Tektonikus: Your Honor, I have to request a recess.
The Court: Why? For legal research?
Tektonikus: No! I have to talk to the studio.
Attorney 1: Studio?
Attorney 2: You’re not still making that song of yours, are you?
Tektonikus: You mean The Diabolical Stairway Leading down into Gertie Wright’s Diabolical Basement?
Attorney 2: Yes, that’s the one.
Tektonikus: I had to give up on it.
Attorney 1: Why?
Tektonikus: It’s harder to sing backwards than you might think.
The Bailiff: You could get Regan MacNeill to do the vocals! She can sing backwards.
The Court: Actually, Father Karras was responsible for that…mirabile dictu?
The Bailiff: Ok, ok…get Father Karras.
Tektonikus: Bon jour! Anyway, he jumped out the window.
Attorney 1: La plume de ma tante!
Tektonikus: He’s a priest!
The Court: Ego te absolvo! This is fun! But what about the recording studio?
Tektonikus: Actually, it’s the movie studio.
The Court: You’re also an actress?
Tektonikus: No, I wrote a movie.
Attorney 1: What’s it called?
Tektonikus: I’m calling it, This is a Demon-Possession Movie that is really just a Demon-Possession Movie so it Won’t Have Anything Interesting in it and it will be Boring.
The Court: Wow, that’s a long name.
Tektonikus: Yes, well…the studio doesn’t exactly like it either.
Attorney 1: Who plays the demon? Pazuzu?
Tektonikus: Of course not! Besides, his flight has probably landed in Nineveh by now.
Attorney 2: How about Captain Howdy?
The Court: Actually, he is a Big-Orange-Bird-Pilot who works for Federal Express.
Tektonikus: Exactly! I’m sure he’s probably delivering boxes of John Dewar & Sons whisky somewhere.
Attorney 1: And Ouija boards!
The Court: Surely there are lots of demons who could star in your movie.
Tektonikus: Absolutely! I was thinking of going with this guy:
Attorney 1: Wow! Who’s he?
Tektonikus: His name is Samael. But I can’t use him.
The Court: Why not?
Tektonikus: Well, you see, he’s what I call a ADB.
The Court: Good Heavens! What’s an ADB?
Tektonikus: An Ambiguous Divine Being.
Attorney 1: La plume de ma tante!
The Court: We’re done with that! We are focusing on the very serious task of finding a demon for Tektonikus’s boring demon-possession movie. What’s an Ambiguous Divine Being?
Tektonikus: One who has negative connotations, but has also been saddled with positive ones. So, Samael is an angel of death who encourages men to sin, but has still basically stayed loyal to God, although he gets in a lot of trouble with him.
The Court: Sure, that won’t do.
Tektonikus: Then I thought about going with him:
The Bailiff: Now you’re talking! Who’s he?
Tektonikus: Mephistopheles. He’s the Devil’s right-hand man.
The Court: a metaphorical Sharon Spencer to the Devil’s metaphorical Chris MacNeil?
Tektonikus: Well put! Except he won’t be starring in Chris’s remake of her old movie…Angel. No! This guy’s job is to harvest the souls of men who belong to the Devil. There’s one problem.
Attorney 2: What’s that?
Tektonikus: the studio won’t work with him anymore. So, I thought about this guy:
Attorney 1: Great Heavens! Who’s he?
Tektonikus: His name is Asmodeus, which is a pretty good name for a demon.
The Court: It sure is! What does he do?
Tektonikus: I’m glad you asked! He's the King of the Nine Hells! And he is the demon of lust!
The Court: Maybe he made Regan say those naughty things! Has he taken the part?
Tektonikus: No, his agent said that he’s already working on a movie. So, then I thought about this guy:
Attorney 2: Who’s he?
Tektonikus: His name’s Abaddon, though some people call him Apollyon. He’s Lord of the Abyss!
The Court: Is he working on a movie?
Tektonikus: no…he’s available, he just wants too much to play the role.
Tektonikus: So next I thought about Buer, but he won’t do.
The Court: Is he an ADB?
Tektonikus: that’s right. He’s a demon, but he also teaches on the side.
