I have written before about what appears to be Karras’s dream, after he passed out from drinking the booze Father Dyer stole from Tom…if we are to believe Dyer and dismiss the possibility that he stole the whisky from Chris’s house just after the party. I have referred to this “dream” as The Great Vision…at least I think I have. Obviously, The Great Vision does include Karras’s dream, but goes well beyond his dream. How do I know? Well, there are elements…images if you will…that can’t possibly have anything to do with Karras.

 I have said elsewhere that The Face is not Regan’s Captain Howdy or, obviously, Pazuzu. It is Chris’s image of what she believes is the other half of Regan’s split-personality, though she will describe this to Karras later in the film, and he will see it too…but not here. I will not go into detail about the role of…

…Mercedes McCambridge. She played “Pazuzu” in the film. However, I do not believe that she was actually playing Pazuzu. She was not originally included in the credits. In the director’s cut, she was, but not credited with any specific role. Here is a quote of a statement she made…

To convey the feeling of the Devil being trapped, I had the crew tear up a sheet and bind me, hand and foot.

This statement contains a monumental blunder…even if you believe that Pazuzu was the demon in the film, it takes someone who knows nothing about Pazuzu whatsoever to equate Pazuzu with the Devil…this simply is not the case, even if there is an allusion to Pazuzu in the New Testament (Prince of the Powers of the Air). Regan claimed to be the Devil in only one scene. That was a big mistake, and Karras made that clear. And the claim to be the Devil was never repeated again. If you’re the Devil, you could easily break the straps holding you to the bed. If you’re the Devil, you could know Mrs. Karras’s maiden name, but Regan didn’t. She never makes the claim to be a specific entity after her epic fail. Realizing this, it suddenly dawned on Chris and Regan that this inability to do anything supernatural could be a major impediment to getting an exorcism. So Regan did her little desk-door trick. Karras showed her out on this as well…she was unwilling to do it again when Karras made it clear that this time he would be watching carefully. She then threw out a couple of phrases in Latin and French. She in no way could speak in Latin. Karras showed her out on this too…

Quod nomen est mihi

She could not answer a Latin 101 question…what is my name? Her French was limited to a phrase from a child’s ditty, which she probably learned in school. This was another epic fail. But why was this attempt made? The answer to that is clear. Following Karras’s first visit, Chris asked him what would be signs of possession. Karras went for the showy one…speaking languages that the possessed person couldn’t know. Then during the second visit, Regan attempts to do exactly that. And it is another epic fail. Why did Karras bring his reel-to-reel tape recorder? Because Chris called him and said, lo and behold, Regan can speak Latin and French…which she can’t. Chris obviously took Karras’s reference to strange-speaking, to coin a phrase, and worked with Regan to give it a shot. In the Crucifix scene, Chris, and we, see a chair and a dresser move by themselves. I do not believe what actually occurred in the Artificial Reality. In these scenes, Regan is not included. I maintain that Regan moved the chair, and attempted to push the dresser over and onto Chris, though she was not strong enough, and Chris blocked Regan out of her perception of the event…knowing that Regan was trying to kill her. Chris simply couldn’t believe that Regan would try to kill her, so she mentally changed the picture. Since we see this through Chris’s eyes, we see what she sees, and we don’t see what she doesn’t see. But why try to kill her mother? Because of something Chris said to Kindermann. Speaking of Dennings, Chris says…he would have no reason to be in her room. I believe that Regan was going to state that Dennings was in her room to molest her, and as she fought back, he ended up doing what Regan wanted…crashing through the window to his death. For Regan, this was taking Dennings side over her own, and this was tantamount to betrayal…Regan saw Dennings as the greatest threat to taking her mother away from her. Why didn’t Karras bring a cassette recorder? A reel-to-reel tape can easily be played backwards, and then the backwards sounds can be recorded forwards. John Lennon, in an early example of backwards-masking, did exactly that in the Beatle’s song…Rain. At the end of the song, you hear what seems to be gibberish, but is actually the chorus of the song played backwards, then recorded, and spliced into the forward-recording of the song. Without knowing this, people will attempt to decipher the words as if they were sung forwards. When the rock band Judas Priest was taken to court over the suicide, and attempted suicide, of two hardened juvenile delinquents, the singer, Rob Halford, was accused of backwards-masking. So he showed up in court with recordings of his lyrics, which he played backwards. But he told the people in the courtroom what they would hear…and lo and behold…everyone in the courtroom heard the same thing...none of which were really there. When Led Zeppelin was accused of backwards-masking in the song Stairway to Heaven, many people believed that the name…Satan…was audible. But that was thoroughly debunked…though it does seem to sound similar. People will attempt to hear sounds or words they recognize when confronted with gibberish…order from the chaos. This works particularly well with visual images too…

