I found myself having strange thoughts in the dead of the night about the Exorcist. When else would you have such thoughts? And I decided against expanding an already too expansive of an essay titled Noises in the Attic, I decided to spin them off into a separate essay, aptly named after the man with the starring role…Father Karras. I find this element involving Karras to be quite interesting…

Yes! A Secret Bag of Tricks! So we know that Karras is assigned to the Let’s-do-an-exorcism-even-though-we-believe-it’s-a-psychiatric-disorder to be an observing, and assisting, psychiatrist. And so Karras brought his Secret Psychiatric Bag of Tricks and…wait! There’s no such thing! And the items in Karras’s bag are medical things…stethoscope, blood pressure monitor, and whatever potentially lethal substance is in the vial that now sits on the nightstand next to Regan. Why is this interesting? Well, there are a couple of reasons. The first involves the strange context involving Merrin’s role. Just to play Pazuzu’s Advocate, look at it like this. What if the two Big Guys decided that Merrin could do the not-needed exorcism for the mentally disturbed girl, but that Karras not be there? In other words, what if Merrin was the only one there? Then he would not have known anything about Regan suddenly having a potentially serious heart condition as he gets absolutely nowhere with his exorcism. Hypothetically, she could die, and if that happened, then a very serious development would occur. What is that? Well, at some point Merrin, or Chris, or Sharon who’s got the room bugged, or all of them together, will figure out that Regan is dead. You call 911, the police and an ambulance arrive. Oh, dear. Explain why she’s dead to the cops…the exorcism killed her. I wonder if they will buy that one. And look just how sick Regan clearly is! She didn’t die because of side effects of a totally worthless ritual; she died because she was very ill and was left strapped to her bed in Chris’s house. Criminal charges against Chris, and possibly Merrin, will result. And just imagine the bad press the Catholic Church is going to get! There is no doubt that the Big Guys did not think that the Possessed-Not Possessed girl would die.

The other observation to be made involves Karras and his mother. We are given a particularly complex and confusing explanation for what his mother believes that her son did, or better yet, what Karras thinks his mother thinks he did. We get two scenarios:
 

1.      Karras suddenly finds that his mother has been checked into a psychiatric facility

2.     Karras’s mother has died, her dead body was not discovered for several days

The way we discover these two scenarios is equally complex. As concerns the supposed mental breakdown of Karras’s mother, Karras finds out from his uncle. We find out by watching the Artificial Reality of the movie. Upon Karras arriving and visiting his mother, she appears to begin blaming Karras for the fact that she is there. We find out about the death of his mother from Father Dyer, who tells Chris during her Someone Will Died Up There and Peed-On Carpet party. So we see Karras’s mother in the hospital, strapped to the bed, but don’t see anything having to do with the death of Karras’s mother.

This is quite odd. In fact, Regan, during the exorcist, accuses Karras of having left his mother to die alone. Of course, in my interpretation, Karras is hearing Regan say things that she isn’t really saying…in this case, he could be hearing his conscience speaking. But it is also possible that Regan has been told about this. Father Dyer told Chris, and I will assume that Sharon knew as well. And I have suggested elsewhere that Sharon may well have been involved in manipulating the situation involving Regan. And we know that when Karras visited Regan for the first time, when the room was not quite so frigid as it always seems to be…at night, Regan knew about the death of Karras’s mother. I believe that she was told about this, and may have been told to use it to manipulate Karras. So Karras hears his conscience, or Regan hurls out this accusation during the Great Religious Battle that took in the Hospital-Room-Looking-Room with the IV drip standing next to the bed, though we never get to see the Enigmatic Medical Personnel. Of course, we receive confirmation from Karras about the death of his mother, but indeed, after we learn about it for the first time from Father Dyer the Flyer.

So here’s the dilemma, and why it is so complicated…indeed, too complicated. What does Karras blame himself for? Whatever happened that caused the mental break-down of his mother? Or the fact that his mother died alone? Theoretically, we are given TWO things that Karras can blame himself for, and that is too complicated for a good story plot. And! The scene where Karras sees his mother in the hospital actually stands like an annoying road block between the scene where he visits his mother, and the final conclusion that appears to lead to Karras’s unbearable guilt…she died alone. So:

Karras visits his mother….Karras takes her home (Karras’s guilt?)….Karras’s mother dies alone (Karras’s guilt?)

