But Emma posed a greater danger than icky vomit:

Her pale, deathlike and emaciated head, often assuming the size of an inverted water pitcher, became as red as glowing embers. Her eyes protruded out of their sockets, her lips swelled up to proportions equaling the size of hands, and her thin emaciated body was bloated to such enormous size that the pastor and some of the Sisters drew back out of fright, thinking that the woman would be torn to pieces and burst asunder.

Protruding eyes? Maybe we’re dealing with:

Large Marge, the Diabolical Truckdriver. But what about Exploding Pseudo-Emma? Now that would be a mess. But I would like to double-back to a slightly earlier quote. I’m sure that I’m seeing too much, not that I would do that, but:

nourishment in liquid form was injected into her

I have pointed out in another essay that there is an invisible medical team lurking behind Regan. And, no…not the 88 Barringer Clowns…and not Dr. Won’t Go Away. Not even the Soprano-Singing Hypnotist! This medical team is invisible, and we don’t know of their existence until Karras first meets Regan, which is after the Crucifix Scene. And things had grown much worse by then:

Nasal Cannula Regan. So clearly, she is having trouble breathing, something that we hear as Karras ascends the steps to Regan’s room. At the time of Karras’s second visit, the nasal cannula is gone, but Regan’s frequent spitting up and vomiting has caught up to her. She was clearly suffering from dehydration, and so:

Regan in her new, massively huge bed, with the IV Drip clearly visible to her left.

And:

Carrying out this exorcism with the IV in Regan’s arm was very, very, careless. Just before it is time to levitate:

It is in the process of crashing to the floor. And how easy it is for the viewer to have never really noticed the nasal cannula and IV Drip. Why? Too busy being wowed by the demon-stuff! Not noticing, you don’t find yourself wondering just how odd all this medical stuff is. You don’t ask yourself the question…where is the nurse? An actress, an assistant, a handyman, a cook/maid…none of these characters are qualified to insert a nasal cannula…you don’t just shove it up someone’s nose. And doing the IV right is very tricky. Wait! I found the nurse:

Nurses for sale? I’ve never seen a Diabolical Nurse firing what appears to be an MP40, or possibly an M3 Grease Gun:

Yes, a WW2 German submachine gun…well, both were. They were so well made…almost indestructible…that German troops weren’t the only guys who liked them:

A US soldier using the German gun against…the Germans. And dangerous ladies like them too:

But I doubt that Chris had an MP40 or M3 Grease gun lying around…except maybe in the attic. So maybe Regan’s nurse was:

Nurse Ratched. My point is obvious…we never see the Invisible Nurse taking care of Regan. To make it even more interesting…a nurse would have had no choice but to report the terrible condition Regan was in, and the fact that she was restrained by the wrists and ankles to a bed. The arrival of the police or Child Protective Services before the exorcism started, although the homicide detective arrives at the house just as it is ending, would have ruined the story.

And as for Pseudo-Emma? The quote given above would seem to suggest the same idea. No, she didn’t have an MP3 Grease Gun, or an MP40 either. But “injecting fluids” suggests an IV Drip. Yet, Begone Satan! doesn’t mention a nurse or doctor being present. And while that is true, a strange endorsement appears at the beginning:

We wish to endorse your pamphlet "Vade Satana" as a potent aid to faith in the value of sacramentals, relics of the saints, and prayer. No more vivid picture has been presented to us of the losing battle against the "camp of Christ." Nothing has made our insistent floundering from the "camp of Christ" to the "camp of the devil" appear so absurd. The memory it has instilled of the hatred of Satan and the eternal misery of his permanent army, evokes a continuous inventory of one's life, savoring of the minuteness of the final judgment. That it will save many souls we have no doubt. That some will borrow fruitless fright is also possible, but for them one must say that if the picture is terrible the real thing must be worse. Agony is the lot of all at least once.

Satan has seemed too unreal. It would be a pity if this pamphlet were to be suppressed because some weak souls have been made to sense him more vividly than the author intends. We were granted an interview with the exorcist, Father Theophilus, after reading your account of the diabolical possession. We treasure the experience as an intimate glimpse into the life of a pious priest very gifted in a specialty which should command the patronage of the medical profession, rather than to be allotted to the realm of superstition or necromancy. We anxiously await his complete report of the Earling.