…the famous Face on Mars. It sure looks like one, but it isn’t. UFO mythology is the same way…mis-interpretation of lights in the sky and other irrelevant UFO-stuff. A similar thing happens with claims involving the siting of ghosts. If you listen carefully to the only scene that supposedly features Regan talking backwards, it is gibberish, but the listener will suddenly hear all kinds of things. Karras actually had two tapes of Regan to use to this end…the other was given to Karras by Chris. In the novel, Karras hears all kinds of gibberish as he listens to his tape. Not only that, he claimed to hear his own voice backwards. So he has more vocal options to choose from to create a tape of backward-speaking.

...danger. Not yet. [indecipherable] will die. Little time. Now the [indecipherable]. Let her die. No, no, sweet! it is sweet in the body! I feel! There is [indecipherable]. Better [indecipherable] than the void. I fear the priest. Give us time. Fear the priest! He is [indecipherable]. No, not this one: the [indecipherable], the one who [indecipherable]. He is ill. Ah, the blood, feel the blood, how it [sings?].

Yes, Karras is attempting to make sense out of gibberish, and in several instances, he can only write…indecipherable. Ah, the blood, feel the blood, how it sings? Nonsense. There simply is nothing there.

I have no name. I am no one. Many. Let us be. Let us warm in the body. Do not [indecipherable] from the body into void, into [indecipherable]. Leave us. Leave us. Let us be. Karras. [Marin? Marin?]...

All demons have names, and Rite of Exorcism requires that the officiating priest make every effort to get the name of the demon. Of course, one must reckon with the fact that what illicited the supposed backward-speaking was yet another epic fail on Regan’s part…Karras threw tap water on her, claiming it was holy water. Regan responded in the way she thought a possessed person would react to holy water. But it is fair to expect a demon to know the difference, and Regan’s best ploy would have been to laugh. But she got it wrong, and if the catalyst to the reaction was fake, then there wouldn’t have been anything supernatural, since nothing would have happened. So she decides to groan and moan and make a bunch of noises.

But it is apparent that Karras was recording before the holy water gimmick, meaning that he had not only Regan speaking, but also himself. And that was the basis for the tape. He was also in possession of a tape Chris and Regan made, intended for her father. So he had two tapes with Regan speaking, one tape with Regan howling, one tape that included Chris, and himself.

It should also be remembered that in the film, the source of the noises in the attic, a very important clue, is never identified…nor is the flashing of the lights in the house. This is dropped without many commentators commenting on it. It is not rats, it is not squirrels. But why would a demon be rummaging around in the attic? Is he an antiques collector? In the film, these sounds are also heard immediately preceding the Crucifix scene. So, if Regan is possessed in this scene, then why the rummaging sounds in the attic? In other words, if Regan is already possessed, and her mother will see the headspin, then the noises in the attic are not being by the demon…demons cannot be in two places at the same time. I’ve never heard of demons being able to bilocate. There are saints credited with this ability…

…St. Drogo; St. Anthony of Padua; Francis Xavier Marin de Porres; Maria de Agreda; Maria de Leon Bello; Alphosus Liguori; Gerard Majella; Joseph Joseph of the Cross; St. Lydwine; Our Lady of the Pillar; and John Bosco. But obviously they couldn’t. Only God can be in different places at a time. No interpretation will stand up without providing an answer to the question…what is making the noises in the attic, when it can’t be Supposed Demon, who supposedly possess Regan. Simply put, the noises in the attic are made by Sharon and Mary Jo Perrin, as they search the attic for the items that were in the Captain Howdy Orange Bird Scottish Bagpipe player box.

So apparently, Mercedes didn’t seem to know what part she was playing…the Devil? Or Pazuzu? Of course, the name Pazuzu is never used in the film. It wouldn’t be until the horrible sequel that we hear the name of Pazuzu. It would be much longer before we knew the key details about Pazuzu…and most fans of the movie don’t to this day. They would be left with…the Devil, even though Karras proved this wrong. In the novel, Blattly refers to Pazuzu as a demon. This is incorrect, and correct, at the same time. Most people raised in western cultures have adopted the word…demon…as it is used in the New Testament. I do not believe that there ever were actual demons…people believed that demon-spirits caused illness and other afflications. This is clear in the case of the…Moon Struck Boy…where one gospel states that a demon was at work, but another gospel makes no reference to a demon on the part of the father, which is correct in that the boy clearly suffered from epilepsy. The word demon comes from ancient Greek..daemon, which simply referred to spirits who were lesser divine beings. I would argue that this is exactly what Pazuzu is…a daemon (Greek sense of the word)…but not…a demon (Christian sense of the word).

