclined won’t believe. These gospel references point to a combination of Gehinnom and Tartarus—burning and torture—as well as Hades, as the basis for Hell. The letter of James mentions the fire of Gehenna (3:6) while the late epistle of 2 Peter mentions rebellious angels being sent to Tartarus to await their punishment in darkness, in chains (2:4). Here we begin to see the idea of Hell as the home of demons. They are, in this view, fallen angels. Notice that they’re bound. We’ll discuss this further in the next chapter, but here we see them starting to find their natural habitat in Hell. Revelation is another late book. Here the dead in Hades are given up for judgment. This, along with the idea in 2 Peter of Tartarus being a holding pen for the wicked, starts to reflect the idea of Purgatory.66 This becomes even clearer as Revelation notes that in the end Hell (actually Hades), along with death, will be cast into the lake of fire (20:13–14). This is a Zoroastrian concept, and Hell is thrown into a lake of fire, but it isn’t yet a lake of fire itself. Revelation 20 contains a description of the final judgment. It begins with an angel, who holds the keys to the bottomless pit, throwing Satan into the said pit for 1,000 years. This is the origin of the idea of millennialism.67 After being released for a while Satan will be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and false prophet already suffer, and the three will be tormented for ever and ever. After that the human dead are judged and those not found in the book of life are also thrown into that terrifying lake. Like many ideas to develop in later Christianity, the concept isn’t fully formed in Holy Writ. Paul, the earliest writer of New Testament material, does not refer to Hell. That’s not to suggest that Paul doesn’t know about Hell, but rather that there’s no way to access what he thought about it. Clearly the afterlife was a concern for him, but Hell wasn’t something he wrote home about. CONCLUSIONS Over time a number of different entities vied for the identification of “demon.” One set of those entities emerged from a battle among the gods. From ancient times mythologies told of a younger generation of gods battling and usurping an older generation. The titans and Olympian gods are probably the bestknown example, but there were many other cases, some of them much older.

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Just because deities are superior to humans doesn’t mean that they’re perfect. One explanation of demons comes from such a mythology. In fact, early church writers posited that the gods of other nations were, in fact, demons. Demons lie and deceive. In this way early Christians dissuaded the worship of foreign gods and helped explain the origin of at least some demons. Extra-biblical sources reflect a fascination with fallen angels. Some of the more extensive treatments, such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees that we saw in the last chapter, offer a glimpse into “pop culture” of antiquity. Fallen angels may become demons, or they might mate with women and their children will be demons. These children, on the other hand, might be giants that become demons when they die. From the Greek world, nature spirits called daimones now also “foreign gods” could be considered evil. Continuing into this period was the Semitic idea, similar to the Greek, that some spirits were the source of misfortune. Monotheism forced this diverse cohort into what we recognize as demons. The New Testament doesn’t give much information on demons. The gospels name only one, Legion, in the course of an exorcism. Other ideas are developing at the time—an anti-God and a realm of eternal punishment—that will be tied to demons. The Devil, and similar beings known by many names, will become the antithesis of God. The Devil will lead demons. Their natural habitat will shift from the wilderness to Hell. None of this systematized view matches the inchoate nature of the New Testament material. The early church writers were fascinated by demons and wrote quite extensively about them. Much of the discussion, however, is bogged down in narrow points of theology, trying to parse exactly how the three persons of the trinity relate to each other as well as to other spiritual beings. Monotheism made for complex debates in a world where other spiritual beings continued to exist. These discussions have been analyzed in a number of other sources and since our task is not to uncover the actual origin of real demons, this would represent a long detour from our survey from antiquity to the movie theater. We’re used to thinking of religions as more cohesive than they are. Such wide varieties of belief systems coexist in the Second Temple Period that scholars are now inclined to discuss Judaisms and Christianities rather than using the singular forms. That complicates things when trying to trace the history of ideas since not all Jews or Christians would’ve shared the views that eventually lead us to the passion of Regan MacNeil. What we’re beginning to see here will be characteristic of the next long time period as well: ideas about the Devil and demons contain many individual threads. Instead of coming from a single source, these ideas often draw from contemporary folklore and are woven into a loose tapestry that we recognize as demons or the Devil. Since they really reflect various background

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beliefs—they arise from “lived religion”—we find ourselves fabricating an image that would likely have been foreign to the biblical world. The modern view of things, in other words, is read back into these earlier materials. Demonic diversity is quite marked during this period. Early on Christianity didn’t yet exist, but some movements were already underway that would make it a distinctive brand of Judaism. When Christianity does emerge, we find a rich world of spiritual entities bewildering in a monotheistic context. Already we’ve encountered angels of many varieties—archangels, fallen angels (even apparently fallen archangels or higher), and Watchers. Cherubim, seraphim, and thrones are other varieties. Also evil spirits and desert-dwelling creatures. As far as we know, nobody at this early stage sat down to categorize everything. The Testament of Solomon may have been one such early attempt, regarding demons. The purpose of religious writing, however, wasn’t the same as an objective science of the supernatural world. Systematization will have to await the Middle Ages and, ironically, the growth of science.

NOTES 1. The tradition source for information on the New Testament is, of course, commentaries. Almost none of them pass over these dramatic and unusual accounts without formulating opinions about them. Beyond the commentaries, however, Russell, The Devil; Twelftree Jesus the Exorcist, Christ Triumphant; and In the Name, Levack, Devil Within; and Stokes, The Satan all provide in-depth discussions of the demonic aspects. See also Clark, Thinking with Demons. 2. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist. 3. Walter Berkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. (Blackwell, 1985). See also Johnston, ed., Religions. 4. Handy, Among the Hosts. 5. See Berkert, Greek Religion; Johnston, Religions. 6. Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights, the first volume in the trilogy was published in 1995 (titled The Golden Compass in the United States). 7. According to the Oxford English Dictionary. 8. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist; Levack, Devil Within. 9. Millon, Masters of the Mind. See also Eadie and Bladin, A Disease Once Sacred, Foucault, History of Madness. 10. Michael Willett Newheart, “My Name Is Legion”: The Story and Soul of the Gerasene Demoniac (Liturgical Press, 2004). 11. Including Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist, Christ Triumphant, and In the Name, Stokes, The Satan. 12. See DDD; Manfred Lurker, The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons (Routledge, 2004); Day, An Adversary, to start. 13. See chapter 9.

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14. Epilepsy as a disease known in biblical times in noted in Eadie and Bladin, A Disease Once Sacred. 15. Eadie and Bladin, A Disease Once Sacred. 16. Lunacy is discussed briefly in Foucault, History of Madness, and Bernd Brunner, Moon: A Brief History (Yale University Press, 2010). 17. Brunner, Moon. 18. Levack, Devil Within. 19. Newheart, “My Name,” Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist; Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Fortress, 1984). 20. Bernstein, The Formation. 21. For ease of expression the singular will be used here, but it should be noted that the Gospels disagree on this point. 22. Millon, Masters of the Mind; Foucault, History of Madness. 23. As well as elements of politics under foreign occupation. Such a discussion would take us far afield from the discussion of these entities as they develop in popular culture. See Paul W. Hollenbach, “Jesus, Demoniacs, and Public Authorities: A Socio-Historical Study,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 49 (1981): 567–588. 24. This fact casts in sharp relief how Poe’s observation takes over the modern possession narrative. This will be discussed in detail further on. 25. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist; Stokes, The Satan. 26. Zoroastrianism is handled by Boyce, Zoroastrians. She doesn’t try to make the connections with the reception history of the religion. See also Jenny Rose, Zoroastrianism: An Introduction (I. B. Tauris, 2014). 27. Cuneo, American Exorcism, Mariani, “Why Are Exorcisms.” 28. 10:18. 29. Francis Young, A History of Exorcism in Catholic Christianity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 30. Amorth, An Exorcist Tells, and An Exorcist Explains. The practice that possession be thoroughly investigated by the Catholic Church may be found in Young, A History. See also Martin, Hostage. 31. Cuneo, American Exorcism. Comments about restraining the possessed may also be found in several of the works by Ed and Lorraine Warren, see chapter 8. 32. Treated in detail in Wink, Naming the Powers. 33. Wink, Naming the Powers, discusses this in some depth. The powers should not simply be equated with evil spirits or demons. 34. Stokes, The Satan, has a thorough discussion of New Testament material. 35. Martin, “When Did Angels?” 36. Even William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation (Baker, 1979) acknowledges this. See Craig R. Koester, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the Book of Revelation (Oxford University Press, 2020). 37. See Elaine Pagels, Revelations: Vision, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation (Penguin, 2012) for a treatment aware of heavy metaphor. 38. For a distinctly American view of the Devil see W. Scott Poole, Satan in America: The Devil We Know (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009).

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39. A good start for the New Testament is Russell, The Devil; a brief introduction may be found in Darren Oldridge, The Devil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2012). Most recently see Stokes, The Satan. 40. Stokes, The Satan. 41. Martin, “When Did Angels.” 42. Russell, Lucifer, Stokes, The Satan. 43. Alastair Waterston, “The Kingdom of ‘Attar and his Role in the A B Cycle,” Ugarit Forschungen 20 (1988): 357–364. 44. Even if Jesus had the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) in mind, the word there is “Hades,” not “Hell.” Hell is a later construct; see below. 45. Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society & Nature (University of Chicago Press, 1978). 46. Paul’s mention of Belial may be a manuscript error for Beliar, see Bruce M. Metzger and Bart Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (Oxford University Press, 2005). Further information on Belial may be found in DDD and Wright, The Origin. 47. Stokes, The Satan; Oldridge, The Devil; Russell, The Devil. 48. DDD. 49. Bamberger, Fallen Angels; Stokes, The Satan. 50. Davidson, A Dictionary. 51. Martin, “When Did Angels.” 52. The five volumes by Russell will become as close as we’re likely to get. 53. Marty E. Stevens, Temples, Tithes, and Taxes: The Temple and the Economic Life of Ancient Israel (Baker Academic, 2006). 54. Bernstein, The Formation, and Hell. Greg Garrett, Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2015), looks at Hell in pop culture. See also Tromp, Primitive Conceptions, and Suriano, A History. 55. Boyce, Zoroastrians. 56. Johnston, Religions. 57. The sources on Second Temple literature (and related material beyond) are immense. See Kulik, et al., A Guide; and Docherty, The Jewish Pseudepigrapha, to find more. 58. Again, Bernstein, The Formation, and Hell, looks at this is great detail. 59. Gehinnom is discussed by Lloyd R. Bailey, “Enigmatic Bible Passages: Gehenna: The Topography of Hell,” The Biblical Archaeologist 49 (1986): 187–191; and Bernstein, The Formation. 60. Berkert, Greek Religion; Johnston, Religions. 61. Bailey, “Enigmatic Bible.” 62. George C. Heider, The Cult of Molech: A Reassessment (JSOT Press, 1985); Day, An Adversary. 63. Bailey, “Enigmatic Bible.” 64. For both Hades and Tartarus see Bernstein, The Formation. 65. For Purgatory see Diana Walsh Pasulka, Heaven Can Wait: Purgatory in Catholic Devotional and Popular Culture (Oxford University Press, 2014). 66. Pasulka, Heaven Can Wait. 67. Sutton, American Apocalypse.

Chapter 6

Setting the Stage The Long Middle Ages

Since this book is an exploration of how demons are understood via movies, the Middle Ages cannot be ignored. While Hollywood’s demoniacs exhibit traits from biblical and late antique periods, their main characteristics are clearly medieval. Demons in the western world would not be what they are without the intense interest they enjoyed in the period between Late Antiquity (the third to the eighth centuries) and Early Modernity (fifteenth to eighteenth centuries). Although demons had virtually disappeared by the latter half of the twentieth century prior to The Exorcist, truly immense literature on them existed from the period of the New Testament onward. Sacred texts took on an aura of antiquity as a variety of innovations occurred in this period. Some of the ancient texts already discussed, such as 1 Enoch, were lost or forgotten in Europe. The Bible grew in authority, but largely as interpreted by Roman Catholicism. The Reformation, traditionally beginning in the sixteenth century, led to various Protestant forms of Christianity that saw demons in their own ways. The elaborations here appeared roughly between the 300s and the 1600s, what we might call “the long Middle Ages.”1 Historians tend to label the central span between the 400s and 1400s as the Middle Ages. Obviously, much can happen in a millennium. Christian monasticism appeared during Late Antiquity in the Roman Empire, and the witch hunts were most intense in Europe during the period of the Reformation in Early Modernity. Our focus will shift from western Asia to European developments. Although science was evolving during this period, demons held great explanatory value in the long Middle Ages. Following the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century the Medieval Period witnessed a very powerful church alongside 87

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growing scientific understanding. The spiritual world, until relatively recent times, was assumed to exist.2 Like most material associated with demons, a confusing array of entanglements necessarily grows in the European seedbed that will culminate in the (largely American) cinematic entity. Entire books have been written on fragments of this time period and on individual aspects of demonic associations.3 Using the touch-points of emerging scientific thinking, monasticism, gender and sexuality—all of which play into cinematic demons—we’ll consider themes that set the stage for Hollywood. Other books handle the chronological progression quite well.4 This chapter covers a considerable time span and, of necessity, covers selective topics and these only briefly.5 The point is to provide some necessary background to cinematic demons. Throughout the long Middle Ages demons grew more complicated, but the associations they attained during this period are often those adopted by movie-makers in exorcism films.6 This period saw a vast and creative outpouring of ideas about demons and the Devil. In fact, a strong case might be made that modern perceptions of the diabolical world haven’t progressed further than those of the long Middle Ages, especially in the light of materialistic paradigms.7 Scholars who rail against “medieval thinking” in modern times often reference demons and witch hunts as the dangerous naiveté of such thinking.8 No single-volume book can summarize all the sources from this era—they are truly vast—let alone a single chapter. The portrayals of the demonic range from terrifyingly serious to light-hearted and whimsical. What I highlight in this chapter is the background for what we’ll see referenced in the cinematic portrayal of demons. We’ll see that demons engaged science and learning, piety, and, of course, sexuality. THE SCIENCE OF DEMONS While many people think of the Medieval Period as “the Dark Ages,” it was actually a time when scientific thinking began in earnest.9 Many of the ideas presented in movies coalesced in this context. That’s important because the Middle Ages are considered to have ended around the time of the Protestant Reformation when the “unity” of the church in the west would be shattered. Once the established view broke up, the idea of demons also splintered even further than it had within Catholicism.10 Demons would become more difficult to define. That demons were extremely numerous remained a widely held belief. Demonology in the post-biblical period was a form of science.11 This will become clear in the next section, “Bookish Demons.” Many ancient documents were written about the same time as the Bible. Beginning even before

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the New Testament was complete, commentators of Christianity had begun their work. The intellectual world at the time had no single, canonical view of things. Persian ideas swirled with Semitic thinking. Greco-Roman ideas from Europe blended with Egyptian concepts. There was no single authority to declare an official view. Even Paul of Tarsus disagreed about things with the still Jewish church based in Jerusalem. No Pope presided ex cathedra to declare the truth of matters. Ideas about demons were never universally agreed upon, but that didn’t stop theologians from trying to systematize the lot. Remember, demons are all about chaos. They’re illogical. This chapter shifts the focus from western Asia—where these ideas began—to Europe. European thinking necessarily informed the ideas of American colonials, the later inheritors of both the science of the time (Jonathan Edwards was a proponent of science as well as Christianity) and the “manifestation” of the demonic in witches (Cotton Mather, infamous supporter of the trials at Salem, was a Harvard-educated intellectual). Before we get to witches and their gender concerns, we must consider the science of the period. That science was conducted in the context of religion.12 They evaluated their sources within an assumed supernatural matrix. Where did people of the Middle Ages get their information if the Bible says so little, and some influential nonbiblical books from that time period had been lost? Although access to 1 Enoch and Jubilees wasn’t part of the mix, many early Christian writers had addressed the topic when those books were still current. Their purposes were what we’d call evangelistic—they were trying to make a case for the truth of Christianity. In doing so they utilized many sources, both biblical and nonbiblical. We see this already in Scripture itself; the book of Jude 14–15 quotes 1 Enoch, now considered a non-scriptural book, as prophecy.13 Demons also had explanatory power14—the experience of exorcisms built on observation and scholarship. Evolving experience of “the demonic” obviously fueled interest. The Bible preserved just enough descriptive material to tease the intellect. Demons could cause a person to foam at the mouth and lose control of their body. The symptoms of possession grew worse and more dramatic over time. And since demons were invisible, lacking bodies of their own,15 the spare descriptions of scriptural demoniacs would undergo continuing evolution, mediated by descriptions such as those in The Testament of Solomon. Writing had become somewhat more common by the Middle Ages and the number of cases described vastly outnumbered the biblical accounts containing any detail. By the early modern period the standard signs of demonic possession had undergone a considerable shift.16 Such sensational features as levitation and demonic glossolalia were never seen in the Good Book, but were now among the signs of true possession, based on observation.17

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Biblical ideas are combined with early science to form structured demonologies. Although books were rare, writing continued apace with early Christian leaders, through Late Antiquity and into the Middle Ages.18 Demons were a popular topic. They explained many woes of this world. Medically, epilepsy and madness were often attributed to demons instead of the other way around. Contrary to our current way of thinking, medieval thought assumed the supernatural.19 Demons were obviously there and the question was how to separate their activity from increasing recognition of nature’s works. Theirs was a universe with the still-active God involved in the everyday functioning of the world. It was, however, also the time period when Catholic and Protestant ideas parted ways and demons came in multiple varieties on both sides. In popular culture the Roman Catholic idea of demons tends predominantly to fuel exorcism movies. While Protestants—being biblically based—believed in demons, they took very different views on the practice of exorcism.20 It wasn’t really until The Exorcist that Protestants really began to focus on expelling demons the way Catholics did. And Catholic exorcism involved theatrics.21 More optimistic analysts suggest that scientific rationality drives “thinking with demons” out of existence.22 Instead, what we see historically is that the high-water mark of both demonic possession and witch hunts came well into the Enlightenment. This seems to have been fueled by the Reformation as Protestant teaching competed with Catholic authority. Historians have shown that while witch hunts died out in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, possession continued on until the end of the nineteenth and even into the twentieth century, although much reduced.23 Public consciousness of possession faded, but never disappeared completely. Like an ember waiting to be fanned back to life, it smoldered until The Exorcist phenomenon caught fire. Evidence of spiritual reality pushed back against the idea that unfeeling mathematical laws determined everything.24 To get a sense of the entangled worlds of monks and monastic demons, changes in demonic behavior since the New Testament, and the growing fear of witches, we’ll need a textual basis. All of these elements play into Hollywood’s script of demons and their compatriots. Once we move beyond the textual world of the Bible we encounter scientific writings about demons. BOOKISH DEMONS During this period, as demons came to be classified “scientifically,” demonologies were serious efforts to catalogue the supernatural.25 If demons could be understood, they could possibly be controlled. While saints wrote demonologies, sinners composed grimoires. The term “grimoire” is used to describe

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books written for magical purposes. Grimoires have been known from the early ages of writing.26 As books of magic, they were naturally powerful and they were often associated with witches in the Middle Ages and in the modern revival of witchcraft. By the Medieval Period grimoires had become quite esoteric. Since the church took a hard line on magic, grimoires became necessarily clandestine. This adds an even deeper air of mystery to these unique and often handwritten books. Goetic27 grimoires were a subclass of magical books specifically focused on how to summon demons. Why on earth would anyone want to do that? Demons were very powerful beings. Properly controlled by spells and magic, the reasoning went, they could be made to do the bidding of the sorcerer. Goetic grimoires reflected a variety of concepts of what demons actually might be; they don’t share a uniform view of the demonic. Some grimoires would eventually attain the status of classics. Some also become quasi-canonical.28 One of the more famous grimoires was The Lesser Key of Solomon. This tome was known by various names such as Clavcula Salomonis Regis and Lemegeton. Solomon’s association with demons goes back at least to the apocryphal Testament of Solomon, which provided the legendary king with a ring to control demons.29 Solomon is, of course, a biblical figure. He’s the son of King David, and he was known for having a thousands of wives and concubines and for being a man of great wisdom. Historically very little is known of Solomon. As a character, he grew to larger-than-life proportions after the Bible was written. Two of the areas with which he was later credited were writing books and the summoning of demons. The only biblical rationale for the latter is that Solomon’s wives and lovers were non-Israelites who led him to worship foreign gods. By the Middle Ages the idea that some of these pagan gods might’ve actually been demons was common. This is reflected in the early church, where some early Christian writers suggested the gods of other nations were in reality demons (see chapter 5). The Lesser Key is, in part, a goetic grimoire. Many names of demons in cinema derive from it. The Lesser Key of Solomon, although an esoteric book, illustrates the science of demons. It lists individual demons, along with alternative names, and their characteristics. In this it follows the Testament of Solomon, which, as explained in chapter 4, had Solomon capture demons and then systematically describes them. The Lesser Key was in its own way scientific, even if the subject was supernatural.30 The fact that demons could be conjured created theological problems for medieval exorcists. Exorcism could involve adjuring and binding a demon, which are forms of command. Commanding demons was sorcery, making a priest look like a magician, something the church very much wanted to avoid—Protestants in early modern times were only too ready to accuse

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Catholics of practicing magic.31 The Lesser Key of Solomon, building on the tradition of demonologies that had been developed in the Middle Ages, listed demons by name and gave information on how to raise and control them. This concept of demons has moved away from traditional biblical views and explanations, and more toward what has been adopted in popular culture. Demons have always been considered supernatural, and therefore powerful, but as enemies of God their main function was to attack and torment the faithful. Tempting people to sin was one of their primarily goals.32 Possession was obviously known in this period, but the idea that this power could be harnessed through esoteric means reflects a more complex view of demons. We’ll begin to see in chapter 7 that Hollywood demons may be summoned without a clear idea of what they are. This medieval science of grimoires is highly esoteric and book-based. Another significant tome associated with demons is the Malleus Maleficarum, or “hammer of witches,” the infamous Early Modern (1487) witch-hunting manual written by Heinrich Kramer.33 This fanatically misogynic text demonstrated the medieval concept that women and the diabolic were close kin.34 There had been strains of this already from the early church fathers such as Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine (who had much to say about such things). The idea of women and their connection to the devil was traced back to Eden and it was believed that not even the advent of the Son of God changed that basic inclination to evil. This view is reflected in Malleus Maleficarum.35 Although the shift of demonic possession toward female victims will reflect Poe’s observation concerning poetic tropes in later times, here it’s plainly the prejudicial objectification of women. We’ll return to this shortly. Space prevents a lengthy treatment of the subject, but Malleus Maleficarum is a further example of demonic book culture. It’s also an example of how religion served the male hegemony over women. Malleus Maleficarum brought together the diabolical, witches, and spectacle. In other words, it was custom-made for dramatic demons. To try to understand this in the context of the Middle Ages we must consider one of the most influential European sources of learning at that time period. We must get to a monastery. MONASTIC DEMONS Although cinematic possessions were still centuries in the future, the frightening world of movie demons owes quite a lot to monasticism.36 Starting about the third century of the Common Era, zealous Christians, individuals and groups, began to isolate themselves from society to be closer to God. These monastics found the easiest place to get away from the distractions

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of the world was the desert. The fact that the wilderness was considered the haunt of dangerous animals and demons encouraged, rather than dissuaded, these early monks. Without intimate knowledge of sources of water and food and how to outsmart wild beasts, survival in such environments was impossible. We may not think of monks as warriors, but that was the way they thought of themselves. They were spiritual warriors.37 Monster hunters, in their way. To the monastic mind, the soul was the only part of humans that was truly valuable. Bodies were distractions. Temptations. Denying the body enhanced the spirit, and what better way to do that than to reside at the outer reaches of survivability? Demons were spiritual beings of the wilderness. Evil spirits, yes, but although immaterial they could be fought both physically and spiritually.38 The end result was an enhanced soul for the warrior, more prepared to meet God. If the religious were asking for trouble, according to their records they found it. Antony of Egypt was especially well known for being targeted by demons.39 We know of Antony because of the biography written by Athanasius of Alexandria, a fourth-century bishop. His account freely intermixes quotidian “biography” with the supernatural. Demonic attacks are frequent with one leaving Antony so badly beaten that those who carried him off believed he was dead. Athanasius tells us such things weren’t isolated instances. At first, demons didn’t “possess” as much as “oppress” the saintly monastics. Temptations were high on the demonic priority list—celibates received visions of naked women, for example. Demons knew human weaknesses and exploited them. This represents an expanded sphere of activities from biblical demons and ties them to Satan—he, after all tempted Jesus in the wilderness. In the Bible demons were entities that caused illness and physical harm. Now the game-plan became spiritual warfare.40 They still physically attacked, but they also morally tempted. Monastics responded as warriors to this new demonic activity.41 This aspect of monastic warriors carries on straight into The Exorcist. Fr. Merron is a monster hunter—he starts the movie in the desert—and Fr. Karras is literally a fighter, a former boxer, and a Jesuit. The proximate victim is a girl approaching sexual maturity. In the long Middle Ages demons appear to have been largely a monastic concern. While the dearth of individual writing may amplify this view, monasteries undoubtedly laid the groundwork for “cloistered” settings of higher education. Because sacraments remained the preserve of male clergy, when religious orders for females emerged priests were required for females to receive the means of grace. This gender disparity may have encouraged convents to see themselves as targets for demonic outbreaks.42 Women were oppressed by demons, and not surprisingly, often in sexual ways.43 Over

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time the balance of demonic oppression and possession would tend toward females.44 This gender bias would remain entrenched thereafter. Possession could involve learned behavior, and since women were more often in positions of vulnerability they may have been more susceptible to suggestion.45 Demons revel in chaos and disruption, and this preference of disturbing the lives of women religious would feed the related phenomenon of witch hunting late in this time period. Medieval demons haunted many convents. They could also possess the laity, especially women and girls.46 Demonic temptations persisted and evolved into more and more sexual aspects; Regan MacNeil will masturbate with a crucifix, after all. Remember that gospel possession stories focused predominantly on men and boys. By the late Middle Ages females predominate. There’s a poetic, if tragic, component to this gender shift.47 Like the iconic damsel in distress, the demoniac was often a woman awaiting rescue by a man. Monks were spiritual warriors; nuns, however, had to be rescued, often by a priest. This gender imbalance is particularly striking since at this period demons could technically be exorcised by the faithful of either gender.48 Exorcism became a purely priestly prerogative only later in this period. Monasteries were precursors to universities—locations of study and learning.49 One of the topics of scholarly discussion was how to determine if a person was possessed or merely ill. This fine division isn’t parsed in the Bible. Jesus cast out demons in numbers and no one questioned if victims were possessed. They just knew. In the medieval world, however, the issue grew more complicated.50 While not yet a science, basic psychology was obvious; not all “possessions” were demonic. Which were supernatural and which were physical? Scholars—including monks—tried to organize all this knowledge. Although books such as 1 Enoch had been lost in the west by the Middle Ages, their traditions lived on. Monks regimented angelic orders that were only mentioned in the Bible and other early literature. Watchers (“Grigori”) came to be an order of angels. Angels, like God, were spirits. When they mated with women—a story that never grew old—their progeny presented a problem. But to mate you needed a body. Medieval thinkers weren’t stupid. They tried to explain this conundrum. Since the heavens were like an upside-down bowl over the earth (in preCopernican cosmology) it made sense that there were layers. The highest layer was God’s Heaven, naturally. Below that were layers that had clouds. Before becoming denizens of Hell, demons lived in the air. Remember, one of the biblical diabolical titles is “the prince of the power of the air.” Clouds, and even air, had substance. Classical mythology had Zeus raping Io in cloud form. Demons could fashion temporary bodies made of air or cloud. This solved part of the problem. Perhaps in these cloud-bodies, angels could reproduce with women.51

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Their biblical offspring, the giants, thus had physical bodies and angel souls, with attitude. In other words, they trended demonic. With immortal parentage they couldn’t die. As physical beings they could. In antiquity the idea had developed that when a giant died, its soul would seek another body to possess. Sound familiar? The world of possessing demons, already at large in the New Testament, started to make its own theological sense. Church writers of the Medieval Period tried to systematize and control this demonic world.52 To be safe, Catholic exorcism increasingly favored priests as exorcists. The process involved elaborate rituals. Sanctioned exorcism reduced the danger of a demon exiting one person only to possess an ill-prepared lay exorcist. This key feature is precisely what makes The Exorcist such a poignant story. Fr. Karras, tormented in his own right, offers to take the demon to save Regan. Although demons prefer ladies, their real target in the film was a monk. Two of them, actually. This demonology is quite medieval. And not a little seductive. INCUBI, SUCCUBI, AND DEMONIAC BEHAVIOR By now, it should be clear that gender plays a large role in developing ideas of demonic possession. A complex combination of ancient lore (such as the Lilith legend) and changing social structures (the predominance of male social leadership grew throughout the Middle Ages)53 led to women as preferred demonic targets.54 Entire convents could be possessed. The demons, in the often earthy psychology of the time, wanted illicit sex not for pleasure but to lead humans to sin.55 This was expressed in sexual demons known as incubi and succubi. No matter which gender demons targeted, females bore the blame. This mindset reflects medieval thought about bodies. Females bodies had long puzzled men. Based on earlier, classical sources, women were supposed to lack the kind of strong, unmalleable bodies of males. Females were thus more vulnerable to the impressions made by demons. This kind of thinking is present in popular etymologies for words deemed masculine and feminine, as well as in theologies that understood males to reflect more closely the rational faculties that were understood to be divine.56 In ways nearly unthinkable today, the long Middle Ages saw women as inherently inferior and trapped them there with almost Orwellian language control. They were thus deemed more readily victims of demonic possession.57 The difference between an incubus and a succubus was based on the gender of the victim. Incubi attacked, and even occasionally impregnated, women. Women were considered natural tempters, and demons obliged them.

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Succubi targeted men. Mounting a sleeping or incapacitated male, they would take his semen for nefarious ends. The explanation that male desire might be part of the problem seems never to have arisen. In these cases the demon as female took rather than the male victim giving. Demons could assume the characteristics of either gender and switch between them.58 It would be overly simplistic to suggest that demons were merely veiled sexual desire. That was clearly part of the story; the connection between demons and Satan had that point in common. Medieval thinkers liked to keep categories separate, but Satan and demons obviously belonged to a common class. The serpent in the Garden of Eden, already connected to the Devil in Revelation, showed Lucifer’s prurient designs. Lilith, Adam’s first wife, was tempted by Satan. She wanted sexual control and when Adam refused, she went off to the wilderness and cohabited with the Dark Lord himself. Their children became incubi and succubi.59 Here was a different demonic origin myth. Broadly consistent with the fallen angel perspective, both the Devil we know and the demons who know slumbering individuals are tied together with female sexuality. It should also be noted that this dividing demons into “species” shows just how inchoate they really are. Sexual demons are specialized from what we might call generic demons. This classification isn’t reflected in the Good Book. This nightmarish aspect of demons, tied in with Poe’s observation of the poetic nature of endangered women, develops into cinematic representations of possession. We see this clearly in how demoniac behavior shifts during this period. Very little will be new in celluloid demonic activity; most characteristic diabolical behavior developed in the Middle Ages. From there it carries on straight to Hollywood.60 Demoniac activity had changed since Jesus’s day. Remember, nobody saw demons—demoniacs were diagnosed by their symptoms. In the Bible demons could make a person foam at the mouth, grind their teeth, become catatonic, and lose control of their bodies. They could make people blind, deaf, and dumb, or give them super strength. By the Medieval Period they took on a host of new behaviors.61 Their actions became more overtly supernatural.62 Possessed individuals growled like animals and contorted their bodies— even to the point that their heads faced behind them. The possessed could speak languages they’d never learned, and vomit up nails and pins. They would react violently to holy objects, and levitate. These dramatic, theatrical manifestations aren’t found in biblical or late antique descriptions of the possessed. Clearly supernatural, these developing features found explanation in the concept of demons. Many medieval signs of possession could be divine as well as demonic.63 Saints such as Teresa of Avila, and especially Joseph of Cupertino, were

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known to levitate.64 Speaking in languages a person had never learned was likewise ambiguous. “Speaking in tongues” was attested Christian behavior in the first century. This was considered a gift of God, not demonic. The possessed could also speak in unstudied languages and could levitate; who was responsible for such behavior? That was the key question. The same could be asked of other forms of losing bodily control, but the more perverse signs could be considered demonic without question. Aversion to holy objects, for example, would be inexplicable if God were behind it. Contorting bodies looked grotesque and diabolical. God wouldn’t do this to people created in his image. Vomiting up dangerous objects, even in a society that accepted flagellation, was hardly a divine charism. Demoniacs often spoke horrible blasphemies. To the medieval mind, demons had great explanatory value in such cases. Scholasticism—a medieval form of philosophy based on reason, and which reflects early scientific thinking—held itself accountable to Scripture.65 The existence of demons was never in question, but the possibility of false positives was recognized.66 At issue through these centuries was how to determine if a person was possessed by a demon, faking possession, or simply suffering some form of natural ailment. This was never an easy determination to make because natural illnesses could be caused by demons. Tests were set in place and the more spectacular manifestations stood out as surer signs of demonic possession. And Hollywood noticed. In an era when both magic and Hell were serious concerns, it was important to identify demonic activity in order to stop it. Blasphemy was very human, but it could well be a sign of possession. Adverse physical reactions to holy objects could likewise be a risky game but it’s actually simple to imitate. Regurgitating pointy objects was more dramatic—unless well practiced it was dangerous—but it could be faked. Contortionists have always existed, but extreme examples were difficult to fabricate. Heads facing a person’s back (something even The Exorcist required a puppet to do) appeared demonic. Centuries later, the various symptoms attributed to demonic possession in this period became the cinematic standard. Focusing on the dramatic, the signs were clear—a person suffering from a combination of these symptoms was possessed by a demon. By the Middle Ages mental illness was well recognized—even in antiquity there was some awareness of it.67 Demonic possession could help explain it, instead of the other way around. Medieval medical knowledge involved keeping the four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile) in balance. Hysteria, epilepsy, and melancholy were considered diseases that were brought on imbalance of humors, but this imbalance could be caused by demons. Demons were, in short, very difficult to diagnose. And they preferred ladies.