But the story flows so much better if:

Karras visits his mother….Karras goes back to his vocation…Karras’s mother dies alone…Karras’s guilt

 
This way, the story moves better, and is a far more easy to follow story and more easy to appreciate; well, in my flawed opinion. And neither events adequately explain a Karras Crushing Guilt. In the case of the mental break-down, which is redundant given the real cause of Regan’s bizarre behavior, nothing about it is Karras’s fault. It is the uncle who commits the mother to the hospital, not Karras. So why would she blame him for this? Why isn’t she glad to see Karras, and then say something like…why you do this to me, my lousy brother? Karras is a psychiatrist, so if his mother blamed him for ending up in the hospital, he would know that he himself is to blame for none of what happened. And the story flows, then stops, then appears to flow again, then leaves us confused as to what Karras blames himself for…and to such an extent that Karras finds himself caught in a psychotic breakdown. And the road-block is made all the worse by the fact that, even though we get none of the context of the death of Karras’s mother, but do get the context of a seemingly Story Wrecking Component, we nonetheless don’t get any explanation for what supposedly led to the supposed mental breakdown of his mother. If we harmonize, then Karras, a psychiatrist indeed, takes in his mentally ill mother home. Ouch! Then she dies…double ouch! I can’t escape the feeling that we are fooled by both of these elements, but at the least, that the scene involving the hospital involves a fiction within the Fictional Reality of the movie…something that Karras has invented in his mind.

Karras’s mother dying alone is also problematic; by which I mean as the source of the Karras Crushing Guilt. First, in the original scene involving Karras and his mother, he practically begs his mother to let him take her to live somewhere else; somewhere where are people, and she doesn’t have to have her radio as the only company. In addition, she has a problem with her leg:

 and wouldn’t have to climb up and down the stairs up which we see Karras walk. Yes! And this leads to…

 Dazed and Confused! Or

The Stairway to Heaven? No! The Long and Arduous Stairway Leading to Karras’s Mother’s Apartment. Now I get Karras still feeling guilt about his mother dying alone, yet he apparently tried to prevent this from happening.  So it is more like…I wish I had tried harder to convince Mom to let me put her somewhere else, rather than…Dami! Why you do this to me? It is actually the case that in both scenarios, Karras isn’t to blame for either.

It is clear that Karras was convinced that he was to blame for something that befell his mother. In his dream, he saw something very important:

Clearly, she is upset with her baby boy. The shot is also interesting because she appears to be wearing black. Well, she isn’t really wearing black…I don’t think. The black is meant to make it so that all we see is her face. And so it is that this shot, appearing in Karras’s dream, re-appears shortly before he commits suicide. So in a strange way, Mrs. Karras saves Regan’s life.

Now, Karras motions frantically:

Then mother Karras emerges from the Stairway from the Subway, sees her son, and launches into her well-worn crying and fussing:

So why is Karras motioning so frantically? It doesn’t seem to be a result of any fear that she is going to get hit by a car. She is nowhere near the street, and I would venture to say that Mrs. Karras has been walking around what may be the Bronx all her life without getting hit by a car. Karras will run toward her:

But Karras isn’t the only one who is running in the dream. And no…it’s not Mrs. Karras, the Lady with the Bad Leg, carrying her bag of groceries. No! This guy is:

This dog is interesting in so many ways! He has his teeth bared! And he’s running quite fast. And he appears nowhere else in the movie. There are dogs at the beginning, there is Regan’s Flying Dog-Lion Creature, and this black dog. Mrs. Karras doesn’t own a dog. Karras doesn’t own a dog. And although Regan wants a horse, she doesn’t own a dog. So was this dog just tossed into Karras’s dream as a bizarre element that means nothing? Not in this movie. And! What does Mrs. Karras do when she sees her son? She walks back into the subway. What could be more important? Despite her son frantically trying to get her attention, and then getting it, she TURNS HER BACK ON HER SON AND WALKS AWAY. And just as he begins running toward his mother, we get another appearance from…

Yes…Pazuzu-Though-Not-Pazuzu! And remember that Tektonikus actually got him acquitted. The first appearance of The Entity was when he appeared in the scene involving Regan in the doctor’s office:

