Why are exorcisms on the rise?

The little girl is ripping out pages from the Bible and devouring them whole. She is a growling, contorting, entity. "Don't be scared," she says. Of course, it's not the child herself who's issuing taunts and chewing on Psalms. It's the devil, back on his possession game in the latest installment of "The Exorcist" franchise. And scaring us is the whole point here. Forget zombies, vampires or earth-invading aliens. There are few human terrors greater or more universal than our dread of embodied evil — in ourselves or someone we love. Likewise, there are few mysteries more enigmatic or fascinating than the rituals we've designed for sending that evil back where it came from.

And in a world afflicted with so much wickedness, is it any surprise that exorcisms seem to be on the rise?

Stories of possession and exorcism rituals exist in nearly every culture of the world, from Judaism to Buddhism to Voudou. But thanks in large part to a memorable head-swiveling cinematic character, Roman collars and crucifixes have long cornered a unique place in the American image of exorcism.

Religiosity in the U.S. is at an all-time low, yet nearly 60% of Americans still believe in Hell and the devil. And in Christian belief, possession is an elemental — if often misunderstood — aspect of the narrative. Jesus was an exorcist, as were the apostles. Yet exorcism in the New Testament is treated as an almost offhand affair. Jesus efficiently orders the demon possessing a man (or two men, if you're reading Matthew) to go inside of some pigs. The casting out of seven demons from Mary Magdalene is not presented as a dramatic scene, but rather a simple case of being "healed." Exorcism has long been a part of Catholic tradition, but for most of modern history it's been a similarly subdued and less commonplace affair, free of moody clerics lurking under streetlights, entirely devoid of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells."

While not denying any potential theatrics from the dark side, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops even now calls exorcism merely a "a specific form of prayer that the Church uses against the power of the devil." Exorcisms can be minor, "to break the influence of evil and sin in a person's life," like the low-key the preliminary rites before baptism. Or they can be major, performed by a priest specifically appointed to the office of exorcist and upon someone determined to be suffering "genuine demonic possession." 

That's the other thing — for Catholics, you can't just Google your local exorcist and say you think you've come down with a touch of Pazuzu. There is a recommended series of "medical, psychological, and psychiatric testing" before referral to an exorcist, and even then the individual needs to exhibit certain telltale symptoms of possession.

Speaking with Catholic Answers in 2020, Father Vincent Lambert, exorcist of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and author of "Exorcism: The Battle Against Satan and His Demons," outlined the signs: "The ability to speak and understand languages otherwise unknown to the individual, superhuman strength, elevated perception, knowledge about things the person shouldn’t otherwise know, and then an aversion to anything of a sacred nature." In recent years, the Church has taken pains to distinguish the hallmarks of mental illness from what it deems possession. In most quarters (though unfortunately not all) today, you can't just start acting unusually and get labeled a diagnosis of demonic inhabitation. 

Assuming the individual meets the criteria, the ritual — which may have to be repeated multiple times before it sticks — generally doesn't feature a lot of razzamatazz. Writing in Catholic Exchange three years ago, famed exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth recalled that "While there can be extremely violent situations or truly remarkable displays" within an exorcism, the process itself is pretty straightforward. "The exorcist does not establish a particular formation during the rite... It is only necessary that he begin with the words 'Ecce crucem Domini,'" he wrote. In a typical major exorcism, he demands the demon to state his name, and commands him "to return to the eternal inferno or to go under the Cross of Jesus."

While the American Catholic church says authentic demonic possession is "rare," what's still ubiquitous is the idea of being in the grip of the evil. And even nonbelievers find the subject matter the stuff of classic horror. When the "Exorcist" franchise arrived — first via William Peter Blatty's loosely inspired-by-true-events 1971 novel and then by William Friedkin's iconic film — it represented both an indelible pop culture phenomenon and a shift in American Christianity, the mainstreaming of a primal terror that resonates just as deeply today.

But the groundwork had already been laid before Linda Blair ever spit out that pea soup — and not via the Vatican. "The primary motor driving this exorcism boom is the Pentecostal boom," explains R. Andrew Chesnut, Ph.D., a professor and religious studies coordinator at Virginia Commonwealth University. As Elizabeth Yuko wrote for the History Channel last year, it was the rise of Charismatic Christianity — and televangelists like Billy Graham — who helped bring the fiery and literal-minded approach to contemporary demon-busting. 

It's still that side of the Christian aisle that's keeping the flame alive in our consciousness. "The great majority of exorcisms that happen on any given day across the globe are not Catholic," Professor Chesnut explains. "They are Pentecostal." It's in many ways just a numbers game. "Catholic exorcisms require an episcopal or bishop approval, and the priests need to be trained in that," he says. "There's a whole bureaucratic process to having an exorcism approved. In great contrast, in the Pentecostal churches, anybody who believes they're gifted by the Holy Spirit, with a gift of exercising demons can perform them." 

But Catholic exorcisms are on the rise, too. A 2018 Atlantic feature noted that while official numbers are hard to pin down, there are roughly one hundred active Catholic exorcists in the U.S. — up from just 15 a few years earlier. The Catholic training organization the Pope Leo XII Institute acknowledges that it is "aware of the many reports of an increased number of exorcisms in recent years," though it only coyly admits that "This is true." But writing in Religion and Theology in 2022, authors Nicole M. Bauer and J. Andrew Doole marveled, "Exorcism is flourishing once again in the Roman Catholic Church today."

That spike leads us back to exorcism's evangelical ties."The boom in Catholic exorcism is basically a response to the Pentecostal competition," posits Chesnut, "and the real engine driving Catholic exorcism is the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. A disproportionate number of priests trained as exorcists are part of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement." The uptick may also be influenced by the presence of a Latin American in the chair of St. Peter, and a phenomenon known as "the Pope Francis effect." Chestnut recalls, "In the first year of his papacy, Pope Francis actually performed a quick impromptu exorcism on a Mexican parishioner and the square of St. Peter at the Vatican."

The growing demand for exorcism seems also to correlate neatly with our modern, western longing for alternative healing and for quick fixes. What if emotional distress could be expelled as decisively as a demon thrown back into the lake of fire? But exorcism, it should be noted, is not some spiritual form of Ozempic.

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As Father Vincent Lambert told Catholic Answers, "It’s not just about casting evil out. One has to want to invite God in. I’m encountering so many people today that believe they’re dealing with the demonic, but they want nothing to do with God." He said, "They just want me to fix their problem, but they don’t really want to make a commitment to God and to grow in faith, holiness, and virtue. The danger, I think, is that exorcists today are being viewed as magicians."

Our endless curiosity around possession no doubt stems in part of the ancient fear of the loss of self. But our current fascination may represent something else — our increasingly tenuous grasp on our confidence in our own future and well-being. Pessimism is a scary, howling void. "What do you think evil is?" asks Ann Dowd in the trailer for "The Exorcist: Believer." "We're born in this world with hope and dreams and a desire to be happy. The devil has one wish, to make us lose faith, to kill it in us. And the devil never gives up."