William Peter Blatty

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'The Exorcist' at 50 -- If demons are real, how about angels? What about an eternal soul?

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'The Exorcist' at 50 -- If demons are real, how about angels? What about an eternal soul?

William Peter Blatty was pounding out the first pages of "The Exorcist" when his telephone rang -- bringing the news that his mother had died.

The screenwriter was already digging into dark material that was completely different from the whimsical work -- such as the classic "A Shot in the Dark" Pink Panther script -- that established his Hollywood career. He was writing a fictional take on an exorcism case he heard discussed during his Georgetown University studies.

But the death of Blatty's Lebanese-born, fervently Catholic mother changed everything. She spoke very little English and called her son "Il Waheed," Arabic for "the one" or "the only." He struggled with grief for five years and his supernatural thriller turned into something much more ambitious.

"I wanted to write about good and evil and the unseen world all around us. I wanted to make a statement that the grave is not the end, that there is more to life than death," said Blatty, meeting in a diner near the Georgetown neighborhood described in "The Exorcist."

It was 2013, four years before Blatty's death, and our conversation focused on the 40th anniversary of the film that brought him an Academy Award, for adopting his novel for the big screen. Now, on the 50th anniversary of "The Exorcist," critics are still debating why it had such as seismic impact.

Blatty insisted, many times, that he wasn't trying to shock people, even though the R-rated classic sent many rushing for theater exits, sickened by its stomach-wrenching visions. His goal was "apostolic, from the beginning," an attempt to inspire faith and defend core Christian doctrines, he said.

The equation was simple: "If demons are real, why not angels? If angels are real, why not souls? And if souls are real, what about your own soul? … And, by the way, if incarnate evil is real, what are you going to do about that?"

"The Exorcist" set box-office records for horror films, with numbers that soared with subsequent re-releases. At the same time, Blatty was deeply satisfied to hear priests report that, in the weeks after the movie opened, penitents lined up for confession.


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Devil in the details: Italian exorcist describes lifelong battle against demons and the occult

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At a time when the planet is gripped by a pandemic, science and faith have again come into conflict in the public square, including news reports.

That nagging age-old question about good versus evil (“theodicy”) and the role of God in our lives is on the minds of many (click for tmatt “On Religion” column) while our houses of worship remain shut down for safety reasons.

To be blunt: Debates about the nature of evil now loom over many front-page headlines.

It is in this quarantine life of ours that the book “The Devil is Afraid of Me: The Life and Works of the World’s Most Famous Exorcist” has hit our bookshelves. Open-minded journalists may want to check this one out.

While most people think of the Hollywood version of good versus evil as portrayed in the 1973 movie “The Exorcist “(which would end up spawning a series of less-than-spectacular squeals), this book assures us that the fight against Satan should not be trivialized as part of an afternoon watching a Halloween movie marathon.

The book (originally in Italian and now available in English through Sophia Institute Press) goes into great detail into the life and times of Father Gabrielle Amorth, a Catholic priest who performed scores of exorcisms over his lifetime. The book, edited by a fellow Italian priest named Marcello Stanzione, delves into great detail regarding Amorth’s biggest cases of demonic possession over the years.

While the English translation from the original is, at times, a little stilted, this is a book that forces the reader to explore the supernatural and try to grasp how the fight against evil can take on many forms.

Amorth claims to have conducted some 100,000 exorcisms over a 30-year span before his death in 2016 at the age of 91. Beloved in Italy, Amorth may be the world’s most famous exorcist, but he isn’t alone. Some 200 priests around the world are tasked with taking on demons following the consent of a local bishop.

Amorth was just one of the most famous since he worked in Rome and gained a high-profile thanks to his books and many TV and radio appearances.


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Yes, this is a hard news story to cover: More talk about The Atlantic and modern exorcists

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Yes, this is a hard news story to cover: More talk about The Atlantic and modern exorcists

The Bible doesn’t come up, all that often, here at GetReligion, unless we are talking about news stories that mangle a crucial piece of scripture. Remember this M.Z. Hemingway classic about the Ascension of Jesus? Or how about this M.Z. post, about The New York Times and Easter?

Anyway, to understand this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), I need you to pause and read the Gospel According to St. Luke, chapter 8: 26-36.

The key: Try to look at this through the eyes of a journalist who was going to mention this New Testament passage in a news report. We are doing part of a discussion of that interesting feature that ran the other day in The Atlantic, focusing on the sharp rise in requests for the ministry of exorcists in today’s Catholic church. So, here is our Bible story for today:

Then they arrived at the country of the Ger′asenes, [a] which is opposite Galilee. And as he stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons; for a long time he had worn no clothes, and he lived not in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech you, do not torment me.” For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him; he was kept under guard, and bound with chains and fetters, but he broke the bonds and was driven by the demon into the desert.)

Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how he who had been possessed with demons was healed.

Now, my goal here is not to ask readers — as skeptical journalists — whether they believe this story or not. I am not asking whether readers think this is a mere folk story, as opposed to being inspired scripture handed down by the early church. I am not asking for a scientific evaluation of this text.

I am simple noting that it is hard to read this passage and not grasp that the reality of evil and the demonic is part of the Christian tradition. What we also see her is an archetypal image of the work of the exorcist, especially that of a priest acting in the name of Jesus of Nazareth.


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Was there a big Catholic ghost in 'The Exorcist'? Don't ask the Los Angeles Times about that

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It feels really stupid to say that there was a major religion “ghost” in William Peter Blatty’s classic screenplay for “The Exorcist,” the horror classic that was based on his own novel.

It would be hard to write a story that — R-rating and all — contained more in-your-face religious issues and references than this one. Blatty, who died last year, was super candid about his goal to create a tale that (all together now) scared the “hell” out of people. But hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

No, what I want to note in this post is that the entertainment desk at The Los Angeles Times managed to do a major story about the 40th anniversary of this classic while avoiding any of its haunting spiritual symbols and themes.

How do you do that? Well, you start with the business angles linked to this monster hit and stay there. Damn the supernatural and full speed ahead. Here’s the overture:

During the production of the masterpiece of horror “The Exorcist,” director William Friedkin and screenwriter William Peter Blatty enjoyed having fun with the suits at Warner Brothers. At one point, the two were going to shoot a mock scene from the movie with Groucho Marx and send the footage to the executives.

“We always put them on,” said Friedkin. “They were always concerned that we were both crazy and would eventually implode the movie. We even staged blowups in front of them.”

Of course, study executives had other worries about this film and its contents. But, again, hold that thought, because the Times has a Hollywood event to plug.

“The Exorcist,” the first horror film to be nominated for a best picture Oscar, is being feted Monday by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a 45th anniversary, sold-out screening at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. …

Based on the runaway 1971 best-seller by Blatty, “The Exorcist” scared — and still does scare — daylights out of audiences. [Ellen] Burstyn stars as actress Chris MacNeil who, much to her horror, discovers her sweet young daughter, Regan (Linda Blair), is possessed by the devil. The only way to get rid of the demon is to call in two priests, the tormented young Jesuit Father Karras (Jason Miller) and the elderly exorcist Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) to cast out the devil.

Toward the very end of this long feature there is a hint — if you know what to look for — about the role that Blatty’s conservative Catholic faith played in this movie and the battles to get it on the screen.


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The Washington Post examines the demons (and a religion ghost) in 'The Exorcist'

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It’s that time of year again, the time when reporters keep trying to reach author William Peter Blatty to talk about pea soup, noises in the night, long flights of stairs and the degree to which human necks can swivel.


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