Hey! Demons need a dental plan! Maybe this guy should talk to Guess-My-Name-and-Guess-My-Game Guy and propose including dental coverage in their Diabolical Health Plan. I proposed that Regan didn’t actually see this face. If she did, then did Karras actually see this face? The Entity sure does get around. No. The key is this appearance of the face:

This appearance of the face is fascinating. If it is intended to be what it appears to be, then it makes the movie a crappy movie. Why? If the face is really that of a Demonic Entity, the thing that was so stupid that it couldn’t find a way out of the attic, then appearing in the front of the exhaust fan above the stove as Chris walks by and doesn’t see it...well, it would actually sink to the level of a bad comedy. But I have suggested that the face in this scene is meant to be seen by….us! Not Chris! Well, strictly speaking. The face here alerts us to something Demonic-But-Not-A-Demon. And the most important thing is that Chris doesn’t see it. She is unaware of the real demon in the story, which I have identified in the Noises in the Attic essay. If I am right, the face is seen only by the viewer, and is intended to signify where something Demonic really is. And so the same is true of Karras’s dream.

But what about Fido? I will say that he is either running to attack someone, or defend someone…which can actually be both. The dog is meant, as a dream element, to signify the need to attack Karras in order to defend Karras’s mother. If this has any merit, which I’m sure it doesn’t, then Karras is a direct threat to his mother. And as a dream element, his mother turns her back on her son. Thus the dog is not a random and meaningless element in the dream. No, he, like The Face, is meant to call our attention to something demonic. Something that involves Father Karras.

I return to the Magic Bag of Priestly Tricks…the bag that Karras brings to the exorcism…the bag with medical supplies and a drug that he plans to inject into Regan, although Merrin’s presence, not foreseen by Karras, significantly gets in the way, though he plants the suggestion in Merrin’s mind that Regan’s heart is about to go critical, but he can’t inject her without putting her into a coma. Please! Wait! I forgot this:

Dami! You worry for something! And by the way, don’t smoke in Momma’s apartment! Prior to Karras leaving his mother’s apartment, his mother knows that something is wrong. He insists it isn’t, but we know it is. She also reveals that Karras’s uncle, the one in the unreal Hospital Scenario, had been by to visit her…last month. Is this important? It would be if Karras’s uncle told her something about the Young Cleric. And so Mother Karras knows that something is wrong with her son. But I show this scene now:

Karras walks toward his mother’s lousy apartment building. We also know from her reaction, that is an unannounced visit. And we see that he is carrying his bag. He doesn’t stay the night…so why does he need his bag? When he leaves his mother’s apartment, we see him carrying the bag out with him. So why does he have it? I will admit that this bag is clearly bigger than the bag sitting on Regan’s nightstand as Karras contemplates just how he will inject Regan with the drug he has brought with him. Perhaps he has a smaller bag within in the bigger bag:

Showtime! Karras has his big bag, but we also know that he has a little bag, seeing how he sets it on the nightstand next to his mother…I mean Regan. So he has both. So a little bag inside a big bag.

Merrin arrives…with his bag. Priests carry Priest Bags…but Karras’s bag contains something that is not priestly. When Karras visited his mother…did he have the little bag inside his big bag? So he went to his mother’s apartment with his big bag, that may have contained his little bag. Then he left with both. Karras does something fascinating when he leaves…unless he doesn’t and it’s all in my mind! However, I do have a slight, albeit important, digression to make first.

Tacky wallpaper! Sorry. In his dream, he sees his St. Joseph medal falling to the floor. Regan tore someone’s St. Joseph medal from around his neck. But in Karras’s dream, it appears to simply fall slowly to the floor, with the interesting feature that the chain, which is heavier, is not falling first. So it is as if someone is slowly lowering it to the ground. But it is no longer around Karras’s neck, and perhaps it is the Hand of God which has removed it from Karras’s neck and slowly sets it on the ground.

