Exorcism: what the devil is going on? Fueled by books, movies, and a therapeutic culture, exorcism is alive and well in America. But are we dealing with demons or diversions?

Over the past several years I have discovered it side of America I never knew existed. In the course of intensive and far-flung research, I have sat in on dozens of exorcisms--not Just Roman Catholic exorcisms But a wide variety of Protestant ones also. I have met with hundreds of people from various walks of life who are convinced not only that demons exist but also that they routinely cause trouble in the lives of ordinary women and men.

Standing at the back of an auditorium in suburban Chicago, I have seen several hundred impeccably groomed, middle-class Americans writhing and shrieking and groaning (some simulating masturbation) while attempting to free themselves from demons of sexual perversity. At a drab medical complex on the outskirts of Boston, I have watched an avuncular physician exorcising spirits of guilt and self-hatred from one of his patients. At several conservative Protestant churches in the Midwest, I have observed people retching and cursing and flinging themselves violently to the floor while being delivered of entire squadrons of demons.

I have received numerous invitations to undergo exorcism myself, once from two Episcopalians who wanted to shackle me to the support beams of a rural shed so my demons would depart peaceably. I have observed people at high-toned suburban churches vomiting profusely into trash containers while being purged of their evil spirits. I have heard fabulous accounts (from apparently sincere and lucid people) of gyrating heads, levitating bodies, and navel-licking tongues.

I have interviewed psychiatrists charged with the responsibility of evaluating suspected case of demonic possession for the Catholic Church in the United States. And, not least of all, I have personally encountered more varieties of Catholic exorcism--official Catholic exorcism, bootleg Catholic exorcism, you-name-it Catholic exorcism--than I ever imagined existed.

As unlikely as it may sound, exorcism is alive and well in contemporary America. It's a booming business--operating below the radar perhaps, invisible to anyone not specifically on the lookout for it, but booming nevertheless. Untold numbers of Americans, many of them staunchly middle-class--people you might chat with at the supermarket checkout counter--have undergone exorcisms of one kind or another, and many claim to have come out much the better for it.

It wasn't long ago, however, that almost nothing of this sort was going on in the United States. As recently as the late 1960s, exorcism was all but dead and forgotten--a fading ghost long past its prime. By the mid-'70s, however, the ghost had sprung miraculously back to life. Suddenly, countless people were convinced that they themselves, or perhaps a loved one, were suffering from demonic affliction, and exorcism was in hot demand.

What brought this about? A number of factors, but none more important, especially where Catholic exorcism is concerned, than the release of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist--the book in 1971 and the movie two years later--and the publication in 1976 of Malachi Martin's demon-busting pulp classic Hostage to the Devil.

As if by alchemy, the dramatic (and seductively grotesque) arrival of demons on the screen and the bestselling page resulted in demons rampaging through the bedrooms and workplaces of Middle America. The pop culture industry cast its spell, so to speak, and an obliging nation fell into line. New exorcism ministries were brought into being to deal with the sudden onslaught of demonism, and older ministries were rejuvenated and found themselves with more business than they could possibly handle.

In a sense, the real curiosity isn't that exorcism is still practiced in contemporary America, but that it isn't practiced more widely. It would be difficult, after all, to imagine a better deal. Whatever one's personal problem--depression, anxiety, substance addiction, or even a runaway sexual appetite--there are exorcism ministries available today that will happily claim expertise for dealing with it, with the significant bonus that one is not, for the most part, held personally responsible for the problem. Indwelling demons are mainly to blame, and getting rid of them is the key to moral and psychological redemption. Personal engineering through demon-expulsion: a bit messy perhaps, but relatively fast and cheap, and morally exculpatory. A thoroughly American arrangement.

And this is precisely the point. In addition to being influenced by the popular entertainment industry, the practice of exorcism in contemporary America is remarkably well-suited to the therapeutic ethos of the prevailing culture. Exorcism ministries offer their clients endless possibilities for personal transformation. With its promises of therapeutic well-being and rapid-fire emotional gratification, exorcism is oddly at home in the purchase-of-happiness culture of turn-of-the-century America.

While fascinating in its own right, evangelical and charismatic "deliverance ministry" never really succeeded during the 1980s in capturing the imagination of the broader American public. For big-league wallop there was still no substitute, apparently, for exorcisms officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church and performed by bona fide hero-priests under the direction of their bishops. Although few and far between, these were the exorcisms the popular media feasted on, the inescapable standard by which all other forms of exorcism were measured. By almost universal consensus this was the genuine article, the truly epic struggle between supernatural good and evil. Everything else was pale imitation.