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DEMONS AND WITCHES Early Christianity, it’s safe to say, had issues with sexuality. Male writers forged a connection between the Devil and females.68 Origen, tradition says, castrated himself to live a righteous life.69 Augustine believed the very sex act conveyed original sin into every human soul. Nothing substantially challenged these ideas until the Enlightenment, and even then it would be a struggle for a few centuries until women were able to vote in some developed nations. Today equal pay continues to be an issue, as do female health care and reproductive rights. All of these ideas are tied directly to the Good Book in western thought. Good, at least, for men. Combined with the belief in the Devil, these ideas too easily gave way to the fabrication of witches.70 Witches in this era were closely associated with demons.71 Not all magic involved witches, of course. Some historians believe that what fearful officials and neighbors called “witches” were actually herbalists and traditional wise folk, often women.72 In days before trained doctors were readily available, such wise folk could be consulted on medical issues. Their ability to heal seems to have played into the idea that their “powers” could also be used to harm. When someone suffered inexplicable loss or misfortunate it could be blamed on a witch. In the Middle Ages, witch activity resembled that of demons. Demons, witches, and the Devil were all similarly shaded hues in the dark palette of supernatural belief. Demons may be compared to ghosts, and the Devil to the gods of the nations—a continuous spectrum of fearsome beings. Witches differed in that they were believed to be humans who accommodated dark powers. From ancient times witches were assumed to be real. Irrational fear of them, however, was distinctly part of the medieval and early modern Zeitgeist. Although not exclusively, the large majority of witches were coded as female, perhaps because the Devil was male. Witches historically were defined by their relationship to Satan and his associated demons. In the ecclesiastical mind witches could direct demons to possess people.73 In early America some settlers believed witches capable of possessing people themselves.74 Intimate with the Devil, witches obtained a share of his dark powers. They were a visible part of the swirl of supernatural entities that inhabited the invisible universe. Witches had the unfortunate advantage of being physical beings. Unlike demons you could shackle, torture, imprison, and execute humans and see it happening. Associating these women with the Devil or demons logically “justified” their otherwise unconscionable treatment. Much has been written on why this misogynistic outlook exploded during the very birth of Enlightenment thinking. Any number of suggestions regarding the origins of witch hysteria have been offered. Women as folk healers

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before the age of scientific medicine, their role as midwives, and even their physical appearance as they aged beyond childbearing years have all been blamed. These seem more proximate causes to an ultimate concern of a theological nature. The Devil was active on earth despite the incarnation. Clerics, technically celibate men in Catholic contexts, saw women in Scripture as the harbingers of evil, in the employ of Satan. Desirable yet forbidden, they were easily scapegoated (itself an activity originally associated with desert demons). The topic is complex and defies rational explanation. Not all witches were female, although the majority were.75 Their association with demons survives into popular culture (we’ll see an example or two in the next chapter). In the misogynistic haze of the Middle Ages, the connection between witches and demons grew stronger. Even as the Enlightenment was gaining steam, witch hunts and exorcisms were both also increasing. Gender bias impacted women both in the accusations of being witches and in being possessed by demons. Exorcisms and witch trials had the feature of spectacle in common.76 They share this theatricality with exorcism cinema. All of this tends to support the male hierarchy. Exorcisms were used to demonstrate the might of Christianity, particularly Roman Catholicism, over demons.77 The ceremony was dramatic and powerful. Witches, already closely associated with the Devil and demonic possession, provided another opportunity to demonstrate the strength of the church. The consequences for disobedience were serious. Particularly for women. CONCLUSIONS The concept of demons that we recognize today is one that developed in the Middle Ages and Early Modernity. Clearly taking its cues from Scripture, this characterization was increasingly used to interpret behaviors for which the logic of the time posited religious explanations—blasphemies and aversion to holy objects, for example. Why would any non-possessed person be afraid of the means of grace ordained by God himself? You might expect this of infidels, but Christians? Demons explained this chaotic behavior. Beyond the violations of religious protocols, demons also explained the violation of what we would call physical laws. Modern cinematic portrayals of bodily contortions frequently boast that some young actress achieved these distortions without the aid of CGI—even modern minds have difficulty accepting the naturalness of trained contortionists. Before films shared such images widely, or sideshow barkers drew crowds to exploit those with few other options, seeing a person bent the way a human should not bend clearly suggested the supernatural. The further test of speaking a language a person

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had never learned also fell outside of explanation for a society with no neuroscience. Even today this phenomenon is difficult to explain with modern linguists arguing about how language processing takes place in the brain. If we can’t explain it, we can understand how earlier generations considered it supernatural. The same is true of the demonic voice, nonhuman growls and vocalizations. Vomiting dangerous physical objects—pins and nails—could be faked then as now. If, however, no sign of hoaxing could be found, what other explanation exists apart from the supernatural? And of course, levitation, still the most disputed of symptoms reported, even today has no rational explanation. These dramatic signs continue to indicate possession in popular culture today. Other, more culturally specific, aspects of possession and oppression have fallen aside. Less common, for example, is the harassment of monastics. They’re far enough from daily consciousness that few people worry about monks and nuns and their “medieval” worldview. The connection with witches, however, which could occupy an entire book or two of its own, hasn’t disappeared. The association of demons with books also remains. Cinematic exorcisms nearly always involve books—the Roman Ritual and the Bible among them. Grimoires still appear from time to time. Witches write their names in the Devil’s book.78 Modern witches, however, whether official Wiccans or simply those who accept magical elements in nature, aren’t necessarily Satanists or demonic conjurers.79 In the time period covered in this chapter, the association between witchcraft and demons was assumed. Clearly some gender biases were at work here. Official religion—both Catholic and Protestant—was under male control. Female spiritual experience that wasn’t mediated by males had to be unofficial. It was therefore dangerous and chaotic. This was the territory of demons and the Devil. This idea sometimes plays out in modern cinema. Rosemary’s Baby, for example, has Rosemary assume those threatening her eponymous baby are witches. She has, in fact, been raped by the Devil. The movies we’ll examine in the following chapters will tend more toward straightforward demonic activity. Some will include witches to enhance the gender dynamic. Poe’s observation of the poetic aspect of a woman’s tragic demise could only emerge after the scientific worldview of Early Modernity took hold. In fact, demons and other forms of supernatural causation had to release their grip on the Zeitgeist for the more humanistic, if still Romantic, idea of human tragedy to bear any cultural weight. Poe himself favored ratiocination to supernatural explanations.80 Demons will come to occupy the space between a modern, scientific worldview and the emotional sweep of cinema. Poe didn’t write about demons, but he noted a key point that will become clear in

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their cinematic portrayal—females under threat keep our attention. Demonic victims tend to be female. And demons tend to get medieval on the lasses. Overall, popular culture has maintained medieval perspectives on demons. Names are drawn from sources such as the Testament of Solomon or the medieval grimoire, The Lesser Key of Solomon. Dramatic and defying explanation, they reemerge in twentieth-century comedy as well as in terror. NOTES 1. “Long” and “Short” centuries have been used by historians to cover cultural trends that don’t fit within prescribed historical divisions, such as any discrete century. I have adopted this convention for “the Long Middle Ages” since these developments begin before that period and continue after it. 2. Oldridge, The Devil. 3. For example, Clark, Thinking with Demons; H. C. Erik Midelfort, Exorcism and Enlightenment: Johann Joseph Gassner and the Demons of Eighteenth-Century Germany (Yale University Press, 2005). 4. Russell, Lucifer and Clark, Thinking with Demons, especially. Tracing these ideas of evil into early modernity, Russell, Mephistopheles is an invaluable guide. See also Bamberger, Fallen Angels. 5. Following the lead of Dyan Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). 6. Young, A History, is a well-written academic account that has considerable information on this time period. 7. This point is made in Wink, Naming the Powers. 8. Sagan, Demon-Haunted World and Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Bantam, 2006) are just two examples. 9. The science of the Middle Ages is explored in Edward Grant, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1996). 10. Caciola, Discerning Spirits, makes the point that the Western Schism in Catholicism was blamed on demons. 11. Science and basic empirical methodology existed in antiquity. This was explored by Charles Haberl, “Exact Science in the Ancient Near East” (Unpublished lecture, Rutgers University, 2010). Most recently the fascination with the Antikythera mechanism (Alexander Jones, A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World (Oxford University Press, 2017)) has been used as evidence of scientific understanding at the turn of the first millennium of the Common Era, scientific thinking, however, goes back many centuries before that. 12. Even as late as Isaac Newton (in Early Modernity), religion was essential in the mind of one of history’s greatest scientific minds. See Rob Iliffe, Priest of Nature: The Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton (Oxford University Press, 2017). 13. I Enoch is canonical for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, of course. 14. For evidence that demons had explanatory value, see Oldridge, The Devil.

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15. Although this wasn’t universally accepted, see Elliott, Fallen Bodies. 16. Midelfort, Exorcism and Enlightenment. 17. Such possession could be divine or diabolical, see Caciola, Discerning Spirits. 18. The standard source for literacy remains William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Harvard University Press, 1991). 19. Oldridge, The Devil. 20. Chajes, Between Worlds; Young, A History. 21. The theatrics of possession are discussed extensively in Levack, Devil Within and also in Caciola, Discerning Spirits and Chajes, Between Worlds. 22. Clark, Thinking with Demons; Sagan, Demon-Haunted. 23. Wolfgang Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts (Polity, 2004); Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany (Yale University Press, 2006); Young, A History. 24. Sue Chaplin, “Gothic Romance, 1760–1830,”in The Gothic World, eds. Glennis Byron and Dale Townshend (Routledge, 2012): 199–209. 25. Cameron, Enchanted Europe. 26. On grimoires the most complete source is Owen Davis, Grimoires: A History of Magic Books (Oxford University Press, 2009). See also Claire Fanger, ed., Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). 27. The word “goetic” derives from Greek goes, roughly “sorcerer.” See Robert L. Fowler, “Greek Magic, Greek Religion,” Illinois Classic Studies 20 (1995): 1–22 on Greek magic. See also John Wu, “Goetia, Exorcism and Demonic Struggles in Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism,” Sydney Studies in Religion (2008): 87–107. 28. Grimoires haven’t received excessive academic treatment. Two of the best guides are Fanger, Conjuring Spirits, and Davies, Grimoires. Copies of the Lesser Key of Solomon are easily found, but they do not frequently contain academic introductions. The entire realm of grimoires remains under studied. An older book of magic ritual was known as The Key of Solomon, but it does not exist in a recognized “canonical” form. For a useful treatment of Solomon see Steven Weitzman, Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom (Yale University Press, 2011), on the magical aspect, see Matthias Hoffmann, “From Exorcist to Esoteric Expert – Solomon in Magical Literature from Early Judaism to Magic Grimoires” (Unpublished Society of Biblical Literature paper, Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity section, 2017). 29. Weitzman, Solomon, Davies, Grimoires. 30. The Lesser Key of Solomon is available in many editions. I consulted Joseph H. Peterson, ed., The Lesser Key of Solomon: Detailing the Ceremonial Art of Commanding Spirits Both Good and Evil (Weiser Books, 2001). 31. Chajes, Between Worlds. On concerns that controlling demons could be suspect, see Levack, Devil Within and Cuneo, American Exorcism. 32. Stokes, The Satan. 33. Christopher S. Mackay, The Hammer of Witches: A Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum (Cambridge University Press, 2009). 34. Caciola, Discerning Spirits. 35. Elliott, Fallen Bodies.

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36. For monastic demons see David Brakke, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Harvard University Press, 2006); Midelfort, Exorcism and Enlightenment. On monasticism specifically see Gert Melville, The World of Medieval Monasticism: Its History and Forms of Life (Liturgical Press, 2016). 37. Russell, Satan. 38. Spirits could be embodied to a degree. See Caciola, Discerning Spirits, Juanita Feros Ruys, Demons in the Middle Ages (Arc Humanities Press, 2017), and Levack, Devil Within. 39. Athanasius and Robert C. Gregg, Athanasius: Life of Anthony and the Letter To Marcellinus (Paulist Press, 1979). 40. Brakke, Demons and the Making. 41. To understand this in any kind of depth would require penetrating considerations of sin, scholasticism, and reconstructed views of life in the Middle Ages, such as that in Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (Ballentine Books, 1978). The purpose of this chapter, however, is to prepare us for the cinematic adaption of demons rather than to delve into the theology behind monasticism and the Middle Ages in Europe. 42. Caciola, Discerning Spirits; Midelfort, Exorcism and Enlightenment; Jeffrey R. Watt, The Scourge of Demons: Possession, Lust, and Witchcraft in a SeventeenthCentury Italian Convent (University of Rochester Press, 2009). While not focusing on demons, see also Craig A. Monson, Nuns Behaving Badly: Tales of Music, Magic, Art and Arson in the Convents of Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2010). 43. Barbara Newman, “Possessed by the Spirit: Devout Women, Demoniacs, and the Apostolic Life in the Thirteenth Century,” Speculum, 73 no. 3 (998): 733–770. 44. Elliott, Fallen Bodies, Caciola, Discerning Spirits. 45. Cuneo, American Exorcism. 46. Elliott, Fallen Bodies, Caciola, Discerning Spirits. 47. This poetic aspect again recalls Poe’s observation; the idea of female possession was compelling enough to recur frequently. 48. Young, A History. 49. Ellis, Raising the Devil. 50. Caciola, Discerning Spirits; Ruys, Demons in the Middle. 51. Elliott, Fallen Bodies; Levack, Devil Within; Ruys, Demons in the Middle. 52. On scholasticism see Ulrich G. Leinsle, Introduction to Scholastic Theology (Catholic University of America Press, 2010). 53. Margaret C. Schaus, ed., Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (Routledge, 2015). 54. As Caciola, Discerning Spirits points out, the same symptoms exhibited by males could be understood as cause for sainthood. 55. Newman, “Possessed by the Spirit.” 56. Caciola, Discerning Spirits. 57. This paragraph draws together material from Susan E. Hylen, Women in the New Testament World (Oxford University Press, 2018); Myers, Blessed Among Women; and Caciola, Discerning Spirits.

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58. Elliott, Fallen Bodies. 59. Sources on Lilith include Schwartz, Tree of Souls; Bamberger, Fallen Angels; and Patai, Hebrew Goddess. 60. Clover, Men, Women; and Freeland, The Naked, discuss the gendered issues of horror. 61. Caciola, Discerning Spirits. 62. Brakke, Demons and the Making; Ruys, Demons in the Middle. 63. Caciola, Discerning Spirits. 64. Michael Grosso, The Man Who Could Fly: St. Joseph of Copertino and the Mystery of Levitation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015); Young, A History. 65. Leinsle, Introduction. For Franciscans, specifically, see Bert Roest, “Demonic Possession and the Practice of Exorcism: An exploration of the Franciscan legacy,” Franciscan Studies 76 (2018): 301–340. 66. Levack, Devil Within. 67. Millon, Masters of the Mind. 68. Elliott, Fallen Bodies; Caciola, Discerning Spirits. 69. Even if a fiction, which is uncertain, its believability captures the view of sexual temptation at the time. 70. Roper, Witch Craze; Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts; Anne Llewellyn Barstow, Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts (HarperOne, 1994), and Brian A. Pavlac, Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials (Bison Books, 2010). 71. See, by way of introduction, Clark, Thinking with Demons. 72. Barstow, Witchcraze. 73. Levack, Devil Within. 74. Richard Godbeer, Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 (Oxford University Press, 2005). 75. Barstow, Witchcraze, Roper, Witch-Craze. 76. Caciola, Discerning Spirits, Levack, Devil Within. 77. Chajes, Between Worlds. 78. See, for example, the 2015 Robert Eggers film, The Witch. 79. Consider Alex Mar, Witches of America (Sarah Crichton Books, 2015). 80. W. Scott Poole, “An Unrequited Obsession: Poe and Modern Horror,” in The Oxford Handbook of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. Gerald Kennedy and Scott Peeples (Oxford University Press, 2019: 641–658.

Chapter 7

Demons No Laughing Matter

A coach pulled furiously by two horses rushes through the crowded streets, the driver blowing a warning horn as harried pedestrians dodge fearfully out of the way. The black carriage pulls to a stop before the Hispaniola. First Mate Samuel Arrow warns the crew that the approaching captain is “a raging volcano, tormented by inner demons that mere mortals cannot fathom.” “He’s got demons?” Gonzo remarks. “Cool!” Thus Muppet Treasure Island casually introjects the popular conception of demons into a children’s movie. We’re about to take a giant step forward in both time and delivery method. It’s not that there was no interest in demons during the Enlightenment—Early Modernity overlaps with it and we’ve seen that demons and witches survived up through the eighteenth century—but the Devil was on the run in those days. From the late nineteenth-century demons had mostly dropped from daily consciousness as new, empirically based views gained ground. Bible readers, of course, still knew about demons and those who read Scripture literally never stopped believing in them. Traditions of expelling demons, while underplayed, quietly existed in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The problem with demons is that they’re supernatural beings that can’t be studied directly; they’re invisible and non-corporeal (they don’t have physical bodies) in a scientific age that denies the very existence spiritual beings. Awareness lingered quietly in the background of public consciousness, erupting from time to time. When the demonic reemerged in everyday thought, it was in the context of pop culture.1 They were available, for example, for Edgar Allan Poe to write in “The Raven” that “his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.” Readers knew what a demon was. In a very real sense, however, the modern concern with demons derives from The Exorcist.2 Horror films 105

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existed since the 1930s but none made possession seem real until William Peter Blatty’s novel hit the screen. Movies, like Scriptures, derive from a variety of sources and reflect demons in different ways.3 When they feature demons they can choose religious ones, such as fallen angels, or secular entities such as elementals, or simply beings they know everyone will recognize without having to explain their origins. The fact is that demons come from a variety of sources. Their chaotic origins enhance the fear they generate. American society was already jumpy in the 1970s. The Cold War, although not at its chilliest, was still in the air. The Vietnam War had been televised much nearer to real time than any conflict before. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in 1968 and racial discontent led to the rise of some radical groups of high profile. Watergate didn’t help. Real questions about the origins of evil had been exacerbated by Time asking on its cover in 1966 “Is God Dead?” Horror had its cold fingers on the nervous pulse of society. Demons had long lay dormant. Theologians, influenced by a dominant materialistic science, suggested that exorcisms involved cases of epilepsy or other diseases. Relief could be delivered psychologically or medicinally. There were no evil spirits to cast out. The Devil was a construct, not a being. All of this was complicated by the fact that demonic possession is culturally specific. The ways the possessed behave conform to cultural expectations.4 Following the troubled 1960s the era of The Exorcist suggested things were out of control.5 Rosemary’s Baby (1968) initiated the fear, showing the Prince of Darkness raping a young woman. That movie, in a way that would be difficult to replicate in the new millennium, sent chills down America’s collective spine. Was there something to this spiritual stuff after all? Even if there wasn’t, paying customers were easily found for a film suggesting there was. If the Devil menacing a young woman could draw in the crowds, how about a demon possessing a young girl? Such was the impact of The Exorcist that demon possession movies really didn’t move forward for decades after its release. Blatty’s novel and its film version became iconic. Other elements of pop culture fueled this interest. Less than five years after The Exorcist made such an impact, The Omen (1976) and The Amityville Horror (1977) appeared, the latter bringing Ed and Lorraine Warren into the limelight.6 Although not in the 1979 movie, their real-life exploits triggered an interest in paranormal investigation that was, in turn, featured in another landmark film—the comedy horror Ghostbusters (1984). The impact here was less on horror than it was on inspiring a new generation of scientific (broadly conceived) ghost hunting.7 Although ghost hunting would only hit the big time with the advent of reality television, the activity would fix in the popular mindset the spiritual entity that “wasn’t human.” Zuul and Gozer

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raised questions about these faux Sumerian entities. Fandom has kept them alive ever since. These movies are only a selective sample. Like demons themselves, the more you look for them, the more you’ll find. Cinema faced its own problems with them.8 Any monster that’s completely invisible leaves viewers unsatisfied. With incorporeal beings like demons that can be a problem. Embodying them becomes pragmatic, but raises its own issues. Historically the Devil was portrayed as black in color.9 In the Middle Ages, when this idea became popular, it wasn’t necessarily a racist idea. By then the Devil lived in Hell, which was bound to leave a physical body burnt. This idea carried over into the rendering of demons in artworks. Today it still appears in movies, but can be read as racist. As we’ll see in Annabelle: Creation, demons come in black and gray. The demon in Insidious (not treated here) is black and red. This dilemma is a constant tension in the genre.10 Showing the monster removes some of the terror and introduces potential problems. Once demons had been reintroduced to public consciousness, they were picked up by some evangelical sects as the explanation for quotidian evil and suffering.11 This was mirrored by popular psychology in M. Scott Peck’s book People of the Lie.12 There’s no question that the possibility of the reality of demons—they’re biblical after all!—helped stoke this popular interest. What’s particularly striking is their virtual absence in pop culture as main threats before Blatty’s novel. Decades later all Dr. Evil had to say was “I need a young priest, and an old priest! The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!” for viewers of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) to know his rotating chair was “possessed.” What we’ll notice in this chapter is that although demons, possession, and the Devil may be treated with a light hand, seriousness underlies the very concept. Studies have demonstrated that even atheists are reluctant to invoke divine powers to cause them harm, just in case.13 The Exorcist was oriented to Roman Catholic belief. Mainstream Protestantism had left much of the demonic behind as scientifically inspired biblical studies methods predominated. But if the Good Book was true in any literal sense, so were demons. Dramatic exorcisms weren’t part of Protestantism, but a real fear of the demonic had never disappeared. At the same time, demons sometimes displayed their burlesque side. WHAT’S SO FUNNY ABOUT DEMONS? Even before The Exorcist, ideas about demons had tacitly circulated in popular culture. Because of the intense medieval interest in demonology and witches, diabolical creatures had been widely studied in the past. Although

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not mainstream, pockets of interest in such things remained. Simply because science was on the rise didn’t mean, as Carl Sagan had hoped, that demons would disappear. Quite the contrary. When a movement goes underground, it becomes even more tenacious. Public imagination had meanwhile ceased to see demonic possession as a serious threat. Even the Devil became a bit of a jester. We can see this happening in the fact that a number of popular words and worlds conceal diabolical origins. The word “harlequin,” for example. Although its etymology is disputed, a good case can be made that it came into English as the name of a demon. In the English of the seventh century, the word “harlequin” seems to have been borrowed from French, which had in turn taken it from Italian. It may relate to demons as a collective, or it may be the name of an individual demon corrupted through various romance languages.14 Such ideas may have reflections in Dante’s Inferno as well as other medieval works such as morality plays. When and how the harlequin became a comedic figure isn’t known, but the diabolical buffoon goes back to the Middle Ages.15 The harlequin—as the fool—and the Devil come together in tarot cards (and perhaps in Cabin in the Woods). Tarot cards were a variety of playing cards that appeared in the middle of the fifteenth century. Originally gaming pieces, they acquired an occult reputation over time.16 They would eventually find their way into horror along with spirit or ouija boards, as one of the popular demonic vehicles into a person’s life. In the case of both ouija and tarot (which included the harlequin as a fool) the trigger idea was divination. Divination is older than the Bible, by far.17 The earliest societies looked for messages from the gods in the way birds flew, or oil moved on water, or abnormalities appeared in the viscera of sacrificed animals. As the gods of these “foreign” cultures became demons, the very idea of divination became evil against the backdrop of prophecy, where the one God approached a prophet with specific information to pass along. Other gods were eventually dismissed, but their remnants lived on in Christian saints, evil demons, and elements of popular culture. Nothing is ever wasted in this spiritual economy. Before we move onto the serious business of demons in straightforward horror films, we’ll take a cue from harlequins and consider the lighter side of demons. Horror cinema comes in many forms. One of the more unusual is the horror comedy genre. These films often have the gore and splatter of standard horror, but contain elements of ridiculousness that make it difficult to take them seriously. The underlying issues, however, may be strangely poignant. In the modern mystical world demons are classified as a species of entity sometimes found by ghost hunters. In the 1980s there was no reason to suppose that reality television would develop and become inundated by selfappointed specialists in finding the restless dead. Perhaps not by coincidence

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such activity started after four guys down on their luck began ghostbusting in New York City, only to encounter a powerful demon. GHOSTBUSTERS (1984) “Who you gonna call?” There’s no shortage of ghosts in New York City. As a pop culture phenomenon that led to an astonishing flop of a sequel and a significant new reboot, Ghostbusters seems to have jump-started modern interest in paranormal investigation.18 Ghost hunters had, of course, been around for quite some time. The British Society for Psychical Research had serious intellectuals asking after the departed long before Jason and Grant grabbed a full spectrum modified camcorder and headed to a haunted house.19 Ghostbusters, however, introduced such investigations to an eager public. Scientific equipment, displaced academics, special effects, and Sigourney Weaver proved a powerful combination in the popular imagination. If the film stopped at ghosts there would be no reason to discuss it here. But it has demons. Since demons were first recorded in Mesopotamia and continue into modern times, we shouldn’t ignore this pattern in the film. Drs. Venkman (Bill Murray), Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Spengler (Harold Ramis) are three hapless psychic investigators. Thrown out of their comfortable academic careers at Columbia, they decide to go into business for themselves, catching real ghosts. It’s all fun and games until somebody brings in a demon. A Mesopotamian demon. Ghosts can scare and slime, but demons play rough. Drawing on sexual energy, they possess enormous power. They also possess Dana Barrett (Weaver), a musician trying to make it big in Gotham. What starts out as a fairly simple plot ends up having an involved backstory. Barrett’s nerdy accountant neighbor, Louis Tully (Rick Moranis), is infatuated with her but she has no interest. They live in a building with a history, however. Ivo Shandor, a misanthropic mad scientist, designed the building as an antenna for spiritual turbulence. After World War I, believing humanity was beyond saving, he built this tower (Babel, anyone?) complete with obelisks, gargoyles, and an altar, and held rituals to bring about the end of the world. He was a Gozer worshipper. When Stantz and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) are driving in the city, they talk about the end of time. Quoting Revelation, they wonder if this might be why the dead are rising. In Protestantism demons and apocalypticism go together.20 In the mayor’s office the ghostbusters describe how the coming disaster will be of biblical proportions. “What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff,” Stantz explains. Spectators outside Shandor’s Central Park West building carry Bibles as they watch the apocalypse unfold. Demons are biblical monsters.

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Just who are the demons here? All of the Sumerian entities in the film were invented for the movie. In this diegesis Zuul was a demi-god from 6000 BCE, worshipped by the Hittites, Mesopotamians, and Sumerians. Zuul is one of the minions of Gozer, the destroyer.21 He will possess Barrett. Sumerians are, of course, Mesopotamians. Gozer is obviously a demon. When a spiritual storm churns over Barrett’s apartment building and the gargoyles come to life, one possesses Dana and the other Louis, who takes the name Vinz Clortho, the key master. When Venkman discovers Barrett she displays the classic signs of medieval demonic possession—animal-like behavior, sexual rapaciousness, guttural voice, levitation. The sexual element is clear: she’s the gatekeeper awaiting the key master. Meanwhile Vinz Clortho is taken to ghostbuster headquarters. The spectral imager presents his head as a demon with horns; the same shape as the quadruped version of the gargoyles. Of course, none of this is meant to be taken seriously, but we can learn popular beliefs about demons from it. Zuul and Vinz Clortho are “Sumerian” entities that possess human beings. Gozer is a foreign god—demon—who plans to destroy the world. Interestingly, what convinces Venkman to fight the Stay Puft marshmallow man is the destruction of a church. “Nobody steps on a church in my town!” he shouts. Ghostbusters appeared eleven years after The Exorcist. There had been plenty of time for pop culture to assimilate typical demonic behaviors. Although demons show up humorously here, they maintain their eerie atmosphere of threat. Coming from ancient Sumer, they possess both a woman and a man in late twentieth-century New York. While the Devil himself doesn’t show up in Manhattan, he seems to like to vacation in the New England charm of Eastwick. In order to summon him there, however, the Devil will require his familiar medieval female companions in the form of witches. THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (1987) In popular culture the connection between witches and the Devil was powerfully made in Rosemary’s Baby. The plot is quickly summarized: an older, Satanic couple is seeking a young woman to bear the Devil’s son. Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse (Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes) move into the apartment next door, and a coven of witches oversees Rosemary’s rape by the Devil and subsequent painful pregnancy. Unwittingly, she bears the son of Satan. This is arguably the film that instituted this particular trope. Since the connection between witches and the Devil will occupy The Conjuring universe as well, this chapter considers a comedy-horror exploration

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of that topic, The Witches of Eastwick. The movie version of the John Updike novel begins with three lonely women. Alexandra Medford (Cher), Jane Spofford (Susan Sarandon), and Sukie Ridgemont (Michelle Pfeiffer) are creative, unmarried friends. Alexandra (Alex) is a visual artist, Jane a musician, and Sukie a writer. Walter Neff (Keith Jochim) the upright school principal, makes a long-winded speech that the three women wish would end. It does so with a dramatic rainstorm. That evening at their usual Thursday gathering, they notice they all wanted the same thing to happen and it came true. They then muse about the man they’d like to meet. That night Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson) moves to Eastwick. The town’s buzzing about this mysterious, enormously wealthy stranger. Alex, curious, visits the estate. Daryl seduces her although she’s repulsed by him. He then visits the uptight music teacher Jane and unleashes her inner passion. Alex then bicycles out to the mansion with Sukie, who has an interview with Daryl. Along the way Alex gushes about the fling they had. They arrive to find Jane already there, relaxed and self-confident. The four develop a polyamorous relationship that upsets the righteous little town of Eastwick. Daryl declares the townsfolk jealous. “Pearls before swine,” he says of his presence in their midst, an instance of Satan quoting Scripture for his own ends. As Alex, Jane, and Sukie flourish, the local newspaper prints a scandalous account of their affair with Daryl. Using his powers the “horny little Devil” curses Felicia Alden (Veronica Cartwright), the paper’s owner, and her husband (Richard Jenkins), possessed, murders her. The three women realize that they’ve brought this evil on their small, peaceful town. Coming together for one last night of debauchery, they send Daryl away for breakfast treats while they conjure a way to stop him. They make a poppet, or “voodoo doll,” in order to banish him. Along the way Sukie grabs a large, leather-bound grimoire kept in a glass case in the mansion. It reads “Maleficio” (“black magic”) in gold leaf on its cover. As they attack Daryl’s person, they summon a windstorm that blows him into a Sunday morning church service. The preacher stands over a huge Bible, preaching about Elijah on Mount Sinai. As the great wind comes Daryl is blown in. The Devil interrupts the service with a sermon of his own, asking whether women are a punishment from God (with echoes of early Christianity). Enraged, he drives back to his estate to deal with his coven. The wax poppet accidentally breaks and Daryl attacks them as a monstrous, distorted giant. The women melt the effigy, ridding Eastwick of the Devil they’d conjured. All three are pregnant and bear the Devil’s children, who, they determine, will know nothing of their father. The Devil and demons are commonly blended together in popular imagination, but the association between Satan and witches goes back to the Middle Ages at least.22 This film depicts the misogyny behind such thinking.

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Although probably meant to be an empowering cinematic treatment of women, Daryl’s final sermon and his manipulation of Alex, Jane, and Sukie suggest otherwise. They are, after all, witches who’ve beckoned the Devil to a proper, God-fearing town—everyone goes to the white church on the village green of a Sunday morning. Yes, they banish him, but they’ve also borne his sons. Daryl’s rhetoric throughout his seduction suggests women are better than men, but does he believe it? There’s no retort given to his sermon about whether women are, as Job’s wife was treated by later commentators, a form of divine judgment. The witches here seem to have power apart from Daryl. They conjure him and they banish him. They can fly and they can cast effective spells. The movie doesn’t explain why Daryl has the Malficio grimoire in his house—does the Devil need a book of spells? Is he really the Devil at all? Perhaps he’s a demon. The source of the women’s power, however, is left unexplained. To explain the supernatural one must have recourse to a systematic mythology. And when looking for systematic mythology there’s no better place to search than dogma. DOGMA (1999) Among intelligent, lighthearted cinematic treatments of demonic themes Dogma stands out. Although Kevin Smith’s masterful film is obviously comedy, it fits the category of horror also, at least in some aspects. The premise of the movie is that faith can stop an apocalypse. The apocalypse.23 This is horror territory and it’s populated with demons. Perhaps more Catholic than biblical, Dogma builds a “Christian mythology” that draws from Holy Writ. After God—who viewers don’t yet know is God—has been incapacitated by street hockey-playing demons, Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) is introduced. She’s a jilted woman angry at said deity. When the Metatron (Alan Rickman)—“voice of God,” a seraph—appears to her in a flaming theophany, Bethany refuses to participate in God’s plan. She’s rescued from the hockey-playing demons by Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith). They are revealed to be prophets. Meanwhile Bartleby (Ben Affleck), a Watcher, and Loki (Matt Damon), the angel of death, are about to end their earthly exile in Wisconsin. The Catholic Church determines divine law so that even God has to obey. St. Michael’s Church in Red Bank, New Jersey, is offering plenary indulgence for all who pass through its doors during its centenary celebration. Since Bartleby and Loki are forbidden from entering Heaven, and since the church has declared that anyone entering goes straight to Heaven when they die,

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there’s a loophole to get the fallen angels back into paradise. This scheme will make God contradict herself and the universe will cease to exist. The apostle Rufus (Chris Rock) leaps out of Heaven to help stop these wayward angels. Along the way we learn Azrael (Jason Lee)—a demon—has orchestrated the whole episode because anything would be better than being in Hell, including annihilation. The stygian trio of hockey players works for Azrael and soon a Muse—Serendipity (Salma Hayek)—joins the protagonists. Before they can get underway a Golgothan (a “shit demon”) arises and attempts to stop them. Bartleby and Loki initiate a massacre outside the church. Azrael traps the protagonist ensemble in a bar to watch the apocalypse unfold. Using a blessed golf club, Silent Bob slays the demon Azrael and the liberated team rushes to the church where the end unfolds. What becomes clear even at a glance is that this diegesis is populated with demons. Let’s begin with the ringleader: Azrael. Azrael is a complex character, historically.24 In Dogma he’s a demoted Muse. Muses, of course, aren’t biblical. They were a set of inspirational spirits—generally nine in number— from Greek mythology. In this universe fallen Muses represent a new source of demons. Azrael isn’t a biblical character, but he shows up in early Judaism. Later tradition equates Azrael with the angel of death, not Loki. (Loki is borrowed from Norse mythology.) Although the angel of death isn’t evil, it’s a small step to move the needle in that direction, as Dogma does. Perhaps appropriately, there’s a great deal of historical confusion regarding Azrael. Sometimes considered an archangel,25 this idea doesn’t seem to have an ancient pedigree. Canonical lists of archangels don’t exist, and ancient texts never include Azrael among them. A mystical character, he appears, for example, in the Zohar, but the Zohar only shows up in the thirteenth century.26 Islam knew of an angel by the name Azrail, associated with the angel of death mentioned in the Quran. This places a similar figure in the seventh century. The Hebrew Bible references the angel of death in Exodus 13:23, where it’s referred to as “the destroyer.” Part of the Passover narrative, the destroyer kills the firstborn of Egypt. Later in 2 Samuel 24, in punishment for David’s census, three days of pestilence come. Suddenly, verse 16 mentions “the angel” who’s doing the destroying. Tradition later linked this with the Passover account, and, like the Devil, the components of an angel of death eventually started to coalesce. Yet again, in 2 Kings 19, an angel destroys the besieging army of Sennacherib. According to Dogma, it was Loki that rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. It seems that Azrael as the angel of death suggested this name for Dogma’s demon. His name translates to “God is help,” but death was never one of the nine Muses of classical antiquity. In Dogma Azrael travels with the Stygian triplets—a set of three demons who glide around playing street hockey on skates that sound like flies, killing

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people with their sticks. Like most biblical demons they remain nameless. “Stygian” derives from the River Styx, taking them back to Greek, rather than biblical, mythology. They end up being drowned in holy water. The sound of flies ties them to Beelzebub. The Golgothan is a demon raised from the excrement of those crucified on Golgotha. Needless to say, it’s not biblical.27 Or even classical. Composed entirely of feces, this “shit demon” is sent to prevent Bethany from preventing the fallen the angels from entering St. Michael’s Church. It’s stopped by an air freshener. Dogma draws heavily from the world of 1 Enoch as well as the Bible. Bartleby is a Watcher, a fallen angel, but interestingly, not a demon. The Metatron calls himself a seraph, but the figure of the Metatron seems to have developed from Enoch, based on the books sharing his name.28 Mixed in with Greek and Norse mythology, Dogma reflects the eclectic character of actual dogma. In the end God is found, of course, and she (Alanis Morissette) saves the world from the demented Bartleby. The deity with the power to save a dead Bethany is female, although the Metatron explains she’s really genderless. The target of the various demons in the movie is nevertheless also feminine. Turning standard systematic mythology on its head, this world was both created and saved by females. The demons (presuming that the Golgothan is male, having come from the men’s room) are coded male. Hardly intended as serious theology, Dogma nevertheless challenges standard gender stereotypes. In many movies featuring demons this is nothing short of cinematic heresy. From Red Bank it’s not a long drive to Burkittsville, Maryland. We might miss the first Blair Witch Project (1999), but we’ll arrive in time for part 2. The sequel demonstrates how in the light of day demons may not be what they seem, and it brings witches back into the picture. BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2 (2000) Sequels often change things from the original movie. Substantial buzz was generated by The Blair Witch Project’s extreme efforts at making the film appear to be true. This was cinéma vérité extreme. Documentaries, online hoaxes, and an unwavering willingness not to break character all added to the mystique of this “found footage.” Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 changed things.29 In a case of sequel overreach, Book of Shadows moves in a very different direction as it tries to outdo the original. The heavy metal soundtrack, the gore (which was completely absent from the original), and caricature

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characters (hard-bitten Texas sheriff [Lanny Flaherty] in Maryland, psych ward doctor smoking as he experiments emotionlessly on a patient) signal that the film can’t be taken seriously. Although the actors use their real given names, the opening cards indicate that this is a reenactment (two of the characters die in the film, making the reality conceit rather suspect). Nevertheless, it’s a somewhat rare glimpse into a cinematic possession by a witch. Following the Evil Dead (1981) convention of five young people camping in the woods, the film is about a Blair Witch-Hunt led by a formerly institutionalized entrepreneur and his four clients hiking to, and yes, camping at, the site of the Parr house, where the original Blair Witch Project ends. They film everything, thus making some use of cinéma vérité, but the vast majority of the movie is shot with an objective lens. Jeff (Jeffrey Donovan) is a grifter who makes a living selling Blair Witch memorabilia and stolen merchandise on eBay. He’s starting a touring company. His first tour has four clients: Stephen (Stephen Barker Turner) and Tristan (Tristine Skyler) who are a couple writing a book on the Blair Witch craze (he’s a skeptic, she’s a believer), the Wiccan Erica (Erica Leerhsen), and Kim (Kim Director), a Goth seeking dark thrills. The five head to the Black Mountains and hike to the Parr cabin foundation. They set up cameras and begin to party. Another group, in a Monty Python-esque moment, comes to the same place for the same purpose. Feeding them a line about seeing something weird at Coffin Rock, Jeff convinces the other group to head there instead. In the morning Jeff’s group awakes to find Stephen and Tristan’s manuscript and documentation all shredded, snowing down on them. The cameras are either stolen or broken, but Kim, who’s psychic, says the tapes are right where the original Blair Witch tapes were found. She’s right. Tristan, pregnant but not wanting the child (the Blair witch is a child killer), has a miscarriage. Note here the dynamic of five young people in the woods—two males and three females. The threat, à la Poe, will be directed to the women. Tristan doesn’t want to stay in a hospital, so Jeff offers to take them all to his home in an abandoned broom factory—brooms, witches, get it? Tristan has to be put to bed while the rest watch the recovered tapes. Strange glitches appear. Erica is shown dancing naked around a tree that has mysteriously grown younger in the night. They begin to accuse the witch. The Book of Shadows title derives from Wicca, or at least from modern revival witchcraft.30 The movement has a controversial history, but the Book of Shadows is a kind of witch Bible. It’s a grimoire, or more properly, books of shadows are grimoires. The Book of Shadows isn’t a fixed text. Often handwritten, such books are the personal notes of practitioners.31 At Jeff’s house the overbearing Sheriff Cravens (whose name recalls horror director Wes Craven) calls to tell Jeff that the rival group from the previous night has been found ritually murdered at Coffin Rock. And one of Jeff’s

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cameras was found at the scene. Kim, overwrought, needs beer. At the store she has a run-in with some locals, including the cashier who won’t sell her Wicked Ale. Back at the factory, Erica’s missing. Milquetoast Stephen starts to get aggressive—he and Erica shared a dream about making love, and the tapes are showing more and more strange stuff. When they discover Erica dead, in a closet, accusations start to fly. Jeff wonders where Tristan—heretofore shown as a sweet, semi-scared innocent—was at the time of Erica’s death. Still recovering from her miscarriage, she climbs up to the loft. The tapes show her casting spells while the four others cavort naked in the woods the night before. They killed the other tour group at Coffin Rock in an orgy of violence. Everyone, even Stephen, turns on Tristan. They accuse her of being a witch. Like witches of lore, she is hanged. The police arrive and arrest Jeff, Stephen, and Kim. Apart from the other tourist group, each has murdered someone since the tour began. Jeff killed Erica. Kim killed the cashier at the store. Stephen killed Tristan. None of them remember any of it, but the tapes don’t lie. So why include this movie in the discussion of demons? First of all, the writing on the wall. The Parr cabin wall. When the group first arrives they find ancient pagan writing on the foundation stones, which later appears on their bodies. Apart from reflecting The Exorcist, strange symbols have long had demonic associations. Additionally, the movie strongly implies that Tristan has been possessed by Ellie, the original Blair Witch. Like the witch, Tristan killed her unborn child. Tristan does this by binge drinking with the others that night in the woods. When Stephen, Jeff, and Kim try to get her to confess, she says “Tristan isn’t here.” Not only a riff on The Shining, this line indicates possession. As at Salem, the judges want the “witch” to confess.32 Tristan wraps a rope around her neck as the others insist she confess on camera. Stephen pushes her off a catwalk and the witch is hanged. Witches and demons can both possess. Tristan the innocent girl would never do such things—she alone doesn’t have the spirit writing on her body— but surely a possessing witch would. In popular imagination possession is a source of terror, whether the possessor be a demon or a witch. Since witches, as we saw in Eastwick, are companions of the Devil, the difference is mostly academic. The original Blair Witch Project never broke character, and the exact nature of the evil in the Black Mountains was never revealed. There was a witch, yes. Vicious murders long ago. Possession isn’t mentioned or portrayed. Book of Shadows delves into backstory and comes out with possession by a witch. The Blair witch, cruelly murdered, now possesses those who come to her woods. It leads to a personal hell.