And:

The wallpaper is blurry, but it does not appear to be the wall paper in his mother’s apartment. She does, in fact, have three different patterns. This one is in the entry way:

 And this one is in the main room:

 And here is yet another pattern:

This raises the question…where is this wallpaper to be found? I don’t know the answer to that…yet, but this apparent discrepancy also exists with the clock. And I’m in no way done looking for the solution to that one either. But it is in the same dream that a fierce looking dog appears to be attempting to protect Karras’s mother from…Karras. It is in the same dream that Karras’s mother turns her back on him and walks away…she repudiates her own son. So if by symbolically losing his St. Joseph medal in his mother’s apartment, then perhaps he has lost his special divine protection while in his mother’s apartment..because of something that happened in his mother’s apartment. And so I conclude with my own hallucination. As Karras leaves, his mother appears to be asleep in her chair. He has just emerged from a room…probably a bedroom, dressed like a priest again. How long had he been in there? He had been eating his mother’s I’m-Sure-It-Is-Great-Greek-Cooking, then had his cigarette, all while talking to Mom. We know that she was awake then. So sometime between his cigarette break, and the sudden appearance from the room in his mother’s apartment, she has fallen asleep in her chair. Her hands appear as if they have been posed on her lap. Then…on the way out, Karras places some money on the table where the radio is:

Karras has taken out some money, and is getting ready to put it on the table by the radio. And I suppose that priests don’t make a lot of money, and even so, it’s a very nice thing to do. After all, we know nothing about Mother Karras’s financial situation, although based on where she lives, it probably isn’t too good. Perhaps she should have taken her son up on his offer to move her somewhere else. Yes! Then maybe…Dami! Thank you for doing this to me! But she has made it clear that the dingy ancient apartment in a bad part of New York is her home, and she’s “not goin’ no place.” Fair enough. Then:

He sets the money down. He then does something strange. The radio is playing some sort of talk program. He changes the station to one that is playing music, and it almost seems as if the volume increases.

Then he leaves. If his mother was sleeping, why not turn the radio off? She’ll sleep better, and can turn the radio on again when she awakes. But why change the station to one playing music? He might wake her up on accident. The music is louder than what was playing before. I find this act strange, and believe that this is the last time he saw his mother alive. Of course, if she died after he left, and it was the louder music station that was playing, then it might be that her neighbors would hear the radio playing, and assume that all is fine. If it is loud enough, they might not hear that she doesn’t seem to be moving around her apartment. We know that she, despite her Baby Boy’s advice, painfully ascends and descends the Ominous Stairway…no I won’t make another Led Zeppelin reference to

Sorry…force of habit. There is another great movie that features a stairway leading to something diabolical, and there is a great shot that I will show for the overall effect:

 But the man who climbs these stairs is innocent; the sins of the father visited upon the son. And we have this awesome stairway:

Regan’s bedroom overlooks this stairway. Burke Dennings was thrown out of Regan’s window, and fell down this stairway. And we know that Karras will throw himself out of Regan’s window, and likewise fall down this Stairway to Certain Death If You Fall Down It:

Now, this essay isn’t about Father Dyer, but he does float around behind the scenes at all times. And isn’t it odd that he happens to be around at the base of the stone stairway. What’s he doing there? He isn’t present for the exorcism, even in a supporting role. He would appear to have known that it was going on, but seems to have stayed away, except for being around the stairway. I think that this is rather strange. This too is strange, and it strains credulity:

This is the scene where Chris first meets Father Karras, Father Dyer being the link between the two. Chris asks Karras, if Dyer told him about her party…
 

He sure did

About my daughter?

No, I didn’t know you had one.

He didn’t mention her?

No.

I’m sure its just me, but I have trouble with this. Dyer decided to tell Karras about Chris’s party, but failed to mention the fact that a twelve year old girl suddenly appeared in the middle of the after-party, during which Dyer was playing piano, made a strange prediction, and then urinated on the carpet? That was the most interesting thing that happened during the party! I find it impossible to believe that Dyer went to the trouble to tell Karras about Chris’s party and left this part out. Except he did, and I think that he had a good reason for doing so.

Still, in the one story element, Burke, seeking to defend Regan from a strong man, a sick priest, who is attacking her, has his neck broken, his head turned all the way around on his shoulders, is tossed out of Regan’s window, and then falls down the Diabolical Stairway. In the second story element, the first element is repeated, but with a twist. Merrin lies dead on the floor of Regan’s room. Karras attacks Regan, and attempts to strangle her to death. He then tells the demon to enter him, and he throws himself out of the window. And that necessitates Karras plunging down the Not Stairway to Heaven. So Regan’s attacker, not her defender, goes through the Diabolical Portal that is the twelve year old’s bedroom window. And so it is that Father Karras leaves his mother’s apartment the same way he went up to it…The Stairway To And From Mrs. Karras’s Apartment.

