The Exorcist

by William Peter Blatty

“It’s a stylized ritual pretty much out of date in which rabbis and priests tried to drive out an evil spirit. It’s only the Catholics who haven’t discarded it yet, but they keep it pretty much in the closet as sort of an embarrassment, I think. But to someone who really thinks he’s possessed, I’d have to say that the ritual’s pretty impressive, and it used to work, in fact, although not for the reason they thought; it was purely the force of suggestion. The victim’s belief in possession helped cause it, and in just the same way his belief in the power of the exorcism can make it disappear. It’s—I see that you’re frowning. Well, of course; I know it sounds far-fetched. So let me tell you something similar that we know to be a fact. It has to do with Australian aborigines. They’re convinced that if some wizard thinks a ‘death ray’ at them from a distance, why, they’re definitely going to die. And the fact is that they do! They just lie down and slowly die! And the only thing that saves them, most times, is a similar form of suggestion: a counteracting ‘ray’ by another wizard.”