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DRAG ME TO HELL (2009) Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a good girl. She works as a loan officer in a bank and she does her best to help customers. But Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee), a new employee, is after the vacant assistant manager position she’s been coveting. When an old gypsy, Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), comes in to ask for a third extension of her mortgage, Christine has to be tough to show the bank manager that she’s got what it takes to get that position. Perhaps Mrs. Ganush could move in with her granddaughter, Christine suggests. The old woman begs her on her knees, but Christine has her thrown out. She rises a peg in the manager’s eyes. In the parking garage that night, the woman attacks Christine and curses a button ripped from the banker’s coat before giving it back. Christine’s boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) offers to take Christine home, but first she wants to see a fortuneteller, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao). The psychic tells her she’s got a dark spirit attached to her, and he can’t help. A demon seen only in shadows attacks her at home. That night a fly crawls into her mouth. She’s oppressed by the spirit. Having had enough of the old woman’s curse, Christine pays a call on the gypsy’s granddaughter to make things right. Mrs. Ganush, however, has died and the curse remains. Rham informs Christine that she’s being oppressed by a lamia. After three days it will drag her, well, to Hell. To free herself from this goat demon, Rham suggests, Christine should try an animal sacrifice. A California vegetarian, she just can’t do this. Until the demon strikes again. She sacrifices her cat. Convinced that she’s now broken the spell, she accompanies Clay to meet his well-to-do parents. Although Christine killed the cat, she begins to sense the lamia again during an awkward dinner party. Furious at Rham, she demands his assistance. The next day, the third day, the lamia will come for her. Rham, however, knows someone who can help, but it won’t be cheap. Clay offers to pay the fee. Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza) is a medium who’s been waiting for many years to even a score with the lamia. After an over-the-top seance that leaves Shaun dead, Rham informs Christine that the only way to banish the demon for good is to give away her cursed button. Whoever owns the button owns the curse. She can’t do it. Even her slimy co-worker Stu elicits her sympathy. Rham says she can give it back to Mrs. Ganush, but she has to accept it. That night Christine digs up the corpse in a rainstorm and gives it the cursed button, carefully sealed in an envelope. The next day, on her way to a romantic weekend with Clay, he reveals she buried the wrong envelope. He still has her button, which he returns. She is, of course, dragged to Hell. Although this description sounds grim, the film is horror comedy. Here we cross into that place between Greek ideas of daimons and biblical demons.

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Lamia were monsters of Greek mythology that are named for a woman who became a child-eater after Hera destroyed her children.33 Hera is portrayed as frequently jealous of her consort Zeus’s paramours, and Lamia became one of the unfortunate ones. As a type of demon, a lamia devours children and those she seduces.34 Some suggest Lamia goes back to West Asian prototypes such as Lilith.35 Once more we have a classic case of a victimized woman. The lamia doesn’t possess Christine, but it certainly gets as far as oppression, the stage before possession. The fly crawling into bodily orifices suggests as much. The use of a lamia in the movie is a reassignment of a demon’s usual role in Hollywood. The lamia is said to be the taker of souls, a role that in the demonic world is close to the figure of Abyzou, whom we’ll meet in The Possession. Demons traditionally cannot take souls.36 They inhabit and afflict bodies, but the soul is off limits. Here the lamia merges into the Christian worldview as a demon with the ability to drag one literally to Hell. This is a demon’s ultimate medieval intention, to condemn souls. The film, of course, isn’t intended to be serious demonology. It is comedic throughout. That doesn’t mean that its ideas of demons and their ways are irrelevant. In fact, the lamia conforms in important ways to the threat against a young woman and also the idea of older women (Mrs. Ganush) as capable witches. Demons, in popular Roman Catholic thought, can possess someone via a curse.37 Although a horror comedy, Drag Me to Hell contributes to ongoing developments in cinematic demonic themes. CONCLUSIONS Ambivalence is rife in popular, semi-serious cinematic treatments of possession, demons, witches, and the Devil. They can be handled with a certain amount of humor that maintains an undercurrent of fear. The movies treated in this chapter all at least nod to Poe’s dictum of the threat to beautiful women. Such threats are both demonic and human. Bethany in Dogma, for example, works at an abortion clinic. Religious protestors curse her for “killing babies.” The Stygian triplets plan to beat her to death in an isolated parking lot after dark. The Golgothan seeks to kill her and her friends with excrement. She’s threatened with death by Bartleby and ultimately dies when a life support system is unplugged. There are male victims, but the only protagonist who dies is female. Ghostbusters presented a more conventional scenario: men saving a possessed woman. Dana is inhabited by a demon, as is her neighbor Louis. In a kind of standing joke, nobody really cares what happens to Louis, but a great deal of attention is bestowed on Dana. She levitates and growls and speaks in

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a demonic voice. Four men save her. (This is ironically and skillfully inverted in the 2016 reboot.) More empowered are the Witches of Eastwick. Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie do, however, function as familiars—in the most possible familiar way—with the Devil they’ve conjured. As women they become subservient to Daryl. He threatens them with physical violence when they unite and turn on him. Women may be empowered and demeaned simultaneously. Is the Devil good here? Alex, Jane, and Sukie certainly seem to end up better off for their polyamorous relationship with him. They have found family with each other, and need no men, other than as servants. Did they lead to Felicia’s murder or was she simply collateral damage? She’s another female victim. Although Book of Shadows may appear an outlier here, there are several instances of corny humor in the film. Notice that of the five young people that go into the woods two die, both women. Those two are both are accused of being witches. Erica is a practicing Wiccan. Tristan, on the other hand, apparently becomes possessed and is accused of being a witch by the three remaining friends. She’s hanged like a witch. Males oppress possessed or possessing females. Christine, in Drag Me to Hell, is cursed by a gypsy who appears to be a witch. She relies on Clay to bail her out and without Rham she can’t access the supernatural help she requires. Although her oppressor is female, the real source of that oppression is her corporate male boss. He’s watching her closely to see if she’s got the right stuff to make it in a “man’s world.” She clearly wanted to help Mrs. Ganush but was forced into a decision she regretted because of that gender-based pressure. She alone is dragged to Hell. All of these movies treat demons and their cohorts with a sense of humor. There are some serious takeaways here, however, for viewers unfamiliar with what the Christian tradition says about demons. There are clearly exceptions, but demons generally favor young women. Although in exceptional circumstances they can deliver themselves, men are generally needed to save them. In very broad terms this follows the script set in The Exorcist. The Witches of Eastwick, as well as the reboot of Ghostbusters, suggest another narrative is possible. Critics of the latter felt it to be a kind of blasphemy against the sacred, originally male script.38 Demons remain no laughing matter, so why would anyone conjure them?

NOTES 1. Poole, Satan in America, see also Ewan Fernie, The Demoniac: Literature and Experience (Routledge, 2012). Mary Ann Beavis, “‘Angels Carrying Savage Weapon:’ Uses of the Bible in Contemporary Horror Films,” Journal of Religion and

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Film 7 (2003) looks at the Bible in horror. A recent edited volume, Rhonda BurnetteBletsch, ed., The Bible in Motion:A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (De Gruyter, 2016) has another article by Beavis and one by Peter Malone that address these topics. Pioneering work in the broader field was done by Douglas E. Cowan, Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen (Baylor University Press, 2008) showed that a university press could address horror films and religion respectably. 2. Specialists in cultural analysis widely acknowledge this. The point is made in Cuneo, American Exorcism, among others. See also Colleen McDannell, “Catholic Horror” in Catholics in the Movies, ed. Colleen McDannell (Oxford University Press, 2007): 197–225 and chapter 11 below. 3. Monster culture is well handled by W. Scott Poole, Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting (Baylor University Press, 2011). 4. Chajes, Between Worlds. 5. Morris Dickstein, The Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties (Liveright, 2015). 6. For Ed and Lorraine Warren see chapter 8. 7. Brown, Ghost Hunters. 8. Kendall R. Phillips, Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture (Praeger, 2005). 9. Russell, Lucifer. 10. Robin R. Means Coleman, Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890's to Present (Routledge, 2011). 11. McCloud, American Possession. 12. Cuneo, American Exorcism. 13. Brittany Cardwell and Jamin Halberstadt, “Thinking About God Might Make You Sweat, Even if You're Not Religious,” Science Alert 2017 https​:/​/ww​​w​ .sci​​encea​​lert.​​com​/r​​eligi​​ous​-b​​elief​​-alte​​r​-sec​​ular-​​psych​​ology​​-athe​​ism​-c​​​ognit​​ive​-d​​isson​​ ance (accessed 2/15/18). 14. Information on “harlequin” is from https​:/​/bl​​og​.ox​​fordd​​ictio​​narie​​s​.com​​/2018​​ /01​/0​​4​/wha​​t​-in-​​the​-w​​ord​-h​​arleq​​uin/?​​utm​_s​​ource​​=Jan1​​1​&utm​​_medi​​um​=Em​​ail​&u​​ tm​_ca​​mpaig​​n​=odo​​-news​​lette​​r​&utm​​​_cont​​ent​=h​​arleq​​uin​-b​​logpo​​st​-to​​ppane​l (accessed 2/4/18 but no longer available). 15. Russell, Lucifer; Bamberger, Fallen Angels. 16. Michael Dummett, Ronald Decker, and Thierry Depaulis, A Wicked Pack of Cards: Origins of the Occult Tarot (Bristol Classical Press, 1996). 17. Johnston, Religions. 18. For a recent study on Ghostbusters in a similar context see in Darryl Caterine and John W. Morehead, eds., The Paranormal and Popular Culture: A Postmodern Religious Landscape (Routledge, 2019). 19. Jeffrey J. Kripal, Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (University of Chicago Press, 2010). 20. Amy Johnson Frykholm, Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America (Oxford University Press, 2007); Levack, Devil Within.

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21. Gozer is fictional, but interestingly the haunted girls in Enfield (treated in chapter 8 below), years before Ghostbusters, named one of the entities Gozer; see Guy Lyon Playfair, This House is Haunted: The Amazing Inside Story of the Enfield Poltergeist (White Crow, 2007). 22. Behringer, Witches and Witch-hunts. 23. Conrad E. Oswalt, Jr., “Hollywood and Armageddon: Apocalyptic Themes in Recent Cinematic Presentation,” in Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film, eds. Joel W. Martin and Conrad E. Oswalt (Westview Press, 1995): 55-63. 24. J. E. Hanauer, Folk-lore of the Holy Land, Moslem, Christian and Jewish, ed. Marmaduke Pickthall (Duckworth & Co., 1907); Davidson, A Dictionary. Azrael is not easily found in academic resources, making it easier to say who he’s not rather than who he is. 25. See http:​/​/www​​.beli​​efnet​​.com/​​inspi​​ratio​​n​/ang​​els​/g​​aller​​ies​/t​​he​-7-​​archa​​ngels​​ -and-​​their​​​-mean​​ings.​​aspx?​​p=7 (accessed 2/3/18). 26. Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar (SUNY Press, 1993). 27. A web search for “Golgothan” illustrates that many are curious if it is a biblical demon. This underscores how movies impact popular perceptions of demons. 28. VanderKam, Enoch. See also John C. Reeves and Annette Yoshiko Reed, Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Volume 1 Sources From Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Oxford University Press, 2018). 29. In Holy Horror I explicitly did not treat sequels for the reason that they change original stories. Since this book is a sequel of sorts, it does treat those developments. Blair Witch 2 is a good example of how sequels take liberties with original stories. 30. Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford University Press, 1999); Sabina Magliocco, Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 31. Fanger, Conjuring Spirits; Davies, Grimoires. 32. Godbeer, Escaping Salem. 33. Historically a good place to begin is Joseph Fontenrose, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (University of California Press, 1959). For an updated consideration, see Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford University Press, 2013). 34. David R. West, “Gello and Lamia: Two Hellenic Daemons of Semitic Origin,” Ugarit Forschungen 23 (1991): 361–68, and Some Cults of Greek Goddesses and Female Daemons of Oriental Origin (Butzon & Bercker, 1995). 35. Steven M. Stannish and Christine M. Doran, “Magic and Vampirism in Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana and Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural 2 no. 2 (2013): 113–138; Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth F. Kitchell, Jr., “Sweepings of Lamia,” in Religion, Gender, and Culture in the Pre-Modern World, eds Alexandra Cuffel and Brian Britt (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): 77–105. According to Elena Arana Williams, “Basque Legends in their Social Context,” in Essays In Basque Social Anthropology and History, ed. William A. Douglass (Basque Studies Program, 1989): 107–128, Basque

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mythology also includes a creature known as a lamia, but this form is not well enough explored to discuss in any depth. 36. Amorth, An Exorcist Tells; and An Exorcist Explains. 37. Amorth, An Exorcist Explains. 38. Mark Kermode, “Ghostbusters review – a misfiring remake.” The Guardian online (2016), https​:/​/ww​​w​.the​​guard​​ian​.c​​om​/fi​​lm​/20​​16​/ju​​l​/17/​​ghost​​buste​​rs​-20​​16​-re​​ vie​w-​​misfi​​ring-​​remak​e (accessed 12/16/19), while not agreeing with the sentiment, points out some of the trolling.

Chapter 8

The Conjuring Universe

Demons, according to tradition, may be conjured by people to take advantage of their superhuman abilities. This is an idea that goes back at least to The Testament of Solomon. Reflected in medieval grimoires, conjuring was a deliberate act. This understanding doesn’t match the concept in The Conjuring diegesis where raising demons is generally unintentional. The original movie (2013) explored the possibility of translating the experiences of real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren into horror.1 Having had several books of their experiences ghostwritten, the Warrens acquired a considerable following in the paranormal community.2 One activity they repeatedly warned against was accidentally conjuring demons.3 The Conjuring diegesis is intricate and growing. Anything presented here will necessarily be provisional as there’s never a last word when it comes to sequels. Or prequels. Or spinoffs. The Conjuring has them all. Consisting of six films at this writing,4 more are in development. In the order of appearance they are: The Conjuring, Annabelle, The Conjuring 2, Annabelle: Creation, The Nun, and Annabelle Comes Home. The Conjuring 3 has been announced. The films in this cinematic universe tend to have multiple ghouls in each installment. Ghosts, witches, legendary figures, and of course demons, all freely intermix. The original movie, the first spin-off (Annabelle), and the first sequel (The Conjuring 2) were very loosely based on true events, according to the Warrens’ reckoning. (Annabelle doesn’t make that claim, but the haunted doll was one of the Warrens’ cases.) One of the series hallmarks is that the monsters in them in them blend different categories. Demons are always among them. Demons love confusion. While The Conjuring presents a variety of entities in the Rhode Island home of the Perron family, the main culprit is a demon, or witch, named Bathsheba. There’s quite a lot packed into that name. Apart from misogynistic and historical 123

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concerns, Bathsheba is the name of the biblical wife of Uriah the Hittite. King David saw Bathsheba in her bath from his roof and immediately sent for her. She didn’t seduce him; according to the Good Book, it went the other way around. Nevertheless, the use of this name for the movie’s fiend is loaded with connotations of a fallen nature, even if there was an actual Harrisville woman by that name. (There was a historical Bathsheba who lived in the area.)5 The Conjuring diegesis is full of demons. The story was ripe for sequels and spin-offs. In addition to Bathsheba, The Conjuring introduced the “possessed doll” Annabelle. Ed and Lorraine Warren claimed to have handled the case of a Raggedy Anne doll that served as a conduit for a demon.6 In The Conjuring this doll is porcelain rather than a rag doll, and is only loosely tied into the story. Two nurses have the doll, which seems to come to life when they’re not home. Ed warns them that they’ve got a demon conduit, and he locks it away in his museum of the occult. The doll serves the function of an aftershock, attacking the Warren’s daughter Judy after the viewers think the danger’s over. But what exactly is a conduit? We’ll return to this question momentarily. While The Conjuring was airing in theaters, Annabelle was already in production. Unlike The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2, Annabelle isn’t given an intertitle stating that the story is true. It’s entirely fabricated as a potential explanation of how a demon came to utilize a child’s toy. It’s nevertheless based on what is an alleged artifact, the Annabelle doll. The Conjuring 2 takes the Warrens to England to investigate the famed Enfield poltergeist. An interesting choice for a movie in the series, the Enfield haunting was, at least partially, a hoax.7 The movie doesn’t sugar-coat this, but implies that a real demonic presence was there as well. In fact, like its predecessor, it posits a host of haunters. A previous occupant of the house who died in his chair, a crooked man, and a demon dressed like a nun all plague the family. Among the Enfield haunters, The Nun appeared five years after the original and The Crooked Man is slated for his own spin-off. In the original movie there was a second conduit located in the Perron house—a music box. The crooked man in the sequel likewise inhabits a child’s toy, this time a zoetrope. Meanwhile a prequel and sequel to Annabelle came out. The prequel is Annabelle: Creation. A prequel to the spin-off prequel, as it were. Annabelle Comes Home is the sequel to the spin-off prequel. One thing all of these movies exploit is Poe’s observation regarding threats to girls. Men are victims too, but demons clearly prefer young women. These films rely heavily on medieval ideas of demons for their plots. They also utilize a “secular” version of demons where the entities were never human. Although the Warrens in real life were Roman Catholics, the movies so far haven’t used the fallen angel explanation for demons. To make sense of all this, let’s arrange the movies in chronological order, according to their diegesis.

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THE NUN (2018) The Nun is set in 1952. In the universe being constructed, Annabelle Mullins has been dead for nine years, but Annabelle isn’t part of this particular story. Starting with a recap from The Conjuring 2 where both Ed and Lorraine Warren had seen the figure of the nun, this movie—after brief stops at the Vatican and England—takes us to Romania. This installment of the series is not based on a true story, as some of the others claim to be; it’s nevertheless tied into the cycle which has ramifications for both The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2. The St. Carta monastery, which occupies an ancient castle—those who know the Dracula story are immediately alerted to the possibilities here—is haunted by an evil presence. A nun, Sister Victoria (Charlotte Hope), clutching a gothic key, hangs herself rather than let a pursuing demon get her. The suicide of a nun attracts the attention of the Vatican, and they send Fr. Burke (Demián Bichir), a miracle hunter, to investigate. Since this is a house of women religious, he’s to take Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) a novice nun, with him to Biertan, Romania. With hints that Sister Irene was selected by the Vatican for a mysterious reason, the odd couple sets out. Once there they convince Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), the farmer who found the hanged nun, to lead them to the monastery. The convent is surrounded by hundreds of crosses (to keep the evil in). The three are poorly received in an anteroom furbished with a decapitated crucifix. The abbess (Gabrielle Downey) indicates that the great silence is about to begin and the investigators must return at dawn. They’re welcome, however, to stay in the convent. Dismissing Frenchie, Fr. Burke and Sr. Irene settle in. Fr. Burke confesses that he presided over an exorcism that led to the death of a young boy named Daniel (Jack Falk), and Sr. Irene confesses that she has visions. This is no ordinary investigation. That night Fr. Burke is trapped in a coffin after following the ghost of Daniel out into the graveyard. Rescued by Sr. Irene, they discover books in the coffin that will lead to understanding the demon. The next morning Irene alone is admitted to the monastery and she finds only one nun Sr. Oana (Ingrid Bisu) willing to explain: the castle was built in the Dark Ages by a duke who opened a portal to Hell through which he could raise evil. Here is conjuring, by definition. Sr. Oana narrates how the church stopped the evil duke, and sealed the portal with the actual blood of Christ. Then, bombing during the Second World War opened the fissure again. A nun who’s not a nun is among them, a demon in disguise. Meanwhile Fr. Burke is learning that the demon is Valak (who appeared in the earlier Conjuring 2). As night falls, Irene is locked in her room, but after having a vision and seeing a ghostly nun, she finds her way out to explore. Meanwhile Frenchie rescues Fr. Burke from the living corpse of Sr. Victoria and they make their

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way inside the enclave. Irene encounters “the nun” in a passageway labeled, in Latin “God ends here,”8 but Sr. Oana rescues Irene and hides her. They must all pray together to survive the night. In the chapel the nuns pray but the demon attacks. Fr. Burke and Frenchie find Irene alone with a dead nun. She concludes that Sr. Victoria was the last of the nuns and she’s been having visions all along. They must seal the portal to Hell again. Irene confirms her vows before Fr. Burke, now in clerical garb, and the three set off to find the blood of Christ, the relic that the gothic key unlocks. Encountering hordes of undead nuns, Irene finally confronts “the nun” (Bonnie Aarons) who incapacitates Frenchie and Fr. Burke before drowning Irene. Irene, however, has sucked the blood of Christ into her mouth and when she breaks the surface of the water, she spits it onto the demonic nun, causing the water to flush the demon down to Hell, and sealing, once again, the portal. Spitting, by the way, will be the means of demonic possession elsewhere in this diegesis. To tie the storyline into The Conjuring universe, the photo with Sr. Charlotte, from Annabelle: Creation is briefly shown, and the final scene is from The Conjuring in 1972 Massachusetts Western University (a fictional school) where the film of an exorcism that Ed and Lorraine Warren are showing is revealed to be that of “Frenchie,” who became unwittingly possessed. This spin-off prequel creates some continuity problems with the remainder of the diegesis, but it explains some of the backstory of Valak, a possessing demon, as deriving from the occult activities of a demented duke from the Dark Ages. Bookending the current series, Valak will reappear in The Conjuring 2, chronologically the latest film in the current franchise. The Nun stands out, however, in having the woman under threat, Sr. Irene, delivering herself. She’s saved a time or two by the two men, but she defeats the demon by her own wits. Nevertheless, her ontological change that makes this possible is overseen by a priest, for this is a Roman Catholic world. And although Catholic girls will again save themselves in the next installment, they too will be under the authority of a male hierarchy. ANNABELLE: CREATION (2017) Not directly part of the Ed and Lorraine Warren tradition, Annabelle: Creation makes no claim to be based on true events. This is Annabelle’s creation myth. This story begins with Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia), a toy-maker. His daughter Annabelle (Samara Lee) is the joy of his life. After church one Sunday, however, she is hit by a car and dies. The opening sequence shows Samuel constructing limited-edition Annabelle dolls, with

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number one apparently going to his daughter, shortly before the accident, in 1943. (This backstory predates the main action of The Nun, but the latter has medieval roots.) Twelve years later (1955, when the main story takes place) a bus from St. Eustace Home for Girls is on its way to the Mullins house. Its passengers are the caretaker, Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman), and six orphans, including Janice (Talitha Bateman). Janice has to walk with a crutch since her left leg was damaged by polio. The Mullinses—Esther (Miranda Otto) is bedridden, due to injury—have invited the residents of the troubled orphanage to use their large house, but with a few conditions. They mustn’t enter Mrs. Mullins’s room, nor the former room of Annabelle, which is kept locked at all times. As Sr. Charlotte is unpacking her suitcase—Fr. Massey has left, and the girls are alone with their keeper and the Mullins family—a breeze blows through her closed room, fluttering the pages of her Bible, lying open on her bed. This is a warning that something evil lurks, although Sr. Charlotte doesn’t realize it at the time. Holy Writ is never randomly ruffled. Being shown the Bible in this way we’re clued in that this invisible presence isn’t simply a ghost. Whatever’s disturbing the isolated farmhouse of the Mullins family is religiously motivated. Notice that Scripture is being used as a warning here. Although not recognized or heeded, it’s an indication that all is not well in this household. That night a slip of paper under her door invites Janice to “find me.” This was a game Annabelle used to play with her father. Janice limps over to the forbidden room to find another slip of paper inviting her in and the door inexplicably unlocked. Inside she discovers a room with every toy a little girl could want. She approaches the closet; the doll Annabelle’s inside. More than just Annabelle, however. As the door opens we see pages of a book stuck all over the inside. Let’s hit pause here. Horror is famed for what biblical scholars call “intertextuality.” In cinematic talk it’s more often known as “referencing.” Films make reference to each other—a sly wink to those who know the canon.9 The room papered with the Bible is a reference to The Omen.10 There, the priest, Fr. Brennan (Patrick Troughton), knowing that the Antichrist is after him, had papered his entire room with pages torn from the Bible. Functioning to keep evil out, the Good Book was intended as a talisman. In Annabelle: Creation, the Bible is supposed to keep the demon in. The closet is a sealed tomb. Scripture symbolizes protection from demons here. It doesn’t work, however; even when the closet door is locked, it swings back open. As in The Omen, we know Scripture can’t save from determined forces of evil. Annabelle’s on the loose. Going into the room is a form of unintentional conjuring.

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The girls settle into life at the homestead. Janice feels isolated because of her infirmity, but she’s buoyed up by her friend Linda (Lulu Wilson). One night Janice can’t sleep and goes into Annabelle’s room. She sees the dead girl, but when she asks what she wants, Annabelle turns into a black, clawed creature. Janet tries to escape, but is thrown from the chairlift she uses to negotiate the stairs. Confined to a wheelchair as a result the fall, Janice is rolled outside by Sr. Charlotte to enjoy the sunshine the next day. The young girl is distraught, however, knowing that being wheelchair-bound she’ll never be adopted. A demon dressed as Sr. Charlotte shoves the wheelchair toward the haunted workshop. In its dark and dusty confines, the doll will finally have Janice. Or, more precisely, the demon in the doll will possess Janice. Annabelle: Creation departs from the standard possession script here. Traditionally a demon must be invited to possess someone. Instead, the movie takes a page from the script of Prince of Darkness (1987) as the doll/girl/demon vomits into Janice’s mouth, transferring the evil physically into her. The only hint of invitation is that Janice wandering into the forbidden room—Annabelle’s room—when it opened to her. This is the film’s ouija board. Samuel Mullins, after warning Linda about the doll, is killed while confronting it with a homemade crucifix. We again see the demon, transforming from Janice into an exceptionally tall black figure. Now only Esther Mullins remains to tell the story. She confides the family history to Sr. Charlotte. After Annabelle’s death, they vowed to do anything for whatever power might return her. That power asked permission to inhabit the doll. Only when it was too late did they realize this request wasn’t from their daughter, but from an entity never human. Tearing and pasting pages from the Bible over the locked closet in the locked room, Samuel had a priest bless this prison and sealed the doll inside. When Sr. Charlotte asks who the entity is, Mrs. Mullins replies “The evil, the Devil itself.” She then refers to it as a “demonic presence,” so its exact identity isn’t precisely revealed. The Bible functions as magical protection against a demon here, dismembered to tap its inherent power. A priest stands by with a purple stole and holy water—the accoutrements of exorcism—to bless the closet. He doesn’t object to the treatment of the Good Book, and it seems to work for a few years. The presence of six young girls in the house, however, awakens the demon, as did the bombs in The Nun. Esther Mullins is killed by the demon in the form of Janice—who can now walk again. Janice/Annabelle attacks the other girls. Sr. Charlotte locks her in the Bible closet with a rosary as the other children escape. A year later, Mr. and Mrs. Higgins (Brian Howe and Kerry O’Malley) visit a different orphanage. Janice is there under the name Annabelle. They adopt her, and twelve years later, she murders them before possessing the doll again

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herself. In a nod to those who know the Warren’s version of the story, the Higginses give Annabelle a Raggedy Ann doll as a gift. After the credits roll, in the Abbey of St. Carta, Romania 1952, the nun approaches. This intertextual visual ties back to scenes in the movie where the demon appeared pallid like the nun, and wearing Sr. Charlotte’s clothes. More than that, in one scene Samuel Mullins picks up a picture of four nuns from the Romanian monastery and asks Sr. Charlotte who they are. One of the four she can’t identify. She’s clearly “the nun.” So what can we say of this demon, so far? It’s an adept body-hopper. Invited into the doll Annabelle by grieving parents who didn’t know better, it uses that conduit to possess Janice. The demon’s name hasn’t been revealed since it hasn’t been exorcized yet. The Mullinses may have come to realize this was a demonic presence, but it costs them and they don’t reveal it until it’s too late. Esther Mullins seems to think it’s the actual Devil. By the end of the backstory everybody just calls it Annabelle. There’s a bit of confusion—appropriate for demons—here. Is this nun, who appears to be part of the haunting, the same as the black, exceptionally tall demonic figure? Most films in the franchise have more than one monster. It could be that there are at least two here—one that possesses Janet and one that exists in the form of the nun. The previous prequel already began to muddy these waters as we’ll see next. ANNABELLE (2014) So Annabelle’s existence is explained. Before it was, its more immediate backstory was the focus of the earlier film Annabelle. After the initial scene culled from The Conjuring—the movie that started it all—the action here is set in 1967 Santa Monica, California. John and Mia Form (Ward Horton and Annabelle Wallis; Mia can’t help but to recall Mia Farrow, and Rosemary’s Baby clearly served as inspiration for several of the scenes—and the actress is named Annabelle!) are expecting. At Mia’s request, John has purchased an expensive doll for her collection—a pristine, original Annabelle. No demon, no conduit. In fact, their story opens in church. John is a young doctor in training, and the couple playfully thumb-wrestles during the sermon. Their older neighbors, the Higginses (Brian Howe and Kerry O’Malley), drive them home from church. Annabelle is unwrapped that night. Annabelle Higgins (Tree O’Toole), the estranged daughter of the neighbors, joined a cult called the Disciples of the Ram. She breaks into her parents’ house with a fellow cult member. They brutally murder her parents (no hint of adoption here). The Forms leave their house unlocked, the neighborhood is just that safe. Mia hears Sharon Higgins’s scream and John goes to investigate.