Yet one more thing can be said about the conclusion of the film, Karras’ role in it, and one final appearance of his mother, and then I will stop offering such absurd suggestions as are to be found in my incoherent ramblings. Just before Karras takes his self-inflicted plunge, he sees a face. Not…The Face. He sees a different face. Why did Father Karras kill himself? Why did he throw himself out of Regan’s window? Upon entering the bedroom, he finds:

I will point out something, though I will not be going into further details about it until another essay. But let’s step back to the previous scene:

So, Regan had been strapped to the bed at the time Merrin kneeled down to resume the ritual without Karras’s presence. So who killed Merrin? And! When did Regan get free again? She was restrained one moment, then free the next. It would be a strange thing if someone attacked Merrin, and set Regan free.

Failing to revive father Merrin, and I think he can only fail given the way he attempts….wait! I wonder if Karras could jumpstart Merrin’s heart with the drug to be found in the vial sitting on Regan’s nightstand! Instead, he violently bangs on the Old Cleric’s chest…no mouth-to-mouth…no chest compressions…not even..Regan, Sweatheart, could you please help? Well, scratch the last part of that. Then he seemingly gets rather upset when he sees this:

Now I freely admit that Regan is laughing at something that really isn’t funny…but she is, after all, mentally disturbed. Karras attacks her, and then tells the demon to enter him. I find it odd that the supposed demon does what Karras tells him. If such a demon, if it really existed, had been refusing all night long to leave little Regan, why does he feel under the obligation to do so now. No…I won’t! And in case you have missed it, Father Karras, I don’t do what priests tell me to do! Go away! The sow is mine! In another essay on this website I discussed the strange story about Jesus where he casts Legion out of a poor, unfortunate man. The demon, or demons, ask Jesus if he will let them enter some pigs grazing nearby…or perhaps they’re like Sharon and want to see what’s going on. Jesus agrees, and then the pigs jump of the edge of the cliff. Wait! Aren't sows...pigs? Are there shades of that story here? Does Karras, having strangely got the Supposed Demon to obey him, and thereby compelling it to enter him, then casts himself off the Hypothetical Reganite Cliff in order to destroy the demon? No. In the story involving Jesus, there is no demon…no Legion…there is the sin of the townsfolk and how they transferred it to the man. Sins are destroyed, not demons. That’s not happening here.  We begin, or continue to see inside Karras’s mind.

This happens after Karras mysteriously convinced the Supposed Demon to finally obey a priest. His eyes then change. And my how we have seen these eyes before:

Regan's eyes. Possessed Regan's Eyes. One of the enduring elements of her eyes is a very medical one...Miosis, which is excessive constriction of the pupil.

Now I have decided that I will discuss some elements that are the most interesting of all…those that would seem to be totally at odds with the interpretation of the story found in Noises in the Attic; in other words, those that seem to indicate just how wrong I am. It is at this point that I will look briefly at one of these elements…one of these…details, since it is Father Karris Centric:

Yes..it’s from the scene with the crucifix. And:

But, despite a discoloring of the teeth, her eyes don’t show the characteristic Miosis and greenish coloring that appear later. Step back to another controversial scene:

Fuck me! Fuck me! Regan screams at the doctor. Her eyes, and her teeth, are fine. Now something has happened that may be quite significant. And I indulge myself in a slight digression to make a point I have made elsewhere…at various times we see into the mind, or through the eyes of someone else…and not actually what is happening in the Artificial Reality. Shortly before Regan screams things that a twelve year old girl shouldn’t scream, we see spasms, or convulsions.

And:

Then…

Which leads to...Now young lady, don’t you say it!

Ok, she said it anyway. Someone’s getting her mouth washed out with soap! So what point would I make? Well, two. First, what is it that Regan is saying when she’s at this stage of her spasms:

It sounds like this to me, though I’m sure I’m wrong:

“Make it stop! He’s going to kill me!”