Attorney 1: Like Father Merrin!
Attorney 2: Perrin, Merrin, and Sharon come from Merrim!
The Court: How droll!
Lady in the Galley: What does he teach?
Tektonikus: natural and moral philosophy, and he promotes healing.
The Court: Are you sure he’s from Hell?
Tektonikus: he commands fifty armies of demons.
Attorney 1: Well, I see what you mean about these ADBs you were talking about…they’re sort of a mixed bag.
Tektonikus: That’s what I think. So, I moved on to…Aka Manah!
The Court: You should have him audition for the part immediately!
Tektonikus: he already did. He’s also known as Evil Mind.
Attorney 1: Evil minds that plot destruction!
Tektonikus: I didn’t know you were a Black Sabbath fan.
Attorney 1: They seemed strangely applicable right now.
The Court: So how did Mr. Evil Mind’s audition go?
Tektonikus: he can’t speak backwards. And people throwing up makes him queasy.
The Bailiff: Well, we can’t all be a vomitologist, which, by the way, I looked up in a medical book…there is no such specialist!
Tektonikus: details, details..
Attorney 2: The Devil’s in the details!
The Court: that’s enough! This is a very serious matter! So what happened after…
Tektonikus: This!
The Court: I know him…he’s Malphas. He won’t audition for your movie.
Tektonikus: why not?
The Court: I hear that Satan has delegated a lot of duties to him, so he’s bound to be too busy.
Attorney 2: that’s too bad! I bet he could say…Ego te absolvo!
I must say that the studio has decided not to make my movie, even though I offered to shorten the name to Cut! Cut! Cut! Demon-Possession Movie! But alas, no. I can say that if I were to get the funding for private production, I would have an endless list of demons that I could choose from.
A common pitfall is exactly what happened Pazuzu. What’s that you ask? Taking a deity, and turning him into a demon. For modern Westerners, the word “demon” is a loaded one. It is common among Christians to believe in the existence of malevolent spirit creatures. This owes much to the myriad of stories in the New Testament featuring Jesus casting out demons. It is a bit odd just how much demon-possession supposedly existed in the time that Jesus lived. This phenomenon isn’t featured in the Old Testament. And whereas the Gospels, in their partial role of documenting the career of Jesus of Nazareth, actually cover a very short period of time, the Old Testament purports to be God’s revelation going all the way back to the creation of the universe. And so it is very strange that we do not read about demon-possession for thousands of years of human history, only to encounter a puzzling outbreak of rampant demon-possession during the life of Jesus. And this is the case in spite of the fact that the character known as The Satan, which I have shown in another essay is not a name, and the guy isn’t evil in the Old Testament stories in which he appears, was nonetheless clearly metaphorically around for this period of time, most likely being one of the sons of the gods that appear so frequently. That said, this story is interesting, although it must strain the limits of fundamentalism for fundamentalists and evangelicals everywhere:
And it happened one day, after the humans living on the earth had become numerous, and women were among their progeny, that the sons of the gods noticed that these women were quite attractive. So, they decided to marry some of these women. And children were born of these unions, and their sons were those famous, ancient mighty ones…and thus there were giants living on the earth.
This is, of course, Gen 6: 1-4. And what a story it is! The divine beings know as the bene Elohim, the sons of the gods, or, as it is usually rendered, the sons of God, decided that human women could be very good-looking. And! We never hear about any daughters of God, and if that is true, then it’s no surprise that God’s sons, having no female spirit-beings to court, decided to marry human women. These divine beings apparently came equipped with what was necessary, including the substance carrying DNA, and thus they could have sexual relationships with human women, if for no other reason than to end the terrible frustration. Giants? Their children were giants. And I wonder where these strange couples took up residence. Did God’s sons move to earth? Or did they take their human brides up to the heavenly realm?