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The killers, meanwhile, have slipped into the Forms’ house. Annabelle snatches the doll, but the police arrive and shoot her accomplice to death. Annabelle commits ritual suicide, making a demonic mark on the wall in her own blood and she bleeds into the doll. This is the conjuring of the demon in this installment. The doll has been a conduit before, and it will be one again. Without the prequel, of course, the storyline wouldn’t reveal this. Up to this point Annabelle is just a doll. The prequel disrupts this demonic storyline. Considering from the point of demonological studies, this conceit moves more toward the idea of a curse than a conjuring. Since the prequel hadn’t yet been made the origin story of Annabelle could simply be an inter-movie mix-up. Sequels often must cope with changed storylines. Either that, or this particular doll is inherently really bad news. Mia, the threatened pregnant woman, like Rosemary, worries about all the things that could go wrong. Having murderers in your home should be disturbing enough, but paranormal things begin to happen in the Form house as well. These anomalous activities lead to a fire and Mia going into labor, but ultimately to a safe delivery of Leah, the Form’s daughter. The Forms move to Pasadena. Although they’re twenty-five miles away, they still attend the same Catholic Church. Fr. Perez (Tony Amendola), their priest,11 assures Mia, “The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.” Which is good, because a demon is after her soul. Although the Annabelle doll was thrown into the trash back in Santa Monica, she’s made her way into a moving box in Pasadena. Mia decides to keep her after all. The demon stalks Mia and her thoughts turn dark. In classic demonic analysis this is the stage known as oppression.12 Demons, in Catholic lore, can’t possess without an invitation to do so, intentional or not. Babies can’t invite, but Mia can. She finds herself looking at an occult book at Old Towne Books, just next door to their apartment complex. Eventually she accepts the invitation of Evelyn (Alfre Woodard), the bookstore’s kindly owner, to come in and browse. Evelyn believes Mia should learn about demons and she leads her to books on the topic. Mia’s just discovered that the Higginses’ killers were satanists trying to raise a demon, and she’s marked with the sign of the demon they summoned. Let’s consider what we’re being told about demons here. The demons, in a sense, have almost been secularized. They are presented in biblical terms, but Evelyn uses the “spirits who’ve never walked the earth” explanation for them instead of fallen angels or the evil dead. Rather than fighting the demons with the Good Book or priests, Mia fights them psychologically, with Evelyn’s help. Finally John Form calls Fr. Perez to handle Annabelle. The priest explains that demons require an invitation, but to lead Mia not into invitation, he takes the doll away to a sacred location. He makes mention, by implication, of the Warrens, but he doesn’t name them. At his church this demon is

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revealed to be no respecter of sacred places. It attacks the priest at the very door to the sanctuary. In the form of adult Annabelle, it steals back the doll. The demon here demonstrates its protean nature. Sometimes it appears in the standard demonic form of a dark humanoid. It appears as a porcelain doll at times. At other times it’s a childhood Annabelle, and at still others an adult Annabelle. It seems pretty free to leave its conduit. Logically, that raises the question of why the doll is strictly necessary. This is much better explained in the later prequel. Convinced suicide is the only way to save her daughter, Mia climbs into the window-well to fall to her death, doll in hand. Remember the original Annabelle also committed suicide holding the doll. John and Evelyn burst in at the last moment, and as John rescues Mia, Evelyn takes the doll and sacrifices her life for the unintentional death of her daughter years before in a car accident when Evelyn was driving. This climactic scene requires some unpacking. A human life must be sacrificed to placate the demon; it wants a soul. This hearkens back to the death of Fr. Karras in The Exorcist. The demon is expelled to a place unspecified by the death of the possessed. Here, however, it’s the destruction of the doll that seems important. Not only that, the victim must be female. John never volunteers. Only the mothers—Mia and Evelyn— offer to give their lives to end the demonic reign of terror. Racial elements also enter the picture. Evelyn’s African American. She dies to save the white baby. There are problematic messages here. The series does well exploiting Poe’s observation about the threat to beautiful women. In this installment three women die. Demons prefer ladies. The denouement takes John and Mia back to church where a recovered Fr. Perez, whose voiceover on the dead Evelyn quoted John 20, now reiterates that a mother’s love is God’s best gift. Six months later the mother of one of The Conjuring nurses buys the doll at an antique shop, setting up the story for the original movie. There is no exorcism here. The priest involved is strangely impotent and the women rely on their own research to try to defeat an unnamed demon. There may have been a conjuring, but it was at the behest of a Satanworshipper who appears to have escaped from a mental institution. And now onto the first feature, the movie that created this universe. THE CONJURING (2013) The Conjuring begins with Annabelle, the haunted doll of the two prequels.13 Serving as a way to introduce Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) the opening scene will also function as a conduit to get

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Annabelle into the Warren’s house for the pre-climax of the film. Ed Warren is interviewing a couple of young nurses who’ve been terrorized by the doll. After the interview Ed locks Annabelle away in the paranormal museum in the his Connecticut house, for safe keeping. Or so he thinks. The focus of the film, however, is really on the Perron family. Since this part of the franchise is based on a true story, it’s worth noting that the fullest treatment of the main episode was written and self-published by Andrea Perron, the eldest daughter in the family. In three volumes of about 500 pages each, this may be the definitive insider interpretation.14 The film is set in 1971. According to the cinematic version, Roger Perron (Ron Livingston), a truck driver, buys a house in Rhode Island for his wife and five daughters. After they move in his wife, Carolyn (Lili Taylor), begins receiving unexplained bruises. Strange nocturnal activities take place with the girls. Deeply disturbed, Carolyn visits the Warrens while they’re on a campus lecture tour and persuades them to come to her house. A number of the features of the haunting—knocks coming in sets of three, horrid stenches, and the focal time of around 3:00 a.m.—point to demonic activity. Let’s unpack this a little. Demons are great mockers, according to the image that grew in the Middle Ages. Christianity, especially in the early stages, took great umbrage at being belittled. Demons know that, and by medieval European standards, this became one of their ways of tormenting people.15 Threes, of course, suggest the Trinity. Using sets of three harsh knocks to scare is a form of mockery. Medieval demons were scatological in their humor. Texts portray them as flatulent or reeking of sulfur. This stands in opposition to the “odor of sanctity” thought to accompany the corpses of saints. 3:00 a.m. is twelve hours—the exact opposite—of the hour Jesus died, as we have already seen. (The exact time of 3:07 is explained as being the time of death of Bathsheba.) All of these things together, the Warrens surmise, point to demonic activity. Although reluctant at first, the Warrens agree to set up an arsenal of ghosthunting equipment in the house. In real life, the Warrens were among the first ghost-investigators that gained fame on television.16 The New England Society for Psychic Research had no television show, but provided the template for how later televised investigations would be done. In the movie they set up scientific equipment and bring a small team of investigators with them. A complex story of haunting emerges. In what will become a hallmark for the franchise, there’s a lot going on in this house. There are ghosts (at least three—Rory, his mother, and a maid), a witch, and a demon. Witches and demons, as we’ve seen, are closely related. This witch—Bathsheba (Joseph Bishara)—had caused former residents of the house to do horrible things. One woman killed her son, and they in turn became two of the ghosts in the house. Her son uses a music box as his

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conduit. While investigating the history of the house, Lorraine discovers that a relative of one of the Salem witches, Mary Towne Esty, bought the property and hanged herself on the large tree down by the pond. This was Bathsheba. She was an actual witch who vowed her allegiance to Satan. Not only do we have a connection between witches and demons here, we also have a rather insensitive suggestion made that the women murdered in Salem were actual witches.17 This is horror, so anything goes. Bathsheba has possessed Carolyn. During the Middle Ages and continuing into the American witch panics it was believed witches could possess a person in at least two ways: one was by sending demons to possess them. The other was by possessing them personally.18 It seems The Conjuring favors the latter. Bathsheba enters Carolyn by spitting blood into her mouth, setting the form of possession in this diegesis. The family flees the house. At the Warren’s home Annabelle’s been up to no good. Escaped from her special museum case, she’s after the Warren’s young daughter, Judy (Sterling Jerins). It was a dark and stormy night. The doll has come to life and is after the girl. The Warrens arrive home just in time to save her. Meanwhile Carolyn has taken two of her daughters back to the house to sacrifice them. Left with no other choice, the Warrens have to conduct an exorcism. Being good Catholics, they know that only a priest is entitled to exorcize demons, and then only with the permission of his bishop. This, however, is an emergency—Carolyn is determined, like the ghosts, to kill one of her children. The exorcism doesn’t work. Carolyn breaks free and pursues her daughter. It is only with the naming of the demon/witch, Bathsheba, and the pleading of her husband, and the Warrens, that Carolyn is delivered. Notice that the victims in this film are almost exclusively female. The Perron family has only daughters. The Warrens have one child, a daughter. The doll Annabelle (female), torments the two women who keep it in their apartment. Historically, possession has been more common among women than men. Although the film somewhat problematically suggests the Salem victims were actual witches, it does reflect the reality that demonic attack is most common among females and the only deliverers authorized by the Catholic Church are males. It affirms Poe’s premise of the poetic nature of such a threat that we’ve already seen, and will see again as we move into its first chronological sequel. But first, there’s a sequel to the prequel to watch. ANNABELLE COMES HOME (2019) Set in 1972, this story follows a year after the Annabelle doll was brought home to the Warrens’ house. The main demon-fighter here, in a twist, is the young Judy Warren (Mckenna Grace). The demon using Annabelle as a

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conduit is so strong that it draws other demons and spirits to it. The film sets up Judy being left at home with a babysitter, Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman). Mary Ellen’s friend Daniela (Katie Sarife) insinuates herself into the house in an attempt to make contact with her dead father. Blaming herself for his death, she finds her way into the infamous Warrens’ occult museum and releases Annabelle (or the demon using the doll). The various artifacts in the museum become animated, opening plenty of sequel and spin-off alternatives. The three girls find themselves battling the ferryman (transporter of souls to the underworld), the bride (a haunted wedding dress), and of course, Annabelle. When the neighbors’ teen son Bob’s got balls (Michael Cimino) stops over, he’s attacked by the Black Shuck. Using the vomiting technique now well established in this diegesis, the Bride (Natalia Safran) possesses Daniela, who then tries to kill Mary Ellen. Just at the crucial moment, Judy flips on a projector with a film of her father (Patrick Wilson) conducting an exorcism. In an exceptionally self-aware moment, an exorcism movie conducts an exorcism. It might seem at first that here a female banishes the demon. It is, however, Ed Warren who does the exorcising. Judy simply starts the film going and knows to lock the doll back into its blessed case, thereby containing the evil. The gender dynamic is upheld. The events in the next movie are anchored by an historical date because the Enfield poltergeist is something that erupted five years later. THE CONJURING 2 (2016) After the events in The Conjuring and Annabelle Comes Home, Ed and Lorraine (again Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) find themselves in Amityville in The Conjuring 2. Eschewing easy demonic identifications, the movie opens with Lorraine becoming Ronald DeFeo in a seance-induced trance. She sees through his eyes as he murders his family, then she sees a creepy, gray-faced nun (Bonnie Aarons) in the basement. This is apparently the source of the demonic voices telling DeFeo to kill. The setting is 1977. Forcefully brought to consciousness by Ed, Lorraine is traumatized. The Warrens return home determined not to take any more cases. Meanwhile, in Enfield, northern London, the Hodgson family—a low-income single mother and her four children living in a council house—begin to notice strange things. The second oldest daughter Janet (Madison Wolfe) is the focal point of the trouble. She starts sensing the spirit of an old man, a former resident of the house, moving objects around. At times he speaks through her. Meanwhile, Billy Hodgson (Benjamin Haigh), Janet’s younger brother, starts seeing a crooked man in his “tent” inside the house. Like the ghost of Rory in

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the original film, the crooked man is conjured through a child’s toy. The main ghost, or demon, however, seems to have been summoned by a spirit board, what’s known on this side of the Atlantic as a ouija board. Janet, isolated and on the troubled cusp of womanhood, had made a spirit board with a friend. She swears that it works, but her older sister Margaret (Lauren Esposito) has no luck when the two of them try it together in their room. But then the odd things commence. Janet keeps waking up in the living room after falling asleep in her bed upstairs. Things move on their own. Peggy (Frances O’Connor), the terrified mother, hustles her children to the neighbors’ house. The police investigate and witness the preternatural happenings. They suggest calling a priest. The haunting gets so bad that paranormal investigators are called in. The children are interviewed on television. Meanwhile the Warrens at home have decided on a demon embargo. Lorraine is afraid Ed will die if they continue. In his study Ed is painting the nun. Lorraine is shocked, since he didn’t see this demon at all. Across the Atlantic, the poltergeist attacks worsen. Lorraine, reading her Bible at home as her daughter Judy (Sterling Jerins) plays in the same room, falls into a trance. In her vision Lorraine is back in the presence of the demonic nun. She’s in their house. In the study. The twisted sister materializes in the study and rushes Lorraine, playing on her fears that Ed will be killed if they investigate any further. Meanwhile, in real life, Lorraine grabs a pencil and begins heavily scribbling in the thin paper of her Bible, ripping through pages as she makes apparently random lines. She flips pages and continues mutilating the Good Book as she goes. This is an example of Bible abuse where the Bible itself is being mishandled by demonic forces.19 Judy, alarmed about her mother’s behavior, awakens her and Lorraine has no recollection of having defaced Holy Writ. The Bible here, as in An American Haunting (2005)—another ghost story involving a young girl—is defaced because of an evil entity. The Bible is supposed to protect from dark forces, but it can’t even protect itself. The scene also recalls, tacitly, The Omen. Recall that in that movie Fr. Brennan papered his room with the Bible. To do so he had to destroy it as a book. The same trope appears, as we’ve already seen, in Annabelle: Creation. Father Gordon (Steve Coulter) visits the Warrens to inform them about the Enfield poltergeist. The church can’t send an exorcist because they require proof. Would they be willing to investigate? Reluctant, Lorraine finally agrees that it’s the right thing to do. Children are in danger, after all. The usual sorts of horrors unfold as the ghost of Bill Wilkins (Bob Adrian) and the crooked man (Javier Botet) continue to torment the family. Finally, Ed is, while attempting to save Janet, in danger of being thrown out a window and impaled on broken tree recently struck by lightning. Lorraine realizes she requires the demon’s name to gain some control over the situation.

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Where can she find it? Then she remembers her Bible. She rushes to the car to retrieve it. The mutilated pages each have a letter—her scribbles—the demon revealed its name in her trance. By flipping the pages she can read the demon’s name—Valak. Valak isn’t a biblical name. Indeed, the only demon that specifically gives its name in the New Testament is Legion. The Nun was an attempt to provide a backstory, but to locate Valak historically, we must go back to The Lesser Key of Solomon. This grimoire is often used in supernatural films and television programs as the source of demonic names, as it is here. Valak is a demon known from this and other goetic grimoires. In these summoning sources, Valak is actually characterized as a dragon, not a nun. The only thing really borrowed by The Conjuring 2 and The Nun is the name and one of the titles Lorraine uses to exorcise it. She calls Valak the “marquis of snakes,” an actual epithet of the demon in The Lesser Key.20 Tellingly, Valac21 is male. During a remarkably simple, if dramatic, banishment, disfigured Bible in hand, and the demon’s name in her mouth, Lorraine prevails, saving Ed. How do demons and Holy Writ interact here? Abused and mutilated as the Good Book may be, it nevertheless functions to dispel the demon. It is, however, extra material that’s effective, not the Bible itself.22 Scripture functions as a conduit of its own here. It contains the hidden name of the demon who’s been forcing the ghost of Bill Wilkins to remain in Enfield, tormenting the family. He was more of a friendly ghost after all. The Warrens were devoted Catholics, and The Roman Ritual was, during their active years, the prescribed book to be used for exorcisms. It’s not clear from The Conjuring what book Ed is using for the exorcism of Carolyn. It’s a black leather volume with gilt edges, but the words he reads are not from the Good Book. Exorcism is a book-centered activity, and when Jews or Protestants cast out demons they use the Bible (as we’ll see in chapter 10).23 In The Conjuring 2 the Catholic Warrens also use the Bible to drive out evil. It only works, however, because of extra material added to the text—material provided by a demon. Broadening the scope of victims a little, The Conjuring 2 has male victims as well as female. Ed Warren and Billy Hodgson are both attacked, the former is saved by Lorraine. Nevertheless, the focus and climax of the film center on Janet Hodgson, the girl attacked by demons. And she is rescued by Ed, who is rescued, in turn, by Lorraine. CONCLUSIONS The Conjuring franchise is ongoing and immensely popular. It’s a robust source for understanding demons in pop culture. The demons are confusing

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and are able to take many forms. While the doll Annabelle isn’t actually a demon, she’s a conduit. The demon pretends to be the tragically killed daughter of the Mullins family. She gains permission to inhabit their house through the doll. Technically the demon doesn’t require the doll’s body to inhabit, but remember, this is cinema and the visual element is imperative. Glimpses of this demon are shown in external form as well. It appears as “the nun,” and as a tall, disjointed humanoid figure, as well as the girl Annabelle. Its real target is the orphan girls. Specifically Janice. Janice, taking the nom de guerre of Annabelle, is up for adoption at the end, and she takes the conduit doll with her. She is possessed and cured of polio’s after-effects. Across the ocean and in the woods of Romania, at the chronological beginning of the series, the victims are nuns. The demon Valak has killed the sisters and is vanquished by a nun lately confirmed in her vows by a priest. Both victim and deliverer, the females begin to conquer their own demons. Valak’s target remains feminine, although at the end Frenchie is possessed. In the chronologically third film of the diegesis, Annabelle, the doll again threatens females. First a pregnant woman, Mia, then her infant daughter Leah along with her. The demon can depart the doll—it does so at Fr. Perez’s church. Yet somehow it stays connected to its conduit. Another woman is threatened. Evelyn, the friendly owner of the bookstore, who, not coincidentally was the mother of a single, deceased daughter, dies in the end. The Conjuring introduces the Perron family with its five daughters. The mother Carolyn is possessed by the demon-witch Bathsheba; the categories blur here. The demon acts like regular demons do, but it’s in the house because of its legacy of being a witch house. Those threatened by the demon are females. Roger, the father, isn’t directly attacked. This continues into The Conjuring 2. The focal point of Valak’s activity, combined with that of the crooked man and Bill Wilkins, is Janet. Yes, her brother Billy has some runins with ghosts too, but the demon’s after the girl. Or perhaps it’s after Ed Warren? Lorraine believes so. Ed saves Janet. Lorraine saves Ed. What we see here takes us beyond the “final girl” trope to Poe’s world where threats to females make for poetic horror. The Exorcist, however, shows that demons attack girls to get to powerful, monster-hunting men. That also happens here in the current end of the series. The Nun attempts to explain whence the Enfield entity arose. Borrowing from Annabelle: Creation, it casts the demonic sister in medieval Romania, reawakened by the Second World War. Although originally raised by a male, Valak has nuns as his exclusive victims. Not for the first time in the series a female stops the entity. The one male exorcism in the movie (that of Daniel) failed, but the priest nevertheless consecrates Sr. Irene for her role since the setting is Catholic.

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The concept of the final girl was coined by Carolyn Clover in her book Men, Women, and Chain Saws.24 These movies all come later than Clover’s book, and plenty of horror films also have “final boys.” What seems to be at work among demons is something a bit deeper. The final girl trope involves sexually active teenage girls being murdered with a final, virginal heroine escaping. It has been analyzed as a conservative moral strain in conventional horror and the final girl has become a standard figure in discussions of the genre. Clover was no doubt correct that female victims draw attention. This is an idea that goes back to Poe, as noted already. The woman may survive or not, and she may be a virgin or not (taking the observation beyond Clover).25 The threatened female gives horror a particular poignancy. The Conjuring films target girls, often at the point of becoming women. They aren't necessarily final girls. In the case of Annabelle Comes Home, it’s three teenage girls that are targeted. While they appear to deliver themselves, it’s really Ed Warren who does the exorcising. Exorcists have long been aware of the dangers of seduction where a man stands over a writhing girl strapped to her bed. Sr. Irene ends up in a soaked white habit while two men look on. There’s more to demons than sexual temptation, of course. Possession, always chaotic, is an issue of personal control. The male church with its male rules steps in to introduce order in this confused world of demonic activity, often coded as feminine. This is explicit in The Conjuring and The Nun. What stands at the end is a triumphalist, or at least self-convinced, masculine establishment that is the only effective barrier against demonic activity that humans may conjure. Only priests, necessarily male, can exorcise. Ed Warren takes the lead when investigating. To fight demons, patriarchy leads to salvation. In an ultimate patriarchal perspective, the demon may be after the man but uses nubile girls as lures. Tellingly, Lorraine Warren breaks this pattern by saving her husband. Sr. Irene saves Romania. To test this gender dynamic we must travel to where the Warrens first found fame. Amityville.

NOTES 1. Documented sources behind the cases of Ed and Lorraine Warren aren’t always easy to locate. John W. Morehead, “Warren, Ed and Lorraine,” in Spirit Possession treats them. Brown, Ghost Hunters, gives them six uncritical pages. See also Joseph P. Laycock, “The Paranormal to Pop Culture Pipeline” in Religious Dispatches (http​:/​ /re​​ligio​​ndisp​​atche​​s​.org​​/the-​​paran​​ormal​​-to​-p​​op​-cu​​ltur​e​​-pipe​​line/​, accessed 12/14/18). An additional source is T. Sealyham, Conversations with Ed and Lorraine Warren (OmniMedia Publishing, 2012). More on the cynical side, Cuneo, American Exorcism devotes several pages to the Warrens. Inclined to dismiss, his personal interview with

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them suggested their deeper sincerity. Joe Nickell, The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead (Prometheus Books, 2012) makes the point that the Warrens tended to “demonize” reported hauntings in line with their religious outlook. 2. The books are actually co-written, but ghostwritten captures the essence. They are: Ed and Lorraine Warren, and Gerald Brittle, The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren (Graymalkin Media, 2013); Gerald Brittle, The Devil in Connecticut (Bantam, 1983); Ed and Lorraine Warren, and Robert David Chase, Ghost Hunters: True Stories from the World's Most Famous Demonologists (Graymalkin Media, 2014), and Graveyard: True Hauntings from an Old New England Cemetery (Graymalkin Media, 2014); Ed and Lorraine Warren, and Robert David Chase, with William Ramsey, Werewolf: A True Story of Demonic Possession (Graymalkin Media, 2014); Ed and Lorraine Warren, and Robert Curran, with Jack and Janet Smurl, The Haunted: One Family’s Nightmare (Graymalkin Media, 2014); Ed and Lorraine Warren, and Michael Lasalandra, Mark Merenda, with Maurice and Nancy Theriault, Satan’s Harvest (Graymalkin Media, 2014); Ed and Lorraine Warren, and Carmen Reed, Al Snedeker, with Ray Garton, In a Dark Place (Graymalkin Media, 2014); Ed and Lorraine Warren, and J. F. Sawyer, Deliver Us from Evil (Graymalkin Media, 2014); Ed and Lorraine Warren, and Wicks, Ghost Tracks. All these, with one exception, were republished with author credits given to the Warrens. In late interviews they claimed ten books and here they are. Based on the dates of the books they were deemed commercially viable in the eighties through the early nineties. 3. See the books in the previous note. 4. The Curse of La Llarona (2018) in tangentially tied in and is sometimes counted as a seventh film in the diegesis. 5. Andrea Perron, House of Darkness, House of Light: The True Story, 3 vols. (AuthorHouse, 2011, 2013, 2014). 6. Warrens and Brittle, The Demonologist. 7. Playfair, This House Is Haunted. 8. Finit hic Deo. 9. The whole possessed doll conceit is, of course, referencing Child’s Play (1988). 10. Wiggins, Holy Horror. 11. Fr. Perez is the only tie to the diegesis in The Curse of La Llarona. 12. The many books “by” Ed and Lorraine Warren, as well as Amorth, An Exorcist Explains, explain the stages. 13. For a fuller analysis of this movie see Wiggins, Holy Horror. 14. Perron, House of Darkness. 15. Russell, Lucifer. 16. Brown, Ghost Hunters. 17. Many books have been written about Salem. For one that focuses on gender see Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape. 18. Godbeer, Escaping Salem. 19. Wiggins, Holy Horror. 20. Peterson, Lesser Key.

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21. The spelling in The Lesser Key of Solomon. 22. Wiggins, Holy Horror. 23. Chajes, Between Worlds. 24. Clover, Men, Women. 25. Clover, Men, Women, notes that the final girl is actually metaphorical of a male character’s conflict. That plays out here, as well as in The Exorcist.

Chapter 9

Amityville Horrors

Demons sometimes take the role of haunting a house rather than specifically possessing someone. The Amityville Horror franchise presents such a case. Still endlessly debated, the aftermath of the tragic historical murders of the DeFeo family led to the most famous alleged haunting of the twentieth century. Although Ed and Lorraine Warren believed the haunting authentic,1 the accusation of a hoax has hung heavily over the Lutz case for many years. Jay Anson’s bestselling book, The Amityville Horror—variously classified as a novel and non-fiction—was the basis for the movie. What really happened? Were demons involved? The facts are scarce. On November 14, 1974, Ronald DeFeo murdered his parents and four siblings at home at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, New York. Just over a year later George and Kathy Lutz, along with their three children, moved into the house. Less than a month after that they suddenly moved out, leaving their things behind. Everything else is disputed. Not a typical haunting, whether legitimate or not, the denizens of Amityville may include ghosts, but seem to have included demons as well. At least in the movies. The original film is fairly close to Anson’s book. Of course, there was a lot in the book that had to be left on the cutting room floor for a movie of theatrical length to be made. Lest we get bogged down in trying to sort fact from fiction in this account disputed from the beginning, we’ll focus on the demons in Stuart Rosenberg’s cinematic universe, along with its sequels and theatrical reboot. Since it’s the house that’s “possessed” in the series, this might be a good place to rehearse the stages of demonic activity outlined by Fr. Gabriele Amorth.2 The four main stages are infestation, oppression, obsession, and possession. Infestation is when demons are drawn to a location, such as a haunted house (112 Ocean Avenue qualifies). Oppression is when demons 141

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begin physically attacking a person, often leaving scars and signs. Obsession is demons causing recurrent and persistent thoughts of gloom, doom, depression, or thoughts of a very profane nature. Possession is the taking over of a person’s body, but not their soul. There are elements of all of these in the Amityville franchise, but the films somehow manage not to convey them clearly. Demons love confusion. To understand Scripture and horror requires some comprehension of how religion—often Christianity—lays the demonic groundwork for franchises such as this. The Amityville Horror series suggests the demonic nature of the threat in several ways. Overall this seems to be a case of infestation. Ronald DeFeo may have been possessed when he murdered his family, but the film makes clear that getting out of the house is key to escaping the demon(s). Another aspect to consider is the cast of characters involved. Priests are crucial to the story. The Warrens, in real life, investigated Amityville, bringing the case into the orbit of The Conjuring universe. The Amityville Horror franchise separated itself from the Warrens. Demons cavort throughout, sometimes subtly, and at other times sadly overt. The gender dynamic is tied to the families that actually inhabited the house. With this basic background, we can go to the movies. THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979) The Amityville Horror capitalized on public interest in demons awakened by The Exorcist, a film from which it borrows. The Lutz family purchased 112 Ocean Avenue, and the house is obviously haunted. They’re aware that the DeFeo murders took place there. The story builds on the tension of the increasingly irrational behavior of George Lutz (James Brolin). George and Kathy (Margot Kidder) move in with their three kids, and the paranormal activity immediately begins. On move-in day Fr. Delaney (Rod Steiger) comes to bless the house, but the Lutzes are all outside. Flies propagate in winter before his eyes. A terrible stench fills the room. A demonic voice commands “Get out!” The priest leaves and is sick when he reaches his car. When he tries to talk to Kathy on the telephone, the receiver burns his hand, and all she hears is static. “The presence” doesn’t like priests. George slowly falls apart. He can’t keep warm, no matter how he stokes the fire. He and Kathy are interrupted when they try to make love—George remarks they now must know what it was like when Adam and Eve left the garden, a not-so-subtle reference to biblical sex. He begins awakening at 3:15 a.m., the time of demons. Kathy’s daughter Amy (Natasha Ryan) finds an invisible friend named Jodie. When Kathy’s Aunt Helena (Irene Dailey), a nun, comes to visit she becomes violently ill. Kathy tries to call Fr. Delaney,

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but reaches Fr. Bolen (Don Stroud) instead. Here we have the young priestold priest combination of The Exorcist. When the priests try to drive to the house the steering wheel of the car locks. The hood flies open on the highway. They crash. For purposes of this book one of the most important scenes is the subsequent discussion between clerics. Fr. Ryan (Murray Hamilton) argues with Fr. Delaney, who is a qualified psychotherapist. Even though secularly trained, Delaney knows there is a supernatural presence in the house. Fr. Ryan counters that in this modern era, after Vatican II, all can be explained rationally. Delaney stops short of calling the presence a demon, but Ryan says the Devil and Satanism aren’t to be blamed, hysteria is. Fr. Delaney, he says, needs a vacation. Identifying the entity (or entities) as demonic is largely a contextual enterprise. Despite the centrality of clergy in the story, there’s little overt mention of demons. Demons are often associated with the flies—hearkening back to that ancient misuse of Beelzebul—that swarm against the dictates of nature. The film utilizes priests who attest to the evil nature of the presence, but who only mention the word “demons” when Fr. Bolen claims we create “our own demons in our own minds.” Meanwhile, Carolyn (Helen Shaver), the new age wife of George’s business partner Jeff (Michael Sacks) discovers that the house was built on a burial ground (cue The Shining), established by John Ketcham, an escaped witch from Salem. Had we the space, the exploration of the haunting of America by Salem in horror could be expanded, but it must suffice here to note that this witch was male. Carolyn discovers a hidden room where Satanic rites took place. It’s a red room (right, Stanley Kubrick?). It’s the gate to Hell. George and Kathy try to bless the house with a crucifix, but fail. Meanwhile the detective Sergeant Gionfriddo (Val Avery, clearly a Kinderman knock-off from The Exorcist) follows Fr. Bolen to discover that Fr. Delaney is now a blind invalid. As in The Exorcist, the priest is the victim; the Lutzes escape the house, terrorized but whole. What of the demon here? The film gives us only two very brief glimpses of “Jodie,” both suggesting porcine form. She’s not explicitly identified as a demon, and she’s largely facilitated by Amy, the Lutzes’s young daughter. This theme isn’t developed to the point that Amy can in any sense be said to be possessed. George may be getting there. He sees Jodie in the window the last night at the house. Then he tries to break through the bathroom door with an axe (paging Jack Torrance). No explanation is given beyond the gate of Hell in the basement, where the bodies are buried, and the voices both Ronald DeFeo and the Lutzes hear. The 3:15 motif is demonic, as is the inverted crucifix, but we’re never told who Jodie is or why she haunts the house John Ketcham built.

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The question of the demon’s identity moves beyond this franchise as well as within it. The Conjuring 2, in a different universe, decides it’s Valak. In the diegesis of The Amityville Horror, this demon takes the name of Jodie, rather like Annabelle in Annabelle: Creation. It appears to respond to Amy. Demons are notorious for pretending to be someone else. The demon’s like a pig, perhaps a reference to the Gadarene demoniac.3 We must be cautious here since if a movie doesn’t explicitly identify a demon the argument being made is one from silence. Horror often works with ambiguity, and this may increase the tension while also preventing certainty on the part of the viewer. The Amityville Horror finds itself in an odd purgatory between relating a “true story” and elaborating on what viewers want to see. It seems the house has a demon, and it follows some aspects of The Exorcist. The famous scene with Fr. Delaney made the phrase “Get out” so popular that it could be used to title an unrelated horror film. Like many successful horror movies, however, Amityville spawned a host of sequels and a remake that further “explain” what was going on in that haunted Dutch Colonial. AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION (1982) In this first sequel, the priest, Fr. Frank Adamsky (James Olson), plays a major role. Laden with special effects and a plodding plot, the film tries to be both a haunted house film and a possession movie. Very loosely based on the tragic story of the DeFeo family itself, the movie starts with the Montelli family moving into the house. The setting makes this installment technically a prequel. The movie claims to be based on famed ghost-hunter Hans Holzer’s book, Murder in Amityville.4 On move-in day, Anthony Montelli (Burt Young) shows himself to be a bully of a father. His hostility is mostly directed to his oldest son Sonny (Jack Magner). The house comes with the usual accoutrements of horror—blood coming out the faucet, creepy extra room in the basement with extra flies, and furniture that moves on its own. As the family settles in, Anthony becomes more abusive, and Sonny more distant. Dolores (Rutanya Alda), the mother, wants to have the house blessed, against the objections of her husband. Fr. Adamsky arrives and significantly leaves his holy book—not the Bible—in his car. The cover clearly shows the book to be Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours. Like The Roman Ritual, this is a Catholic sacred book, but it’s specifically one that contains the Daily Office—the liturgy for the various prayer services of the church. It isn’t used for exorcisms in any case. The priest can’t stand Anthony’s abuse toward his family and leaves. Upon reaching his car he discovers Christian Prayer shredded to pieces. Demons like to attack holy books as we saw in The Conjuring 2.

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Dolores insists that the family go to the church to apologize. Sonny stays behind and becomes possessed. Home alone, he hears strange noises from the hidden room in the basement, then a series of chasing demon point-ofview shots show it closing in on him, forcing him onto his bed. The demon apparently trampolines on his abdomen a few times and enters him there. This is presented by using colored lights and a pulsating swelling on his neck, accompanied by bursting water pipes and explosions around the house. After his family returns home he seduces and has sex with his younger sister Patricia (Diane Franklin). He becomes moody and more distant. Meanwhile Patricia feels guilty about the incest and goes to confess to Fr. Adamsky. She can’t admit that it’s her brother she’s sleeping with, and she flees the confessional. Fr. Adamsky returns and blesses the house. His experience there leads him to request an exorcism, but the chancellor of his church (Leonardo Cimino) suggests taking some time to investigate. Having second thoughts, Patricia again visits the priest in his office. As she opens the door she finds him reading from Ephesians 6:12. “For we struggle not against flesh and blood,” he reads aloud, as he’s working on a sermon. He turns his attention to Patricia, but a medical emergency calls him from the office before she can say what’s on her mind. The biblical passage indicates that this struggle is demonic, but Fr. Adamsky hasn’t figured it out yet. Although Patricia’s sin is one of the flesh, and with a relative (“blood”), her real concern is spiritual, just as the Good Book implies. The minister is writing a sermon, but clueless as to the real help the girl needs. He doesn’t make the connection between Scripture and the actual case in front of him. In fact, we learn he has a camping trip with another priest lined up that afternoon, so it’s his own personal needs that take precedence over hers. When Fr. Adamsky returns from the medical emergency, Patricia tries to call him. His companion, Fr. Tom (Andrew Prine) lifts the receiver and sets it down crosswise, in front of the closed Bible. The priests leave for a weekend away. That night Sonny, now fully possessed, stalks and shoots his entire family to death, Patricia last of all. Fr. Adamsky, dreaming this while it happens, rushes back to find the family dead. Sonny can’t remember anything. It becomes clear that he’s murdered his family and as he’s being arraigned in court the defense announces that it plans to plead not guilty due to possession, which the judge dismisses. These are echoes of the Arne Cheyenne Johnson trial, covered in Ed and Lorraine Warren’s book with Gerald Brittle, The Devil in Connecticut.5 Although there’s a Bible on the judge’s bench, and there’s a real demon, the latter’s not admissible in court. Fr. Adamsky visits the boy in jail and determines he needs an exorcism, but the church won’t allow it. Sonny is incarcerated. Meanwhile back outside the house, the priest encounters a librarian. She gives him a lift, and shares some old records about the house. Pulling out all

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the stops, it was built on an Indian burial ground by someone who’d fled from Salem. Salem is a card often played in such films. It rather crassly implies that the innocents hanged there were actual witches. Sonny is dying. The priest helps him escape from the hospital so that he can perform an emergency exorcism in church. The chancellor has refused permission, but the cleric is convinced this is an authentic case of possession. Unwilling to enter the holy place, Sonny flees back to the haunted house. There Fr. Adamsky finds him and attempts the unauthorized exorcism. During the exorcism, the demon refuses to give its name, but instead turns into Patricia. She taunts the priest with lusting after her as she made her confession. He could’ve used the message from the Bible then. Watching the grotesque transformation of the boy into demon, he begs that he be taken instead. Clearly he’s seen The Exorcist. The priest ends up possessed by an unnamed demon and Sonny is returned to jail. The Montelli family is dead. The demon has won. Who is this demon? We’re not told. The shots we’re shown all cast him in the face of the possessed humans. The origin myth still relies on the Salem connection and native American burial ground. Why this specifically spawns demons we’re not told. Note that here the possession victim is male. The next installment of the original franchise skips the previous story completely to show the demon physically and to end the trilogy. AMITYVILLE III: THE DEMON, ALSO KNOWN AS AMITYVILLE 3-D (1983) By far the weakest effort of the franchise, for legal reasons this movie was technically not a sequel.6 The Lutz family isn’t mentioned, although the DeFeo family is repeatedly commented upon by a young Meg Ryan. The story begins with a fabricated seance in the house. John Baxter (Tony Roberts) and his partner Melanie (Candy Clark) work for Reveal, a skeptical magazine. After debunking the Amityville hoaxers, John decides to buy the famous house. He’s divorced and wants a new place. Thoroughly skeptical, he sees nothing unusual. Melanie, however, is menaced by the house. The seller dies in the Dutch Colonial the day John closes on it, but John thinks nothing of it. Melanie shows him distorted photos of the seller snapped on the day of their initial investigation. John dismisses them and invites his daughter Susan (Lori Loughlin) to pick out a room for herself. She chooses the famous fly-infested attic where the seller had been attacked. The movie uses the possessed room rather than Lutz references, as viewers presumably already know the story behind that particular location.