Make what stop? The spasms…right? Wrong! Who’s going to kill her? Pazuzu? Wrong! The Devil? Wrong! This guy:

Wrong! But I’ll get back to him in a minute. I think that “make it stop” refers to the sexual abuse I suggested in Noises in the Attic. And why didn’t Regan tell her mother? Why don’t so many abused children not tell anyone? Threats. He’s going to kill me…that’s what he said…if I tell. The other point I would make, the one about seeing things through the eyes of others…things that aren’t really happening in the Artificial Reality…yes, that’s where I started. The two different scenes with Regan having spasms. It looks impossible. Perhaps it is. But don’t forget…there are two doctors watching it happen. And both tell Chris, who reacts like we might react, that what THEY saw wasn’t impossible at all. And they should know. So I think that we see it through Chris’s eyes…Chris’s hysterical eyes…we see it in Chris’s hysterical mind.

But what about The Face? My point is probably obvious. He doesn’t seem to be suffering from Miosis. Here he is again:

Here, he’s getting closer:

Closer, but he isn’t at the point of Miosis. And the color of the iris of his eyes doesn’t quite match that of Regan’s. This is the first scene, or so I think, that we see the change in Regan’s eyes (if you are not a Vomitologist like me…be warned, but it’s necessary, and not real vomit anyway):

Now that’s Miosis, and the color of the iris of Regan’s eyes does not match the color of the iris visible in eyes of The Face. And so it is that I assert that the change in Regan’s eyes has nothing to do with her being possessed by The Face. We are given the names of two medications prescribed to Mentally-Disturbed-with-Psychotic-Elements-Regan; the first was Adderall. This was given to Regan in the belief that she was exhibiting symptoms of hyper-activity. But the second was…Thorazine. This is a very powerful and very debilitating drug with a whole of host of health-damaging side-effects that prompted the development of much safer Second-Generation Anti-Psychotics…damn! I ruined the surprise. And yes…Karras is right! Regan’s problems are psychiatric. And so she is given Thorazine, and she was possibly being given a very high dose, since the higher the dose, the more of a sedative effect this particular pharmaceutical poison will create. And one of the side-effects is…Miosis. Thorazine is also associated with ocular pigmentation issues in general. Another possible side-effect, though I may be reaching, could be the twitching of Regan’s right hand observable when Karras enters the room.

So Regan’s eyes don’t match the eyes of The Face, and the effects might be due to Thorazine, then how does this happen:

Still, I find it quite exciting that I can prove that there is no demon who suddenly opts to possess Father Karras. His eyes change? If they did, then they changed back pretty quickly:

Actually, Karras, as I’ve said, tries to murder Regan, and I will set aside the Secret Bag of Tricks for the moment, after Regan begins to laugh. And! Karras has never believed that Regan suffered from anything other than a psychiatric problem. He told the bishop, while seeking approval for the exorcism, that he really didn’t believe it. And what about Merrin? I just don’t get him. He is the only one since the 16th century, according to Karras, to have actually performed an exorcism. So he’s a great guy to send! But despite the fact that he knows why he’s there, that it will be an exorcism, he does this:

He sends Karras out to pick up some exorcism supplies. In other words, he couldn’t be bothered to come prepared! I’m here for the second exorcism I’ve performed in my life…and this Georgetown, not somewhere in Africa. This is big time! But I forgot some stuff, so I’ll send Father Karras to run to the metaphorical store, and get the metaphorical sugar that I need to bake my metaphorical Exorcism Cake. I find this puzzling, and one thing that I do know that is accomplished by this, is that Merrin is now along in the house. No…I don’t know why. It just seems very strange to forget your Religious Paraphernalia when preparing to carry out an ancient ritual. Still:

Do you want to hear the background of the case first, father? Karras asks.

Why? Merrin asks.

I’m sorry, but wouldn’t it help to know a few details about the situation? The only question that Merrin seems to ask is what Regan’s middle name is. For such an incredibly rare event, and given the fact that he didn’t even remember all his doo-dads, it’s even stranger that he sees no need to find out anything other than Regan’s middle name. I would think that demon-possession would be a rather personal kind of thing to experience, and so too the exorcism designed to put things right. If all Merrin was there to do was to read from his Magic Book, why couldn’t Karras have done that? Of course, we do find out indirectly that one person doesn’t seem to be able to perform an exorcism all alone. How do I know that? When Karras continually becomes distracted by the things that he imagines are happening, he isn’t reading the “response.” If you had only had one priest, who would read the response? Still, the bishop wants Merrin…whose name rhymes with Perrin…and…name game time! What other name rhymes with Merrin? Well, yes, I guess that was easy…Sharon! And just wait until you read about Captain Howdy’s package in the next essay…The Rise of Captain Howdy! I guess my point here is that as far as Merrin goes, I don’t see the bang for the buck.