This is signed J.D. Dundon, M.D. Physician and Surgeon; 1228 E. Brady Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The interesting thing about Dr. John Dundon, is that he liked more than just crazy exorcists. He also liked this guy:

His name was Padre Pio, and he was known as the Stigmatist. That was an apt name, seeing how his tawdry gimmick was making the wounds of Christ appear on his body (see above photo). And it was a gimmick good enough to get him canonized!

He showed signs of mental instability as a child, and then after becoming a priest, suddenly developed other strange abilities:

Healing; bilocation; levitation; prophecy, working miracles, the ability to “read hearts,” and speak in tongues. Wow…that’s quite a list. What is bilocation? It means being in two different places at the same time. What a bunch of nonsense…although it would be cool! I could be at work and relaxing at home at the same time. Or, I could be at work relaxing and writing crazy essays at home…at the same time! It’s clearly some kind of hold-over pagan magical mumbo-jumbo, but there is a long list of priests and saints who are credited with practicing this bizarre magical trick.

And by Pythian Sisters, I truly hope that the reference isn’t to the Pythia, who was a pagan female prophet who sat in her temple inhaling gaseous LSD and speaking the words of the god Apollo.

His Hands. Actually, Begone Satan! has an error…it looks like the correct initials are JR Dundon, i.e. John R Dundon, a physician in Whitefish Bay. Obviously, he got rather excited by charlatans.

We treasure the experience as an intimate glimpse into the life of a pious priest very gifted in a specialty which should command the patronage of the medical profession

Lord, I hope not. And I can’t help but wonder whether the Exorcist’s 88 Barringer Clowns don’t owe something to the Superstitious Physician and Surgeon.

But returning to the subject of Anna:

The meanness of the devil and the many odd happenings at Earling became common knowledge among the people in the bordering communities.

That is interesting…the woman is brought all the way to Earling, Iowa to hide her identity. We don’t know if her name was Emma Schmidt, Anna Schmidt, or Anna Ecklund, or Mary X…and no one still has any idea who she was, where she really came from, or what happened to her after making people think that the convent had been turned into a Porcine Slaughter House…absolutely nothing! Well, except for everybody in the surrounding communities, who conveniently took the secret to the grave. No one decided to sell the story and rake in the cash. I have searched a newspaper data-base and nothing of any relevance came back. Well, that’s not totally true:

That article is dated January 16, 1936, and ran in the Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa. The Silly Little Book was published July 28, 1935. Apparently, no one was aware of the book yet. And the reference to Riesinger in this article makes no mention of him being the King of all Exorcists.

This article is dated November 7, 1917, and ran in the Gazette of Stevens Point, Wisconsin:

Now I must qualify what I said just now, and repeat what I said some time ago.

Father Steiger was the priest at St. Joseph’s, and he had been present for the events of 1928. Clearly there were rumors and gossip going around the area, and Steiger was brought in to address the matter. But this is the only contemporaneous evidence, excluding Riesinger’s crazy interview, that provides evidence that something strange had happened. Otherwise, articles pop up after the 1935 book was published, and then again after 1973 when…you guessed it! The Exorcist came to theaters near you.

And the craziest part of the whole thing was the bizarre list of entities that tormented Emma-Whoever. One was, of course, Satan. Can’t have the story without him…or her…although if Satan is a man, I’ll bet he had to practice walking in high heels before he could dance without falling and breaking his neck.

The Devil Went Down to Earling, Iowa. Isn’t that a song by Charlie Daniels?

The book also makes the rather tiring mistake of treating Lucifer as a demon. I have shown elsewhere on this website that this isn’t the case; The Satan was a literary character, and Lucifer was a semi-legendary human ruler from dim antiquity…even by Isaiah’s standards. Karras was right…it’s the heights of delusion, an extreme Delusion of Grandeur, to believe that you matter so much that the Number One Guy from the other team cares anything about making you throw-up your macaroni dinner, or vomiting blocks of tobacco leaves. Well, second only to believing that you’re God. And naughty things? Don’t forget what we’ve learned! When it comes to s-e-x, Satan’s a prude!

Then we get…Baalzebub…of course. Most people are at a total loss to name more than Satan/Lucifer and Baalzebub when trying to come up with the names of Diabolical Spirit Entities. Notice how…Pazuzu never comes up. And there isn’t a single reference to Captain Howdy and his Enigmatic Box of Ouija Boards in Chris’s Attic. You’ll know it…it has an MP40 lying beside it.