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Meanwhile both John and his ex-wife Nancy Baxter (Tess Harper) visit Elliot West (Robert Joy), who runs a paranormal research institute. Nancy has forbidden their daughter Susan from visiting the Amityville house, but the teen disobeys. Melanie, working on her own, discovers a demon on the blow-up of her photos of the dead previous owner of the house. On her way to convince skeptical John with the evidence, she loses control of her car, crashes, and burns to death. One day when nobody’s home Susan and her friends decide to have a seance in her room. An improvised ouija board indicates Susan’s in danger. The kids go for a boat ride in the choppy waters off Long Island as Nancy comes to the house to take her daughter home. Susan drowns, but since Nancy has seen her ghost, sopping wet, she believes she’s still alive. With the loss of his daughter, John finally gives Elliot’s team permission for a night of investigation. Susan’s ghost leads her parents to the basement where the gate to Hell is a bubbling, turquoise well. Elliot is waiting there and as the demon pops out of the water, he tells John and Nancy to save themselves. The couple does so as the house collapses and explodes. Amityville 3-D was clearly made as a vehicle for cheap-shot 3-D effects at the expense of the story; we learn a limited amount about demons. Characters with generic names act strictly as stereotypes and nobody ever suggests calling a priest or exorcist, even though they know the history of the house. The closest the demon comes to being explained is when Lisa (Meg Ryan) claims the house was built on an Indian burial ground, borrowing from the first sequel. She also suggests, when narrating the DeFeo murders, that Ronald was “possessed by the spirit of the Devil.” Her breezy way of narrating it, however, adds some doubt. The constantly buzzing flies suggest the biblical epithet “lord of the flies,” or Beelzebub, as we’ve seen. Because Bible readers recognize the phrase “lord of the flies,” the insects themselves have become a diabolical attribute. Flies, unclean and annoying in the best of cases, historically grew into a symbol of evil so potent that William Golding could borrow it as the title of his novel and know that general readers could get the reference.7 The joke was now taken seriously. In the best-selling book that kicked off the Amityville franchise, flies play a large role. That image is difficult to shake. The gender dynamic, however, remains intact. Of the principals two young women (Melanie and Susan) die. Presumably Elliot does as well, but the demon never torments him. Its focus is apparently on Susan. While Amityville 3-D doesn’t name the demon and doesn’t contribute to the backstory, it does show a slimy, toothy creature in the turquoise bubbling pool in the basement of the house, a 3-Demon, as it were, to pop out at the viewer. Although direct-to-video and television movies were added to the series, the theatrical movies lay dormant until a reboot of the original was

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attempted, and this one had to enhance the backstory vastly to increase the scare factor. THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005) The third feature film was such a box-office flop that the theatrical release market for the franchise died. Resurrection, however, is a standard trope of horror, and after a suitable mourning period, a reboot was offered. The remake went back to the familiar story recorded in the book and again brought in a priest. Neither the original nor the reboot name the actual Lutz children. The family this time includes George (Ryan Reynolds) and Kathy (Melissa George), two sons, and a new focal point for the haunting, daughter Chelsea (Chloë Grace Moretz). The reboot opens with the murders. Ronald DeFeo (Brendan Donaldson), before shooting his family, had been reading a book titled Evil Is Proof of God, by Timothy W. Tiedje.8 This isn’t an actual published book, and the shots of the heavily annotated text with “Ketcham + Kill ‘em” written all over it is a study of theodicy. Theodicy is the attempt to justify the goodness of God in the face of all the evil in the world. The running head of the book indicates this chapter is on the Augustinian tradition, specifically on the theodicy of Leibniz. Many words are underlined—practically all of the pages we’re shown—and several words are circled, especially in phrases containing the word “evil.” While the script doesn’t come out and say it, the implication is that this is an atheistically motivated murder, inspired by a demon. Once the Lutz family moves in, creepy things begin to happen. Chelsea, however, has befriended Jodie (Isabel Conner), in this version Ronald DeFeo’s youngest sibling. Jodie is clearly not a demon here. Chelsea tells her mother that she has to do the bidding of the man who lives in the house. Following Jodie, Chelsea is threatened in a way her brothers aren’t. Jodie places Chelsea in dangerous situations, and even convinces her to die so she can see her father (the children are Kathy’s, not George’s). The threat is to a young girl. Since the most famous scene of original film was the driving out of Fr. Delaney, we might expect more to be made of the story of the priest. After all, the original had multiple priests, a nun, a crucifix and statues of the Virgin Mary—mostly absent from the reboot. The eviction of Fr. Delaney set the tone for the movie. While a new religious twist is added to the remake, it has nothing directly to do with this episode. If it explains the demon, it does so in an all-too human way. In the reboot Fr. Callaway (Philip Baker Hall) appears over half-way through the film. His role is brief and not developed. As he begins his blessing, the room in which he’s standing suddenly locks

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him in. For completely inexplicable reasons, the doorknob has a cross on it. When it locks, the cross is upside down—this is horror code for a demonic presence. The movie implies it’s the presence of Rev. Ketcham, the demonic entity. Chased out of the house by demonic flies, Fr. Callaway’s only other interaction with the family is to tell Kathy to get out of the house later in the movie. Kathy researches the property. The demon in the house is revealed to be Rev. Jeremiah Ketcham. This character is also named in Anson’s book, but there he’s John, as in the original movie. For reasons left unexplained, Rev. Ketcham tortured and killed Native Americans in the house, dropping twenty bodies in the water. He then slit his throat so that his spirit would never leave the house. The pages of the book Kathy’s reading, superimposed over her horrified face, read “demonic possession.” It seems Ketcham was the possessed one. To accommodate this backstory, the realtor tells the Lutzes that the Dutch Colonial was built in 1692, one of the earliest in America. The date is, of course, that of the Salem witch trials. Dutch Colonial houses did not appear until about the 1770s in this part of New York.9 The domicile, according to Ketcham’s chronicle in the Amityville Public Library, was inappropriately called “The Sanctuary.” No backstory is given for Ketcham and his hatred of Indians, but his is clearly the demonic force tormenting the house. As a minister he’s shown with no Bible, but rather instruments of torture. Other than the inspired introduction of Chloë Grace Moretz the reboot also missed some opportunities for developing the demons of the story. Catholic Fr. Callaway’s less relevant than the Protestant Rev. Ketcham, long deceased but still present. The demon has largely become secularized and it targets a little girl rather than an old priest. CONCLUSIONS The Amityville Horror in many ways set the tropes for the modern “haunted house” movie. Although none of these films feature or reference Ed and Lorraine Warren, this was the case that catapulted them to fame. None of the characters seems particularly interested in identifying the demon until the reboot, and then it’s a sinister minister with a hatred for first nations people. Priests play their largest roles in the first two installments, but they don’t identify the demon and, in all versions the demon wins. The Lutzes move out, Fr. Adamski is possessed, the house collapses. Hit repeat. Demons, by their very nature, are biblical monsters in Christian thought. Priests and exorcists in horror are demon-hunters. The initial movie of the franchise strongly suggested the presence in the house was demonic. The use of flies in the remake affirms that, but the indications of a demonic presence

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in the reboot are more subtle and tend to involve the books of Ronald DeFeo and the Ketcham chronicle read by Kathy. As the original series spun out sequels, the demonic element was clearly present. Fr. Adamsky, in Amityville II: The Possession attempts an exorcism—the only one in the diegesis. Although lacking in the explanation department, Amityville III: The Demon has the word “demon” in its subtitle and shows it at the climax of the film. It relies on the tired explanation that the gates of Hell are beneath the house. The demon has no religious motivation at all. It’s simply a movie monster. The quick succession of the sequels demonstrates that Hollywood believed money could be made on this franchise. Instead, the continuing sequels after Amityville 3-D went straight to video and television. Since 2015 a couple of limited theatrical release sequels have appeared, but the story seems to have worn itself out early on. (Yes, directors, everyone knows the upper windows of the Dutch Colonial look like eyes!) The question of what lies behind the attack on the Lutzes, and what the DeFeo murders unleashed is traced to a mysterious J. Ketcham. The viewing public learns there’s a demon, but the only solution shown is to flee. History would fairly quickly label the whole story a hoax. In 1979 The Exorcist was fresh in filmmakers’ minds. A horror film could earn significant revenue. The Lutz family moved out of their Amityville house in 1976, just three years after The Exorcist opened in theaters. The Amityville Horror released another three years later with several aspects lifted from the movie that started it all. Prior to The Exorcist, public interest in demons simply didn’t register. Science had, in Carl Sagan’s metaphor, lit a candle in that darkness, and clergy were learning in their seminaries that epilepsy and mental illness could account for demonic possession cases in the Bible. The Exorcist not only brought in money but also ushered in demons. The fact that money could be made on a story like that of the Lutz family and 112 Ocean Avenue was just too tempting to pass up. Ronald DeFeo did murder his family in that house, and George Lutz maintained that the basic facts were not a hoax. The latter (and Ed Warren) died in 2006, two years after Kathy. The original film focused on George Lutz’s increasingly irrational behavior, but the threat was aimed at Kathy, who, as mother, fears for her children. George remains a target for possession in the reboot, but the youngest Lutz— the girl—was clearly the demon’s main interest. She alone is threatened by visiting the boathouse alone, and walking on the gabled top of the house as the family tries to rescue her. George may be possessed, but the threat to his stepchildren is embodied in Chelsea’s experience. The boys are threatened too, but the attention lingers on Chelsea. As in The Conjuring universe, demons seek female victims.

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In Amityville II Sonny is possessed, however. In the only exorcism within the theatrical franchise, the demon targets the priest, just as in The Exorcist. The tension doesn’t match the threat to Patricia in the film as she is the sexual victim of the demon. Even in Amityville III the only family member to die is the daughter Susan. This demon likes girls and he always wins. Although there doesn’t seem to be much that can be added to the original story, numerous made for television and straight to video sequels have been produced. This profusion of recensions broadcasts the viability of demons as marketable monsters, a veritable buyers’ market of the supernatural. Some flee from demons. Others, as we’ll see in the next chapter, linger to record them on video. NOTES 1. Ed and Lorraine Warren discuss their Amityville experiences in Wicks, Ghost Tracks, and Sealyham, Conversations. 2. Amorth, An Exorcist Tells, An Exorcist Explains. 3. Newheart, “My Name Is Legion.” 4. Holzer, like most paranormal investigators, is the center of controversy. He claimed to hold a Ph.D., but this is disputed; https​:/​/ww​​w​.the​​guard​​ian​.c​​om​/gl​​obal/​​ 2009/​​jun​/1​​8​/obi​​tuar​y​​-hans​​-holz​​er (accessed 12/12/18). 5. This is the announced subject of The Conjuring 3, tying these universes closely together. 6. Staci Layne Wilson, “Exclusive Interview with George Lutz and Dan Farrands— Part One,” (2005) horror​.co​m; http:​/​/www​​.horr​​or​.co​​m​/php​​/arti​​cle​-7​​​65​-1.​​html,​ accessed 2/16/20. 7. Lord of the Flies was published in 1954. 8. Interestingly, there is a Timothy W. Tiedje listed on IMDb as being the property master in the art department for this film https​:/​/ww​​w​.imd​​b​.com​​/titl​​e​/tt0​​38480​​6​/ful​​ lcred​​its​?r​​ef_​​=t​​t​_cl_​​sm​#ca​​st (accessed 2/16/20). 9. Geoffrey Gross, Susan Piatt, Roderic H Blackburn, Harrison Frederick Meeske. Dutch Colonial Homes in America (Rizzoli, 2002).

Chapter 10

Paranormal Activities

A “found footage” or cinéma vérité series, Paranormal Activity capitalized on the success of reality television ghost hunting.1 It quickly grew. The standard universe of the franchise includes six films, but there are, at the time of this writing, seven.2 There are two Paranormal Activity 2s. One was the “official” sequel and the other, subtitled Tokyo Night, was a spin-off by a different director using the same conceit. Titles aren’t covered by copyright, and the viewing public has to decide what legitimately belongs to a film’s diegesis. A spin-off may or may not be considered a sequel or prequel. The original premise may change along the way. It’s almost paranormal in its own right. Tokyo Night isn’t considered in this chapter dealing with the Paranormal Activity diegesis as it falls outside the standard canon defined by IMDb.3 Reality television has as much an impact on the concepts of demons and Satanism as it has on capturing evidence. A confused mix of popular half-truths about satanic panics, quasi-Catholic spiritual hierarchies, and neo-paganism, demons are said to be entities that were never human. They can haunt and possess people and properties. If you set up the right kinds of recording devices, you can capture them on camera.4 This scenario was used to great effect by the Paranormal Activity franchise. The series followed the possession of Katie across four generations in southern California, all of it captured on personal recording devices. The first film, Paranormal Activity, is a secular possession movie.5 The demon is immune to any human intervention in the initial installment. These cinéma vérité factors change over the course of the six films. The first movie in the series is entirely found footage from a single camera used to record the nighttime events. As the franchise progresses, other cameras are added as viewpoints into the lives and houses of the characters. The first film doesn’t break through the fourth wall at all, maintaining to the end that this is found 153

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footage and even giving the characters (who weren’t famous actors) their actual, real-life names.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007) Secular demons are the worst. They’ve never been human, so they don’t know what it feels like. And they harm intentionally. They play cat-andmouse with their prey before killing them. They don’t fear religious artifacts or books. And they might not be who you think they are. Katie (Katie Featherston) has had problems with haunting since she was a child. The paranormal activities have followed her from house to house. Now she’s living with her boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat) and she’s trying to finish her degree. Scary stuff begins to happen at night. Micah buys a digital video camera to record the happenings. Apart from the usual things moving by themselves, Katie also climbs out of bed in the middle of the night and stares at Micah while he sleeps. For hours. A psychic is brought in but he determines this is something he can’t handle. It’s a demon and the young couple require a specialist. Visibly shaken, he clearly wants to get out of their house. Although Micah’s skeptical, things continue to happen. When he borrows an ouija board (after he promised not to buy one), the entity uses it while they’re not home. Unable to reach the demonologist, they call the psychic back. He offers to help, but obviously distressed, he leaves. Micah wonders if they shouldn’t go to a hotel, but Katie says they’ll be safer at home, with a knowing smile at the camera. That night she murders Micah and destroys the camera. Everything in this movie is shown by implication. We see no entity, no clergy, and no sign of religion. The paranormal investigator recognizes a demon, but he doesn’t recommend a priest but rather a demonologist. Note that the possessed character is female. A low-budget film with a huge financial payback meant that sequels were inevitable. This scenario also sets the stage for a larger framework to explain what’s going on here. The entire series consists of found footage, and this initial film revolved around the tension of not knowing the truth behind Katie. Once we know she’s possessed the sequels will have to explain this. Up through the fourth film the sequels end with the company logo before rolling the credits to maintain the fiction that the players aren’t simply actors. The movie company closing logo traditionally closes a film. That visual break allows for the suspension of disbelief before the credits appear. These secular demons, going back to the explanation of Ed and Lorraine Warren, will be further clarified as the backstory unwinds.

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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 (2010) The first sequel functions as an envelope (or “inclusio” as biblical scholars might say) for the initial film. It starts about two months before the end of the original movie and retains the same actors as Katie and Micah. Katie’s sister Kristi (Sprague Grayden) has married Daniel Rey (Brian Boland), who has an older daughter, Ali (Molly Ephraim). As the film opens—maintaining the cinéma vérité style unbroken—Daniel and Kristi are bringing their new son Hunter (William Juan and Jackson Xenia Prieto) home from the hospital. The Hispanic housekeeper, Martine (Vivis Colombetti), is the only one that believes in the paranormal. Katie visits to see her new nephew, and that night the house is trashed. Everything is in disarray except Hunter’s nursery. The Reys call the police because it looks like a break-in, although nothing was stolen. Martine senses evil spirits, but Daniel doesn’t believe in that kind of thing and decides to install security cameras. They start to capture creepy things at night. Martine burns sage in the house and Daniel dismisses her. He doesn’t want superstitious rituals going on in his home. Ali investigates with her boyfriend Brad (Seth Ginsberg). She believes the house has a ghost so they use a ouija board. It indicates the spirit wants Hunter. Ali researches the supernatural online. Ghosts, she tells Brad, were once humans. Demons, however, were never human. They’re just evil. Their house is haunted by a demon. Meanwhile Kristi is having a breakdown. Katie visits and tells her she can’t be like their mother, obsessing over all this. Ali thinks perhaps Kristi’s grandmother made a deal with a demon. Hunter is the first male in that line since grandmother Lois’s generation, and the demon is owed the first boy. The paranormal attacks grow violent. Kristi is dragged from the room by an unseen force and locked in the basement. She emerges in a trance. Ali discovers letters scratched in the basement door and a large bite on Kristi’s thigh. Kristi won’t let her near Hunter. The mother’s acting possessed. Daniel returns home and Ali tells him he has to believe this is really happening. He calls Martine back. She has him anoint a cross with olive oil, to drive out the demon. The secular demon has now taken on a Christian cast. Why would an entity that’s never been human react to the symbol of Jesus’s victory over evil? Kristi attacks Daniel and he, Kristi, and Hunter end up in the basement while the demonic assault continues. Utter chaos. Finally calm returns. Katie visits and asks if weird things are happening still. The night Micah is killed, Katie shows up, murders Daniel and Kristi, takes Hunter and leaves. The found footage aspect of the first film starts to break down in this installment because, apart from Katie and Micah, the other players are

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revealed to be actors. This is concealed behind the movie company closing logo, but clearly the illusion can’t be kept up indefinitely. The plot is left intact, however, and obviously set up for another sequel. The nature of demons isn’t discussed much in this movie. Ali researches demons on the internet, but only finds that they’re evil, and they’ve never been human. No priests are consulted; when Daniel finally admits there might be paranormal activity, he relies on his religious ex-housekeeper! Daniel’s a nonbeliever from the start, even in the face of unexplained happenings. He only believes when it’s too late. His lack of faith is beyond disturbing—it’s fatal. Interestingly, what tips Ali off to the presence of the demon is its persistence. She believes that rules out a ghost. The modern demon is an unexplained, persistent, evil, nonhuman entity. Ghosts, according to rare documented books on the subject, can be quite persistent.6 In the Paranormal Activity diegesis, however, demons are persistent in a way beyond a merely ghostly presence. Set up for yet another sequel, Paranormal Activity 2 doesn’t delve too deeply into explanations. Ali, as far as we know, is the only one left alive by Katie and she was the one who researched the topic. She’s a kind of final girl. As in the first film, it’s Katie who’s possessed and she’s at large with a baby in her hands and three family homicides on her record. As with the first installment, this movie could stand on its own as a frame to the original. The loss of the toddler, however, will leave viewers wanting to know more. It almost requires an unholy trilogy. Then third fascicle appeared the next year. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 (2011) The third installment, clearly in the works before the first sequel was released, begins with Katie delivering a box of tapes to Kristi’s house as Kristi is painting Hunter’s room. Actually, she delivers a ton of stuff to their basement, ending with a box of VHS tapes. As she leaves she tells Kristi that she can keep them. This is then one step out from the earlier film—chronologically this is the earliest action we’ve seen. It’s another envelope. The night of the “break in” from the previous installment, Daniel checks the basement to find only the box of tapes missing. Then one of the tapes begins to play on screen. It’s 1988, Katie and Kristi (Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown) are children. It’s Katie’s birthday. Their mother Julia (Lauren Bittner) has remarried, and her second husband Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) is a video camera buff. When Katie continues beating a fallen piñata, he comments that she’s a little monster. Because of noises around the house, Dennis and his friend Randy (Dustin Ingram) set up two

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video cameras. There’s one in each bedroom. Kristi gets up at night and talks to Toby, a man nobody else can see. He lives in a closet upstairs. Lois (Hallie Foote), Julia’s mother, visits. She wants a grandson. By now we know she’s the one who made a deal with the demon—that was strongly implied in Paranormal Activity 2. The cameras catch Kristi running around at night when everyone else is in bed. Meanwhile Randy brings over some books stolen from the library. One of the old books is titled Malevolent Entities. It helps to explain what Dennis has been experiencing. The friends figure there’s an entity and it wants something. When the girls have a babysitter one of the cameras reveals a sheetcovered ghost appearing behind her, then vanishing. At this point the entity seems to be merely a ghost. Kristi watches her parents sleeping, in what has become a regular feature of the series. When she comes down with a fever, Randy babysits Katie. Katie wants to play “Bloody Mary,” a kids’ ghost game involving a mirror. It goes badly awry, with the entity trapping them in the girls’ bathroom and Randy suffering an attack from a demon claw. Randy abruptly quits, and Dennis confronts Julia with a photograph of her mother in a coven. Julia isn’t a believer; her husband, she says, is being ridiculous. Witches are introduced to the series here, and their connection with demons is obvious. Kristi refuses to do what Toby asks until he threatens Katie. In a violent night attack, the older sister is dragged into Toby’s closet, and Kristi acquiesces. She asks to go to Grandma’s house. At Lois’s house, Kristi dresses up as a bride. For Toby. That night Dennis awakes alone. Taking the camera, he discovers the coven meeting in an out-building. Locking the doors he finds Julia, suspended in mid-air. She’s flung at him, dead. He grabs Kristi and hides from the entity. When the attack passes, he looks for Katie. Obviously possessed, she roars, flinging him across the room. Lois appears and magically breaks Dennis’s back. She takes Katie’s hand and then beckons Kristi. The younger girl takes her other hand and says “Come on, Toby!” The camera reaches the end of the tape. The secular demon here has been associated with a coven of witches. The connection is an ancient one,7 and the motivation appears to be to provide some kind of explanation for what’s been happening at this haunted house— or more properly, with this haunted family. Why has the demon attached itself to them? Paranormal Activity 2 didn’t look too closely for explanations. As the envelope encompasses more family history, however, hints are revealed. We now know, for example, that Ali was right; the grandmother—not her great-grandmother because she is Daniel’s daughter, not Kristi’s—made a demonic pact. She wants a male descendant because she failed to have a son herself. Hunter is the victim. That grandmother, Lois, carefully manipulated her daughter’s family to her house and now the grandchildren are hers.

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Toby isn’t yet explained. He could be a ghost, but his threats to the girls suggest he’s something worse. Randy received a claw scratch while babysitting Katie, often cinematically associated with demon attacks. This installment, after the cross is introduced in Paranormal Activity 2, takes us even further from the completely secular demon. Now the evil force is summoned by a coven. Although the word “witch” isn’t used, “coven” implies as much. The older women at Lois’s house in their candle-lit room and with a bonfire going in the yard confirm that suspicion. We’re moving back toward a more traditional, religious understanding of demons. Since the series had been generating interest (and income), Paranormal Activity 4 hit theaters the next year. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (2012) The story opens with Hunter’s abduction. The intertitle states that his and Katie’s whereabouts are unknown. Five years later, at a boys’ soccer game in Henderson, Nevada, a lone child (Brady Allen) watches the game from the sidelines. Wyatt Nelson (Aiden Lovekamp), one of the players, is entertained by his sister Alex (Kathryn Newton) while waiting for their father to arrive. Later Alex, with her boyfriend Ben (Matt Shively), discovers the same mysterious lone boy living in the treehouse in her backyard. His name is Robbie, and his mother isn’t home much. She lives right across the street. When flashing lights all around Robbie’s house indicate that his mother has been taken away, Robbie moves in with the Nelson family. Strange things begin to happen. For the first time in the series computer recording is used, along with smart phones. The style remains cinéma vérité. Ben helps set up digital cameras around the Nelson home to record at all hours. Robbie befriends Wyatt and soon the boys are playing downstairs in the middle of the night. Robbie has an invisible friend named Toby. Alex’s parents don’t believe her when she tells them about the strange happenings. They chalk it up to the new technology that they don’t understand. Computers have glitches, right? Alex thinks it’s more than that. Her brother is acting strange, and Robbie behaves oddly all the time. She catches him painting occult symbols on Wyatt’s body. When the boys sneak over to Robbie’s house Alex, following to bring them home, meets Katie, Robbie’s “mother.” The viewer knows this Katie kidnapped Hunter. She acts very normal. Wyatt reveals that he knows he’s adopted. The Nelson family never talks about this, but the boy begins calling himself Hunter. Alex, meanwhile has been researching occult symbols. She learns that a circle within a triangle is used to mark a boy being given to demons. It’s “The Hattusac symbol of

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fertility . . . often present in sacred rituals whereupon a demon would take possession of a male child,” according to a website Alex finds. Hattusac refers to the ancient Hittites. This Hittite symbol, in the diegesis of the movie, invokes three stages: actuation (subject shows preternatural ability), affirmation (subject proves abilities to the demon), and sacrifice (subject spills the blood of an inviolate, i.e., a virgin). Alex is, of course, a virgin. Nighttime activity at Katie’s house across the street indicates a coven may be meeting there. Blaming the strangeness at home on Alex’s teenage years, her father (Stephen Dunham) takes her out to dinner to talk. While they’re out, Katie stops by the house. She kills Alex’s mother (Alexondra Lee), and when Ben drops in, she kills him too. Returning home, Alex is confronted by Katie and runs out, looking for her father. He’d gone to Katie’s house to find out why Wyatt was being led there as they were pulling in at home. In Katie’s house, Alex runs after her father as he’s being preternaturally dragged through the rooms. Escaping outside, Alex finds Wyatt/Hunter, but instead of running away with her he stands waiting. The coven has surrounded the virgin Alex. End of episode. More details have been added about the demon. The coven believes it’s Hunter’s time to be dedicated to the demon. A Hittite demonology element has been added. The Hittites were a pre-biblical people of ancient Anatolia, what’s today Turkey. Their religion was heavily influenced by that of other ancient West Asian cultures, but nevertheless remained distinct.8 Its religion isn’t as fully documented as many of its neighbors—for example that of ancient Mesopotamia, where ideas of the demonic were first recorded. No cult of human sacrifice to demons is known among the Hittites, however, but the knowledge vacuum allows for this story arc to include it. Like other ancients, the Hittites recognized, but didn’t worship demons. The idea of a “coven” is foreign to their way of thinking, as it derives from medieval ideas of witches’ sabbaths. The plot suggests that the coven is using Hittite symbols to mark demonic victims. The demon’s got religion. Like all ancient peoples, the Hittites believed in magic and had rituals to enact it. They weren’t demon worshippers, however, any more than the Mesopotamians thought Pazuzu to be the Devil. In the Paranormal Activity universe we learn the demon is Hittite. And his name is Toby. He requires the sacrifice of a virgin. The victimization has turned back to females. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE MARKED ONES (2014) While sometimes referencing the story line in Paranormal Activity 4 and its predecessors, this installment runs in a slightly different direction. Set in Oxnard, California the year after the previous film, it focuses on the Hispanic

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Arista family, recalling Martine from Paranormal Activity 2. Jesse (Andrew Jacobs), the eighteen-year-old son of the family, has just graduated from high school. With his friends Hector (Jorge Diaz) and Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh), he grows curious about the crazy old woman—some say a witch—named Ana Sanchez (Gloria Sandoval), who lives in the apartment below. Weird noises come from there. Hector and Jesse tape her painting a naked girl with an occult symbol. Before the trio has any success solving the mystery, Ana is murdered by Oscar (Carlos Pratts), the high school valedictorian and friend of the three teens. Immediately the difference in this installment is obvious. These kids live in an apartment complex, not spacious, modern southern California houses. They aren’t affluent like the other families in the series. They witness street crime, and gangs are a constant concern. The kids break into the crime scene at Ana’s apartment at night to investigate. They find some suggestion of occult activity. There’s even a nursery, strange for an old woman’s home. They find the box of VHS tapes of Katie and Kristi from Paranormal Activity 3. They also find a notebook that they take as they’re being chased out of the apartment by Arturo (Richard Cabral), Oscar’s older, gangster brother. The friends page through the notebook and learn that it has instructions on how to mark someone for a demon. The notebook also tells how to open a doorway to unholy places. Not taking it seriously, they decide to play Simon, the electronic memory game. It begins to answer their questions with green for yes and red for no. Irma (Renée Victor), Jesse’s grandmother, snatches the game away, saying it’s evil. Jesse wakes up with a bite mark on his arm. He also has supernatural powers. Demonic possession twice happens in this series through a bite. Just because he has superhuman abilities doesn’t mean Jesse’s not a hotblooded eighteen-year-old boy. He and Hector go to a party and pick up a couple of girls. Jesse wants to have sex with one of them, but Irma’s still awake at home. He takes the girl to Ana’s abandoned apartment but when he goes out to get a condom, Oscar pops out of a trapdoor and scares her away. When Jesse returns he finds a distraught Oscar. His eyes are completely black and he warns Jesse to kill himself before the spirit inside takes over. He has a similar bite mark on his arm. Oscar commits suicide shortly after that. Hector and Marisol join Jesse in exploring the trapdoor cellar. Occult materials are everywhere. They visit Oscar’s brother Arturo, the gang member. He says Oscar was adopted and had been investigating kidnapped children. They were being taken to form an army demonic boys. Hector takes a telephone number of a girl whose family was killed when her younger—also adopted—brother was abducted. In the cellar of Ana’s apartment Jesse runs into Katie and Kristi as children—a door to the past has been opened. He’s attacked by something

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we’re not shown. When Jesse becomes unresponsive to his friends, Hector and Marisol call the number of the woman they took from Oscar’s bedroom. She turns out to be Ali Rey (still Molly Ephraim) from Paranormal Activity 2. She’s been investigating a coven called “the Midwives.” They mark eldest boys, then cull them when they’re eighteen so they can be possessed by demons. When asked why at that particular age, Ali explains to them that eighteen is three times six, or 666. Once the spirit fully takes over after the final ritual, she warns, their friend will no longer be Jesse. Worried, Hector finds Jesse openly using and flaunting his powers. Irma, distressed, visits a botánica. She learns a ritual to exorcise the spirit. It goes horribly awry when tried on Jesse. The next morning Jesse kills his grandmother and then he disappears. He’s abducted by witches and spirited off to the address Ali had given his friends earlier. The kids know they need help. They return to Arturo, who with a fellow gang member, accompanies them to Lois’s house, heavily armed. Lois is Katie and Kristi’s grandmother from Paranormal Activity 3. The coven is there. Hector alone survives and is chased by the witches and Jesse. Somehow he ends up in Katie and Micah’s house and sees Katie killing Micah. He flees only to be caught and killed by Jesse, presumably back in 2012. Time travel apart, let’s take stock of where we are with demons at this point in the series. “The Midwives” coven marks boys with Hittite symbols for demons. The boys aren’t being sacrificed, as the previous installments led us to believe, but are being prepared as an army. They must be firstborn sons, thus the repeated theme of adoption is used to mask birth-order. Jesse’s mother died giving birth; he’s a firstborn son. She was, however, marked by Ana Sanchez while she was pregnant with Jesse. Bite and claw marks, a staple of urban legends, are signs of demonic attack. By this point in the series they’re an indicator that a person marked from childhood is now physically marked—infected—by a demon. Both Jesse and Oscar were bitten, as was Kristi in Paranormal Activity 2. When the friends discover Ana’s notebook, and later the trapdoor occult shrine, they learn that this is a demonic cult. The notebook contains pages from medieval manuscripts and tells how to raise “an incubu,” which is, Jesse translates, “like a demon.” An incubus is a male demon that sexually violates women in the night. A succubus is the female version that attacks men. The medieval belief was that by extracting human sexual elements such demons were able to reproduce, indirectly.9 The strange thing here is that the movie implies the boys have demon fathers. Thus the incubi. Women are painted with the occult symbol (Hittite, according to Paranormal Activity 4) on their abdomens, and firstborn boys are conceived for the demonic army. Jesse’s mother was marked before Jesse was born, as the naked woman was painted at the start of this film.

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The Hittites aren’t mentioned at all. Hunter has apparently been successfully initiated, since Alex was captured in the final scene of the previous movie. Hunter, however, was six rather than eighteen. The coven, introduced in the second installment, has as its goal to raise an army of demons. Katie, who appears here for the final time, was a member of the Midwives. This complicates the beginning of the series, since there’s no reason for Katie to have killed Micah, given the witches’ goal. In an attempt to answer this inconsistency, the film transports Hector back to the final night of Paranormal Activity. Katie thinks he’s an intruder, although she’s clearly possessed—why the women would be possessed, given the goal of Toby, is never explained. Katie calls for Micah and for some reason stabs him to death rather than Hector, the intruder in their house. Logically this would mean that the first murder of the series was an accident, not demonic intent. Although this may be a spin-off rather than a sequel it adds significantly to explaining the plot. What began as a secular demon—an entity that had never been human—is now a Hittite incubus. Not only that, but Irma seeks advice in a botánica. This is clearly a religious setting. The secular demon of the diegesis now has Hittite roots, and is subjected to a hybrid Christian ritual. Further complications will follow in what was the last official installment of the original franchise, already in production as this spin-off was airing. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION (2015) The final film in the original franchise (and a further film has been announced), this installment complicates the storyline considerably. It’s also the only film without Katie appearing as an adult, and it tries to tie loose ends together. Along the way it adds even more ends, at least concerning demons. Opening with the final scene from Paranormal Activity 3, the movie has Lois introducing young Katie and Kristi to their “teacher” (Don McManus). He tells them they have important roles to play, Kristi will have a special son and Katie will be the strong one and will protect her sister. Toby, he informs them, is known by many names. Fast forward to 2013. Back in Santa Rosa, California, Ryan (Chris J. Murray) and Emily Fleege (Brit Shaw) live in a huge house with their daughter Leila (Ivy George). It’s near Christmas, and Ryan’s brother Mike (Dan Gill) shows up to stay for a couple of weeks. Also in the house is Skyler (Olivia Taylor Dudley), who is there to help them with the flow of the house. (This is California, after all.) While putting up the Christmas lights, Mike discovers an old VHS recorder, along with tapes. Ryan, a video buff, begins using the camera and

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notices a strange, almost invisible mass in the center of the living room. It also shows up in Leila’s room. Skyler suggests Ryan might be picking up spirit photography with the camera. She and Mike babysit Leila, and using the VHS camera they record anomalies outdoors. They find Leila outside in the middle of the night where she was apparently burying all the rosaries from the house. Leila’s also been talking to an invisible friend that she refuses to discuss with anyone. Soon they learn that their house is on the location of Katie and Kristi’s house. The original house burned down shortly after the tapes were made, and a new one, the one they bought, was built over it. The quirky VHS camera is so unusual that it has components Ryan can’t even explain. The magical camera picks up a black mass in the girl’s room, while another camera shows only Leila, talking to someone in the night. It’s Toby of course. Leila, at Toby’s instruction, goes downstairs in the night and tries to burn her mother’s Bible in the fireplace. The Bible is dismembered, pages torn out. Although Leila doesn’t manage to ignite it, this conforms to standard horror tropes regarding demons and Scripture. When Emily gathers up the torn pages, the huge angel falls from the top of the Christmas tree, almost hitting her. This is literally a fallen angel. Leila draws symbols above her bed. Ryan realizes that the symbols are the same ones he’s seen in the old tapes. He has learned about the Midwives. They go back to the Middle Ages, and they’re Devil worshippers. They use the symbols to open doorways in time. This takes us back to the time travel in The Marked Ones. Emily wants a priest, the first in the series. Fr. Todd (Michael Krawic), sporting a calm, reassuring manner, informs Ryan and Emily that spirits can go by different names to mask their true identity. Toby may be a demon by another name. Their daughter, he fears, is being stalked by a demon. When they suggest leaving the house he informs them that demons don’t haunt houses, but people. It will simply follow them if they leave. They feed on fear, so it is best not to pay attention to it. Fr. Todd then talks to Leila and blesses her with holy water. She attacks him. He promises to return to help. The Flegges are beginning to believe that they’ve been set up. Ryan discovers that the realtor who sold them the house, Katie Hubbard (implied to be Katie from each of the other films), doesn’t work for the agency. Going through the old tapes, Ryan realizes Hunter and Leila share the exact same birthday. That night the demon attacks and a portal opens up in Leila’s room. They all leave the house in a hurry. The next day Mike and Skyler return to the house to pick up supplies. The find Ryan’s notes and Leila’s drawings and realize it’s the same demon. Skyler notes that “Revelations 5:6” says “the slain lamb will be used against God for the blood of the chosen ones will taint it and help give life to one

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of the seven princes of Hell.” Then reading from a grimoire, she learns that each prince will return through children born of the same moon. Remember Hunter and Leila share the same birthday! The Midwives need the blood of the children to give Toby a human body. They’re about to leave when they find Leila back in her room. Her parents return from their hotel room six (!) miles away and Fr. Todd informs them that Leila’s not possessed, so an exorcism won’t work. They need an extermination. Leila was born on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of the new millennium (June 6, 2006); she and Hunter are 666 babies. They are, Fr. Todd says, part of the prophecy. Pause. Ironically, the image of the lamb who was slain, from “Revelations,” looks monstrous. Demonic even. The description of the lamb with seven eyes and multiple horns is, however, true to Revelation. When Skyler finds Leila’s drawing, assuming it to be a demon, she doesn’t point out that the lamb is weeping. The movie doesn’t distinguish the demon from the lamb for the characters. When Toby shows up, he looks nothing like the scary lamb. From the knees down (all we’re shown), he’s just like a man. The seven princes of Hell sounds pretty biblical, but they aren’t. As we’ve already seen, Hell isn’t a concept fully developed in the Bible. Demons aren’t fully described either. There’s a prince of Persia in Daniel 10:13 and a “prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2:2. The seven princes of Hell are probably intended to mirror the seven archangels, but they’re not biblical either. Only two, or maybe three, archangels are mentioned by name and they’re merely called “angels,” or messengers. The large angel that falls from the enormous Christmas tree symbolizes that we’ve come back to the traditional concept of demons here. There are no Hittites. The answers are in the Good Book and in grimoires. You got a demon? You need a priest. All of this is conventional horror treatment for demons. Back to the story. The priest pulls out a Bible and begins consecrating a bathtub full of holy water. They soak a sheet in it, and the reverend directs them to draw the key of Solomon downstairs to trap the demon. Using Leila as bait, they’ll lure him out. The key of Solomon consists of a sacred circle surrounded with salt. Fr. Todd wants to draw the demon up to trap it. Demons can’t cross salt— this isn’t a biblical concept, but it has a long pedigree. As far back as the time of Augustine, salt was believed to ward off demons.10 Provoking the demon, Fr. Todd says, is effective. He reads aloud from the Bible as he walks around the circle. As the house begins to shake, he blesses the perimeter of the room using his cross and Bible. The family stands in the magic circle as the demon attacks. Leila’s possessed. “He knows what you’re doing,” she says. The demon kills the priest but gets trapped in the sacred circle. In the confusion someone shouts that they need to get the Bible, to finish the prayers. Emily recites the rite (not in the Bible) and the demon, wrapped in the holy water

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sheet, disappears. Then Skyler vomits up a toxic substance, killing her and Mike. Leila runs upstairs and the demon kills Ryan as he follows. Emily finds Leila in her room and goes after her through the portal. She’s too late. Some of Leila’s blood has been used to enflesh Toby. The demon kills Emily and walks out of the frame of the dropped camera with Leila. Okay, quite a lot has changed here from the army of demons in The Marked Ones and the secular demon that started the whole series off. As the special effects grow more extravagant the story becomes less coherent. Each film interlaces previous installments, but the larger picture is confused, as perhaps befits demons. In The Ghost Dimension we see our first and last priest of the series. This demon, which was originally secular, has now become one of the seven princes of Hell, and, it turns out, a standard-issue demon. Priests are demon-hunters, and the only way to take on a demon is to call in the Calvary. The clergy, that is. A number of facets about the demonic in this universe require further explanation. Firstly, the rite Fr. Todd uses is neither from the Bible nor The Roman Ritual, the usual source for exorcism. There’s no standard rite for exterminating demons, and the ideas at play here are a combination of Roman Catholic lore and occult practice. The key of Solomon, apart from being a symbol, is a real grimoire used to summon demons. The Lesser Key of Solomon, as mentioned in chapter 4, is a grimoire originally produced in the Middle Ages. Obviously it isn’t part of Catholic ceremonial. Regarding the Bible, this final film finally pits it against the demon. The verses read from the Bible by Skyler, the priest, and Emily aren’t actually biblical. This is common for false Bibles—they frequently occur in movies. Assuming few horror viewers know the Good Book well, writers and directors are free to make up verses to fit the scene. It’s a false Bible because the text isn’t really biblical.11 Adding rites to the Bible is also standard fare in demon movies. The intermingling of magic and Scripture, however, ultimately fails. Although the demon vanishes, he gets Leila in the end. CONCLUSIONS Progressively throughout the series the found footage mythos breaks down. It becomes more and more like conventional horror. For the first three installments the found footage conceit seemed plausible. Although Paranormal Activity 4 fits the conceit nicely, it has a bit more filming being done than expected in real life. When running after a runaway child, turning your phone camera on, for instance, isn’t generally a priority. The Marked Ones has even more moments when it seems unlikely someone would be taking video. By The Ghost Dimension pretty much any mundane event is worthy of filming,

