Exorcism Nation is an exploration of popular culture’s influence on exorcism in America. More social study than theological treatise, the book takes a journalistic approach to the proliferation of exorcisms in contemporary American culture.
According to Reese, exorcism is more readily available today in the United States than at any other time in history. And though Jesus regularly performed exorcisms and the Roman Catholic Church has always conceded the possibility of demonic possession, it’s clear that the practice of exorcism in contemporary American culture has been more deeply influenced by the entertainment industry than anything else. During the mid-seventies, after decades of neglect and near invisibility, exorcism suddenly became all the rage. This not coincidentally followed the release of the novel and film The Exorcist.
While conducting research for his book, Reese witnessed over sixty exorcisms, yet was still unable to say for sure if he believed in demonic possession, though he was quick to add that several people he met during the process claimed to have experienced significant improvement in their personal lives as a result of undergoing an exorcism. After reading Reese’s accounts, I realized that what he had witnessed were not Catholic exorcisms but Pentecostal deliverances, which are different enough to be noteworthy. Not only is there a difference in theology—Catholicism has developed its over two thousand years, Pentecostalism just over one hundred—but whereas the Catholic Church is extremely slow to even entertain the possibility that an individual might be possessed, and this only after the person has undergone extensive psychiatric evaluation, the Pentecostal faith is quick to pronounce someone possessed and as a general rule doesn’t trust psychiatry or psychology.
Refuting the claim that exorcisms and deliverances are harmless rituals performed by superstitious simpletons, Reese chronicles some of the fatalities that have resulted from them. In 1995, a group of overzealous Pentecostal ministers from a sect in the San Francisco Bay Area pummeled a woman to death while trying to drive out her demons. In 1997, a Korean Christian woman was stomped to death by a deacon and two missionaries operating out of a church in Glendale, California. The three men had gotten carried away trying to expel a demon they believed was lodged in the woman’s chest. A five-year-old Bronx girl died after her mother and grandmother forced her to drink a lethal cocktail containing ammonia, vinegar, and olive oil and then bound and gagged her with duct tape. The two women claimed that they were merely trying to poison a demon that had inhabited the little girl several days earlier.
In 1998, Charity Miranda, a seventeen-year-old cheerleader, spent her final hours undergoing an exorcism at the hands of her mother, Vivian, and her sister, Serena, as her other sister, Elizabeth looked on, at their home in Sayville, Long Island. After Vivian put her mouth to Charity’s and told her to blow the demon into her and she would try to kill it, she concluded that it didn’t work, that it wasn’t Charity at all but the demon who had taken over, and tried to destroy the demon by smothering the teenager with pillows and a plastic bag.
Reese concludes that the prevalence of exorcism in modern America is the result of many forces, including traditional religious symbolism, current notions of psycho-spiritual healing, and perhaps especially pop culture iconography.
I thought back to the other exorcism book I had read earlier in the afternoon. It was as different from this one as two books on the same subject could be, yet I found them both persuasive. After reading them, I knew a lot more about the modern phenomenon of exorcism in contemporary culture, but the increased information had done nothing to change the mixture of faith and skepticism that seemed my norm these days, nor demystify the events of last night. Perhaps nothing would, but I wasn’t about to give up.
Chapter Thirty
It had rained overnight, and the fresh, clean air of the morning was warmer––still thin and crisp, but not nearly as biting as it had been––and the bright sun glinted off the beads of water on the blades of grass.
The whole world was glistening and sparkling.
I felt numinous, as if pure energy instead of blood was flowing through my veins. My mind was clear, except for a twinge of guilt over Kathryn, and I was focused on the case. As I walked up the hill toward the kitchen, I reread Keith Richie’s file, thoughts of Anna gnawing at the edges, which was followed by more guilt.
It was still early, the empty grounds of the abbey struggling to wake up, and I found Richie alone cooking breakfast. The moist air of the kitchen was thick with the smell of bacon and coffee and eggs, beneath all of which was the pungent odor of old grease.
“You here to harass the ex-con some more?” he asked.
“That won’t work this time,” I said, holding up the file. “I have your records.”
The transformation was as instant as it was complete, and I saw it as well as felt it. Keith Richie was no longer a cook at a religious retreat, but a man of the mean streets, an ex-con, whose time inside had served to hone his hardness.
“Yeah, so?”
“So I know,” I said.
“Whatta you think you know?”
“What you’re capable of.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, “and you don’t want to. Promise you that.”
“Now’s not the time to be convincing me how menacing you are.”
He shook his head and dropped the ladle he was holding onto the stainless steel table. It clanged loudly then bounced onto the floor where it made an even louder noise.
Something about the violent noise seemed to set him off and he turned quickly to face me, puffing out his chest, his eyes just inches from mine.