Baalzebub? The Lord of Flies? This is from the Amityville Horror, which borrowed heavily from the Exorcist:

Yes, the room fills up with flies as the priest tries to bless the house. Baalzebub isn’t named, you say? True, but he’s there:

Yes, that’s him:

Oh, how tricky is the Amityville Horror! Placing little clues in the movie like the makers of the Exorcist! Actually, this one is pretty good, seeing how the vast majority of all people would have no idea that the fly-paper….

No, fly-paper is sticky, just ask Moe. I meant…Fly-Picture! How do people know that the picture in the library is a silly representation of Baalzebub borrowed from demonology? I have news for Riesinger. What? That which I have said in other posts already. Baalzebub is not a name. Baal means lord. Zebub means filth, and Jewish redactors substituted an insult for the real name that was in the original text of the story of the fate of King Ahaziah in the Old Testament. And…Baalzebub was a deity, not a demon. And he was an obscure deity who only became a demon when people misunderstood the reference to Baalzebub in the New Testament story that refers to him. Jesus’ foes are condemning the man who sought healing from Jesus rather than the God of Israel, in the same way that king Ahaziah sought healing from some deity on the Phoenician coast rather than the God of Israel. So, a demon was created out something that was never there.

But the entities possessing Pseudo-Anna, well the remaining ones, take the cake as far as making the whole story more unbelievable than the macaroni and chewing tobacco have made it already. Apparently, Riesinger and his fellow Cultic Vaudevillians made no effort to consult any reference books on the subject of demons. In other essays, I have thrown out the name of several demons, male and female, who would be excellent choices. But they didn’t do the research, and so they don’t suggest Lamashtu…or Malphas…or Asag…or any other. Instead, they come up with the weirdest collection of Spirit Beings to stuff into Unnamed Woman, after exhausting the ones everyone knows…i.e. Satan, Lucifer, and The Fly Painting.

One demon who was kind enough to introduce himself was named Jacob. Jacob? Yes, Pseudo-Anna’s father. He was also quite chatty:

He now admitted that he had repeatedly tried to force his own daughter to commit incest with him. But she had firmly resisted him. Therefore he had cursed her and wished inhumanly that the devils would enter into her and entice her to commit every possible sin against chastity, thereby ruining her, body and soul.

Whatever sins he had committed in this life might still have been forgiven him before death, so that he could have been saved; but the crime of giving his own child to the devils was the thing that finally determined his eternal damnation. Even in hell he was still scheming how to torture and molest his child. Lucifer gladly permitted him to do this. And since he was in his own daughter, he was not, despite all the solemn prayers of the Church, in the least disposed to give her up or leave her.

What needs to be said of this? Well, Lucifer was a man, and is not the same as The Satan or the Devil. He was a human ruler, who met his downfall when he tried to ascend into Heaven and take his place as God. And apparently, these cultic morons believed that Hell was some kind of Metaphorical Medieval Dukedom, ruled by an overlord, who could not have been Lucifer, since he died around 7,000 years ago. And you can hang around in Hell, bearing a bionic grudge, or convince the overlord to let you leave Hell and go back to resume your assault on your daughter.

"But you will obey! The power of Christ and the Blessed Trinity will force you back into the pit of hell where you belong!"

Then followed a load roar and protest: "No, no, only spare me that!"

So, if Satan can let you out of Hell to go be a pseudo-demon named Jacob, a very boring Diabolical Name, then why would Jacob fear being sent back to Hell?

Satan: Oh, Hi Jacob. So he sent you back.

Jacob: Yes…the power of Christ compelled me.

Satan: How many times did they say it?

Jacob: Lots. Hey, can I leave again?

Satan: Sure! But this time, get the job done.

So, here we have the issue that lies at the foundation of whatever the true story really was…sexual abuse.

Then another demon appeared.

As the prayers of exorcism were continued, Jacob's mistress, who was in hell with him, also had to face the ordeal and give answer. Her high-pitched voice, almost a falsetto, had already been noticed among the many other voices. She now confessed that she was Mina.

Mina admitted that the cause of her damnation was her prolonged immoral life with Jacob while his wife was still living. But a more specific cause for her eternal woes in hell was her unrepented acts of child murder.