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even the watching of other videos. Very meta. The decision to shoot the final movie in 3-D releases the viewer from considering it truly found footage. Too many 3-D startles are contrived to admit to any cinéma vérité verisimilitude. The final camera drop seems to be in Lois’s house in another dimension. How does it reach us? More importantly for our investigation here, the role of religion increases from a null set to a full-blown Catholic attempt at the extermination of a demon. The introduction of the idea of a coven, starting in Paranormal Activity 2, suggests a religious element lacking in the original. Kristi and Katie are inducted into the coven, with Kristi apparently forgetting all of it in the second installment. The Midwives, introduced in The Marked Ones, use Hittite symbols of the occult from Paranormal Activity 4. They’re apparently trying to get seven children to incarnate the same number of Hell’s princes. One of those princes is Toby. Since the children come from different time periods, time travel has to be introduced. The demons possess people by biting them. The Marked Ones brings 666, the number of the beast from Revelation 13, into the story. The Midwives’ army will require firstborn boys. Irma, Jesse’s grandmother, knows to visit a religious practitioner at the botánica to counter the evil.12 It doesn’t work. When the chronologically first house, in Santa Rosa, reappears in the final installment, conventional demonology is the ultimate explanation. To combat a demon a priest is required. It doesn’t work either. This is an aspect of demons we’ll see again in the following chapters. Horror sequels will naturally change the original premises of a film. Unless an entire series is worked out in advance—unlikely when budgeting and studio backing are generally done only after any installment has proven successful at the box office—infelicities between the installments are glossed over. Nevertheless, the series uses the previous films to guide its plot. Since it’s presented in cinéma vérité style, the nature of the demon is pieced together from clues the characters find. For example, Ben films Alex in Paranormal Activity 4 when she researches Hittite magic symbols on the web. Without that electronic find we wouldn’t know what the coven wanted. Toby, one of the seven princes of Hell, wants to become embodied. This is read back into the first five films as the motivation for kidnapping Hunter. At first it seems Hunter’s to be given over to demons. The demons are, as of this early stage, not defined and are secular nonhuman entities. Ali Rey, however, continues researching them and brings them into the Christian realm in The Marked Ones. They’re summoned by witches to build a demonic army. They want eighteen-year-old boys because of, well, 666. They use Hittite symbols (Paranormal Activity 4) to mark their chosen ones, preferably before birth. Hunter seems to have escaped this fate, but he ends up being claimed anyway. His virginal “sister” Alex is sacrificed. The idea of raising an army of

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demons—Jesse is one of them—is dropped for the enfleshment of Toby and the princes of Hell. Maybe Jesse and the other possessed eighteen-year-olds are part of the army led by the seven princes of Hell? We’re not told. The more that’s revealed about the demons as the series continues, the more Christian the story becomes. Secular, nonhuman entities become malevolent beings raised by Hittite symbols. Although the series doesn’t make this explicit, the Hittites are a people mentioned in the Bible. (They’re not, technically, the historical Hittites, even in the Good Book.) Ali knows demons as biblical entities, Alex knows them as Hittite monsters. Irma believes that they can be combated by Roman Catholic-indigenous religious blends. Unsuccessfully, it turns out. Emily, in The Ghost Dimension, insists on a regular Catholic priest. Even Fr. Todd, however, wears blue jeans to a demonic extermination. Toby, by the end of the series, is a fallen angel. Let’s pause for a moment to consider Toby. The “teacher” says he’s known by other names. Fr. Todd agrees. Why Toby? Ryan says it’s an unusual name. There is one Roman Catholic biblical story, however, that might explain it. Remember Tobit? Toby may be short for Tobias. The book of Tobit introduced Asmodeus, the demon in love with Sarah. This brings us back to Poe and the threat to women. Throughout the series the demons seek boys for nefarious ends but with the exception of The Marked Ones, the films either feature a possessed girl or come from a girl’s point of view. Katie, Kristi, Ali, Alex, and Leila are threatened. Yes, the demon wants Hunter, but when Toby’s enfleshed, he walks off with Leila. Only Jesse in the fifth installment breaks this pattern. Demons prefer ladies, just like Asmodeus. Demon lovers will come back in chapter 12. Paranormal Activity, for all its demons, has no traditional exorcisms. Irma, Jesse’s grandmother, tries a fusion rite on her grandson, but no priest is involved. The casual Fr. Todd attempts an extermination since Leila isn’t technically possessed. The most famous of all demon movies, however, pivots around a prolonged exorcism. And for a proper exorcism, you must call The Exorcist. NOTES 1. Studies of ghosts by university presses are vanishingly few. Two serious attempts to explore the subject credibly are Roger Clarke, Ghosts. A Natural History: 500 Years of Searching for Proof (St. Martins, 2012); and Lisa Morton, Ghosts: A Haunted History (Reaktion, 2015). See Kripal, Authors of the Impossible. 2. An untitled seventh film is expected in 2021. 3. https://www​.imdb​.com​/list​/ls020641987/ (accessed 5/21/19). The Paranormal Activity franchise wasn’t based on events that can be recounted in nonfiction form, so there are no literary sources. Secular exorcists, however, do exist. A fascinating

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account of how demons are banished can be found in R. H. Stavis, with Sarah Durand, Sister of Darkness: The Chronicles of a Modern Exorcist (HarperCollins, 2018). 4. Ghost Hunters, for example, had twelve seasons and ten specials, as well as its own print fanzine. 5. Wiggins, Holy Horror. 6. Clarke, Ghosts; Morton, Ghosts. 7. The connection may go back to the Mesopotamians; see Konstantopoulos, “Deities, Demons, and Monsters.” 8. O.R. Gurney, The Hittites (Penguin, 1952); Billy Jean Collins, The Hittites and Their World (Society of Biblical Literature, 2007). 9. Ruys, Demons in the Middle; Caciola, Discerning Spirits. 10. William Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate (Liturgical Press, 1995). 11. Wiggins, Holy Horror. 12. Brett Hendrikson, Border Medicine: A Transcultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo (NYU Press, 2014).

Chapter 11

The Exorcist Franchise

Exorcism movies bring us full circle. As we saw in chapter 2, possession, although it can be a positive thing, is generally evil in horror. Demonic possession is extremely common in popular cinema. In movies where it isn’t the central focus, such as Burnt Offerings (1976), The Believers (1987), Constantine (2005), Insidious (2010), Lovely Molly (2011), or Sinister (2012), it remains highly visible and instantly understood by viewing audiences. In Lovely Molly, for example, a young woman alone in her childhood home is haunted and then possessed, apparently by a demon called Orobas. The “ghosts” of Insidious are demon-driven, and the bizarre murders of Sinister are at the behest of a (fictional) Babylonian demon named Bughuul. Examples could be multiplied. The choice of ancient Mesopotamia for demons in the latter nods, once again, to The Exorcist. Exorcism movies offer frisson derived from uncertainty. Will the demon leave? What will become of the young girl? We just don’t know. The connection between young women and demons was also forever canonized by The Exorcist. As the oft-told story goes, William Peter Blatty’s novel was based on a real exorcism.1 The possessed in the actual case, however, was a boy. Although Edgar Allan Poe was writing about poetry in general, his insights on the threat to beautiful women—culturally here young women—becomes standard for demons. Blatty, whether consciously or not, was simultaneously following and solidifying this template. Exorcists existed before people were possessed by demons. Although this may sound counterintuitive, it’s due to the changing nature of demons. Ancient Mesopotamians had exorcists—even classes of priests known as exorcists—but their demons were more like bad luck than evil.2 They could harm individuals, yes, but also property and the natural world. They could be 169

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chased away—call in the exorcists. Like shooing away flies, they sent away entities not entirely evil. Once demons came to be perceived as inherently evil, they could possess. They could body-hop and you were never sure where they might end up once cast out. Equipped with the rituals and power of the gods, there was hope that exorcists might drive demons out of the country. But only for a while. Exorcists became monster fighters. Since demons don’t have bodies they can’t be killed, but they can be expelled. Misfortune, however, has staying power. Persistent and unrelenting, demons provided job security for exorcists. This idea continues into the medieval period, although the nature of demons themselves changed. They became pure evil—fallen angels to the church. Monks were spiritual warriors. The temptations they daily fought in the desert were understood to be demonic, and heroic hermits could take on several at once. A powerful, invisible foe targeting young women proved cinematically compelling. Most demon movies succumb to showing the monster, but many exorcism films understand that the unseen is more frightening. The demon possessing Regan MacNeil is suggested, but never explicitly shown. Emily Rose’s six demons never make an appearance in the exorcism film that bears her name. The Rite shows us the demonic mule, but no horned monster clawing inside its several victims. What you can’t see can hurt you. Or even kill you. Girls are especially vulnerable. The dramatic aspect of Roman Ritual exorcisms, such as this franchise features, has led some to conclude that the ritual itself is a form of theater.3 There can be no denying that the scenario makes for excellent theatrics. Certainly by the Middle Ages the church had realized the draw and power of the mass. Even today, like theater, it may involve costumes, choreography, lines to be memorized, and dramatic gestures, all carefully practiced. Transfer this powerful drama to a setting where a person—often a young woman—is being attacked by an invisible, evil force in a locked room, and tension builds. Poe’s insight admits a voyeuristic dimension to exorcism. The victim, according to the script, often isn’t aware of possession attacks and remembers nothing when they’re finished. That means those who watch—those who can see and remember—are witnessing something private. They imagine the pain of being possessed. Such drama was made for cinema. It all began in Mesopotamia, where history’s first demons were recorded. THE EXORCIST FRANCHISE: THE ORIGINAL “TRILOGY” The Exorcist (1973) stands as a cultural landmark. Although some view the movie today for laughs,4 it often remains near the top of lists of scariest

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movies of all time. Not only that, the film had a major role in reintroducing exorcism into the modern world.5 Exorcism had never completely died out, but it was an obscure, socially invisible rite very rarely invoked by the middle of the twentieth century.6 William Peter Blatty’s novel focused on an exorcism twenty years old at the time—contemporary cases simply didn’t exist. Once the idea was unleashed through popular culture it spread rapidly. Nearly half a century on, the demand for exorcisms continues to rise. It’s a bit of a misnomer to call the original three movies of the franchise a trilogy. The Exorcist was a stand-alone film. Having made a tremendous amount of money, it led to a sequel that wasn’t based on any of Blatty’s work. The Exorcist II: The Heretic was widely excoriated. The third film, The Exorcist III, was originally titled Legion, and didn’t follow the story line of II. (Legion was Blatty’s own less successful sequel novel.) Only at the insistence of the distribution company did the movie change its name and make the disparate three into a demonic trilogy.7 Of the three, only the first made a lasting impression on cinema. And what an impression it made! Exorcism, it has been noted, functions by supply and demand once the public became aware of it.8 Demand grew significant. The one-two punch of the 1970s, The Exorcist and Malachi Martin’s nonfiction Hostage to the Devil, led to broad awareness of demons and a growing desire for exorcisms.9 With the feedback loop of further movies, demons experienced a kind of resurrection. The basic plot of the original film is well known and follows Blatty’s novel fairly closely: The movie opens in Iraq where an elderly priest, Fr. Merrin (Max von Sydow), confronts a demon at an archaeological dig. Meanwhile in Georgetown, Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), the twelve-year-old daughter of a famous actress—whose separated father is absent—feels lonely. She plays with a ouija board and meets “Captain Howdy.” Her behavior suddenly grows increasingly erratic, obscene and violent. Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), her mother, consults Fr. Damien Karras (Jason Miller), a Jesuit psychologist and priest wracked with guilt over his mother’s poverty and eventual death while living alone. Fr. Karras doesn’t believe in demons—he has a modern education and outlook—but after sufficient exposure to Regan he comes to believe she might be possessed. He arranges for an exorcism, assigned to the more experienced Fr. Merrin. Karras will assist. Merrin has battled demons before, but he is elderly and has a heart condition. The priests, gripping their black leather copies of The Roman Ritual, read the rite of exorcism. The climatic exorcism scene has Fr. Merrin killed by the demon and Fr. Karras possessed by it before leaping to his death to rid the world of it. During Fr. Karras’s investigation, the demon is asked to give its name. In the movie the demon reveals itself as “the Devil,” causing Karras to suspect a

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common dissociative disorder, like people who claim to be Jesus. As we saw earlier, the Devil is a singular creature, unequaled in power or evil. The movie never actually names the demon implied in the iconography. Visually the demon in this film is Pazuzu, as is made explicit in the novel and the sequel. When The Exorcist was first released public awareness was not high enough to recognize Pazuzu, except among those who’d read the novel. Pazuzu was a Mesopotamian demon—but keep in mind the Mesopotamians didn’t think of demons as evil in the way we do today—known for his frightening appearance. A monstrous combination of a somewhat lupine face, bipedal body covered with scales, a snake for a penis, talons for feet and four wings sprouting from his back, he looked scary. Texts seem to indicate that he did do evil, but he also protected against damaging winds and other demons.10 His head was sometimes worn as a protective amulet by pregnant women. In the movie a head of Pazuzu is found by Fr. Merrin on an archaeological site near Nineveh (in northern Iraq) where the monster-hunting priest and demon had encountered one another before. Pazuzu is never named in the movie. With no internet the viewership of the 1970s would’ve had trouble identifying the demon visually. Unless they read the novel they wouldn’t have the name Pazuzu to guide them to the library to find information on a fairly obscure character in Mesopotamian mythology.11 The film established a visual referent to an invisible entity. More than that, it established a pop culture character-building for Pazuzu, not unlike the internet has done for Cthulhu. No live-action shots show the actual demon. The template had been set for a young woman as the demon’s preferred victim. She must be delivered by males, since only priests can perform exorcisms. Exorcists are monster-hunters, and the endgame of the demon is to destroy them. The girl has been being used all along.12 THE SEQUELS The success of the original film naturally led to a sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), three-and-a-half years later. There was clearly more money to be made here. Mammon, after all, was also recognized as the name of a demon in the Middle Ages. The Exorcist II can barely be called an exorcism movie, but since it takes the storyline forward and since it names and attempts to explain Pazuzu, we’re compelled to consider it here.13 Be advised in advance that the story isn’t completely coherent. Now in New York City, Regan MacNeil (still Linda Blair) is undergoing therapy with Dr. Gene Tuskin (Louise Fletcher). With the help of an annoying machine that synchronizes hypnotized patients’ minds, Dr. Tuskin hopes to help Regan dispel her bad dreams. Meanwhile

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Fr. Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) has been sent by his cardinal to investigate what happened to Fr. Merrin—some are now declaring the dead priest a heretic! In an ultra-modern clinic, the priest and doctor synchronize and he watches demon Regan attack Fr. Merrin and try to rip out his heart. Through a series of these hypnotic episodes Fr. Lamont determines he must go to Africa and find Kokumo, a young shaman that Merrin exorcised many years ago. The boy’s now an entomologist (James Earl Jones) studying locusts. Pazuzu, by the way, takes the form of a locust; he’s the “king of the evil spirits of the air.” This does reflect the aeolian aspect of Pazuzu, and ancients believed the wind brought locusts.14 Fr. Lamont understands that he must help save Regan, but when she steals the synchronizer and uses it in his run-down apartment, the priest becomes unresponsive and heads to Washington, DC, to the site of Regan’s former home. Regan jumps on board the train with him. Dr. Tuskin meanwhile, has learned that Regan left the hospital and also heads to Georgetown. In the house on 8 Prospect Street, Fr. Lamont is attacked by locusts and the taxi carrying Dr. Tuskin crashes outside the house. Regan, trying to help the priest, follows where he’s pointing—her old room. She opens the door on her former, possessed self. The demonic Regan possesses Lamont and instructs him to kill the real Regan. The latter Regan pleads with him and he recalls a past failed exorcism, and turns on Pazuzu instead. The house splits apart as locusts fly in. The priest rips the heart from the demon Regan and escorts the real Regan from the scene as the crowds and police arrive to complete destruction. Ignoring the long, plodding, and convoluted story, the second film of the franchise invents an improbable backstory for Pazuzu. This demon already has a backstory as an underworld entity.15 He’s also a protective demon, especially against evil winds, as already noted. He’s only associated with locusts—not really scary in the context of DC—in the belief that they were brought in by the wind. In the film Pazuzu’s no longer Mesopotamian. He’s an African demon that brings locust swarms. In reality locusts are deadly because they attack crops, not people. The African connection goes back to the first film where Fr. Merrin was noted for a past African exorcism (as in Blatty’s novel). There’s obviously a backstory to this monster-hunter and this movie is offering one. In the film Pazuzu is trying to kill a new generation of spiritual leaders (of which Regan is one) prophesied by Fr. Merrin, who wasn’t a heretic after all. Rather than an obscure Mesopotamian demon, this “king of the evil spirits of the air” is feared by the Ethiopian Orthodox community living in the desert. He’s controlled in some way by a young shaman, who, like Regan, was one of the new generation of spiritual leaders. The shaman became an entomologist. Demons are endlessly malleable. Pazuzu appears to have been banished

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by the end, but there is no exorcism. The two exorcisms in the movie are the initial, failed exorcism of an hispanic woman (another of the spiritual leaders) and flashbacks to Merrin fighting the demon in possessed Regan. The sequel offers a physical wrestling match between a human priest and a human manifestation of a spiritual being that can only be stopped by ripping its physical heart from its incorporeal body. Demons love confusion. As a sequel, this film reaches back to The Exorcist and tries to explain who the demon from the previous movie was and why he was tormenting Regan. Arguably in The Exorcist the unnamed demon has the goal of claiming the two priests—they’re his real targets. By trying to probe Regan’s account, the sequel shifts the demon’s focus fully onto the girl. The Vatican is concerned with the reputation of Fr. Merrin, but Pazuzu wants to kill Regan. This assessment may be putting too much weight on such a flimsy film, but to understand its demon we need to follow where the evidence leads. Pazuzu’s endgame is to kill the young woman.16 The scenes of the Catholic church administration are somewhat cynical, but the film does pay homage to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, apparently for its exoticism. The script ties this in with Pazuzu. At the end we’re left confused by the demons, hoping that Exorcist III (1990) might help clarify things a bit. The third installment of the original trilogy might just be the most theologically sophisticated. Instead of picking up where Regan and Fr. Lamont left off, it follows instead the story of Fr. Karras. This installment is based on Blatty’s intended sequel, from his novel Legion. Since Karras died in The Exorcist, it might be odd to find him in a sequel, but explaining that is the point of the film. Lieutenant William F. Kinderman (George C. Scott) and Fr. Dyer (Ed Flanders) have been meeting weekly to watch movies since Fr. Karras died. It’s been fifteen years and they’ve grown quite close. A little backstory from the original film: Kinderman (Lee J. Cobb) was a secondary character brought in by the death of Burke Dennings (Jack MacGowran; in the novel the character has a more important role). Dyer (Reverend William O’Malley S.J.) was a friend of Karras—the two taught at Georgetown. At the end of the extended version of the film (The Version You’ve Never Seen, 2000), after the death of Fr. Karras, the detective and priest become friends by going to movies together. The Exorcist III develops that friendship, years later. Then the murders start. Gruesome murders. A young African-American boy is drugged, crucified, and beheaded. Kinderman thinks it might be race-related, but there are specific clues of an even more insidious motive. Meanwhile, in a confessional, Fr. Kanavan (Harry Carey Jr.) is murdered. Kinderman discusses the Gemini killer, who was executed fifteen years ago, with Fr. Dyer. This may be a copycat serial killer. Then Dyer is murdered

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while in the hospital. Nearing the end of his tether, Kinderman explains to the hospital staff that the true MO of the Gemini killer was never released. Nobody in the public knew it. These three recent deaths, with beheadings, follow that MO precisely. Kinderman wants to see the psych ward—one of the patients was on the floor when Dyer’s murder took place. The patient, Mrs. Clelia (Mary Jackson), clearly suffers from dementia and can’t provide any clues. The chain-smoking Dr. Temple (Scott Wilson) informs Kinderman of a highly secure “disturbed ward.” Kinderman wants to see it. As he passes cell 11, he hears his name. He’s called out before he can investigate, however. The Georgetown University president (Lee Richardson) has pieced together some clues. The three murders were all in some way associated with Regan MacNeil’s exorcism. Fr. Dyer was Fr. Karras’s friend. Fr. Kanavan, the priest in the confessional, was the former university president and was the one who gave Karras permission to perform the exorcism. Thomas Kintry (James Burgess), the young boy killed, was the son of the woman who’d deciphered Karras’s tapes of Regan’s demon voice for him. This could be a case of demonic possession, only the university president doesn’t really believe in that kind of thing. The patient in cell 11 was brought in fifteen years ago, with amnesia. Only recently he started to come out of it. Very recently he turned violent and had to be restrained, in a padded cell. Kinderman thinks it might be Fr. Karras. When he’s admitted to the cell he recognizes the priest and his former friend. Kind of. Showing signs of possession—demonic screams and speaking in voices not his own, as well as a face that changes—he insists that he’s the Gemini killer. Either possessed or suffering dissociative identity disorder, the patient takes on differing personalities but he does know intimate details of the Gemini killer’s past crimes. He threatens Kinderman that unless he releases the news that he’s the Gemini killer, the detective will be punished. Dr. Temple, meanwhile, commits suicide. He’d explained too much to Kinderman and the demon was oppressing him. Increasingly insistent, Kinderman interviews the patient again. Their long conversation explains how the demons acquired Fr. Karras’s body. He’d died as in the first film, but they’d slipped in just before death. His brain was so badly damaged that it took fifteen years to repair it. Demons, the demon explains, require a brain as well as a body. Bored after the long, tedious repair job, they set out once again to commit murders and cause mayhem. Kinderman receives more threats. Afraid that the demon’s after his daughter, he rushes home just in time to save her from an escaped dementia patient who’s been possessed. There are many demons, Kinderman is realizing—a legion, in fact. When the mental patient attacks him she is stopped by the sudden appearance of Fr. Morning (Nicol Williamson) in the killer’s cell. He’s

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there for an exorcism. Pulling out The Roman Ritual, he begins. The demon, now clearly in the form of Fr. Karras, uses supernatural force against him. The book bursts into flames, the priest is thrown to the ceiling and his body splits open. Kinderman returns to the cell and finds the dead priest. The exorcism rather obviously failed. The demon attacks Kinderman but the priest is not quite dead and reaches for his crucifix. Distracting the entity long enough, Fr. Karras fights the demon inside him and tells Kinderman to shoot him now, which his friend obligingly does. A number of demonic elements are worthy of comment here. There is a confusion of demons—that’s their job, so no surprises there. The exorcism does not work to expel this demon, or these demons. The death of Fr. Karras apparently releases them, or at least released the priest from their grip. Apart from a few gratuitous special effects, this demon shows itself primarily through telekinesis and growls. Also there’s no young woman possessed. The demon does body-hop, however. He explains how he entered Karras’s body as he lay dying, just after the body of James Venamun (Brad Dourif), the Gemini killer, was killed in the electric chair. The copycat killings were in revenge for the successful exorcism of Regan—somebody’s demon was personally affronted by that, and they decided to kill those who helped Fr. Karras. Demons are motivated by payback, it seems. The threat against a young woman comes in the form of Kinderman’s daughter being a target. There’s a scene where Kinderman reads the gospel account of the Garasene demoniac in order to get an idea of what he’s up against. The movie is crowded with ideas that aren’t fully spelled out, leading to a confused conclusion. Perhaps that’s appropriate for demons, but it leaves the public understanding in a muddle. The original trilogy introduces a possessed Regan MacNeil, who is successfully dispossessed. In the second installment, her demon is revealed to have been Pazuzu, and he seems to have been defeated again in an overthe-top destruction of the Georgetown house to which he’s somehow tied. The third film simply ignores the second, and wraps up the resurrection and re-death of Fr. Karras, while introducing a different demon, or set of demons. Both sequels center on the “saintly men” who gave their lives in the exorcism—again gendering the monster slayers as male and the most notable victim (Regan MacNeil) female. Think back to Poe’s quote: “The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” The Exorcist plays at that theme without bringing it to fulfillment. William Peter Blatty demonstrated this by shifting the initial victim from what was originally a young boy to a girl. Neither sequel understands this particular pathos, focusing instead on the men in the story. The sequels also demonstrate how difficult it is to provide backstory for demons. The original film presented the mysterious as more frightening

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than that which is explained. It also understood that a parent’s horror at a threatened child is pay-dirt for the genre. Horror trades in the currency of the unknown and demons, being chaotic, can’t be explained. Although we’ve seen that historically, it won’t prevent prequels from trying again and again. THE PREQUELS Even before we get to the theater, the close release dates and clunky titles tell us quite a bit about these two efforts to set the backstory. Appropriately enough for demons, they were chaotic. Like Jacob and Esau, each of these films struggled to be born first. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) was shot first, but the studio wanted a better effort and Exorcist: The Beginning (2004) was the result and it was given a full release first. Dominion was finished and came out the next year, even sharing footage with its rival for the backstory.17 Exorcist: The Beginning is like Indiana Jones meets Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Opening with a scene of thousands of fifth-century soldiers crucified upside-down after a battle, and Pazuzu’s head being found in the hand of a dying priest, the film attempts to construct an elaborate backstory for Fr. Merrin. It sets the story in Africa rather than Mesopotamia. To its credit, it doesn’t revive the line “brushed by the wings of Pazuzu” from Exorcist II, while sharing its locale. The year is 1949. Drinking in a Cairo bar, Lankester Merrin (Stellan Skarsgård) is commissioned to go to an archaeological dig at a church in Kenya. The church dates from before Christianity came to the country. He’s to bring back a certain artifact. He identifies the cast of Pazuzu’s head as being Sumerian, and he notes there were no Christians in Kenya in the fifth century. There’s something important we need to know about Fr. Merrin. He was a priest when the Nazis occupied his town. After they heartlessly kill some villagers, Merrin renounced his priesthood and turned to archaeology. In Kenya the church being excavated was entirely buried shortly after it was completed. A small European staff, including a doctor, Sarah Novak (Izabella Scorupco), is overseeing the native diggers. A younger priest, Fr. Francis (James D’Arcy), has been sent by the Vatican to investigate. Merrin, bitter about what happened in the war, is downright hostile to the church. He meets one of the Europeanized natives Emekwi (Eddie Osei), who introduces his sons, James (James Bellamy) and Joseph (Remy Sweeney). Named from the Bible, he proudly notes, for they are Christians. At the site of the excavation strange things are happening. The natives won’t go into the church—accessible only through the roof, in a kind of

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gospel trope—because of evil spirits. Merrin doesn’t believe, so he climbs down, followed by Fr. Francis. They discover the walls covered with mosaics of the Devil being cast into Hell. “Lucifer,” Francis notes, “the most beautiful angel.” And there are ravens everywhere. And the crucifix has been torn from its place and suspended upside-down from the ceiling. Informed that the former head archaeologist, Monsieur Bession (Patrick O’Kane), had gone insane, Merrin finds sketches of Pazuzu in his tent. Meanwhile, he gets to know Sarah. She’s using tarot cards as he walks into her clinic, but she assures him they were something she just found there. Merrin discovers she’s a holocaust survivor. Not Jewish, but from a family condemned for hiding Jews. That night James is torn to pieces by hyenas, but they leave his brother Joseph alone. The surviving boy is apparently possessed. In Nairobi the next day Merrin visits Bession in an asylum. In his padded room there are drawings of Pazuzu. The archaeologist commits suicide before Merrin’s eyes, bringing in the head of the institute, Fr. Gionetti (David Bradley). Fr. Gionetti tells Merrin that he still is a priest and gives him a worn copy of The Roman Ritual, telling him he’ll need it at the dig—it’s a site of evil. The location was originally found by two priests sent there by Emperor Justinian. The entire army—the one that opened the film—had turned on each other and a huge massacre occurred. Back at the dig, Joseph, now in the clinic, shows signs of possession. Merrin discovers a subterranean chamber in the church where a statue of Pazuzu stands. He’s attacked by flies. The natives are getting restless. They attempt an exorcism on Joseph, using leeches. They blame the whites for releasing the evil. Fr. Francis calls in the British Army. The natives want to kill Joseph because he’s possessed. Merrin sends Fr. Francis and the boy to the church since the natives won’t enter it. And, oh, he gives the priest The Roman Ritual. A satanic sandstorm is blowing in and Merrin has to find Sarah. Her room is smeared with blood and full of flies. A photo reveals that Bession was her husband. Joseph’s not possessed. Sarah is! In the church Fr. Merrin, once again a believer, gathers The Roman Ritual, crucifix, holy water, and Joseph. Adorned with Linda Blair makeup, Sarah taunts him before disappearing into one of the tunnels of the crypt. Finding a dead Fr. Francis, Merrin steals his purple stole and heads after Sarah, who has taken Joseph to sacrifice him to Pazuzu. The demon, by the way, is not named in the movie. The iconography, however, is consistent. In perhaps the first cinematic exorcism in a crawlspace, Merrin confronts Sarah. Tumbling into a grotto, Merrin is physically attacked by her. She makes sexual moves on him and reminds him of his role in the Nazi murders during his younger days. His faith restored, Fr. Merrin is strong, and he continues the exorcism. He has Joseph read it with him. Stopping Sarah with a spiritual forcefield, he finally expels the demon. Sarah dies anyway. While they were in the crypt,

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the natives and British killed each other outside. Both armies are dead, just as at the start of the film. The final scene shows Merrin meeting his commissioner in Rome. He didn’t bring the head of Pazuzu, but he has found his faith. Once again he is a priest. In this version of events, we’re presented with a confusing backstory of the demon. Fr. Merrin correctly identifies the iconography of unnamed Pazuzu as a Mesopotamian demon. So why are they in Africa? In what is (hopefully) an unintentional racist slight, Fr. Francis explains: the church is on that site because it is precisely where Satan fell to earth when cast out from Heaven. This is none other than the gate of Hell. Like the original movie, the demon’s not named, and is presumed to be the Devil himself. The movie presents the same apparent entity—the Devil—as the initial film, while managing to pull in aspects of the first execrable Exorcist sequel, insensitively tying the demon into African religion. In many ways it’s similar to its fraternal twin in cinema. In good biblical fashion, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist is another version of the previous prequel featuring some of the same actors and even some of its footage. Much of it had been shot before The Beginning, but it was finished only after the prior prequel released. (Confused yet?) Fr. Merrin (again Stellan Skarsgård) is, in this version, the director of the dig for the buried church. Set in 1947, the incident with the Nazis, which comes at the beginning of the film, isn’t a distant memory. Merrin is a priest on sabbatical, not a lapsed one. Fr. Francis (Gabriel Mann) comes to start a school in the village, not to get information for the Vatican. Cheche (Billy Crawford), a disabled boy, hangs around the excavation, but he’s very timid and sometimes beaten by the locals. Fr. Merrin takes him to Dr. Rachel Lesno (Clara Bellar) for treatment and when Fr. Francis opens a sarcophagus in the unearthed church, a demon enters the boy. Tellingly, the demon in the crypt is not Pazuzu. He is in fact Satan, although Merrin supposes he is one of the local old gods. The local Turkana tribe wishes the dig to stop; after all, their cattle have been killing and eating hyenas. The British Army arrives. Cheche is helped by a visiting doctor, and when a couple of the British soldiers try to steal some of the gems in the church one is crucified upside-down and the other beheaded. The British Major Granville (Julian Wadham) blames the “savages” but Merrin and Francis argue the attack used Christian symbolism—a Christian did this. Dissatisfied with the explanation, the Major kills one of the locals at random. Tensions mount as Jomo (Israel Oyelumade), one of the Turkana, kills the children in Fr. Francis’s school to stop the spread of Christianity. Fr. Francis becomes convinced Cheche is possessed and he wants to baptize him. The boy agrees, but only if it’s in the cursed church. The Major, consumed with guilt, kills himself and this puts the soldiers on edge. The natives

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dance a war dance, but they reveal what they want is the church reburied, and Francis and Cheche handed over. The latter two brought evil and must be killed. Meanwhile the baptism goes awry. Francis flees to get his “book of rituals”—an exorcism is required. The next morning Francis is found, stripped and shot with arrows like St. Sebastian. As he is dying, he convinces Fr. Merrin that the boy is possessed. Donning his priestly gear from storage, it’s clear the sabbatical is over. While a surprisingly nondescript exorcism takes place, the natives and British line up but do not fight. The Devil, after tempting Merrin to rewrite his past, is vanquished. The priest will return to Rome in case the church still has a place for him. Attempting to capitalize on Indiana Jones—the hapless archaeologist fighting against Nazis in Africa, these films seem to miss the point that the physical frailty but strong faith of the exorcist is crucial to his success as a monster-hunter. Indiana Jones would never have made a convincing exorcist. Leaving aside the obvious failings of the final prequel, we find the demon to be the Devil, as in the previous attempt to provide a backstory. Pazuzu is not shown and the dialogue often consists of arguments about the origin of evil. Nothing is really revealed about demons. Each prequel effort tries to explain how Fr. Merrin lost his faith and regained it to become a superior monster-hunter. Less in focus is how to save a young girl from a virulent demon. A mature woman, however, is possessed in The Beginning. These films mercifully ended (up to this point) fruitless attempts to improve on The Exorcist. At the same time, the idea of demon-fighting priests hadn’t died out. The writers seem to have forgotten their Poe. The young girl threatened was the real engine of fear in the original movie, and no matter how flawed, for the first sequel. CONCLUSIONS The Exorcist rightly stands as the climax of the genre. It left an indelible print on all possession/exorcism movies to follow.18 The threat to a young woman and a strategic attack on the male clergy became standard fare, but ironically not in any of the sequels or prequels. Exorcist II again featured Regan, but post-possession. Exorcist III carried on the story of Fr. Karras rather than a threatened child. The Beginning had a possessed woman, but only revealed her to be so after focusing on a young boy. Dominion featured a young man possessed. The viewing public learns little of demons from the other four theatrical releases in this diegesis. The demon, who’s a liar, claimed to be the Devil in the original installment. Blatty had named the demon Pazuzu in his novel,

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and the sequel ran with that, creating a fictional, African backstory for a Mesopotamian demon. The third installment focused more on what to do about the demon—presumed to be the same as in the original, but named Legion by Blatty—than identifying it. Iconography of Pazuzu dominated The Beginning, but not his name. Dominion brings us back to the Devil as demon, without Pazuzu. The ancient foe hovers here between the two, although the implication of both movies that the church was the site of Satan’s fall to earth gives us a pretty good indication of who lives here. No matter who this demon is, or these demons are, they possess people and must be exorcised by monster-hunting priests. Pazuzu has lost his innocence and the Devil is clearly a fallen angel by the end. After watching the entire franchise, we’re left with the sense that the mix was right the first time around and the remaining attempts failed to recapture it. That original storyline will inform the films that come in the wake of The Exorcist, but featuring different characters in different circumstances. The harried female can only be rescued by a male monster-hunter. That aspect will be foregrounded once again in the fictionalized version of the case of Anneliese Michel, better known to movie-goers as Emily Rose, as well as those who follow her in the aftermath.

NOTES 1. Blatty, I’ll Tell Them. 2. Konstantopoulos, “Deities, Demons, and Monsters.” See chapter 3. 3. Chajes, Between Worlds; Levack, Devil Within. 4. Rockoff, The Horror of It. 5. Kermode, The Exorcist; McDannell, “Catholic Horror,”; Wu, “Goetia, Exorcism and Demonic.” 6. Eric Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity (Mohr Siebeck, 2002); Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist; Levack, Devil Within; and Young, A History. 7. McCabe The Exorcist Out. 8. Cuneo, American Exorcism. 9. Cuneo, American Exorcism. 10. Wilfred George Lambert, “Inscribed Pazuzu Heads from Babylon,” Forschungen und Berichte 12 (1970): 41–44; Kanstantopoulos, “Deities, Demons, and Monsters.” 11. Material from ancient Mesopotamia is notoriously complex and not nearly as clearly understood as popularizing treatments, such as Heather Lynn, Evil Archaeology: Demons, Possessions, and Sinister Relics (Disinformation, 2019), would indicate. For information on Pazuzu see Black and Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols; and Bottero, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, Lambert, “Inscribed Pazuzu,” and Konstantopoulos (2019).

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12. Clover, Men, Women, also makes this point about final girls. 13. Troubles about Exorcist prequels are discussed at https​:/​/ww​​w​.imd​​b​.com​​/titl​​e​ /tt0​​20431​​3​/tri​​via​?r​​e​f_​=t​​t​_trv​​_trv and https​:/​/ww​​w​.imd​​b​.com​​/titl​​e​/tt0​​44908​​6​/tri​​via​?r​​e​ f_​=t​​t​_trv​​_trv (both accessed 4/22/18). 14. See, for example, Exodus 10:13. 15. Konstantopoulos, “Deities, Demons, and Monsters.” 16. For a discussion of the gender issues raised in possession movies Rhiannon Graybill’s, chapter on Hosea (Are We Not Men? Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets [Oxford University Press, 2016]) is insightful. 17. Dave Kehr, “Double Your Pleasure? Early ‘Exorcist,’ Take 2.” New York Times, May 2, 2005. https​:/​/ww​​w​.nyt​​imes.​​com​/2​​005​/0​​5​/02/​​movie​​s​/dou​​ble​-y​​our​-p​​ leasu​​re​-ea​​rly​-e​​​xorci​​st​-ta​​ke​-2.​​html (accessed 2/17/20). 18. It has also been widely analyzed. Beyond McCabe, The Exorcist Out, see also Kermode, The Exorcist; and McDannell, “Catholic Horror.”