The Catholic model

The exorcist is late. Seven people are waiting for him, four women and three men. I had met all of them the previous evening at a special Mass the exorcist had arranged. I stand with them for 15 minutes, no one speaking. Just when I am thinking about looking for a pay phone, Father Jack pulls up in a dented Ford with his two assistants, Father Peter and Father Joseph. A blunt, burly, balding man in his mid-50s, Father Jack eases out of the car. Car trouble, he mutters.

Father Jack unlocks the front door of the defunct office building where the seven exorcisms are supposed to take place, and everybody follows him in.

While the group of seven take turns signing release forms exempting the local Catholic diocese from any legal liability stemming from the exorcisms, the exorcist huddles in a corner with Dr. Joan Smith, a psychiatrist from a nearby hospital. Dr. Smith has been working with Father Jack for about a year, reviewing some of his cases and suggesting which ones might be suited for exorcism. Just suggesting, she had stressed to me. The final call is always Father Jack's.

Janice, a 25-year-old woman who has flown in from San Francisco for the occasion, is the prize subject of the day, the only one of the seven Father Jack suspects of being seriously demonized, and he wastes no time taking command. He rips into the exorcism with the swaggering confidence of someone who knows he can't lose. And for Father Jack, it's really that simple. He has his faith, he has his church's authority and his church's ritual, he has the mysterious powers conferred on him by ordination. And the demons? The demons have nothing; the demons stand no chance.

But something's wrong. Things aren't proceeding quite as anticipated. Father Jack thrusts and jabs, he presses a crucifix against Janice's face, sprinkles holy water on the top of her head, but there's no response; the demons aren't cooperating. Janice sits absolutely still, stone-faced, staring straight ahead, not so much as a quiver. Father Jack thunders through the ritual, but the only response he elicits from Janice, toward the very end, is a slight crinkle of a smile and a slow, don't-waste-my-time shake of the head.

Father Jack returns the smile. He asks Janice to stay put for a moment then goes to the rear of the small office to confer with Dr. Smith, who's standing, arms folded, with her back to the wall. It's an awkward moment. This was supposed to be the main event, but the demons (so far) are a no-show.

Father Jack had invited me to sit in on today's sessions, suggesting, hopefully, that Janice's case promised real fireworks. In the jargon of the trade, "fireworks" refers to dramatic demonic manifestations--if not spinning heads at least something comparably spine-shivering.

Janice's case had come Father Jack's way several months earlier. One of his old seminary buddies, who was now pastor of a church in the San Francisco Bay Area, had phoned to tell him about a shy, petite, young woman who was looking for help. The young woman, Janice, was attending college part-time, and she lived with her mother. Her most recent boyfriend had been involved in the occult, and following their breakup she became convinced that she was demon-possessed.

She was tormented by graphic visions of mutilated bodies and by sinister, snarling voices urging her to murder her mother and then commit suicide. Two or three times a week she also experienced a painful sensation of some snakelike entity working its way into her abdomen. Janice had sought relief through a variety of New Age therapies, but as her fantasies of death and violence grew increasingly intense, she decided to try the Catholic Church.

The Bay Area pastor had heard that Father Jack had been appointed to the office of exorcist, and he asked him if he was interested in Janice's case. Father Jack agreed to send his assistant Father Joseph to undertake a preliminary investigation. After interviewing Janice, Father Joseph performed a diagnostic procedure sometimes referred to in exorcism circles as a "provocation." He prayed over her, pressed a crucifix against her cheek, and sprinkled her with holy water. If demons were present, this would probably draw them out.

The provocation, apparently, created quite a stir. As soon as he Sprinkled her with holy water, according to Father Joseph, Janice blistered the air with profanity and threatened him with disembowelment; she tore open her dress, then threw herself to the floor and slithered around the room. Upon hearing from Father Joseph, Father Jack arranged an appointment for Janice with a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told Father Jack that Janice was suffering from mild neurosis but that he couldn't rule out the possibility that she was also demonized.

Father Jack confers briefly with Dr. Smith at the back of the small office. Then, a reassuring wink my way, he positions himself in front of Janice again.

He wants to go through the ritual a second time, he tells her. Sometimes it has to be repeated to get the desired results. Once again the exorcist puts on a rousing show. His voice hoarse, his face soaked with sweat, he gestures emphatically, commanding the demons to reveal themselves. But it's the same scene as before. Janice sits still as a statue, impervious, looking slightly bemused. Then, just as the ritual is drawing to a close, she flops out of her chair and starts slithering across the room. She bumps her head gently against the door, then slithers and squirms underneath the desk.