I think it be might be helpful if I gave you the different personalities that Regan has manifested, Karras says. So far, I’d say, there seem to be three. She’s convinced….

There’s only one, says Merrin.

Wow! Karras remains absolutely dead-set on his position that Regan is mentally ill. And…he doesn’t say that she has three demons. I see no way around the conclusion that he believes something that Chris said earlier…split personality. I will add that there has been no evidence of Dissociative Personality Disorder, other than Regan’s psychological warfare tactic of manipulating Karras, when she speaks of “us,” referring to herself. Three? Can a mentally ill person speak English backwards…even if that person isn’t in a 70’s rock band singing about the Little Toolshed of Satanic Suffering? No, which confirms the position I have taken elsewhere that the tape which supposedly features Regan speaking backwards, was actually manufactured by Karras when his attempt to get more than five words of Latin out of Regan failed miserably. This is the second time that he has attempted to get Merrin to listen. Merrin says that there is only one? Apples and oranges, Merrin! Karras is speaking of personalities, not demons; but Merrin is speaking of demons, not personalities. And even if demons are the thing…how does Merrin know that there is only one? As a priest, I would think that he is familiar with…

We are legion, for we are many!

Merrin seems to be decidedly uninterested in this exorcism, or so it seems to me. And I would note one more thing…as wrong as Karras is about his diagnosis, which is as right as Karras is about the fact that there is no demon, I would have loved to hear him finish his thought that began with…She’s convinced…If Merrin weren’t so rude and dismissive, he might have let Karras finish. But he’s convinced that he’s right, even though he doesn’t seem to care very much. And oh, father Merrin, no drinking before exorcisms! This isn’t a primitive culture, after all.

But, Karras attempts to kill Regan more than once. Having finally convinced the demon to enter him, and he then gets Thorazine-eyes, he makes a second attempt to kill Regan:

And what about his bag of tricks? This scene is in the run-up to the great conclusion:

Notice the desk to the right of Regan’s bed. There is nothing but a lamp. Then Father Merrin leaves, soon followed by Karras himself. Merrin has to take his pill, so Karras enters the room again. He has his visual and auditory hallucinations, and then

So it is now that Karras breaks out his Secret Bag of Tricks, only to have Merrin suddenly appear. It is very strange that Karras waited all of this time to produce his Magic Bag, and it isn’t until now that suddenly, after Karras has seen his mother in Regan, and will now listen to her supposedly speaking Greek, that our Deadly Doctor is tempted to give Regan the contents of the vial he brought with him.

But now…why did Karras kill himself? Perhaps he hurled himself out the window because, having given up 3 attempts to murder Regan, he sees this:

Yes…the face of the one he couldn’t escape. He heard Regan talking in her voice, he saw Regan actually change into her:

And seeing his mother’s face materialize at the window of Regan’s room, he knew he could no longer live with what he did to his mother. He simply couldn’t go on anymore…he must face his fate and his judgement. And so now, having left his mother in her chair as he left her apartment, changing the station on the radio to something that the neighbors would surely hear…Dami, why you do this to me? Only for her to be found dead, and having seen this in his dream:

Well…there was only one thing to do. The interesting thing, actually one among a million, is the fact that Karras saved Regan. He brought her out of her psychotic state. She believed the delusion she had created in her mind…she was possessed, and by none other than the Devil himself. Why that delusion? Remember the movie-loving detective? When he asks Chris for her autograph, he tells her which of her movies was his favorite. Remember what he said? You guessed it…Angel. And what is the opposite of an Angel? You guessed it again..you’re good at this…a demon. And so Regan’s demon becomes the opposite of Mommy’s Angel…though I firmly believe that Chris was no Angel. But how did Karras save Regan? She remained completely unimpressed with the exorcism, but she appears to have believed that with the final act of Karras’s life…her demon left her, and entered Karras. And so it was gone. That’s strange…the 88 Barringer Clowns were actually right! Well, they were close. And it seems that Karras’s last trick was his best trick. I’m sure Regan would agree.