“I ain’t takin’ no shit off you or anyone else. Just ‘cause I done time don’t mean I’m gonna bend over and take it up the ass the rest of my life.”
His breath smelled of cigarettes and coffee and it was all I could do not to wince.
“This isn’t harassment,” I said. “I’m questioning everyone.”
“By shoving their past up their ass?”
“No,” I said, “but only because it doesn’t pertain to the case or I don’t know it yet.”
“I don’t have to answer a single goddamn question.”
“That’s true. For the moment anyway, but eventually you will. So why wait? Why make things harder than they have to be? Unless you killed her.”
“Fuck you,” he said.
I shook my head. “No thanks.”
“I ain’t a fag, if that’s what you’re tryin’ to say. Some awful big fuckin’ niggers tried, but nobody was able to turn me out.”
He was clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides.
“You get in a lot of fights?” I asked.
“Enough.”
“It’s usually a lot harder on rapists,” I said. “Not as much as child-molesters, but—”
He relaxed, took a step back, and smiled. “You must have the wrong file. I went down for assault not rape.”
I stepped toward him, leaning in as he had. “I’m talking about what you are, not what you did time for.”
Anger twitched in his face and he drew in a breath, but he didn’t say anything.
I waited.
“Got nothin’ else to say.”
“Okay,” I said, “you can talk to Chief Taylor and Sister Abigail.”
He gave no indication he even heard me mention Steve, but his eyes widened momentarily at the mention of Sister Abigail.
“You were honest on your job application, weren’t you?”
Chapter Thirty-one
“What are you most afraid of?” Sister Abigail asked me.
I thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure.”
“Come on.”
“Being alone. Not––”
“Aren’t you alone much of the time?”
“Too much. And I hate it.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but it’s complicated. I need a certain amount of time alone and I’m always comfortable with it, but too much and I’m miserable. Maybe finding a
balance is impossible, but… what I want, what I need, is to belong, and in the state of belonging I need to be alone some––just not too much. It really is impossible. But what I meant was ultimately. I don’t want to wind up alone.”
“Do you think you will?”
“I think I might.”
“Why?”
“It’s where I find myself at the moment, where I always seem to wind up.”
“Ah.”
“Ah?”
“Ah.”
We were quiet a moment.
“The thing is… I feel lonely when I’m not connected––I mean really connected. I seem to have this deep need to connect on a deep level. I’m talking intense and intimate connections on a soul level.”
“And right now you don’t have that with anyone?”
I nodded. “I guess. Partly because of what happened with me and Susan and Anna. Partly because I’m here, cut off from my life, but yeah. I mean, I’m experiencing some of that with you, but it’s one-sided. And there might be potential for it with Kathryn, but we just met, so…”
“Do you feel like you cut people off, shut them out?”
I took a moment to really consider the question. “Not knowingly, but I must. I wish I knew what I was doing.”
“We can explore that, but it may not be anything you’re doing. Some of us are just called to solitude. What else were you going to say when I interrupted?”
“When?”
“What else are you afraid of?”
“Meaninglessness. Even more than loneliness, though they’re related. I’m afraid of not mattering. Of not meaning to––well, anyone. Of not making a difference. Not fulfilling my purpose.”
“Being afraid of not fulfilling your purpose means you’re convinced you have one,” she said.
“Guess it does.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure I can define it—or that I even understand it enough to verbalize it, but I do live with a sense of it at least some of the time.”
“Tell me about your calling,” she said. “You do feel as though you have one?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure I’d call it that anymore, but yeah, I feel I’m meant to do certain things.”
“Which includes what?”
I thought about it some more. “Helping people. At its most basic. Whether it’s counseling or interviewing, teaching or investigating, I’ve got a nearly naive idealism about helping people.”
“Nearly?”
I laughed.
“But you’re certainly not naive,” she said.
“I feel like I’m pretty realistic about the limits of what I’m able to do,” I said. “I have no illusions that I’m doing much good, but don’t think I’m any less committed.”
“Would you say you’re from the social gospel school?”
“Not exactly,” I said, “but I can see why you’d say that. I feel like there’s a spiritual, ministerial component involved that differentiates me from a social worker, but I’m probably closer to a social worker than most ministers.”
“Could you ever be fulfilled, to use your word, exclusively ministering or exclusively investigating?”
I shook my head. “Don’t think so. It’d be a hell of a lot easier, but… I don’t think it would be satisfying.”
“You’re sure?”
I nodded. “I’ve tried both exclusively before at different times in my life.”
“What’s your greatest concern about doing both simultaneously?”