I figured that they’d be a bit taller. What we are reading about is what the Greeks called demi-gods; humans who had a divine parent and a human parent. So, they were “half-gods.” And this made them mortal, but it also gave them considerable advantages over those of us whose fathers were not God’s sons. Actually, the divine parent could be either the father, or the mother. An example is Achilles, who also made a last stand if these guys are to be believed:
The guitar intro is awesome. But I digress. Achilles? He was the son of King Peleus and a sea nymph named Thetis. And so it was that Achilles was such a powerful warrior that it seemed as though nothing could stop him. Perhaps the best example is Heracles, known to the Romans as Hercules, who was the son of Zeus and a human woman named Alcemene. I’m sure I don’t need to expound on just how powerful Hercules was!
Well, you gotta start somewhere. Let us not forget Perseus,
who relieved Medusa of her head! His father Zeus impregnated his human mother, Danae, by appearing to her as a golden shower. I will go no further with that. Among the list of demi-deities are also demi-goddesses, such as Helen of Troy, daughter of Zeus and a human woman named Leda.
Hey! When your half-divine, a little vanity is understandable. Many of the demi-gods were super-human warriors, doers of great deeds, doers of not so great deeds, and there were giants among their numbers, for example, Tityos.
Even a giant can’t win ‘em all.
I’m sure that there are people who feel the need to prove their faith in God by claiming to believe the story about the sons of the gods in Genesis. Actually, the story is meant to explain the same thing that the Greek stories meant to explain…accounting for people who seem larger than life; people who seemed to be super-human. Of course, they weren’t, just ask Achilles.
Yes, you might have a divine father, but you still had a human mother, although she did try her best:
Sploosh! Still, these demi-gods did stand out from the crowd, and in antiquity, the ancients felt the need to account for these phenomenal individuals by assigning a divine-being-parent to them. The story is Genesis is as true as the Greek stories…it’s not…they’re not. But despite the fact that the sons of God married human women and had children with them…actually, the sons of the Gods, being a particularly distressing concept for so many, they have been given the title of angels. And! The fallen angels are usually given the title of demons. So what about the supposed angels who gave into their lustful inclinations and married human women? Were they angels…or demons? What about their demi-god sons? In this story one could, if one felt the need to, find an origin for the whole demon-possession phenomenon. Yet, despite this strange but understandable story, demon-possession doesn’t factor into anything in the Old Testament. This is all the more puzzling given the belief, held by many, that the universe is full of these angels and demons.
The ancient Greeks believed in something called “divine madness.” As the name implies, a person was seized by a god or goddess and behaved in a very strange manner. Apollo and Dionysus were the main deities involved, although others participated as well, including a strange type of “lesser deity” known as a daemon. Yes, demons, who were often benevolent entities. And it is clear that the strange mental and spiritual state that resulted in divine madness was often linked to what the ancient Greeks called the “sacred disease.” And what is that? Well, in short, epilepsy. The seizures and convulsions associated with epilepsy were regarded as indicating what “seizure” means…seized. Perhaps…possessed. One must agree that in the ancient world, watching someone during an epileptic incident could easily translate into the view that the person had been seized by a god…or a daemon.
The stories about Jesus were shaped by the men who eventually put them into writing. The first book was Mark, then Matthew, and finally Luke. But the amazing deeds of Jesus of Nazareth circulated in oral form before finally being frozen in literary form. And one must be ever-mindful that the stories as we have them contain elements that are not original to them, and are meant to explain things to people who didn’t exist before…readers. Now bearing “divine madness” and the “sacred disease” in mind, we find the best example of how the WRITERS of the gospel stories contextualized the oral traditions they inherited in Matthew 17: 14-18
A man appeared and knelt down in front of Jesus. He asked Jesus to have pity on his son, who was MOONSTRUCK. And when in this state, he would fall into fire and water. He told Jesus that previously he brought his sons to Jesus’s followers, but they turned out to be useless. Jesus expressed his considerable displeasure with this situation. Still, Jesus told the man to bring his son to him and JESUS REBUKED THE DEMON AND IT LEFT THE CHILD. HE WAS HEALED THEN AND THERE.
Moonstruck? Fits that caused him to fall to the ground? This child was epileptic, and his father knew that Jesus could heal him. And so he did. But a demon? There was no demon, although the seizures associated with epilepsy, as noted above, were associated with possession and the sacred disease. The demon did not appear in this story until the guys who decided to write it down in a book felt the need to explain to the reader what caused the symptoms described by the boy’s father. For them, it was demon-possession. And what about Jesus’s powerless followers?