A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”  (Mark 9: 17-18).

Mark claims that it is a spirit that causes the boy’s symptoms.

Then on the following day, as they came down the hill-side, a great crowd met him. Suddenly a man from the crowd shouted out, “Master, please come and look at my son! He’s my only child, and without any warning some spirit gets hold of him and he calls out suddenly. Then it convulses him until he foams at the mouth, and only after a fearful struggle does it go away and leave him bruised all over. I begged your disciples to get rid of it, but they couldn’t.” (Luke 9:40).

Luke agrees with Mark.

 When they returned to the crowds again a man came and knelt in front of Jesus. “Lord, do have pity on my son,” he said, “for he is a lunatic and is in a terrible state. He is always falling into the fire or into the water. I did bring him to your disciples, but they couldn’t cure him.” (Matthew 17: 14-16).

It is true that in the case of Matthew, Jesus will refer to a demon (17:18). But the boy’s father said nothing about a demon or spirit, which is quite different from Mark and Luke. I suggest that Matthew 17:18 was written, or redacted, in such a way as to bring in line with Mark and Luke. The term…lunatic…comes from the name of the Roman goddess of the moon…Luna (Greek, Selene). But the Greek uses the name of Selene for…moonstruck. This term is similar to the word…lunatic. So we get two goddesses of the moon in one! Sorry, but I really dig Selene. This, and confusing shift from one thing to another, i.e. illness vs. spirt, also occurs when Jewish scribes use the name…Beelzebub…but Jesus suddenly shifts to the name…Satan. These shifts are not original to the text. The point is that the father’s statement in Matthew 17:14 clearly supports the conclusion that the boy needed a cure from his epilepsy. And it is simply the case that Regan is epileptic, and shows ictal and postictal symptoms. This is the only real explanation for several things we witness in the film, particularly Regan’s behavior in the doctor’s office…

…Regan wanders around aimlessly, with no apparent awareness of her surroundings, before falling to the floor. I have yet to hear a commentator with a good explanation of this. She’s just be silly? No. I believe this is what is known as Postical Wandering (PIW). That is the best explanation for Regan’s behavior. In addition…

…Regan behaves violently toward the doctor. The Sow is Mine scene is an excellent example of the range of bizarre manifestations that can be observed with epilepsy…

…spastic movements with muscle concentrations. These are exaggerated in Chris’s mind…there are two doctors present who do not see anything seriously abnormal with these spasms.

…her eyes roll back in her head. This can happen with epilepsy.

…throat swelling…and…

Regan begins shrieking “f*** me” in a high-pitch voice. This shrill voice is typical following the swelling of the throat. In addition, some epileptics will suddenly shout obscenities sexually inappropriate things, and also engage in what is called Genital Manipulation, or sexually inappropriate behavior, something that will also appear later in the Crucifix scene twice, including…

Lick me.! Lick me!

Keep away! The sow is mine!

So who is the sow? In the novel, there is the sow, and the piglet. I believe that in this scene from the movie, Regan’s mother is the sow. In the same way she saw Burke Dennings as a threat to her possession of her mother, so in this scene she sees the doctor as the threat, which connects with sexual activity. Regan knew the facts of life, and that her mother and father engaged in sexual activity. She then offers herself to the doctor so he will “f***” her and not her mother. After Regan becomes convinced that Chris has betrayed her, Regan attempts to kill her mother. And although both are behind the push for an exorcism, Regan is still angry at Chris…

Why don’t you stick your c*** up her ass…

Yes, a little girl who needs a spanking. But who is she talking about? The answer is…Chris. Here again we have the use of sexually inappropriate language…in just one sentence!
I offer four more indications of epilepsy, all in the following shot…

First…the lips. Lip-chewing is common. Second, Regan stares blindly. This is called Staring Into Space. Third, she is mumbling incoherently. And fourth, she has harmed herself by cutting her face with the crucifix she took from the wall of the room…and then took home with her.

Again…Staring Into Space and incoherent mumbling.