Exorcist: "You committed murder while you were still alive? Whom did you kill?"

Mina, bitterly: "Little ones." Evidently, she meant her own children.

Exorcist: "How many did you actually kill?"

Mina, most unwillingly, curtly: "Three--no, actually four!"

So now Jacob’s main squeeze appeared. Mina is short for Wilhelmina, which is obviously a good German name. It will be remembered that the supplement refers to Mina as Unnamed Woman’s aunt, who was also a witch straight out of a fable. So we have…Aunt Wilhelmina. And it will be remembered that the only reason that Asag was not able to destroy the cosmos like his buddy Sutekh suggested, was because of Super Demon Aunt Wilhelmina! And that almost rhymes. Hey!

La plume de ma tante!

And now we find out who was behind the whole Vomiting-30-Times-Per-Day thing:

Mina showed herself especially hateful. Her replies were filled with such bitter hatred and spite that they far surpassed all that had happened so far. Her demeanor towards the Blessed Sacrament is beyond description. She would spit and vomit in a most hideous manner so that both Father Theophilus and the pastor had to use handkerchiefs constantly to wipe off the spittle from habit and cassock.

Chris MacNeill sure has a disgusting sister. It is fascinating that the Horrid Demoness Aunty Mina is guilty of killing children. Of course, she has a short-term memory problem, or perhaps a long-term memory problem. And the Enigmatic Number 3 so often referred to on this website appears again! Why is Mina killing her own children so interesting? I believe that in the Exorcist that Horrid Lady…Lamashtu, the one who kills women in labor and devours children, is present. Could the choice of the Pazuzu vs. Lamashtu Cycle owe its genesis to the Horrid Aunt? Both destroy children…but Pazuzu doesn’t. I found the Diabolical Family Photo Album!

But talk about a family feud! You wouldn’t believe last Thanksgiving!

A whole bunch of cultic and ritual doo-dads are described that were apparently weaponized and used in the fight against the Diabolical Family Members. It’s odd that it didn’t occur to Jacob and Mina that an exorcism would be the result of their possessing Emma, and that as a matter of course, magic items would be used against them. Apparently, they came unprepared. Particularly distressing to the Horrid Duo was:

The pastor kept a small relic of the Little Flower of the Child Jesus in his sacristy in a small pyx without the knowledge of Father Theophilus. For protection's sake, he placed this in a side-pocket of his cassock one day and entered the convent where the exorcism was taking place. Just as the pastor entered the room, the devil began to rave:

 "Away, away with that! Away with the relic of the Little Flower, away with that weathercock!"

Weathercock? This is a weathercock:

Some demons that aren’t really demons are, nonetheless, real wimps. Crying about a piece of a flower. But it was clear that Satan was still hanging around, and so the Religious Vaudevillians chose to call on an ally of their own. The Book of Revelation states that Michael and the Great Dragon became locked in a war in heaven. I have written elsewhere that the Great Dragon is not The Satan.

 But that picture isn’t nearly as interesting as this one:

Why is this interesting? Well, the devil has appeared differently in this essay. Who can forget his appearance as a transvestite…or a lesbian? Here, Satan suffers from male pattern baldness. Will the real Satan please stand up?

But this Michael vs. Satan battle isn’t the only one. And here it gets interesting.

Yet Michael the archangel, arguing with the devil when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation. He merely said…The Lord rebuke you!

That is Jude 1:9. The context is that Moses has died. Michael and the Devil show up to squabble over who gets his body. But here’s the fascinating part…there is no such narrative anywhere in the Old Testament. In fact, it isn’t known to appear in any other existing written work at all. Early Christian exegetes stated that the source of the story was a work known as the Assumption of Moses. This work currently exists in the form of only one manuscript, dating to the sixth-century, and was found by accident in a library in 1861. And it happens to be incomplete. Oh, and the Michael vs. Satan story involving Moses’ body isn’t in it. There is also the Apocalypse of Moses, and here we are really out on the fringes of pseudepigraphal writings having no authority as a scripture. In this strange book, the body of the deceased Adam is entrusted to Michael. However, there is no dispute with Satan anywhere in it. So, what a mystery Jude 1:9 is!