Chapter 12

Aftermath

Following the success of The Exorcist, other filmmakers attempted to cash in on the genre of the possession movie. This chapter examines several exorcism movies in the long wake of The Exorcist. Defining exorcism movies is somewhat subjective since films like Constantine (2005) include exorcisms. Exorcism as the main plot device defines the movies explored here. The majority of the films in this category fit the Catholic model of Roman Ritual exorcism. We’ll see in The Last Exorcism franchise, and The Possession, however, that evangelical Protestants and Jews aren’t entirely left out. The films covered in this chapter take new directions while, for the most part, keeping to the script of the movie that started it all: someone is possessed—usually young and female—and must be exorcised—usually by a male. The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), released about the same time as the prequels to The Exorcist, explored a new narrative, a legal one, based on a different real-life case. Short of a resurrection, Emily Rose will remain a single-chapter story. It follows the Roman Catholic script. The Last Exorcism has supported two films to date (2010, 2013), and takes the story into Protestant territory, while The Possession (2012) views a similar scenario from a Jewish angle. These are sufficiently different to attract our attention. There is unavoidable overlap with what are classified here as Catholic revival films: The Rite (2011), The Devil Inside (2012), and Deliver Us from Evil (2014). Their proliferation alone calls for comment. Instead of breaking new ground—although the last of these moves to a more gritty, “based on a true story” line—these movies indicate that the narrative is most at home in Roman Catholicism, as Dogma early on suggested. Each explores or exploits new avenues of approach to the ancient nightmare of humanity. They all have something to say about our two main foci: the gender dynamic and the identity of demons. From watching them we learn 183

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what modern-day people know about demons and how to cast them out. And how not to. Since exorcism is increasingly in demand, we should pay attention. THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE At the same time as attempts to give Fr. Merrin a credible backstory were floundering, one of the most poignant, and Poe-esque, movies of the exorcism genre appeared.1 Based on the real-life case of Anneliese Michel, a twentytwo-year-old German fräulein,2 The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a courtroom drama as well as a possession movie. Set in the American upper Midwest, the teenage Emily (Jennifer Carpenter) begins to experience demonic oppression while away at school. The fact that she wants a college education isn’t exactly celebrated in her strictly religious family. Alone in her dorm room, she smells burning and experiences horrible contortions. She finds a boyfriend, but her situation doesn’t improve. She sees demons in class. In storm clouds. In the college chapel. Her boyfriend Jason (Joshua Close) takes her home where her priest, Fr. Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson), begins an extended exorcism. In reality exorcism can take months or years.3 Those frames of time generally aren’t conducive to the standard horror convention of a compressed time period of intense action. Intercut with and framed by scenes of the trial of Fr. Moore, this exorcism is viewed in retrospect. It’s in this story within a story that the dramatic exorcism is set, on a stormy midwestern night. Emily has to be restrained in her bedroom, heightening the sexual tension. During a climactic thunderstorm, Emily bursts her bonds and runs to the barn. Fr. Moore, assisted by physician Dr. Cartwright (Duncan Fraser), Jason, and Emily’s father (Andrew Wheeler)—all males, note—continues the exorcism there. The priest manages to get the name of six demons: Cain, Nero, Judas Iscariot, Legion, Belial, and Lucifer. The exorcism fails. Emily, clearly dying, wanders into a fog-shrouded field where she has a vision of the Virgin Mary. Emily elects to go through with the possession so that others may come to faith. She dies a tragic death as a battered and emaciated teen. The whole of this story, as mentioned, is wrapped in and intercut with the courtroom case in which the defense attorney Erin Bruner (Laura Linney), an agnostic, comes to faith while arguing against the Methodist prosecuting attorney Ethan Thomas (Campbell Scott), who doesn’t believe in demons. Set as a case of science versus superstition, the film represents a logical progression from the Exorcist franchise. It never really answers the question of the demons’ reality, although it strongly implies they might be real. The film, although changing the names, setting, and Annaliese’s age, is respectful

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of the tragic case that inspired it, and uses facts from the case, including the detail of the six demonic names. Cain, of course, is the first murderer. In the Middle Ages his sin was attributed to demonic possession by some.4 Nero was known for his persecution of early Christians and was sometimes fingered as the Antichrist.5 Judas Iscariot goes without saying. Legion is the multiple demonic presence Jesus expelled from the Garasene demoniac. Belial, as we have already seen, could become a synonym for the Devil.6 Lucifer, according to popular understanding, was the Devil’s personal name. Demons are all about confusion. Cain, Nero, and Judas were human beings. Luke 22:3 declares that Satan entered Judas (John 13:2 has the Devil suggest the betrayal, but doesn’t use the “entering” language). The latter three demonic names include one that stands for a huge number of demons (Legion) and two that were, in some instances, synonyms for the Devil (Belial and Lucifer). Is Emily Rose a confused, epileptic girl with a rare complication, or are demons showing their irrational origins? Although a court of law can decide on the guilt of the priest, it isn’t qualified to decide about the truth about demons. As Ethan Thomas implies, Emily would know these six names from her religious upbringing. The gender imbalance stands out clearly. Emily has sisters and her mother is alive. At the scene of her highest torment, however, she’s attended by four men while she’s wearing a nightgown soaked by the rain, about to die. Poe would’ve nodded knowingly. NON-CATHOLIC DEMONS The Exorcist and the following developments in exorcism movies such as Emily Rose keep us firmly in the realm of Catholic lore. The contortions, blasphemy, and levitation are more medieval than biblical, but horror thrives on spectacle.7 Catholics were known for keeping the ancient rite to combat demons. The Last Exorcism (2010) takes us in the direction of Protestant deliverance.8 In a way. In The Last Exorcism Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) is an exorcist son of a preacher. He no longer believes in demons, and maybe not even in God. He agrees to take a documentary crew of two (this is a found footage film) to an “actual” exorcism to show them how he fakes it all, and the “possessed” get better nevertheless. Cotton drives the crew to the Sweetzer farm in rural Louisiana where he sets up his stunts and performs an exorcism on Nell (Ashley Bell), the teenaged daughter of the widower Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum). His son, Nell’s older brother Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones), is part of a satanic cult. His father doesn’t know this. Interestingly, Nell shows no

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signs of possession during the actual, faked exorcism. It’s done while she’s perfectly cognizant of herself and her surroundings. Nell, after the exorcism, feels better. Cotton collects his cash and leaves. But Nell isn’t better. She attacks her brother and Cotton and crew have to watch her while her dad takes Caleb in for stitches. It becomes clear this is a real possession and Cotton has to try a real exorcism—a difficult proposition for an unbeliever. Although not a Catholic, Cotton uses theatrical elements— including a crucifix!—for the deliverance. He really thinks that since Nell is pregnant this is a case of adolescent guilt rather than the work of demons. As part of his scam, Cotton identified the demon as Abalam. Although the movie offers a different source, we know of this deity from The Lesser Key of Solomon and other Goetic grimoires.9 A means of raising demons, such books would belie the storyline of the movie, but the name of the demon is attested in medieval sources. Goetic literature is purposefully obscure, and Abalam was apparently chosen for that reason. Although associated with Solomon, he’s not a biblical demon. At the end, Cotton discovers that Abalam is real. Nell is delivering his child. Louis is bound and blindfolded at a satanic ceremony in which Caleb is a participant. A demon is born. Cotton heads out into the fray, crucifix held high while the demon worshippers kill the camera crew. Thus the first movie ends. It blends Catholic and Protestant elements uneasily with a good dose of esoterica, but the milieu is clearly evangelical Protestantism. Then comes the second installment. The sequel, The Last Exorcism Part II (2013), begins with a recap of the original in a montage of brief clips. Now Nell (still Ashley Bell) is seventeen. She’s first sent to a psychiatric hospital where a nurse, Cecile (Tarra Riggs), takes care of her. Nell hears voices talking to her on the radio. Eventually she’s moved to a home for troubled girls, run by a kindly older man named Frank (Muse Watson). Although he gives Nell her cross—one given to her by Cotton Marcus—he asks her to think if this is the religion she wants. He doesn’t believe in demons, and he wants her to be rational too. Meeting her roommate Gwen (Julia Garner), Nell starts to feel like she’s making friends. She gets a job as a maid at the local hotel, and a boy, Chris (Spencer Treat Clark), starts to show interest in her. Although Nell tells Frank she no longer believes in demons, it’s clear Abalam is trying to contact her. He wants to be inside her. Louis (Louis Herthum), her dead father—we are informed that a fire destroyed her home and Nell was the only survivor— aware the demon is trying to seduce Nell, attempts to kill her. Frank suspects Nell’s slipping back into superstition. Nobody believes her. She goes to a church but the minister says there’s no escaping “him.” Meanwhile her friends have discovered the found footage of the first movie on the internet. Possession’s clearly not wicked cool. Nell feels isolated and

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betrayed. Just when she doesn’t know where to turn, Cecile finds her and explains. She’s been watching Nell since she was found after the failed last exorcism. The Order of the Right Hand, she tells Nell, is aware of a prophecy that when an innocent willingly gives herself to the dark side, the end of time will come. There’s a complication, though. Abalam really has fallen in love with Nell. This is a new twist in exorcism movies. Demon lovers are an ancient idea, of course, but the premise that a demon feels warm human emotions appears novel. It’s actually a reflection of Sarah’s plight with Asmodeus in the book of Tobit. Cecile warns her that the time is closer than they feared. When Nell goes to warn Chris, he says that “he” (Abalam) loves her so much. Chris commits suicide so as not to interfere. An emergency exorcism is called by the Order. Two other members join Nell and Cecile, one is a medical doctor (E. Roger Mitchell), the other an exorcist, John Calder (David Jensen). Wiring Nell to machines to monitor her vital signs, they strap her to a table and make a magic circle of salt around her. The exorcist tries to—but can’t—expel the demon. Admitting failure, and fearing the demon will break through, bringing the end times, he gives Nell a fatal overdose of morphine. Abalam shows up, staying outside the circle. First he appears as her father. Then Chris. And finally, as Nell herself. Urging her to accept demonic help to survive the injection, Abalam stretches out his hand. Nell reaches through the magic circle and crosses to the dark side. She kills the Order. Back at the home she kills Frank, and then burns the house down, presumably killing the other girls. As she drives away, cars burst into flames as she passes by. The end of the world has come but the boy demon gets the girl in the end. Fairly sophisticated for a sequel, the story is slightly out of joint with the original. The fate of the demonic baby is left unaddressed, and the reality of much of what Nell sees is suspect. Nevertheless, she comes to embrace being loved by Abalam and gives herself over to him. The classic signs of possession are less evident, although Nell levitates and is physically affected by the sounds of others making love at the hotel while she’s changing sheets in the next room. What really stands out here is the sympathetic demon. Nell is awkward, shy, and lonely. Frank doesn’t believe her about being formerly possessed, and the other girls betray her when they find the video online. Even Chris kills himself. Her would-be exorcists can’t expel Abalam and decide to sacrifice Nell instead. All along the demon is the only one who is truly looking out for Nell’s best interests. Indeed, the traditional Christian images here all seem to fail her. When Nell goes to put on her cross necklace, Frank warns her to think carefully about whether she will choose to believe in it. The church Nell visits, although the denomination isn’t explicitly spelled out, has traditional

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Catholic imagery—crucifix, statues of saints, candles and altar vestments. The minister is dressed casually—not a hint of black—and given what he says it seems he’s working for Abalam instead of God. Like its prequel, this film has a difficult time distinguishing Protestant and Catholic. Cecile’s Order of the Right Hand uses what appears to be vodou practices and even during the exorcism the viewer isn’t sure whether they’re the good guys or the bad guys. In fact, there’s no sign that this is a Christian exorcism at all. It’s very occult-oriented. Calder, the exorcist, has occult tattoos on both his forearms, including a pentagram. Since the Hebrew Bible forbids tattoos, the Scripture-savvy viewer wonders which side he’s on. Even having a medical doctor present suggests that science, not Christianity, may be the intended arbiter here. In the Middle Ages, exorcists of different faith traditions sometimes worked together.10 The main concern, it seems, was that they believed in demons and wanted to expel them; whoever wasn’t against them was for them. Here an occult organization—the fictional Order of the Right Hand11—takes on that role. Its symbols of protection are clearly not Christian. Interestingly, the exorcism fails. There’s also a conservative social message here. Abalam hasn’t been exorcised, but instead of possessing Nell, he oppresses her with genuine love. When she’s admitted to the girl’s home she’s exposed to heavy metal music, makeup, provocative dress, boys, and nonbelief. Living with this combination of temptations, she’s increasingly brought under the sway of Abalam. When she invites him back in, at the end of the film, and she drives Frank’s stolen car down the street, she turns on heavy metal music and makes things burst into flames. But she has, for the first time, someone who really cares for her. And he’s a demon. Like The Last Exorcism, The Possession (2012) departs from the standard Catholic script. It deserves mention here since it complicates demons and it’s a rare example of a Jewish exorcism movie (with the rite performed by none other than Matisyahu!). While exorcism is a primarily Catholic domain in cinema, it’s known in many of the world’s religions. Jesus, recall, was not only an expeller of demons, but he was also a Jew, whether marginal or not. Judaism kept the practice of exorcism alive, at least in some sects. The Possession presents us with a type of demon known as a dybbuk. Not attested before the Middle Ages, a dybbuk isn’t a fallen angel, but is rather the possessing spirit of a dead human. This idea (but not this term) is found in the Second Temple period, and continued into medieval Judaism.12 The conceit of the movie is that a gentile family unknowingly acquires a dybbuk box—a prison for an evil dead soul. When one of the daughters, Em (Natasha Calis), figures out how to open the puzzle box (with a nod to the Hellraiser franchise), she’s possessed by the dybbuk in the form of

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moths. Her father, Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who has a restraining order taken out against him by his ex-wife, has to find help and he locates Tzadok (Matisyahu), a Hasidic Jew, who’s willing to take on an exorcism for gentiles. The demon here is Abyzou, the taker of children.13 Tzadok is able to exorcise the demon and get it back in the dybbuk box. The exorcism involves elements similar to the Catholic rite—candles, olive oil, and a sacred book. It’s every bit as effective as the Roman ritual, but the demon in the box is once again set free by an automobile accident that apparently kills Tzadok. Abyzou, in Judaism, is sometimes identified with Lilith, Adam’s first wife.14 She’s a female demon, and the fullest ancient description of her comes from the Testament of Solomon. There she’s called Obyzouth, and she’s known for harming young children. Closely related to Lamia, the childsnatching demon trope grew many associations in the ancient world.15 These films revolve around Poe’s modified thesis of the poetic nature surrounding a young girl under threat. Nell and Em rely on Protestant and Jewish exorcists, respectively, but the demon wins out in the end, whether successfully exorcised or not. All three movies continue the narrative of a young girl delivered by men. It doesn’t always work. After these films the results of exorcisms, even involving the Catholic rite, also become far more ambiguous. CATHOLIC REVIVAL FILMS The Rite (2011) functions as a Catholic revival exorcism film. It also has some bearing on the larger question of demons since it’s based on a nonfiction book by journalist Matt Baglio, bearing the same title. We’ll see this again in Deliver Us from Evil (2014), based on the book by police sergeant Ralph Sarchie (with Lisa Collier Cool). The Devil Inside (2012) is largely based on urban legends. All three of these movies deal with multiple exorcism cases. There’s one main dispossession that serves as the climax, but there are other exorcism attempts along the way. The Rite is really a movie about a priest regaining faith, not unlike the prequels to The Exorcist. The story follows Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue), a young man whose father is a mortician. Understandably disenchanted with learning the family trade and encouraged by the church, he attends seminary. Celibacy is an issue for him, however, and he considers dropping out due to his flagging faith. His advisor suggests he give exorcism training a try. This will involve going to Rome. The problem is, Michael really doesn’t believe in God any more. Once in Rome he questions scientifically whether any of the possession cases they study really involve demons. A fellow pupil, Angelina (Alice

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Braga) becomes friendly with him. He’s sent to visit Fr. Lucas Trevant (Anthony Hopkins). Fr. Lucas isn’t at all what Michael expects. An informal and portly older man, Lucas lives in a shabby villa overrun by cats. He indicates Michael is just in time for the exorcism of Rosaria (Marta Gastini), a pregnant sixteen-year-old girl. Michael’s skeptical, although Rosaria has “knowledge of the unknowable” and grimaces and scrapes a lot. The rite itself is underplayed and anticlimactic. Fr. Lucas explains that sometimes exorcisms can go on for extended periods of time, especially if the demon won’t give its name. Angelina asks Michael for an interview—she’s actually a journalist and wants to write a story on the increase of exorcisms, especially those performed by Fr. Lucas. Refusing to betray any confidences, Michael returns to class. The importance of getting a demon’s name is emphasized; Beelzebub, Leviathan, and Baal are particularly dangerous. When Michael finds Rosaria’s bracelet in his pocket he returns to Lucas’s house to learn how it got there. A second exorcism is underway. Now speaking English—a language unknown to her—Rosaria further reveals knowledge of the unknowable about Michael’s past. Using impressive contortions for a pregnant girl, she resists as Fr. Lucas continues the rite and Michael tries to hold her down. She vomits up three nails. It’s worth pausing here for a second. The vomiting of sharp objects was a medieval marker of possession. Here the three nails are clearly meant as a mockery of the crucifixion.16 The demon tells Michael to rape Rosaria, and the would-be priest surmises that her father actually did rape her and left her pregnant. She swallowed the nails to harm the baby. Michael’s sure there’s nothing supernatural going on here. The next day Fr. Lucas takes the seminarian to visit a possessed boy (Andrea Calligari). Tormented by nightmares of “the mule,” the boy awoke with hoof marks on his torso. Lucas exorcises his pillow, “finding” a live frog inside. He’s clearly planted the evidence, Michael notes, again suggesting all of this can be rationally explained. He even finds a live frog in Fr. Lucas’s satchel. Meanwhile, Rosaria has been admitted to the hospital. She thrashes and contorts, although sedated. Speaking in a demonic voice, she converses with Michael who’s still skeptical. That night both she and her baby die. Michael’s had enough. He’s leaving. Fr. Lucas becomes possessed. Is this the same demon as Rosaria had? We’re not told. Michael learns his father has had a stroke. When his flight home’s cancelled Michael calls his father from the hotel. The call is interrupted by a doctor who informs Michael his father died six hours ago. Scared yet? Michael sees hoofmarks in the snow and his father tottering toward the door in Rome. When he catches up he sees a red-eyed mule instead. Thinking he’s going insane, he calls Angelica.

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They find Fr. Lucas sitting out in the rain in the courtyard to his villa, barefoot and disheveled. Michael’s going to have to handle this one himself. Problem is, he still doesn’t believe. Angelina, not even a novice nun, is going to have to assist. This exorcism largely involves a vacant Lucas mocking, and occasionally physically attacking Michael and Angelina. He doesn’t contort much at his age, but the priest has a sharp tongue. He plays on Michael’s ambivalence toward his father and Angelina’s having had her possessed brother institutionalized. Michael and Angelina are attracted to one another, no? Although the makeup reveals Fr. Lucas looking like Baal from the slides in class, Michael wants to quit, still uncertain. With Angelina’s encouragement he realizes that the words of his mother, repeated by Angelina, are a sign. He’s been angry over his mother’s death ever since boyhood. The unfairness of it convinces him there is a Devil, and if he believes in the Devil he must believe in God. Now that he has faith, Michael rather easily subdues the demon, forcing it to say its name, Baal. Baal, as we’ve seen, is a Canaanite deity. The early church writers believed foreign gods to be demons, and Baal is a prime example. Michael, now a believer, returns to Chicago to become a diocesan exorcist. Thoroughly Roman Catholic in its presentation, The Rite is far more about human foibles than about demons. Apart from his name, we learn nothing of Baal. Michael, on the other hand, has a strained relationship with his father and blames God for the early death of his mother. Angelina committed her brother, who was possessed, to an asylum. Fr. Lucas failed Rosaria. The demonology of the movie is confused. Lucas equates demons and the Devil soon after he meets Michael. He identifies the entity(ies) as “demons, diablo, the Devil.” Warning Michael not to look into Rosaria’s eyes he says, “It’s the Devil!” Catholic belief recognizes a separate Devil and during the exorcism Fr. Lucas repeatedly asks the demon’s name. Since demons are chaotic, we never learn if Rosaria’s demon is also the mule, or if either is also Baal. Perhaps through a case of body-hopping, the demon Baal may have gone from the girl to the priest, but that’s never clarified. The main innovation of the film is the climactic exorcism performed by a non-ordained seminarian assisted by a lay woman, on a monster-hunting priest. This is, surprisingly, true to the Middle Ages. Anyone could perform an exorcism.17 Restrictions to priests, and generally to trained exorcists, came much later. And demons are really after priests. That will be clear in our next feature. The Devil Inside (2012), widely panned, is a found footage feature that relies mostly on fairly standard possession and exorcism tropes. Unlike many exorcism movies where one final, climactic exorcism is the focus, such as The Rite, it covers several attempted dispositions with none being primary. The movie

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opens with a title card reading “The Vatican does not authorize the recording of Roman Catholic exorcisms.” A second states, “The Vatican did not endorse this film nor aid in its completion.” Combined with the cinéma vérité style, this suggests it’s a true story. It follows Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade), who wants to learn the truth about her mother, Maria (Suzan Crowley). A 911 call. A woman, in broken sentences, confesses to murdering three people. Maria Rossi, as the police footage reveals, murdered two priests and a nun during an exorcism in her basement. When Isabella, who hasn’t seen her mother for twenty years, learns this, she wants to visit her in the asylum. For some unknown reason, they’ve transferred her to Rome.18 Isabella hires Michael (Ionut Grama) as her cameraman; she’s shooting a documentary about her mother’s case. Once in Italy, Isabella attends an exorcism class in the Apostolic Academy of Rome. After the lecture she joins the students in a bar. Two young priests, Benjamin (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth), tell her that to understand demons she must witness an actual exorcism. She takes them up on their offer. First she visits her mother. Although her doctor insists Maria’s condition is purely medical—no demons are involved—all the outside doors to her room are hung with large crucifixes. This looks like a coverup. Maria doesn’t recognize her daughter and shows her that she’s been cutting herself. Her arm is covered in inverted crosses, and she even has one on her inner lip. Before losing control, she tells her daughter, “It’s against God’s will, you know.” Visiting the two priests, Isabella confesses she had a medically necessary abortion many years ago. Her mother knew nothing about it, but apparently she now does. This is one of the marks of possession—knowledge a person shouldn’t have. Isabella needs to witness an actual exorcism to determine if her mother’s possessed. It’s a bit complicated, however. Ben and David are renegade priests—they perform unauthorized exorcisms on people whose cases the church refuses to recognize. Anyone familiar with Roman Catholic procedure knows this is a no-no. Exorcisms, remember, historically could be performed by anyone. When demand began to increase in early modernity, just as the Catholic Church was beginning to accept that it would need to exist alongside a scientific worldview, one response was to limit the rite to priests. Another limitation was that a priest required managerial approval—his bishop had to sanction the exorcism.19 To do so, the bishop had to be convinced this was a real demon. Problem is, demons can’t be verified scientifically, and most bishops don’t believe in them. In the movie Benjamin and David are monster-hunters ignoring that rule. A young woman named Rosalita (Bonnie Morgan) is being kept in the basement by her family. David and Ben use scientific equipment to ensure

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that the possessions they illegally exorcise can’t be explained medically. They want to prove their case to the church. They discover Rosalita impossibly contorted. David gives her a muscle relaxant and they unknot her body and tie her to the bed. They know the identity of this demon, Berith. The demon knows Isabella’s name and Rosalita breaks free and attacks the priests. Subduing her, they believe they’ve finally expelled this demon. Maybe, Isabella suggests, they could perform an exorcism on her mother. It won’t be easy. Maria is kept in a state mental hospital, monitored 24/7. The priests won’t have authorization. David, especially, is worried. Despite his illicit activities, he’s a priest in good standing with the diocese. He could lose his job. Trying to figure out how to pull this off, the priests agree to get Maria into a private room to evaluate whether she may be possessed or not. During the session, it becomes clear Maria is. Possessed. She frees herself from her restraints, and supernatural events are caught on film. With this evidence the two priests can prove to the Vatican that this is a true possession case. After the exorcism, however, David and Isabella begin acting out of character. David tries to drown an infant during a routine baptism then stalks back to the apartment where Isabella and Ben are hanging out. Michael bursts in and tells them what happened. They follow David upstairs into a room with Bible pages papering the wall. David’s bleeding, the whites of his eyes show, and he’s clearly possessed. The police arrive and David snatches one of their guns and commits suicide. Immediately Isabella has a fit. Michael and Ben rush her to the hospital. Isabella kills the other woman in her room and Ben needs to take her to his instructor to conduct the exorcism; they’re down to one priest now. In the car Isabella’s sedation wears off. Ben must attempt a backseat exorcism. He demands the demon’s name and Isabella says “Everyone knows who I am.” She breathes the demon into Michael, who’s driving. He speeds up the car and collides with a vehicle traveling the opposite direction. The end card states that the facts around the case are still under investigation. After taking some Dramamine, we can try to analyze this a bit. This film stresses demonic transference—body-hopping. The demon has leapt from Maria Rossi into Fr. David and from the priest into Isabella and finally into Michael, who kills them all. Who is this nasty demon? The named demon from Rosalita, Berith, may be the culprit, but it seems more likely that the Devil himself is implicated. Who else would “everyone” know? Things get complicated here—remember, demons love confusion. Isabella is an Anglicized version of Jezebel, the wife of Ahab in the Bible, notorious for worshipping Baal. Here she’s the daughter of Maria (Mary, the mother of God), who has killed three clergy. Even Michael, the cameraman, is named after the archangel who defeats the dragon. One name that’s most curious to modern viewers, however, is that of Rosalita’s demon, Berith.

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Berith (literally “covenant”) is apparently an abbreviated form of Baal Berith, “lord of the covenant,” a local god worshipped in biblical Shechem.20 This “Canaanite” god is mentioned only in Judges 8–9. The Devil Inside carries on the tradition of recognizing demons as foreign gods. Since Jezebel was a Baal worshipper, associating one of the demons with Baal Berith ties these conventions together. Remember Baal was also the possessing demon in The Rite. According to the Babylonian Talmud Baal Berith may be identified with Beelzebub.21 Berith is also cited in The Lesser Key of Solomon as a demon who knows the future and past, and who can turn any metal to gold.22 While systematizing demons and the Devil is a fool’s errand, the makers of this movie are implying that Rosalita’s demon is the Devil himself. That provides a hint to who might’ve invaded Isabella as well. Note that although both women and men are possessed, true to Poe the film lingers on the female victims. Rosalita’s and Maria’s exorcisms are addressed by male priests. Isabella’s attempted backseat exorcism (surely a sexual innuendo was intentional) by a frantic Ben also applies. No one exorcises David or Michael. The women alone are the focus of the camera. The found footage, however, begins to feel like an urban legend without the gravitas of an authorized dispossession as shown in The Exorcist. Things turn even more urban in our last film, set, like Rosemary’s Baby, in New York City. Part of the spate of exorcism films based on, or in this case “inspired by” true events, Deliver Us from Evil (2014) draws from the book of the same title by Sergeant Ralph Sarchie. The film has to draw disparate events into a storyline and does so by beginning in Iraq in 2010. This opening is clearly a nod to The Exorcist, and brings us full circle. American soldiers are lured into a grotto where the camera goes out as one of the men shouts “What the [expletive] is that?” In the South Bronx, Sarchie (Eric Bana) and his partner Butler (Joel McHale), who notes Ralph’s “radar” for odd things, respond to a call about domestic violence. They chase and beat Jimmy Tratner (Chris Coy) who, as we’ll discover, is one of the three men who went into the Iraqi grotto. Then they respond to a call from the Bronx Zoo. A woman, Jane Crenna (Olivia Horton), threw her baby into the ravine at the lion’s pit and the lights went out. She’s at large. Sarchie spots a man at the lion’s lair, a painter, who lures him into the lion’s den. Although he, like Daniel, emerges unbitten he’s astounded by Jane, now found and seemingly psychotic. At the precinct an unlikely priest, in street clothes, wants to see Jane. He’s been treating her. Sarchie declares her insane, but the priest, Fr. Mendoza (Edgar Ramírez), suggests her problem is spiritual. A further case involves a house where strange noises are coming from the basement. The occupants explain to Sarchie that the problem started

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downstairs. There Sarchie discovers the body of a painter who’d been covering up a strange inscription on the wall. Sarchie and Butler learn the dead man had a painting partner, and that the two of them were with Jimmy in Iraq. What’s more, Jane is the widow of the dead painter. The painter’s apartment is a nightmarish place where his doberman wears a crucifix and there’s a crucified cat on the wall. Disturbing stuff. And there’s writing on the wall here too—another reference to Daniel.23 The third Iraqi man, Santino (Sean Harris), was the painter’s partner and he remains at large. Fr. Mendoza—an unconventional priest—tells Sarchie that this is a case of “primary evil.” Sarchie, a lapsed Catholic, believes humans cause their own evil. Back at Jimmy's apartment, his wife tells Sarchie he’s not home, but the painters had come to do his office, as a favor. Sarchie discovers the Iraqi tapes, and something more. Under the fresh paint he finds the same inscription he’s been seeing elsewhere. Suspecting these cases may be linked, Sarchie wants to see Jane. He’s only permitted to do so because Fr. Mendoza is there. She reacts violently to Sarchie’s smartphone picture of the inscription, attacking and biting him. Priest and cop go into a bar for a drink. Mendoza doesn’t wear a collar and has long hair. He also has a past. Then he encountered a case of possession. He plays Ralph a recording of the exorcism. In a case of classic theodicy, Sarchie refuses to believe in God because of evil in the world. Demons are real, Mendoza insists, and there are three signs: they speak in voices not their own, they have preternatural strength, and they are clairvoyant (all medieval signs). Reluctantly Sarchie begins to work with the priest. Mendoza indicates that the inscription, which is Latin and Persian, causes possession. The tapes in Jimmy’s house show the opening scene and the three men discovering the inscription in Iraq. The three became possessed because they saw it. Butler reports that the inscriptions were written in human blood, and they have found the address of Santino, the third man. At the stakeout, Fr. Mendoza is left in the car after trying to get Ralph to make confession. Sarchie follows Santino to the basement, where Jimmy attacks him. Santino meanwhile kills Butler and escapes while Ralph is saved at the last minute by Fr. Mendoza, who exorcises Jimmy. Sarchie decides he’d better make his confession. He admits to having once killed a suspect with his bare hands. His anger keeps him distant from his wife and daughter who are, at that moment, being kidnapped by Santino. Racing home, Sarchie confronts a possessed Santino who has hidden his family in a place where they will die. At the precinct, Sarchie insists Fr. Mendoza perform an exorcism in the interrogation room. Handing the cop the Roman Ritual, Mendoza tells him there are six stages to exorcism and he is only to read the responses, nothing more. In what has to be one of the

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more stylish cinematic exorcisms, the long-haired priest makes sweeping gestures and takes action poses. This film recognizes that exorcism is theater. The demon reveals its name to Sarchie, via his “radar” and after a bloody and violent rite where Sarchie saves the day—or night—the demon departs and Santino tells Sarchie where his family can be found. Seven months later, Sarchie has the priest baptize his new baby son as the cop renounces Satan. Part of the draw to this film is the juxtaposition of the primitive aspects of demon possession with the modern city life of New York. This was also compelling for both Ghostbusters and Rosemary’s Baby. Life seems so normal out on the streets amid the millions. Behind closed doors, however, anything can happen. Throughout the movie the music of The Doors is featured. The Doors took their name from Aldous Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception.24 The subtext here is that “Primary Evil” has a portal to this world. The inscription opens a “door” to evil. The intentional connection of possession and rockn-roll is clear. Not only is the play on the name of the band key to this, but the provocative lyrics of “Break on Through” and “People Are Strange” are used to enhance the storyline. The inscription that leads to possession—a gateway—is a form of the law of contagion. Unusual for a possession trope, contagion is the belief that what you see can magically effect your physical being.25 It represents a novel way of leading to possession. Apparently in order not to demonize Islam the inscription is Persian and Latin (both IndoEuropean languages). Since this isn’t in the book, and the movie doesn’t explain it, the origin of this form of possession remains an enigma. Ideas drawn from the book of Daniel suggest a supernatural war behind the scenes. The demon is picked up by Sarchie’s “radar.” He decides to respond to police calls based on it and as the film progresses he hears things others can’t. Including The Doors. In the climactic exorcism scene Fr. Mendoza demands the demon’s name but only Sarchie can hear the response. Viewers are left in the dark. The signs of possession are limited to three, all of which have been explained as highly unusual, but attested, human phenomena. There’s no levitation here. Aversion to crucifixes, yes, but that’s not a primary sign of possession. In keeping with the book, such things are demonic by interpretation rather than as clear signs of supernatural activity. In the written account Sarchie notes his work with Malachi Martin, one of the doyens of the field. He also worked with Ed and Lorraine Warren. This small circle of demonologists, along with Gabriele Amorth, represents the main cast of the modern revival of interest in exorcism in Roman Catholicism launched by William Peter Blatty’s novel. Exorcism itself is explained more directly here since, in the film Sarchie’s a long lapsed Catholic. Having such a person assist in exorcism is unusual,

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but then again, Fr. Mendoza is an unusual priest. Also, the crucial exorcism is of a man. The only possessed woman, Jane, commits suicide before she can be delivered. Is possession moving back toward a masculine prerogative? CONCLUSIONS What do post-Exorcist possession movies tell us about demons? In this sampling we’ve encountered Cain, Nero, Judas Iscariot, Legion, Belial, Lucifer, Abalam, Abyzou, Baal, and Berith, as well as some unnamed spirits. They come from a variety of sources. Those possessing Emily Rose are biblical, except Nero. Abalam is known from Goetic grimoires, and is named in The Lesser Key of Solomon. Abyzou was a demon from the much earlier Testament of Solomon. Baal and Berith were Canaanite deities later considered demons, the latter cited in the Talmud and the Lesser Key. In the movies many of them are, somewhat imprecisely, said to be the Devil. The viewing public, accepting popular media as gospel, receives conflicting accounts of these most protean of monsters. Perhaps the names of the possessed girls have stood out. We encountered Emily Rose, Rosaria, and Rosalita in Catholic-based films. All of these share the element of “rose,” the flower associated with the Virgin Mary. They also pay homage to Rosemary’s Baby; her name boldly fuses Mary and Rose. Consider also the rosary, an extended prayer to the virgin. Emily Rose decides to continue her possession because of a vision of the blessed virgin. Rosaria is an unwed, pregnant teen, as if a mockery of Mary on her way to Bethlehem. Rosalita mimics her first intercourse during an exorcism. Emily Rose is again reflected in “Em” of The Possession. Isabella is a form of Jezebel. Nell breaks this pattern, but demons love confusion. Possessed boys and men, while they occur, lack this historic resonance. The possessions Fr. Lucas, Jimmy, David, and Mick (the last three from Deliver Us from Evil) are deficient in this theological freight. Daniel, from The Devil Inside, could be a significant male name in the light of Deliver Us from Evil and its Daniel references. In any case, the males possessed tend to be played more for corporeal threat than for emotional plangency. The fear is physical attack rather than spiritual, or emotional torment. All of this affirms Poe’s observation. Even the films that tend toward action and adventure, such as Deliver Us from Evil, have girls at risk— Christina Sarchie (Lulu Wilson), Ralph’s daughter, is the victim of demonic threats throughout the movie. This factor also illustrates the lasting impact of The Exorcist. Setting the template for exorcism cinema a young boy whose name was kept under a veil of secrecy would only became an icon in the form of Regan MacNeil.

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NOTES 1. Again, Poe is cited for his poetic sensitivity, not because he wrote about demons. Emily Rose is a poetic character. 2. Goodman, The Exorcism. 3. Cuneo, American Exorcism. 4. Bamberger, Fallen Angels. 5. Robert Fuller, Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession (Oxford University Press, 1996). 6. Stokes, The Satan. 7. Levack, Devil Within. 8. The Protestant practice of exorcism is also considered by McCloud, American Possession, and is also covered by Cuneo, American Exorcism. 9. Peterson, Lesser Key. For Goetic literature, see Fanger, Conjuring Spirits. 10. Chajes, Between Worlds. 11. This name seems to be based on the “right-hand path” concept of traditional modern occult magic. 12. Chajes, Between Worlds. 13. Abyzou is discussed in A. A. Barb, “Antaura. The Mermaid and the Devil’s Grandmother: A Lecture,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 29 (1966): 1–23. 14. Barb, “Antaura.” 15. M. L. West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (Clarendon Press, 1999); Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (University of California Press, 2013). 16. Caciola, Discerning Spirits; Young, A History. 17. Chajes, Between Worlds; Young, A History. 18. On exorcisms in Italy see McCloud, American Possession, Cuneo, American Exorcism, Levack, Devil Within, also Young, A History. 19. See Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism; Levack, Devil Within; and Young, A History, for histories of exorcisms. 20. DDD. 21. Shabbat 83b. 22. Peterson, Lesser Key. 23. The writing on the wall is from Daniel 5. 24. From The Doors’ official website: https://thedoors​.com​/the​-band (accessed 12/23/19). See also Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman, No One Here Gets Out Alive (Warner Books, 1980). 25. This idea is traced to James Frazer’s The Golden Bough. Although somewhat discredited, his concept of contagion is still in use.