…ok, enough with the Staring into Space. How about…

…seizures, which Chris will contextualizing as the bed bouncing up and down. And…

…urinary incontinence. Don’t forget…

… an uncontrolled bowel movement. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out…

…vomiting. I feel obliged to making the final observation on this point…it is amazing how many commentators will ignore what is right in front of their eyes. By that I mean…

Nasogastric Tube Regan…for feeding. I’m not surprised, given her vomiting.

Medical-type stuff on the little desk to Regan’s left.

IV Regan and more medical stuff on the desk to Regan’s left. Regan’s bedroom looks much a hospital room…nasogastric tube, IV, and various other things needed to treat a sick person. I fail to see how any of this would have anything to do with demon-possession. They, however, fit with the care of a sick little girl. So, is Regan the Moon Struck Girl? In a way…yes. There are two views here…this is all caused by a spirit which must be driven out…or a sick kid who needs to be cured. The doctors didn’t find epilepsy. And here we have a searing condemnation! Regan was failed by the doctors, in the same way many epileptics were failed by their doctors.
But what of Pazuzu? The novel says…

It was a green stone head of the demon Pazuzu, personification of the southwest wind. Its dominion was sickness and disease. The head was pierced. The amulet's owner had worn it as a shield.

It is true that Pazuzu was the southwest wind, and ruler of the wind-spirits. In this role, he caused devastation to crops. What Blattly is not telling us is that Pazuzu’s main role was to protect pregnant women, women in child birth, infants, etc…from Lamashtu. What would prompt someone to wear a Pazuzu head if all he did was bring sickness and disease?

These are examples of Pazuzu heads. It is in this role that Pazuzu becomes so important, and Pazuzu heads were fairly common in the ancient Near East. But people also believed in Pazuzu…

…statuettes. But also…

…here is an enlarged picture of the item on the third to the right…

Plaques. So Pazuzu came in all forms. If he is a demon, then why was he so popular?

Pazuzu’s pending attack against Lamashtu is clear. My interpretation of this plaque is that it depicts a woman giving birth. Fish-Man Apkallu are performing a ritual to summon Pazuzu because Lamashtu is present to kill the women and her baby. Pazuzu is also the head at the top of the plaque. Certainly Pazuzu won’t protect you from himself, and I don’t think Blatty originally understood Pazuzu correctly, but he more than rectified this. But she added a Pazuzu plaque in the film, encountered by Merrin during his time at Hatra…

To emphasize the dual aspect of Pazuzu, it should be noted that not all Pazuzu-heads are intended to drive away Lamashtu.

You are powerful, you ascend the mountains, who faces all the winds, angry wind whose rising is terrible, fierce one, angry one, who roars through the regions of the world, who destroys the high mountains, who parches the marshland, who withers its reeds. He blocked off the forest and its trees, he blocked off the garden, threw down its fruit. He descended to the river, poured out ice, and went up to the dry land, covered it with hoar frost. 

You are powerful, you who ascends the mountains, you who faces all the winds, angry wind whose rising is terrible, fierce one, angry wind whose rising is terrible, fierce one, angry one, who goes fiercely, who roars through the world regions, who wrecks the high mountains, who parches the marshland, withering its reeds. He blocked off the forest, threw down its trees. He descended to the garden, destroyed its fruit, he bent over the well pouring out ice. He went up to the dry land, covering it with hoarfrost. He descended to the river, covering it with hoarfrost. He struck the young man, hunched him over. He attacked the young girl, deforming her hips. When you blow, the world tremble. O illness of mankind, headache of mankind, disease of mankind, do not enter the house where I enter, do not enter the house I approach, do not enter the house where I live.

(Source for both: Two Pazuzu-head amulets inscribed with the standard B incantation; Zoltan Niederreiter; Revue D’Assyriologie et Archeologie Orientale; Volume 111; 1; pages 109-132)

This incantation would suggest that the wearer is attempting to ward off Pazuzu, highlighting his role as ruler of the Southwest wind, which is higly destructive. It is important to remember that daemons were good in certains on texts, and evil in other contexts. Image of Pazuzu’s arch-enemy…Lamashtu…

In the third pane I included an incantation against Lamashtu. But here is another…

Now then, let there be a third kind of woman among the people. Among the people are the woman who has given birth and the woman who has not. Let there be among the people “She who wipes out” Let her seize the baby from the lap of her who gave birth to it! Establish high priestesses and priestesses— let them be celibate, and so limit childbirth.