From my vantage this seems nothing more than a courtesy flop, an obliging slither. It's almost as if Janice felt compelled to do something to salvage the performance. The exorcist was working his heart out, but she hadn't been holding up her end of the bargain. She wanted to reward him with at least some token gesture. The point isn't lost on Father Jack. He asks Dr. Smith to help Janice up before she hurts herself, then advises Janice he'll be in touch soon to talk about follow-up treatment.

A growing phenomenon

This was my first direct exposure to Catholic exorcism--official, fully credentialed Catholic exorcism, that is. I'm not sure exactly what I expected, but it was something rather different from what I got. The proceedings had an improvised, patchwork, here's-what-we-do-now feel to them. There was no scene of shuddering finality, no soul-piercing moment of truth. Everything seemed drawn out and inconclusive--somehow too human.

Partly this was because Father Jack and his assistants were relatively new to the job, feeling their way, ironing out the kinks as they went along. Partly it was because they had stretched themselves thin by scheduling half a dozen exorcisms for the same day. Mainly, however, it was because this is how exorcisms tend to go. Whatever else they might be, they're resoundingly human affairs, with all of the faltering unremarkability this implies.

The truly remarkable thing is that the exorcisms took place at all. As recently as the mid-1990s there was only one officially appointed priest-exorcist in the entire country--approximately one more, it might be added, than even most bishops were probably aware of. It wasn't, of course, that there weren't plenty of people looking for Catholic exorcisms at the time, but actually getting one was about as easy as booking a midnight flight to Mars.

But then the tide began to turn. Over an 18-month period, beginning in the fall of 1996, 10 Catholic priests in the United States were appointed to the office of exorcist. Ten exorcists might not seem like many, especially in a country with a Catholic population of more than 60 million. Compared with the recent past, however, it was an outright bonanza.

Officially sanctioned Catholic exorcisms are being performed today in practically every country in the world with a significant Catholic population. Some of these countries are more exorcism-intensive than others. Italy in particular is a hot spot, and the United States seems on its way to becoming one. Theologically conservative bishops are far more inclined to appoint exorcists than are more liberal bishops, and the exorcists they appoint tend to share their theological conservatism.

It's difficult to say how many officially appointed Catholic exorcists there are worldwide today, but it's almost certainly more than 150 and probably fewer than 300. This is a significant increase over just six or seven years ago, but hardly a staggering number. Even today the Catholic exorcist remains something of a rare breed.

But for a significant minority of Americans, Satan and his henchmen are still very much alive. It's among Americans such as these that exorcism is most commonly practiced, and in their hands the ritual isn't just some medieval hand-me-down or a scream-in-the-dark B-movie contrivance. Rather, it's a spiritual weapon of utmost, life-and-death importance.

But does it work?

Does exorcism, when all is said and done, actually deliver on its promises? Does it bring relief or freedom or wholeness? And--the million-dollar question--does it really de liver people from demons?

It's the demons I'm most often asked about. A wide variety of people--some deeply religious, some not religious in the least--want to know about the demons. Some of them take up a tone of self-protective irony, but they still want to know. They're genuinely curious--and they're half hoping I'll confirm what they've heard only from Hollywood. They're half hoping I'll tell them something juicy, something outrageous--something they'd never admit to believing. Most of all, they want to know this: Does exorcism really work as it's advertised? Does it really succeed in driving out ... demons?

The truth is, I don't know about the demons. I've personally witnessed more than 50 exorcisms, and I still don't know.

At the exorcisms I attended, there were no spinning heads, no levitating bodies, no voices from beyond the grave. There was plenty of vomiting, no question about it, but nothing more impressive than what you'd probably catch most Saturday nights out behind your local bar. I wasn't counting on demonic fireworks, but neither was I counting them out. After all was said and done, more than 50 exorcisms--no fireworks, none at all.

Occasionally I found myself in a situation where I was the odd man out, the party pooper of all party poopers. Just about everyone else on hand would claim to see something extraordinary, and they'd be disappointed that I hadn't seen it also. "You must have seen the body rising. The rest of us saw it. It clearly rose two, maybe three feet off the chair. How could you not have seen it?"

"I'm sorry, but I didn't see it. I was looking as hard as I could, and I didn't see it."