Come on, guys, do I have to do everything myself? Still, this ultimately led to the contextualization of various healing stories involving Jesus, stories in which, originally, Jesus was healing sick people, as Jesus casting out demons, who the writers believed were responsible for human illness. This explains why, although we do hear about the lustful, horny sons of God and their human wives, we do not find the demon-possession phenomenon in the Old Testament, but do find it running rampant through the Holy Land in the days of Jesus; well, in the book version.
Only two demons in the New Testament, apart from possible references to demons in Revelation, are given names. Baalzebub, and Legion. Legion is not a name, but was the basic military unit within the Roman army. The use of “legion” is meant to denote “many.” I have written elsewhere on this website about the Legion story, stating my belief that this was not a real event, but rather a story meant to teach a lesson about how individuals may be found to bear a collective guilt for many people, and how the underlying sin, transferred from the guilty to the innocent, can only be destroyed by divine means. I have also written about the Baalzebub story, noting that Baalzebub was actually a deity located on the Philistine coast during King Ahab’s time. His appearance in the Old Testament figures in so far as a badly injured Biblical king sought healing from a heathen god, rather than the Living God. In the New Testament story, Jesus’s detractors are in fact rebuking a Jewish man who came to Jesus for healing rather than the God of Israel. This is essentially the same as the Old Testament story. Baalzebub is not a name. The god known to laymen as Baal, is probably Hadad, the Bringer of Storms. Baal is actually a title meaning Great One, Lord. Old Testament redactors opted to leave the name Hadad out to avoid possible sanction of the worship of this god, the worship of whom they believed to have been the root-cause of the dramatic exile they experienced after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C to the Neo-Babylonians. They left it in tact only in the references to Syrian kings, who bore the title Ben Hadad…the son of the Storm God. The word zebub means “flies” “vermin” “filth.”
Hey! I didn’t tell that guy to come talk to me! So zebub was entered into the text to drag The Baal through the metaphorical mud. So, Baal isn’t a name, nor is Baalzebub. For that matter, The Satan isn’t a name either.
In my opinion, early Christians found themselves in a real bind. As a Jewish movement, Christianity died out fairly quickly. Paul brought Christianity to the non-Jews, and it took off like wildfire. In the pagan world, there myriads of gods and goddesses, and more were, for the most part, always welcomed. However, the demand of Christianity was the worship of only one god. But did that necessitate the belief in only one god? Perhaps. But the pagan notion of a universe full of gods and goddesses was one that early Christians were not willing to give up, and as a result, the pagan deities were down-graded to demons. This, combined with how Jesus’s healing miracles were contextualized in the sacred texts, with a good dose of the Cosmic Dualism I’ve referred to in other postings, led to what would eventually become a whole bunch of nonsense…demonology. And it continues to plague Christianity to this day…and certainly in Regan’s day! So, when people attempt to cast Pazuzu in the role of a demon, as opposed to a daemon, he is instantly sucked into the bizarre and fictitious world of Christian Demonology. Pazuzu was an important Akkadian minor deity, and in no way anything like those who inhabit the puzzling world of non-existent entities that modern Christians will frequently draw upon as they attempt to contextualize what the Exorcist appears to be about. Father Merrin just might know all of this anyway.
Still, in the quest for star for my demon-possession movie that is simply that, and not symbolic of real demonic things, I have to acknowledge that there are of course female choices as well:
The gorgon named Sthenos, Medusa’s older sister. And bad news, guys…her favorite thing was killing men. Wait, Sethnos was actually a goddess, so I won’t give in to other people’s urges to down grade her to a demon. Here’s another man-hater who, unlike Sethnos, is a demon:
Malaysian Pontianak…the soul of a woman, wronged by men (of course), and who died while pregnant, could come back as a Pontianak. And for fans of The Ring, she does look a little familiar:
Yes! Samara! And remember! Seven days…
You can keep your TV turned off, but Samara will just turn it on herself. The Pontianak imagery is unmistakable.