And another…

In the third pane I included an incantation against Lamashtu. But here is another…

Now then, let there be a third kind of woman among the people. Among the people are the woman who has given birth and the woman who has not. Let there be among the people “She who wipes out” Let her seize the baby from the lap of her who gave birth to it! Establish high priestesses and priestesses— let them be celibate, and so limit childbirth.

And another…

When you perform the ritual against Lamashtu, you draw the Daughter of Anu at the right side of the door, the left side of the door, or in the direction of the entrance to the bedroom. To the right and left of the Daughter of Anu, you draw a dog, a pig, a lamp, a spindle, a comb, a mirror, the lower leg of a donkey. You have her grasp snakes in her hands.

(Source: The Lamashtu Amulet: A portrait of the Caregiver as a Demoness, John Wee, Harvard Library Bulletin)

The appearance of the giant Pazuzu statue, which was not actually present in the film, was really a sign to Merrin that Regan’s demon was about to be defeated. Pazuzu cast out Pazuzu? If Satan stands against himself, his kingdom will fall. I don’t believe that Merrin, in the film, ever saw Pazuzu as possessing Regan, my hypothesis is that it was Pazuzu’s arch-enemy Lamashtu. She isn’t named? In the film…neither is Pazuzu. But the following statement is made by the archaeoligst as Merrin looks at the Pazuzu-head…

Evil vs. Evil

This is a very significant statement to solving the puzzle. And what does it mean? Obviously, the film contains two evil beings. Pazuzu is evil when he brings the destructive, locust-laden, southwest wind. But he is not evil when he attacks Lamashtu, thereby protecting women and children. Still, he doesn’t do this out of the kindness of his heart…he simply continues his war against Lamashtu. His salvific function is a fortunate side effect of getting rid of Lamashtu. This is apotropaic magic...playing one spirit-being off against another spirit-being. If Pazuzu is the “evil” in the exorcist, then what is the other “evil”? Clearly, there is a clash between two evil beings, and Merrin would know all about Pazuzu vs. Lamashtu.

I would briefly add two more issues here. There is widespread misunderstanding of Merrin’s Pazuzu statue. I will repeat what I have said elsewhere that there was statue of Pazuzu. Amulets, heads, statuettes, and plaques…yes. But the size of this statue would elevate Pazuzu to the rank of a cultic deity…

This is cool and funny, and I like the fact that they put a proper Pazuzu face on the statue, and not the inaccurate statue-face in The Exorcist. But Pazuzu had no temple, cultic statue, or priestesses. He was a daemon, who could be beneficial in one context, and malevolent in another context. But one must also address a routinely mis-understood features of the statue…

…the protrubing element of this statue is NOT the male member. It is, in fact, Pazuzu’s tail. Pazuzu’s tail sometimes wraps around in front of him, appearing between his legs, and sometimes, usually, it doesn’t, when portrayed as a scorpion tail…

…but sometimes the scorpion tail is wrapped around to the front…

…this variety is very crude, and does not depict the tail coming up from the back. It is, of course, very easy for the layperson to misunderstand the protuberance. The ambiguity would only be enhanced if the image of a certain minor Greek god, Priapus, is included…

In the novel, Blatty states…

He sifted vibrations. At the palace of Ashurbanipal he paused; then shifted a sidelong glance to a limestone statue hulking in situ: ragged wings; taloned feet; bulbous, jutting, stubby penis and a mouth stretched taut in a feral grin. The demon Pazuzu.

Stubby phallus is correct…

His bird feet are interesting, because feature routinely ended up in images of the devil found in manuscripts…

is horns, or so I believe, were inherited from the entity known as Azazel, and I believe that he was originally the entity that Christ went into the wilderness to face. This was later changed to Satan. There is an allusion to Merrin’s statue in Regan’s harmless Captain Howdy (to be distinguished from Chris’s Captain Howdy)…