No, I didn't see it, and the reason I didn't? There was nothing to be seen. People tend to be so keyed up during an exorcism, so eager to sink their fingers into something preternatural, that they easily persuade themselves they're seeing, hearing, or feeling things that simply aren't really there to be seen, heard, or felt.

As for myself--open-mindedly skeptical, skeptically open-minded--I was ready for any kind of action, but I was determined not to fall into the trap of conjuring things up just to suit the mood of the occasion. What I saw (I'm quite sure) was actually there to be seen; what I didn't see ... well, I'm afraid not.

So what did I see? Some of the people who showed up for exorcisms seemed deeply troubled, some mildly troubled, and some hardly troubled at all. The symptoms they complained of--addictions and compulsions, violent mood swings, blurred self-identities, disturbing visions and somatic sensations--all of this seemed to me fully explainable in social, cultural, medical, and psychological terms. There seemed no compelling need whatsoever to bring demons into the equation.

The same with the antics I sometimes witnessed while the exorcisms were actually taking place, the flailing and slithering, the shrieking and moaning, the grimacing and growling--none of this, insofar as I could tell, suggested the presence of demons. It was sometimes an attempt to satisfy the dramatic needs of the moment, sometimes an exercise in sheer self-indulgence, and sometimes an indication of profound personal distress. But demons? Here again, I saw no evidence, nothing that had me itching to make a break for the door.

Some of the people I met during my research claimed to have experienced significant improvement in their personal lives as a result of undergoing exorcism. I have no way of knowing how extensive this improvement was, or how long-lived, or whether the people who told me about it were always telling the truth. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that they were telling the truth, and that their exorcisms really did have positive therapeutic impact. How can we account for this? Well, it's quite possible that exorcism sometimes works, but this need not have anything to do with the driving out of demons. What it has to do with, in all likelihood, is the placebo effect.

In psychotherapy--indeed, in virtually any medical procedure--the expectation of getting better may contribute a great deal to one's actually getting better. Simply receiving treatment--any kind, but especially treatment in a supportive healing environment--is the ticket at least partway home. The medical sciences have always strongly suspected that suggestion and expectancy are powerful inducements to healing, and today only the most hardened scissors-and-scalpel skeptic would argue otherwise.

Now, if placebos can be effective when administered in the relatively antiseptic confines of a doctor's office or a consultation room, imagine the possibilities in the emotional swelter-box of an exorcism.

Most people who seek out an exorcism are suffering from some psychological or emotional problem that they're convinced has been caused by demons. They believe that only through an exorcism will their problem be eliminated and their circumstances improved.

The person charged with performing the exorcism and the supporting cast of friends, family members, and assistants anticipate the same thing. All parties to the exorcism have an enormous investment in the affair: They want it to work, they expect it to work, they pray for it to work. And the symbolic universe they inhabit, with its shared religious meanings and discourse, demands that it work.

It doesn't always work, of course, but often enough (if only temporarily) it seems to. And little wonder--exorcism is a ritualized placebo, a placebo writ large, one that engages its participants on levels to which more conventional therapeutic procedures could scarcely aspire.

Here again, exorcism is more in tune with the times than one might imagine. In recent years increasing numbers of Americans have started experimenting with alternative medical therapies. Unhappy with the current state of the medical establishment--its impersonality, its technology, its bureaucratic chilliness--they've sought healing through the soothing remedies of herbalists, homeopaths, acupuncturists, diet gurus--you name it.

Though I wouldn't want to stretch the point too far, exorcism may be regarded as part of this scene, on its fringes perhaps, but part of it nonetheless. It, too, advertises a drug-free, X-ray-free, incision-free approach to restored health. It promises to mend not just the body and the mind but the soul as well. It's an alternative medical therapy for those who see demons, not cholesterol, not toxic particles, not environmental stress or genetic predisposition but rather real glowering, hell-bent-on-evil demons as the major scourge of our time.

In September 2000 a newly restored director's cut of The Exorcist was released to movie houses around the country. It was the cinematic event of the season, inciting yet another jag of media-obsessed demon-and-exorcism blather. For a solid month, or so it seemed, you couldn't pick up a newspaper, flip through a magazine, or turn on the television without coming up against it. More than a quarter century after Father Damien Karras first smoldered across the screen, exorcism was still sexy, still very much in demand, still panted after. It hadn't lost a thing.

MICHAEL W. CUNEO, who teaches sociology and anthropology at Fordham University in new York City. Excerpted from his book American Exorcism, [c] 2001 by Michael W. Cuneo. Used with permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc.