What is in the Media
Themes of many movies lately are surrounded around demonic possession and exorcisms. Exorcism in its literal sense is to expel or attempt to expel one or more evil spirit from a person by prayers, adjurations, and religious rites. Movies in Hollywood have taken its religious purpose out of context as explained in the article "Altered States of Embodiment: Spirit Possession in Ethnographic and Feature Films," by Kevin Anderson. In this article Anderson gives an example of the movie The Exorcist and here is a trailer of that movie,
This trailer shows how people first thought that this "disease" can be cured with medicine, but after all their trials and fails and the girl was not getting better the "exorcist" came to save the day. This movie is the start of the Hollywood phenomenon surrounding exorcisms. The Exorcist was the first introduction for many people to exorcism and demonic possessions, and from then on more and more movies and books came out shown the graph below comparing the date with how many books came out each year.
-Other forms of Medias Portrayal
- Twitter is another form of media and how stories of exorcisms and demonic possession and can be described. This tweet was recorded not more then a month ago. This shows that information can be easily accessible on the internet through many different ways. http://twitter.com/cmarieb23/status/269861216707559425
- The link above also shows that people that are "demonically possessed" are being treated in a emergency room, then probably going to the psychiatric unit in the hospital. If they do not go to the psychiatric unit then they are having an exorcism performed on them.
- This link is also a tweet, but it is about a true story about the women in the picture on the left. It is about a girl who had symptoms mimicking demonic possession but she went to a hospital first before looking into exorcisms and the doctors diagnosed her with a mental illness and through support she got over
The video below is the real exorcism audio tape of Anneliese Michel. The video begins with a form of pathos by showing pictures of Anneliese as a child before she started having symptoms that caused her to get an exorcism. Using pathos tugs at the viewers emotion throughout the video because the audio is sad to hear because Anneliese is going through a lot of pain, so the viewer feels bad for the little girl in the beginning of the video. Then the video concludes with the date of her death showing the viewer how detrimental exorcisms are. Movies that have come about surrounding this topic have portrayed exorcisms like this, but even worse. This is why most people believe that exorcism are bad and can cause death because of Anneliese's story, and the many movies that have come out. In reality many exorcism do not work, and a person has to go through the possess many times. The cases that are shown in the media are the rare cases that work and then they are turning into a amped up version in the movies. |
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The video to the left is a national geographic investigation preview to see if exorcism is real or not. It first states what people believe what an exorcism is, a priest quickly yelling at the devil to get out, but rather resolving issues that a person had so that the evil being does not have anything to hold on to anymore. Many people watch National Geographic and this is very assessable to people. This video could help change peoples belief on exorcisms so they know what is actually happening when they are being performed. |
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There are other forms of media portrayal, like websites that do not have facts to back them up but are easily accessible. One of these websites include "The 51 Ways to Tell if You're Possessed by Demons." ( http://stories.donignacio.com/51waystotellifyourepossessedbydemons.html ) If someone or someones friend believe that they were acting as thought they were demonically possessed, they could easily access this website and the reasons are very general so therefore people could believe they are demonically possessed because of a website telling them random reasons likes if they like ketchup and cottage cheese or eaten that meal three or more times. These reasons are completely random and absurd, but people desert for and answer and willing to believe anything the Internet says could and would believe this website.
-Movies
The growing interest in this topic did not only increase the number of books being published, it also created a movie phenomenon. After the release of "The Exorcist" in 1973 there have been many other released movies, but the most popular have been,
1. Demons (1985)
2. The Exorcist III (1990)
3. The Blair Witch Projects (1995)
4. Fallen (1998)
5. The Exorcism (2005)
6. Paranormal Activity (2009)
7. The Last Exorcism (2010)
8. The Rite (2011)
9. The Devil Inside Me (2012)
10. And the highly anticipated The Last Exorcism 2 (2013)
1. Demons (1985)
2. The Exorcist III (1990)
3. The Blair Witch Projects (1995)
4. Fallen (1998)
5. The Exorcism (2005)
6. Paranormal Activity (2009)
7. The Last Exorcism (2010)
8. The Rite (2011)
9. The Devil Inside Me (2012)
10. And the highly anticipated The Last Exorcism 2 (2013)
Movies have shown some truth to this topic. This truth mostly comes from the religious aspects shown in these movies. Demonic possession is a debated topic among believes and skeptics. Most believers are Christian and believe in the dead, spirits, and the afterlife. The belief is that demons can be driven out of someone who is "possessed." There have been a greater need for priests and bishops that can perform this task, so in November of 2010 the American Bishops held a conference to prepare more priests and bishops to be able to accommodate for the high demand of exorcism. Dr. Appleby, a longtime observer of the bishops, said that the Church was trying to restore exorcisms by stating, ". . .to strengthen and enhance what seems to be lost in the church, which is the sense that the church is not like any other institution. It is supernatural. . .. " This was all stated in The New York Times, a media outlet that many people read. The New York Times also states that, "Most exorcisms are not as dramatic as the bloody scenes in films. The ritual is based on a prayer in which the priest invokes the name of Jesus. The priest also uses holy water and a cross, and can alter the prayer depending on the reaction he gets from the possessed person. . .". But most people, believers or not, still think that exorcisms are bloody and scary with the priest yelling prayers out because of movies. So yes, the movies do show priests doing these acts, but they exaggerate them so they are depicted in the wrong way, and as if the priests are crazy demon killers. The picture below is a movie cover, and it connects both the bloody possessed person, with the crucifix right above her, and the words "BELIEVE IN HIM" right next to her. "BELIEVE IN HIM" meaning believe in the devil because the devil is inside her.
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Again there is some truth shown in these images. People who are Christian do believe more in demonic possession and exorcism. Because of this belief the Catholic Church sets up an exorcist hotline to deal with the demand of demonically possessed people in Milan. They say explicitly in the article on "Belfast Telegraph" that they do not know why the number has increased so dramatically recently. This statement shows how still to this day people still do not know the reason for this "demonic possession," Psychologist think that they know though. |
Psychological Aspects in the Media
There is not much representation of what psychiatrist and doctors believe is happening to these "demonically possessed" people. I believe this is because doctors have a diagnosis that there is something wrong with these peoples brains and that is not very interesting to say in the media. If there was a movie out portraying a priest yelling prayers and fighting with demons to get out of someones body, or a doctor curing a person through therapy? Almost everyone would go see the movie with the priest. Most of the media representation is articles about the medical explanations for demonic possession, and that is a mental illness caused by some sort of nervous system activity. Most of these mental illnesses that have the same characteristics of demonic possession are schizophrenia, dissociative identity, and Tourette syndrome.
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This is the most accurate media representation of the psychological aspects of demonic possession explained. This Yale University professor explains thoroughly how people perceive demonic possession and how it is actually a mental illness. |