Catholic exorcisms have fascinated cinema for decades, but their history and ritual are much older and more nuanced than the literature suggests. pop culture. Stripped of its artifices – priests armed with crucifixes and holy water invoking the power of Christ to chase away dark forces – it remains a structured religious act, heir to an ancient ritual lineage and a complex fight against evil, recalls an article in National Geographic.
The practice of exorcism exists in different forms depending on religions and societies. In the Catholic tradition, the ritual aims to expel demons, but evil can also be incarnated as a temptation or spiritual defilement. This relationship with adversity and evil has been structured over the centuries: purification rituals in Mesopotamia, where priests, the ašipu, fought against malevolent spirits; to ancient Greece, where the “daimôn” designated both beneficial and evil forces.
Judaic texts also relate stories of exorcism, such as that of Eleazar, who extracted demons through his nose, invoking the name of King Solomon as a spiritual shield. With the rise of Christianity, exorcisms and possessions were consolidated, playing a unifying role in community cohesion. The abandonment of pagan beliefs became almost an obligatory rite for all newly baptized people, sometimes accompanied by collective exorcisms and anointing with consecrated oil.
Holy water and small purple scarf
During the early Middle Ages, each Christian could in theory “self-exorcise” by praying to a holy figure or by going to do so at a sacred relic. But under the effect of religious tensions and heresies, the Catholic Church formalized the rite and gave it an institutional framework. With the rise of the Cathars and other dualistic cults, exorcising also became a means of disavowing “bad” doctrine, strengthening the link between orthodoxy and spiritual purification.
The publication of Roman Ritual in 1614 marks a major step, codifying the rite according to precise steps which will remain in force until the 1960s (with certain portions not being revised until 1999). The priest must don an alb and a purple stole, confess his own sins, then lead the traditional “exorcism” by reciting psalms, prayers and invocations, notably the Liturgy of the Saints and the famous formula: “I command you, unclean spirit, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…”.
The use of holy water, the sign of the cross and the visualization of the crucifix punctuate this journey, punctuated by adjurations addressed both to God and to the demon himself, the latter being ordered to leave the body of the possessed. The ritualist can adapt certain formulas according to the resistance of the evil spirit, and the total duration of a session varies from an hour to a day depending on the most complex cases. At the end, a prayer of thanksgiving closes the ritual, supposed to guarantee the release and protection of the person exorcised.
Today, exorcism retains an ambiguous place within the Church. In 1999, the Vatican published a revised version of the Ritualmaintaining the link between baptism and purification, and opening the rite to a less spectacular reading. The training of exorcists and the verification of supposed possessions are obligatory steps today. Caution remains in order, practice must avoid any slide towards sensationalism or superstition.