There is actually a bizarre being called Lilith in the Old Testament, who is named in a list of creatures that the prophet Isaiah believed inhabited desolate places in the wilderness. Originally, it would seem, that she was some kind of bird that made spooky sounds at night, perhaps some kind of owl, such as the Screech Owl.
That’s a pretty bird, and a pretty small one. But the sound they make at night causes a shudder to run up the metaphorical spine. Given that fact, it’s not too surprising that Lilith went on to become a full-fledged female demon, perhaps along the lines of
This lady does not derive from ancient Hebrew culture, but not only is she part bird, she is flanked by what appear to be owls. There is also the succubus, which is clearly a female demon preying exclusively on men in their sleep (too bad!), although I’m at a loss to understand how you could fall for this gal:
And Pope Sylvester supposedly had one of these for a girlfriend…cover your ears…Fathers Karras and Merrin! She’s a real beauty! I’ll bet he didn’t take her home to meet mother.
Still, I think you know where this is headed. True. But I would preface my conclusion with this:
Didn’t see it coming…Abyzou, a demoness that originated in Judaism. She was also known as the Taker of Children. She preyed on pregnant women, caused miscarriages and stillbirths, and ate babies. So, it is clear that this is the none other than the Horrid Lady, known to us as Pazuzu’s Favorite Sparring Partner.
The one you love to hate! The same one who afflicts women in labor, steals their babies, chews on little kids’ bones and drinks their blood. I am certainly wrong…but look to the far right…better yet, a rough drawing:
Notice the head to the right of Lamashtu…could this be a stylistic rendition of my client…Pazuzu? He doesn’t look like the guy that only Father Merrin saw, but pigs don’t look like the one sucking the Horrid Lady’s breast. Wait…pig? Keep away…the sow is mine! And dogs don’t look like the one sucking on the other breast…wait…dog? I will discuss dogs shortly. But one who knows nothing like me might just see…Pazuzu…about to confront the awful demon who also carries snakes around with her. The snake angle is an interesting one given:
Yes, the Strange Minoan Goddess. And what is about ancient people and their Statuistic Pornography? Sorry, I couldn’t resist, given:
But as I commented before, this statue of Pazuzu, one which Merrin relates to Regan’s situation at the end of the movie, is not an ancient statue; it was made for the movie. The real Pazuzu is somewhat less impressive, as it were. One might say, if one were to make a cheap, tawdry comment, that the real Pazuzu:
Needs a Corvette or a big, giant pick-up truck! And no, guys, that doesn’t help one bit! Still, no specific name for the being who plagues Regan is provided, dismissing her claim about the devil, and certainly excluding Captain Howdy. It’s not his fault that his logo graces a whiskey bottle box in which Regan found the Ouija board.
So it must be true that the world of demons and demonesses offers endless possibilities for starring roles in the movie that I won’t be making. And that’s my point. Guys like Mephistopheles, Asmodeus, Abaddon, Malphas…the list could go on and on. And on. A list of demons? Yes, a list of demons. But a list of demons that are PURELY EVIL…they have nothing good or redeeming about them. These guys and gals would make perfect demon-possession demons. And yet, the guys who made the Exorcist picked an obscure little Assyrian deity, who was no angel I’ll admit, but one who was absolutely necessary to protect women, babies, and children for the manifestation of all things that could go wrong with pregnancy, birth, and pre-natal care, as it were. Call her Abyzou, or call her Lamashtu, or call her Samara if you’re a big fan of The Ring. And my it must have taken a lot of research to find such an obscure sort of chap. And one who has such things you’ll hate to love! He is the bad guy? Pazuzu? No. However, I have found a guy to star in my boring demon-possession movie, if I find alternative funding. This guy is perfect:
Asag..that’s one bad guy! A real bad baddie! So bad and so ugly, that animals unfortunate enough to look upon him simply died. I’ll be that Asag could say…la plume de ma tante! And maybe even…bon jour! If I had the guts, I would ask him to join my now defunct rock band as lead vocalist…singing backwards English would be nothing for him! And unlike Regan, who doesn’t even know Karras’s mother’s maiden name, so she vomits on us to distract us from the fact that if she were the Devil, and was currently visiting with Mrs. Why You Do This To Me, Dami? Well, she should be able to answer the question. A little vomit, and you don’t realize how important it is that she can’t answer the question. A little trick with the drawer! Five words of Latin and two French expressions. I’ll bet Asag could chatter on endlessly in hundreds of long dead, obscure languages, and maybe even in a few modern ones. Although I’ll bet he’d rather just eat your soul. Asag could do a lot more than make the little drawer in Regan’s desk pop open. I can’t imagine ever hearing Asag beg to loosen the straps! Restrain him to Regan’s bed? Within seconds he would have slaughtered half of Washington D.C., levelled Georgetown University, sent a hundred priests tumbling down the Diabolical Stairway Outside Regan’s Window, and perhaps he would have sent half the eastern seaboard plummeting to the oceanic depths like Atlantis…served Americana of course. Or maybe he would have been content to simply turn the whole state of Maryland into a smoldering hole in the ground. And no, Pazuzu couldn’t help! Captain Howdy? He just took off with a plane full of scotch and Ouija boards. To be clear, I will be attempting to contact Asag’s agent to see if he will star in my next attempt at making a real...This-Is-Just-A-Horror-Movie movie. That will be risky, since I have heard that even the Prince of Darkness himself gets a little nervous around this guy. In a universe supposedly inhabited by Entities in Whom Nothing Good Dwells, The Exorcist picked an Ambiguous Divine Being? If Merrin was familiar with Pazuzu, he was also familiar with Lamashtu, then I would think that the guys behind the Exorcist were as well. I have said elsewhere that within the Artificial Reality of the movie, the Pazuzu statue never appeared. Well it did, in Merrin’s mind, and in conjunction with the beginning of the movie, which I think is actually the end of the movie. For Merrin, at any rate.
One of the interesting things in the movie is Regan’s bed. And don’t take that the wrong way. Her bed is not necessarily a little kid’s bed, but it is rather modest in size:
Fast-forward to….Ego te absolvo!
Is it my imagination, or has Regan’s bed grown to be massive, compared to the bed in the previous shot? And although some fans of the Exorcist will probably say that a demon, without much else to do apparently, will shake your bed…I’m not aware that a demon will make your bed get bigger. But let’s take it to its climax:
Regan is kneeling, but it now looks as though the posts of the bed might be barely shorter than herself if she were actually standing. Combine that with the fact that the Unreal Pazuzu Statue looms in front of her, i.e. the statue is from the Strange Vision of a Dying Man at the beginning of the movie, all of which detract nothing from the almost rock-concert like stage, which a second ago was Regan’s bed, that Regan and Pazuzu are now performing on. The blue glow, and the burst of light flooding over the dynamic lead singer…now that’s a show!
If we step back, just a few scenes, we see this:
Finally…finally! Asag breaks the straps! Wait, that’s not right…Asag wouldn’t be in straps to begin with. So however it is, after constantly complaining about the straps, she finally breaks free. Then:
Too bad! One priest binds Regan at the wrists? I think I hear Asag laughing. Of course, no good deed, if it was a good deed, goes unpunished:
Now, Sweetheart! What did Daddy tell you about beating up the priests? Actually, despite being bound, she gives Karras a pretty good clobbering. Well, it wasn’t exactly an Asag-Clobbering! Asag could punch a hole in the universe.
Listen, young lady, don’t make me tell you again! But more holy water…and I guess someone should have told Merrin that he didn’t need to go to all the trouble of getting the real thing! Tap water works just fine! Still, it’s time for more writhing around on the bed with her wrists bound:
The room shakes, or the walls are banged, and Merrin falls:
And hits his head! Now my favorite shot:
Then we’re back to:
That’s right, bound at the wrists. So Karras tied Regan’s wrists together, getting a smack down in the process, she rolled around on the bed fussing and carrying on, then suddenly she wasn’t bound as she did her Pazuzu Dance, only to be back rolling around on the bed bound at the wrists. So you see, my favorite scene never happened in the Fictional Reality…it was only in Merrin’s mind, or vision, or waking-dream, or the final contextualization of these things as he lay on the floor dying. Still, nobody’s perfect.