But this is really nothing more than a buried Easter Egg. Regan’s Captain Howdy would have to be on a stand if it were to be able to stand up on its own.
So is Mercedes playing the role of the Devil, or the Demon, or a male-sounding demon, or the voice of the Demon-possessed girl, or the role of Pazuzu? Mercedes, when describing how she did various sounds in the film, referenced The Devil and a Demon…so what about Pazuzu? Evil vs. Evil…where is the other evil? Friedkin left Mercedes out of the credits because she didn’t want a credit…she wanted the audience to believe the voice was Regan’s. And that’s how it should be, except in the Crucifix scene, where I think the deep voice is that of Karl. But Friedkin also claimed that she was left out of the credits because there wasn’t time to put her in…obvious baloney. Mercedes was very upset to learn that she wasn’t credited, suggesting there was another reason for why she wasn’t. The Screen Actors Guild pushed the issue, and so she was finally included in the credits. Friedkin did not want her credited…and then lied about the reason. So what was the real reason? A release of the film in 1998 also leaves her out of the credits. If she is left out of the credits, then we have no way of knowing that she was playing the role of Pazuzu, if that’s what she’s doing. It is clear to me that Blaytly went back and did his research on Pazuzu when it came time to make the film…in fact, he did an impressive job of educating himself, and I think that the role of Lamashtu stands in anonymity, just as Pazuzu does…Evil vs. Evil…Pazuzu vs. Lamashtu. It is not until The Exorcist II, a film that appears consistently in the list of the top 10 worst movies ever made, names Pazuzu. Eileen Dietz Played The Face. But I have argued elsewhere that The Face isn’t Pazuzu…he is Chris’s Captain Howdy…Regan’s split personality…which she believes is making Regan act the way she is. Regan’s Captain Howdy, a big orange bird sculpture that she made on the basis of an icon on the box in the attic, is totally harmless. Chris’s Captain Howdy is totally malevolent. For Chris, her Captain Howdy comes and goes in Regan, and one of the best indicators of this is the way Regan’s teeth keep changing…pretty teeth, then ugly teeth, then The Face type teeth, and pretty teeth again. I wrote about this in my essay titled…Shimmer. But I will provide a couple of images to prove my point. I will enlarge the images so the teeth are more visible.

And it is strange that Regan, if she really has the horrible teeth of Chris’s Captain Howdy, doesn’t have horrible breath. But Karras and Merrin get very close to her without any indicate of a foul odor. Why?

As the tube of toothpaste, cup, and brush would seem to indicate…she’s brushing her teeth.

…and there is the Pazuzu face. I am using the extended director’s cut, and I simply cannot find this in that version…not for want of trying. I must conclude that the makers of the film opted to delete, it and if so, rightly so. What the versions with the head of the Pazuzu statue suddenly appearing as Chris opens Regan’s bedroom door is to suggest that Pazuzu is present, and would then seem to suggest that Pazuzu is the demon. This is not necessary the case, though it must be said that in the Ancient Near East, Pazuzu arrived if you performed a religious ritual to summon him. However, by deleting the Pazuzu face, this connection is broken. However, some versions have the following, as Chris leaves Regan’s bedroom, looks in Sharon’s room, and then heads down the stairs when Sharon enters the house…

…and so we see the Pazuzu statue. But again, this does not appear in the version of the film I am using. These cuts are highly significant, although I would reiterate that Pazuzu’s presence does not nessitate the conclusion that he is the demon, the last appearance of the statue takes shortly before the demon Lamashtu is almost defeated. Another example of the differences between the version I’m using and other versions involves Chris’s intrepid investigation of the attic. Just before Carl appears, there is a flash-forward…

…a momentary flash of Regan and her projectile vomiting. Chris will not be present when this happens, only Karras. And in my interpretation, this doesn’t actually happen in the story…she simply spits bile into his face. Karras and Chris perceive things that are not there. If Regan was capable of projectile vomiting, and in such volume…

…and it actually happened within the Artificial Reality, would Karras bend over her like this? And why would Merrin…

…get only the spit treatment? Numerous scenes like these suggest that Regan does not smell bad, which would indicate that she is batheing. In the scene with the hypontist, following Regan beginning to growl, her mother covers her nose and recoils…

However, she did not smell bad before, and there are no complaints about her odor anywhere else. In the novel, she urinates and defecates into diapers…and that’s stinky. But there’s no trace of this in the film. It is the case that an urge to defecate can occur in the ictal stage of an epileptic event, and I believe that is what caused the bad smell in this scene...a bowel movement. One might expect that, given Chris’s and Karas’s view of Regan’s teeth, she would have terrible breath, as we find in the novel. However, Karras and Merrin lean over Regan many times, and they give no indication that there was anything wrong with her breath. That’s probably because…

…she’s been brushing her teeth.
The differences between different versions are significant, and when discussing interpretations, one should determine whether the version they are using is the same as the version the other person is using, to avoid the Apples-to-Oranges phenomenon.

And so now I will put an end to my meanderings, though they were intended to help set the scene for part 2…The Number Four.