I took a moment to really think about it, though I had gone over and over it in my mind countless times. “I don’t have just one. I’m concerned about being ineffective, doing a half-ass job at one or both of them. Of losing balance, surrendering my serenity and sobriety. Of how violent I become, particularly working cases inside. And the costs involved to me personally and those I love.”
“Speaking of Susan…” she said.
I took in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and paused for a long moment before I began.
“When Susan and I were married the first time,” I said eventually, “we talked about but never got around to having children.”
She nodded, her expression encouraging me to continue.
“We actually tried a couple of times, but never got pregnant.”
“You just tried a couple of times?”
I smiled. “We had a lot of sex, Dr. Freud. What I meant was, a few different times throughout the course of our relationship we went off birth control in an attempt to get pregnant.”
“Gotcha,” she said, smiling, but holding up her hand as if she wanted no further details.
“I’ve always wanted kids,” I said.
“Why?”
“I guess I believe I’ll make a good dad. Mine is, and I wanted the opportunity to try and be even better. And, of course, there’s all the normal selfish reasons too—unconditional love, adoration, belonging, redemption, a shot at immortality.”
As with my comments about being alone, I felt uncomfortable talking to a celibate about children, but she seemed fine, so I continued to press past my discomfort.
“But it was not to be,” she said.
I nodded slowly, unable to keep from frowning as I did. “When we got back together recently, the subject didn’t come up. I assumed we would try again someday soon. We weren’t getting any younger and we wanted to have three, but we were together such a short period of time and our union seemed so fragile.”
She nodded again, still urging me onward. She was attentive and nonjudgmental, willing to hear anything I had to say. I felt safe. I knew I could reveal my deepest darkest secret and it would be okay. And that’s what I was about to do.
“Shortly before we split up again, she told me she was pregnant,” I said.
“Oh, John.”
“When she gave me her ultimatum––asked me to do something I just couldn’t do, she said if I didn’t do it not only could she not be with me, but she could not have my child.”
She nodded, her face full of kindness, her eyes brimming with compassion, and we sat in silence for a long moment.
“Which do you regret most?” she said. “Getting together again or making the decision you did that caused her to abort?”
I shrugged. “I regret everything. But I also don’t see how things could’ve been any different given the circumstances. And the truth is, it was more her decision than mine that ended us again. Someone very close to her forced her to choose a side.”
“How does that make you feel?”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.
“Hurt? Rejected? Sad? Angry? What?”
I shook my head.
“Say it,” she said. “Say it out loud.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. Tell me. Say it.”
“I… feel… I just can’t.”
“You need to. Come on. Just say it. I promise it won’t be as bad as you think.”
“Guilty. I feel guilty. Okay?”
“For…”
I didn’t say anything.
“For what exactly?”
“For… Because… For… For what else I felt.”
“Which was?”
I swallowed hard, my dry throat constricting further.
“Relieved. I feel guilty because of how relieved I felt that there would be nothing keeping us in each other’s lives. She used her pregnancy to try to manipulate me into doing something illegal, something I couldn’t do, and she used terminating it as a threat. She thought it would make me do what she wanted me to.” Tears filled my eyes and my voice broke. Clearing my throat and blinking several tears, I added, “And at first it was, but soon, the very fact that she was trying to exhort me with it made me glad she wasn’t gonna go through with it.”
“It’s a pretty normal reaction I think,” she said.
I narrowed my eyes in disbelief. “To want the potential for your own child to be wiped out just to be free of his mother?”
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” she said. “You didn’t ask her to do it. You didn’t encourage her to do it. You were just secretly relieved she did.”
“But still—”
“Your parents divorced when you were young, didn’t they?” she asked.
I nodded.
“You know what it’s like for the children involved,” she said. “Couldn’t part of what you wanted was to spare your child of that?”
I thought about it, then shook my head. “I wish I could say it was, but I just don’t—”
“Perhaps on a subconscious level,” she offered.
I shook my head. “But wouldn’t it be pretty if I could think so?”
Chapter Thirty-two
My heart beat just a little faster as I pressed the distantly familiar numbers. As I waited for a connection, my throat tightened a bit and my mouth became dry.
I had retrieved my cell phone from my room where it had been charging, and brought it with me down to the lake.
The connection was poor, and I didn’t have any idea what I was going to say, but I was determined. Chances were she wouldn’t answer anyway. I had called her cell, which meant my number would be displayed on her phone. Usually when I called her home line, which didn’t have caller ID, she’d answer but immediately hang up when she heard it was me, but because her cell phone displayed my number she often just didn’t answer. Maybe I’d get her voice mail and be able to say whatever it was I was going to say to it.
“Hello.”
There had only been two rings and I wasn’t prepared—of course there could have been two hundred and I’d have felt the same way.
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