Epilogue

Demons in the modern world are defined by cinema. The western hemisphere had largely lost interest in demons until The Exorcist. As we’ve seen, there was no clearly defined, single idea of what demons were before that. Churches didn’t regularly address the topic, seminaries taught they weren’t real. Academics seldom discussed them. Movies stepped in to fill the void by using these chaotic entities in all their protean evil. When horror showed there were still demons out there, demands for exorcism skyrocketed. The quotidian world was forced to consider the demonic again. The most obvious source for information was popular media. In a society so biblically based as the United States, information about biblical ideas often comes from popular culture. In the mid- to late twentiethcentury Bible literacy was in decline. Pop culture, however, still drew heavily on the Good Book and became an easy source of information on it. Demons are just one example of this. This nightmarish journey into the realm of demons has considered their pre-, post-, and biblical origins. These entities have been feared from ancient times. Throughout our trek we’ve kept an eye on the gendering of demonic victims. In biblical accounts victims of female and male gender both appear. Demons appear not to have favorites, although the dramatic gospel stories feature males. With the rereading of Genesis 6 as one of their origin myths, however, a demonic preference for females emerged, particularly young females of marriageable age. Edgar Allan Poe didn’t invent the phenomenon he observed: the threat to a beautiful woman is the most poetic of themes. In horror women were often the victims long before Poe noted, and sometimes exploited, it. (His tales, of course, often have male victims as well.) Although he didn’t write tales about demons, I have used his observation to understand the modern script of female 199

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possession. It played out gruesomely in historical witch hunts that primarily targeted females. Witches and demons were tied together with intricate theological threads that invoked matters seldom appearing in the Bible. Witches are rarely mentioned, and in the gospels the moon can strike a demoniac more readily than a human spell. The female victim is primarily a post-biblical trope. The biblical accounts, along with the extra-biblical materials of early Judaism, paint a world liberally inhabited by demons. Some modern exorcists and demonologists, such as Gabriele Amorth, Ed and Lorraine Warren, Malachi Martin, and even R. H. Stavis, confirm that demons are everywhere. What they mean by “demon,” however, continues the confusion over what they are. Amorth unquestioningly calls them fallen angels, a stance with which Martin would likely have concurred. The Warrens thought of them as entities that have never been human. Stavis sees them as beings that spin off of Spirit—the source that many would call “God.” Defying empirical testing, they maintain their ability to haunt even in a scientific age. Outside the realm of official religion, popular culture draws heavily on The Exorcist. Perhaps the clearest evidence of this today is in continuing cinematic representations of exorcism. William Peter Blatty’s novel was a bestseller. The movie version spawned an entire new avenue for horror. Rosemary’s Baby had given the world a credible Devil’s son. Rosemary wasn't traditionally possessed, but she was intimately possessed in having her body sexually invaded by Satan. She remained Rosemary, however. To go all the way required Regan MacNeil. The young woman under diabolical threat plays into the realm of displaced identity. Sometimes Regan was a twelve-year-old girl. Sometimes she was a malevolent, obscene enemy of God. Her body was invaded by dark forces, but her mind had also been raped. Only when the demon is expelled is she once again a young woman. And so the trend would continue. The movies with males victims failed to make the same cultural impact. Many of them flopped at the box office. Demons prefer ladies. Or at least audiences expect that. Even when films go for laughs, females tend to be the target. Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters, Bethany Sloan in Dogma, the three witches of Eastwick, Tristan, and Erica of Book of Shadows, all female victims. Christine is the one dragged to Hell, not Clay. The Conjuring franchise is keenly aware of these dynamics. All the films feature girls under threat. Often boys are too, but the girls remain the unwavering focus. The installments involving Annabelle play on the motif that “dolls are for girls.” The original Conjuring threatens all the Perron daughters, even if April is the intended sacrificial victim. The Conjuring 2 revolves around Janet. The Nun has an entire convent to victimize. The Amityville sequence of films, which didn’t reach the critical acclaim of many of those listed here, focused mainly on the “possession” of the house

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rather than an individual. All three children are under threat in the original Lutz family configuration, although as the remake emphasizes, Chelsea is a special fixation of the demon. In the original Amy is its Cassandra. The first sequel introduces the threat to females through Patricia’s seduction by her older brother. Susan, the teenage daughter, is an actual fatality in the third installment. Despite all this, the franchise works primarily on the house as possessed and primarily males in the family taking on some form of the historical Ronald DeFeo, the real-life murderer. Paranormal Activity makes the victims of the threat the perpetrators— Katie and Kristi are possessed and the series, with one exception, meanders through their backstory and their future. The two were selected by a coven at a young age and inducted into a demonic plot. Although they are the vehicles for the violence, they remain victims as well. Kristi dies but Katie lives on. Exorcism movies address both female and male prey to demons, but primarily the former. It began with Regan MacNeil. The sequel to The Exorcist continued that story, while introducing a boy victim with far less drama. The third in the series followed the fate of Fr. Karras, making male possession its focal point, but failing to equal the impact of the first film. The two very similar prequels are split between female and male possession. No other member of the franchise lives up to the promise of the original. Emily Rose is the young female victim of her eponymous film, and The Last Exorcism series follows Nell as the love object of Abalam. The Possession has Em. The Rite, while reserving the climatic exorcism for Fr. Lucas, has Rosaria (who dies) as its most poignant victim. The Devil Inside follows Isabella’s quest only to find the truth that her own possession will kill them all. Deliver Us from Evil, again with a male exorcism climax, draws its emotional energy from the threat to Christina Sarchie. It may also mark a move toward the action associated with male victims. Demons are fundamentally conservative. They also cause confusion. Frequently embodying male superiority, they tend to possess women. They are associated with sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. And they began to appear in spates after the 1960s and the liberal ideology of that era, released by The Exorcist. It would be overly simplistic to suggest that they punish sexually active teens. Regan is only twelve and Chelsea Lutz is even younger. As are some of the girls from St. Eustace Home. And April Perron. There’s no suggestion Janet or Em are having sex. Of course Katie in Paranormal Activity is, and Alex, Jane, and Sukie from Eastwick sleep with the Devil. Nell is pregnant so she’s also implicated. Females are targeted regardless of virginal status. Demons possess males as well, but then they tend to rely on action rather than emotion. Ex-Marine George Lutz hardly makes an emotional appeal. Fr. Lucas is likable, but he knows how to be a monster hunter and his possession

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is a kind of payback. Fr. Karras in the sequel and Cheche in the prequel to The Exorcist are philosophical victims, not sexual. These films demonstrate the range of demons, if not their terror. Part of the appeal, for horror films, is the uncertainty of what exactly demons are. Reference is occasionally made to biblical fallen angels. Quite often names drawn from the Testament of Solomon and the Lesser Key of Solomon populate exorcism cinema. Solomon was reputed to have a rapacious sexual appetite. His preference for females is shared by demons, although their origins are confused and esoteric. Priests are sometimes helpless against them, and even when a preacher or rabbi drives them out they come back. The Exorcist, however, provides a script that seldom reappears in such succinct, and complete packaging. It’s appropriate to finish this exploration with this film that reanimated modern interest in demons, if it didn’t reinvent them. As it appeared in William Friedkin’s original version, the story was complete. Regan was delivered and the demon is gone. The threat remains, of course, but a sequel wasn’t necessary to finish the tale. The demon succeeded in destroying two monster-hunting priests. His young female victim, although abused, survives and leaves the scene at the close of the film, unaware of what had happened. And Edgar Allan Poe, from his grave not far from Washington, DC, showed them the way.

Select Sources

Note: this bibliography is not intended to be comprehensive; it’s necessarily brief. Vast resources on demons exist and some rather obvious sources, such as biblical commentaries, are not listed. I point out articles only when they’re directly on topic. Some resources—occasionally questionable—are included as readily accessible to those curious about the demonic world. Abusch, Zvi. “Exorcism. I. Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.” In The Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, vol. 8, ed. D. C. Allison, Jr., et al., Walter de Gruyter, 2014: 513–519. Adler, Joseph A. “Chinese Religion: An Overview.” In Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Lindsay Jones, 2nd ed. Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. Amorth, Fr. Gabriele. An Exorcist Tells His Story. Ignatius Press, 1999. ———. An Exorcist Explains the Demonic: The Antics of Satan and His Army of Fallen Angels. Sophia Institute Press, 2016. Anson, Jay. The Amityville Horror. Prentice Hall, 1977. Arnold, Clinton E. Powers of Darkness: Principalities & Powers in Paul's Letters. IVP Academic, 1992. Arrington, French L. “The Indwelling, Baptism, and Infilling with the Holy Spirit: A Differentiation of Terms.” Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 3 (1981):1–10. Asma, Stephen T. On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. Oxford University Press, 2009. Athanasius and Robert C. Gregg. Athanasius: Life of Anthony and the Letter To Marcellinus. Paulist Press, 1979. Baglio, Matt. The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist. Image/Doubleday, 2010. Bailey, Lloyd R. “Enigmatic Bible Passages: Gehenna: The Topography of Hell.” The Biblical Archaeologist 49 (1986): 187–191. Bamberger, Bernard J. Fallen Angels: Soldiers of Satan’s Realm. Jewish Publication Society, 2006. 203

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Barb, A. A. “Antaura. The Mermaid and the Devil’s Grandmother: A Lecture.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 29 (1966): 1–23. Barstow, Anne Llewellyn. Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts. HarperOne, 1994. Beal, Timothy K. Religion and Its Monsters. Routledge, 2002. Beavis, Mary Ann. “‘Angels Carrying Savage Weapons:’ Uses of the Bible in Contemporary Horror Films.” Journal of Religion and Film 7 (2003). Behringer, Wolfgang. Witches and Witch-Hunts. Polity, 2004. Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick, and Claudine Michel, eds. Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality. Indiana University Press, 2006. Ben-Amos, Dan. “On Demons.” Creation and Re-creation in Jewish Thought: Festschrift in Honor of Joseph Dan on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. R. Elior and P. Schäfer, eds. Mohr Siebeck, 2005: 27–38. Berkert, Walter. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Blackwell, 1985. Bernstein, Alan E. The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds. Cornell University Press, 1993. ———. Hell and Its Rivals: Death and Retribution among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Early Middle Ages. Cornell University Press, 2017. Beuken, Willem. “I Samuel 28: The Prophet as ‘Hammer of Witches’.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 3 (1978): 3–17. Black, Jeremy, and Anthony Green. Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary. University of Texas Press, 1992. Blair, Judit M. De-Demonising the Old Testament: An Investigation of Azazel, Lilith, Deber, Qeteb and Reshef in the Hebrew Bible. Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Blatty, William Peter. The Exorcist. Harper & Row, 1971. ———. I’ll Tell Them I Remember You. Barrie & Jenkins, 1974. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. A History of Prophecy in Israel. Westminster John Knox, 1996. Bloomer, Kristin C. Possessed by the Virgin: Hinduism, Roman Catholicism, and Marian Possession in South India. Oxford University Press, 2018. Bottero, Jean. Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia. University of Chicago Press, 2001. Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Routledge, 2001. Brakke, David. Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press, 2006. Brittle, Gerald. The Devil in Connecticut. Bantam, 1983. Brown, Alan. Ghost Hunters of New England. University Press of New England, 2008. Brown, Karen McCarthy. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. California University Press, 2001. Brown Taylor, Barbara. Learning to Walk in the Dark. HarperCollins, 2014. Brunner, Bernd. Moon: A Brief History. Yale University Press, 2010. Burnette-Bletsch, Rhonda, ed. The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film. De Gruyter, 2016. Caciola, Nancy. Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages. Cornell University Press, 2003.

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———. “Mystics, Demoniacs, and the Physiology of Spirit Possession in Medieval Europe.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 42 (2000): 268–306. Cameron, Euan. Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason and Religion, 1250–1750. Oxford University Press, 2010. Cardwell, Brittany, and Jamin Halberstadt. “Thinking About God Might Make You Sweat, Even if You're Not Religious.” Science Alert 2017 https​:/​/ww​​w​.sci​​encea​​ lert.​​com​/r​​eligi​​ous​-b​​elief​​-alte​​r​-sec​​ular-​​psych​​ology​​-athe​​ism​-c​​​ognit​​ive​-d​​isson​​ance (accessed 2/15/18). Carroll, Noël. The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart. Routledge, 1990. Caterine, Darryl, and John W. Morehead, eds. The Paranormal and Popular Culture: A Postmodern Religious Landscape. Routledge, 2019. Cervantes, Fernando and Andrew Redden, eds. Angels, Demons, and the New World. Cambridge University Press, 2013. Chajes, J. H. Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism. Penn University Press, 2011. Chaplin, Sue. “Gothic Romance, 1760–1830.” The Gothic World. Glennis Byron and Dale Townshend, eds. Routledge, 2012: 199–209. Charlesworth, James H., ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 volumes). Yale University Press, 1983, 1985. Clark, Stuart. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Oxford University Press, 1997. Clarke, Roger. Ghosts. A Natural History: 500 Years of Searching for Proof. St. Martins, 2012. Clasen, Mathias. Why Horror Seduces. Oxford University Press, 2017. Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton University Press, 1992. Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, ed. Monster Theory: Reading Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Coleman, Robin R. Means. Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890's to Present. Routledge, 2011. Collins, Billy Jean. The Hittites and Their World. Society of Biblical Literature, 2007. Collins, John J., ed. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature. Oxford University Press, 2014. Coogan, Michael. God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says. Twelve, 2011. Cowan, Douglas E. Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen. Baylor University Press, 2008. Cranmer, Bob, and Erica Manfred. The Demon of Brownsville Road: A Pittsburgh Family’s Battle with Evil in Their Home. Berkeley/Penguin, 2014. Crenshaw, James L. Defending God: Biblical Responses to the Problem of Evil. Oxford University Press, 2005. Cross, F. L., and E. A. Livingstone. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd rev. ed. Oxford University Press, 2005. "Canon of Scripture.”  https​:/​/ww​​w​ .oxf​​ordre​​feren​​ce​.co​​m​/vie​​w​/10.​​1093/​​acref​​/9780​​19280​​2903.​​001​.0​​001​/a​​cref-​​97801​​ 92802​​903​-e​​-1166​​​?rske​​y​=ptZ​​eWY​&r​​esult​=9  (accessed 11/20/19). 

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Cuneo, Michael W. American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty. Doubleday, 2001. Dalley, Stephanie. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford University Press, 2009. Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels. The Free Press, 1971. Davies, Brian. The Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Oxford University Press, 1993. Davies, Owen. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books. Oxford University Press, 2009. Davis, Wade. The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombis, and Magic. Simon & Schuster, 1985. Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Bantam, 2006. Day, John. Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament. Cambridge University Press, 1990. Day, Peggy L. An Adversary in Heaven: Śāṭān in the Hebrew Bible. Scholars Press, 1988. DDD, see Van Der Toorn, Becking, and Van Der Horst. de Moor, Johannes C. The Rise of Yahwism: The Roots of Israelite Monotheism. Peeters, 1997. Dickstein, Morris. The Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties. Liveright, 2015. Dixon, Wheeler Winston. A History of Horror. Rutgers University Press, 2011. Docherty, Susan. The Jewish Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction to the Literature of the Second Temple Period. Fortress, 2015. Dubuisson, Daniel. The Western Construction of Religion: Myths, Knowledge, and Ideology. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Duling, D. C. “The Testament of Solomon.” Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth. Yale University Press, 1983. Volume 1: 935–987. Dummett, Michael, Ronald Decker, and Thierry Depaulis. A Wicked Pack of Cards: Origins of the Occult Tarot. Bristol Classical Press, 1996. Eadie, Mervyn J., and Peter F. Bladin. A Disease Once Sacred: A History of the Medical Understanding of Epilepsy. John Libbey Eurotext, 2001. Ekirch, A. Roger. At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past. W. W. Norton, 2005. Elliott, Dyan. Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Ellis, Bill. Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media. The University Press of Kentucky, 2000. Ellis, John Tracy. Faith and Learning: A Church Historian's Story. University Press of America, 1989. Elm, Eva, and Nicole Hartmann, eds. Demons in Late Antiquity: Their Perception and Transformation in Different Literary Genres. Walter de Gruyter, 2020. Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. Fanger, Claire, ed. Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.

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Fernie, Ewan. The Demoniac: Literature and Experience. Routledge, 2012. Ferracut, Stephano, Robert Sacco, and Renato Lazzari. “Dissociative Trance Disorder: Clinical and Rorschach Findings in Ten Persons Reporting Demon Possession and Treated by Exorcism.” Journal of Personality Assessment 66 (1996): 525–539. Fontenrose, Joseph. Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins. University of California Press, 1959. Foucault, Michel. History of Madness. Routledge, 2006. Fowler, Robert L. “Greek Magic, Greek Religion.” Illinois Classic Studies 20 (1995): 1–22. ———. Early Greek Mythography, Volume 2: Commentary. Oxford University Press, 2013. Frankfurter, David. Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Satanic Abuse in History. Princeton University Press, 2008. Frankfort, Henri. Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society & Nature. University of Chicago Press, 1978. Freeland, Cynthia A. The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror. Westview Press, 2002. Frykholm, Amy Johnson. Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America. Oxford University Press, 2007. Fuller, Robert. Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession. Oxford University Press, 1996. Garrett, Greg. Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination. Oxford University Press, 2015. Garrett, Susan R. The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings. Fortress, 1989. ———. No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus. Yale University Press, 2008. Gasparro, Giulia Sfameni. “Daimonic Power.” In The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion, ed. Esther Eidinow and Julia Kindt. Oxford University Press, 2015: 413–428. Gieseler Greenbaum, Dorian. The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence. Brill, 2015. Gilmore, David D. Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Gin Lum, Kathryn. Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction. Oxford University Press, 2014. Godbeer, Richard. Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692. Oxford University Press, 2005. Goff, Philip, Arthur E. Farnsley, and Peter J. Thuesen, eds. The Bible in American Life. Oxford University Press, 2017. Goff, Matthew. “Jubilees.” In The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha, ed. Jonathan Klawans and Lawrence M. Wills. Oxford University Press, 2020: 1–97. Gombrich, Richard F. Theravāda Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo. Routledge, 2006.

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Index

1 Chronicles, 45, 46 1 Enoch, 5, 53, 55–56, 59–62, 64, 78, 81, 83, 87, 89, 94, 114 1 Kings, 27, 53 1 Samuel, 26–28 2 Corinthians, 55, 74, 76, 77, 79 2 Esdras, 61 2 Kings, 26, 69, 113 2 Peter, 82 2 Samuel, 46, 55, 113 3:00 a.m., 4, 132, 142, 143 666, 4, 161, 164, 166 Abalam (demon), 186–88, 197, 201 Abyzou (demon), 118, 189, 197 Acts, 17, 73 Africa/African, 24, 55, 131, 173, 174, 177, 179–81 Ahab, 27, 193 Amityville, 4, 9, 106, 134, 141–51, 200 Amorth, Fr. Gabriele, 10, 141, 196, 200 An American Haunting, 135 Angra Mainyu, 45, 47, 58, 80 animism, 22 Anson, Jay, 141, 149 Antichrist, 127, 185 Antony of Egypt, 93 Apocrypha, 47, 50, 54–57, 63 Aquinas, Thomas, 16, 55

Aram, 27, 37, 57 archangel, 56, 57, 60, 61, 81, 84, 113, 164, 193 Asmodeus (demon), 57–58, 64, 167, 187 Assyrians, 36 Athtar, 76 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, 107 Azazel, 39, 41, 60, 62, 79 Azrael (demon), 113 Baal (god/demon), 42–43, 44, 69, 76–77, 78, 190, 191, 193, 194, 197 Babylonians, 36, 38, 44–46, 53, 76, 77, 169, 194 Baglio, Matt, 10, 189 Bathsheba, 123–24, 132–33, 137 Beelzebub, 69, 114, 147, 190, 194 Beelzebul, 69, 77, 143 Belial, 77, 78, 184, 185, 197 Beliar, 61, 62, 78 Believers, The, 169 Berith, 193, 194, 197 binding, 13, 60–62, 72, 82, 91 Blatty, William Peter, 10, 11, 23, 36, 38, 106, 107, 169, 171, 173, 174, 176, 180, 181, 196, 200 Book of the Watchers, The, 35, 59, 61 Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 177 219

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Index

Bughuul (demon), 169 Burnt Offerings, 169 Cain (person/demon), 59, 184, 185, 197 California, 117, 129, 153, 159, 160, 162 Canaanite(s), 41, 42, 60, 69, 191, 194, 197 Catholic, 3, 6, 9–11, 14, 16, 18, 24, 29, 47, 53, 55–57, 64, 73, 87, 88, 90, 92, 95, 99, 100, 107, 112, 118, 124, 126, 130, 133, 136, 137, 144, 149, 153, 165–67, 174, 183, 185, 186, 188, 189, 191, 192, 195–97 chaos, 6, 13, 30, 39, 43, 44, 62, 89, 94 China, 24, 30 cinéma vérité, 114, 115, 153, 155, 158, 166, 192 Clover, Carol J., 13, 14, 138 conduit, 124, 129–31, 133, 134, 136, 137 Conjuring, The, 4, 9, 18, 110, 123–38, 142, 144, 150, 200 Connecticut, 132, 145 Constantine, 17, 169, 183 daimon(es), 67, 68, 83, 117 Daniel (book of), 47, 61, 164, 195–97 David (king), 26, 27, 46, 63, 91, 113, 124 Dead Sea Scrolls, 53, 54, 62, 63 deliverance, 29, 186 demonologist(s), 9, 10, 154, 200 desert, 36, 39, 41, 58, 60, 61, 70, 71, 84, 93, 170, 173 Devil, (the), 2, 6, 9, 12, 14–16, 23, 27, 38–40, 44–48, 50, 56, 61–64, 73, 74, 75–79, 83, 88, 92, 96, 98–100, 106–8, 110–13, 116, 118, 119, 128, 129, 143, 145, 147, 159, 163, 171, 172, 178–81, 185, 191, 193, 194, 197, 200 Disciples of the Ram, 129 disease, 12, 15, 17, 28, 29, 38, 46, 67, 68, 70, 97, 106 Dissociative Identity Disorder(s), 16, 28, 175 divination, 30–32, 108

divine council, 27, 46, 54, 75 Doors, The, 196 dragon, 43–44, 74, 77, 136, 193 dybbuk, 64, 188, 189 Ecbatana, 56–58 Edom, 39, 40 Egypt/Egyptian, 37, 41, 58, 62, 79, 89, 93, 113 elementals, 12, 37, 38, 67, 106 Elisha, 26 Endor, 27 Enfield, 124, 134, 135–37 Enoch, 5, 49, 54, 55, 59, 61, 81, 114 Ephesians, 22, 77, 145, 164 epilepsy, 3, 11, 28, 29, 31, 68, 70, 72, 73, 90, 97, 106, 150 Ethiopia/Ethiopic, 53, 55, 56, 61, 173, 174 Eve, 40, 59, 79, 142 evil, 2–5, 11, 15, 21, 23, 28, 29, 36–38, 43–49, 54, 57, 58, 60, 62, 64, 67, 68, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 92, 99, 106–8, 111, 113, 116, 125, 127, 128, 130, 134, 136, 143, 147, 148, 158, 160, 169, 172, 178, 180, 188, 195, 196, 199 Evil Dead, The, 115 evil spirits, 23, 26–27, 31, 49, 57, 61, 68, 69, 71, 76, 84, 93, 106, 135, 155, 156, 170, 173, 178 Exodus, 56, 61, 62, 113 exorcism, 3, 4, 10–12, 14, 22, 28, 29, 35, 36, 60, 63, 68–73, 83, 88–91, 94, 95, 99, 100, 106, 107, 125, 126, 128, 131, 133, 134, 136, 137, 144–46, 151, 164, 165, 167, 169–81, 183–97, 200–202 Exorcist, The, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 23, 28, 29, 31, 36, 38, 39, 49, 70, 72, 87, 90, 93, 95, 97, 106, 107, 110, 116, 119, 131, 137, 142, 143, 144, 146, 150, 151, 167, 169, 170–81, 183, 184, 185, 189, 194, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202

Index

fallen angel(s), 1, 5, 6, 17, 28, 49, 61, 64, 73, 78, 79, 82–84, 96, 106, 113, 114, 124, 130, 163, 167, 170, 181, 188, 200, 202 final girl, 14, 137, 138, 156 fly/flies, 69, 113, 114, 117, 118, 142–44, 146, 147, 149, 170, 178 folk religion, 23 folklore, 6, 57, 58, 83 Frankenstein, 18 Friedkin, William, 11, 202 Gabriel (angel), 61 Garasene/Gadarene demoniac, 69, 71–72, 176, 185 Garden of Eden, 59, 75, 77, 79, 96 Gehinnom/Gehenna, 80–82 gender, 5, 6, 13, 14, 17, 18, 31, 58, 74, 88, 89, 93–96, 99, 100, 114, 119, 134, 136, 142, 147, 176, 183, 185, 199 Genesis, 36, 40, 55, 56, 59–63, 75, 77, 199 Georgetown, 11, 171, 173–76 ghost(s), 9, 10, 23, 28, 37, 38, 98, 106, 108, 109, 123, 125, 127, 132–37, 141, 144, 147, 153, 155–58, 169 giants, 60, 61, 64, 83, 95 Gilgamesh Epic, 17 goat(s), 39–41, 60, 71, 99, 117 gods, 12, 17, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30–32, 36–39, 41–44, 46, 48, 49, 59, 64, 67–69, 74, 75, 77, 79, 82, 83, 91, 98, 108, 170, 179, 191, 194 Golding, William, 147 Gozer (demon), 106, 109, 110 Greek, 3, 28, 30, 36–38, 41, 42, 43, 45–48, 54, 55, 57, 60, 61, 67, 68, 69, 74, 75, 78, 80, 81, 83, 113, 114, 117, 118 grimoires, 56, 63, 64, 90, 91, 92, 100, 101, 111, 112, 115, 123, 136, 164, 165, 186, 197 Hadad, 43, 69, 76, 77 Hades, 43, 47, 80–82

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harlequin, 108 Hell, 2, 16, 39, 44, 46–48, 50, 56, 70, 71, 76, 79–82, 83, 94, 97, 107, 113, 116–19, 125, 126, 143, 147, 150, 164–67, 178, 179, 200 Hellraiser, 60, 188 heresy/heretic, 22, 23, 114, 173 Hittites, 41, 110, 124, 159, 161, 162, 164, 166, 167 Holzer, Hans, 144 Hostage to the Devil, 10, 23, 171 Huxley, Aldous, 196 iconic book, 6 idols, 62, 74 incubi/incubus, 95, 96, 161, 162 Indiana Jones, 177, 180 Insidious, 107, 169 Iran, 37, 44, 45 Iraq, 36, 37, 38, 171, 172, 194, 195 Isaiah, 21, 40, 71, 75–77 Israel, 24–27, 36–39, 41–46, 49, 53, 54, 62, 72, 91 James (letter) 74, 82 Jerusalem, 43, 53, 63, 79, 80, 81, 89 Jesuit, 10, 93, 171 Jesus, 4, 11, 15, 17, 23, 37, 46, 54, 64, 67–77, 80, 81, 93, 94, 96, 132, 155, 172, 185, 186 Jews/Judaism, 28, 43, 45, 47–50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 70, 73, 75, 78–80, 83, 84, 105, 113, 136, 178, 183, 188, 189, 200 Job, 6, 27, 45, 46, 49 Jodie (demon), 142–44, 148 John (gospel), 69, 77, 131, 185 Josephus, 53, 54, 58, 62–64 Jubilees, 53, 55, 56, 59, 61–62, 64, 83, 89 Judas Iscariot (demon), 184, 185, 197 Jude (letter), 89 Judges, 24, 25, 194 Kenya, 177 Ketcham, Rev. Jeremiah, 143, 148–50

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Index

lamia, 117, 118, 189 Late, Great, Planet Earth, The, 12 Lee, Lia, 28 Legion (demon), 71, 73, 83, 136, 171, 174, 175, 181, 184, 185, 197 Lesser Key of Solomon, 5, 56, 64, 91, 92, 101, 136, 165, 186, 194, 197, 202 Leviathan (dragon/demon), 44, 190 levitation, 89, 100, 110, 185, 196 Leviticus, 39, 60 Lilith, 40, 41, 95, 96, 118, 189 locusts, 173 Lovely Molly, 169 Lucifer, 47, 75–78, 96, 178, 184, 185, 197 Luke (gospel), 69–73, 75, 77, 81, 185 lunatic, 70, 71 MacNeil, Regan, 11, 16, 18, 29, 83, 94, 95, 170–76, 180, 197, 200–202 Malleus Maleficarum, 92 manifestation, 30, 89 Mark (gospel), 68–72 Martin, Malachi, 10, 23, 171, 196, 200 Mary Magdalene, 72 Mastema, 62 Matthew (gospel) 45, 69, 70, 71, 77, 81 medical (explanations), 11, 16, 28, 29, 73, 90, 97, 98, 188, 192, 193 mental illness, 1, 11, 15, 29, 68, 72, 97, 150 Mesopotamia, 17, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 44, 48, 49, 58, 74, 109, 110, 159, 169, 170, 172, 173, 177, 179, 181 Michael (angel), 47, 61 Michel, Anneliese, 3, 181, 184 Molech, 74, 80, 81 monasticism, 87, 88, 92 monotheism, 17, 22, 23, 32, 41–44, 45, 49, 67, 68, 74, 75, 78, 83 monster(s), 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 15, 18, 28, 29, 36, 41, 63, 70, 73, 93, 107, 109, 118, 123, 129, 137, 149, 150, 151, 158, 167, 170, 172, 173, 176, 180, 181, 191, 192, 197, 201, 202

Muppet Treasure Island, 17, 105 Muses, 113 music, 26, 49, 109, 111, 124, 132, 188, 196 nature spirits, 1, 11, 12, 17, 22, 38, 39, 42, 43, 67, 72, 83 Nero (demon), 184, 185, 197 Nevada, 158 New England Society for Psychic Research, 10, 132 New York City, 2, 10, 12, 109, 172, 194, 196 night hag, 40 nightmares, 3, 4, 6, 9, 16, 38, 50, 80, 183, 190 Noah, 59, 60, 62 nun, 123–29, 134–38, 142, 148, 191, 192, 200 Nutty Professor, The, 21 obsession, 30, 141, 142 occult, 30, 32, 64, 108, 124, 126, 130, 134, 158, 160, 161, 165, 166, 188 Omen, The, 106, 127, 135 oppression, 4, 26, 27, 30, 94, 100, 118, 119, 130, 141, 184 Orobas (demon), 169 Orthodox(y), 16, 22, 53–56, 71, 78, 173, 174 ouija boards, 30, 31, 108, 128, 135, 147, 154, 155, 171 Paradise Lost, 6 Paul, 15, 17, 47, 73, 74, 76, 77, 79, 82, 89 Pazuzu (demon), 36, 38, 159, 172–74, 176–81 Persia, 37, 41, 45–49, 57, 58, 61, 79, 80, 89, 164, 195, 196 Poe, Edgar Allan, 9, 12, 13, 14, 17, 31, 57, 58, 61, 64, 92, 96, 100, 105, 115, 118, 124, 131, 133, 137, 138, 167, 169, 170, 176, 180, 184, 185, 189, 194, 197, 199, 202

Index

poltergeist, 14, 18, 124, 134, 135 pop culture, 1–6, 9–12, 15, 16, 23, 35, 56, 63, 71, 72, 83, 90, 92, 99, 100, 101, 105–10, 136, 171, 179, 199, 200 powers, 17, 74 priest, 4, 10, 13, 16, 27, 29, 31, 39, 46, 49, 73, 79, 91, 93–95, 107, 126–28, 130, 131, 133, 135, 137, 138, 142–49, 151, 154, 156, 163–67, 169, 171–81, 184, 185, 189–97, 202 Prince of Darkness, 106, 128 prophecy, 23–27, 31, 73, 76, 89, 108, 164, 187 prophet(s), 25–27, 37, 39, 40, 44–46, 49, 74, 75, 77, 82, 108, 112 Protestant(s), 3, 16, 29, 55, 57, 60, 87, 88, 90, 91, 100, 107, 109, 136, 149, 183, 185, 186, 188, 189 Pseudepigrapha, 47, 62, 64 psychic, 10, 25, 109, 115, 117, 132, 154 Pullman, Philip, 68 Purgatory, 81, 82, 144 Raphael (angel), 57, 60, 61 reception history, 1, 2, 5, 6 Reformation, the, 87, 88, 90 Resheph, 60 Revelation (book of), 61, 74, 77, 81, 82, 96, 109, 163, 164, 166 Roman Ritual, The, 100, 136, 144, 165, 170, 171, 176, 178, 183, 195 Romania, 125, 129, 137, 138 Romans (book of), 17 Rome, 10, 54, 179, 180, 189, 190, 192 Rosemary’s Baby, 12, 200 sacraments, 93 Sagan, Carl, 14, 15, 16, 108, 150 Salem, 89, 110, 133, 143, 146, 149 salt, 164, 187 Samael, 78, 79 Samson, 24–27, 49 Samuel, 26–28, 46, 48 Sarah (of Ecbatana), 57–59, 64, 167 Sarchie, Ralph, 10, 194–97, 201

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Satan, 45–47, 49, 50, 61, 62, 69, 73, 75–78, 82, 93, 96, 98–100, 110, 111, 130, 132, 133, 143, 153, 178, 179, 181, 185, 186, 196, 200 satyrs, 41 Saul (king), 26–28, 49 science, 4, 11, 12, 14, 15, 28, 35, 84, 88, 89, 90, 92, 94, 100, 106, 108, 150, 184, 188 seance, 30, 31, 117, 134, 146, 147 Semjaza, 61 Septuagint, 74 sex/sexuality, 5, 40, 55, 88, 93, 94–96, 98, 109, 110, 138, 142, 145, 151, 160, 161, 178, 184, 194, 200–202 Shamanism, 21 Sheol, 48, 49, 76, 79, 81 Shining, The, 116, 143 sirens, 61 slave-girl of Philippi, 73 Society for Psychical Research, 109 Solomon, 5, 30, 53, 54, 56, 63, 64, 84, 89, 91, 92, 101, 123, 136, 164, 165, 186, 189, 194, 197, 202 sons of Sceva, 73 Spiritualism, 30 succubi/succubus, 40, 95, 96, 161 suicide, 125, 130, 131, 160, 175, 178, 187, 193, 197 Sumer/Sumerians, 36, 110 Susanna, 58–59 syncretism, 24 Syria, 36, 37, 43, 60, 69, 76 talisman, 127 tarot cards, 31, 108, 178 Tartarus, 80–82 telekinesis, 176 television, 5, 9, 14, 37, 106, 108, 132, 147, 150, 151, 153 Testament of Solomon, 5, 30, 53, 56, 63, 64, 84, 89, 101, 123, 189, 197, 202 theater, 2, 4, 10, 12, 83, 124, 150, 158, 170, 177, 196 theodicy, 37, 148, 195

224

Index

Tiamat, 44 Tobias, 57–59, 167 Tobit, 53, 56–58, 60, 64, 167, 187 Toby, 157–59, 162–67 Trinity, the, 83, 132 Turkey, 37, 41, 159 Ugarit, 43, 76–78 unclean spirits, 23, 26–28, 29, 68, 70–72, 74 Uriel (angel), 60–61, 81 urim and thummim, 31 Valak (demon), 125, 126, 136, 137, 144 Vatican, the, 10, 125, 143, 174, 177, 179, 192, 193 Venus, 76 virgin, 57, 138, 148, 159, 166, 184, 197, 201 Vodou/voodoo, 24, 111, 188

Warren, Ed and Lorraine, 9, 10, 25, 106, 123–26, 129, 130, 131–38, 141, 142, 145, 149, 150, 154, 196, 200 warriors, 93, 94, 170 Watchers, 35, 59–62, 64, 84, 94 Wicca, 100, 115, 119 wilderness, 26, 39, 40, 41, 58, 60–62, 74, 77, 83, 93, 96 witches, 6, 13, 14, 17, 22, 23, 87–92, 94, 98–99, 100, 105, 107, 110–12, 114–16, 118, 119, 123, 132, 133, 137, 143, 146, 149, 157–62, 166, 200 Yom Kippur, 60 Zarathustra, 37, 44, 45 Zechariah, 45, 46 Zeus, 67, 94, 118 Zohar, the, 113 Zoroastrianism, 37, 45, 58, 72, 79, 80

About the Author

Steve A. Wiggins (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is editor of Bibles and Biblical Studies at Oxford University Press. He is also the author of Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies (2018).

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