Furthermore, the devil used every occasion to display hatred for the pastor. "You are the cause of the whole affair, you are the one who tortures us so painfully," he burst out. The exorcist commanded Satan on one occasion as follows: "Be quiet, you hellish serpent. Let the pastor in peace once for all. He is not harming you in the least. I am doing this with the powers of exorcism."

This riled the devil all the more. He said "It is the pastor! He is at fault. Had he not given you permission to use his church and convent, you wouldn't be able to do a thing. And even today you would be helpless against us, if he would retract his assent."

Not harming him? He’s trying to stick him back into Hell! I’m the devil, but please…please…please undo the straps or I’ll pout and cry to Karras about it. So here the Hellish Serpent whines about the exorcism…it’s your fault! It’s his fault! Stop picking on me, you big meanies! I like the nasty insults hurled at the Diabolical Big Baby:

Detestable Hellhound

Vile Serpent

Hellish Serpent

Man-killer

Despicable Worm Crawling in the Very Dust of the Earth

What? No “Noon-day Devil?”

But some things did go wrong:

As indicated before, Satan dreaded the sign of the Cross, a crucifix, or a relic of the true Cross. On one occasion a crucifix not made of wood was handed to Father Theophilus. This time Satan broke out in a sneering and ridiculing laughter: "Ha, so you arrived with a pasteboard cross! Since when did 'He' die on a paper cross? If my knowledge doesn't fail me, He was nailed to a wooden cross."

The crucifix was examined more closely and was indeed found to be made not of wood but of papier-mâché.

That’s great! He brought a crucifix made of papier-mâché? What happened? Did one of the little children in Sunday School class make one and it accidentally ended up in a Big Priest Bag? At least Merrin had the real thing! I would think that you would check to make sure to have the right equipment before showing up, insulting the devil, listening to him cry, and sticking a paper crucifix in his face. Still, I had no idea how nice the devil could be to certain people:

This is an interesting proof of how the devil feels about and recognizes authority. He made this evident to every superior, while he acted rather civilly towards the subordinates. For that reason he never attacked the nuns nor the pastor's cook.

Wow! So in the middle of the exorcism the cook shows up! Maybe it was lunchbreak. I sure hope that he wasn’t serving a meal consisting of macaroni and tobacco leaves. The devil was rather nice to the cook? Maybe he was hungry and was hoping for some deviled eggs, deviled ham, and for dessert, a piece of witch-cake or fallen angel’s food cake. I’ll bet if the maid, butler, and gardener showed up, the devil would be nice to them too. And what about the Carlish Handyman? He wasn’t there…he was on the roof of the convent fixing the weathercock. Hey, there weren’t any rats in the attic…we had to find something for him to do.

It turns out that devil has some academic pursuits. He has an interest in history:

"Ha, how dare you speak that way against the Almighty, you despicable worm crawling in the very dust of the earth!"

"No, I cannot harm God directly. But I can touch you and His Church." And he continued with scorn and sarcasm: "Is it not true? Do you not know the history of Mexico? We have prepared a nice mess for Him there."

The history of Mexico? Mexico? How does the history of Mexico have anything to do with this? It is possible that the Devil is alluding to the Cristero War (1926-1929), which involved a rebellion that erupted after the Mexican government began to enforce articles in the Mexican Constitution that weren’t exactly friendly to the Catholic clergy. But who in Earling, Iowa knew that?

The Devil Went Down to Mexico

Isn’t that a song by Charlie Daniels? A newspaper in Harlan tells us exactly how to chase the Devil out of Mexico:

Hey, Exorcism Guys! You should have left the paper crucifix back in the Sunday School classroom and brought your rattles! And it would appear that Satan was undermining education in Iowa:

Good news! No more book reports! Well, at least not without the Ritual of Exorcism in your bookbag.

Still, the devil does have a sense of humor:

"Who else did it? The whole credit is ours for bringing that situation about. He will learn to know us better. Lucifer is on His tracks and will make the kettle hot and heavy for Him. Ha, ha, ha!"

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Did too! Did too! I know you are but what am I? Someone please tell the Devil to grow up and act his age? He’s got to be at least a million years old! Wait, he’s not done. Despite the fact that he’s a total wimp, he engineered a car accident, that almost killed the pastor. Now we’re talking! Showing a little backbone and offering a Vulgar Display of Power! But he also gloats:

Leaving the doctor's office, they drove straight to the parish house at Earling. There was no one at home, for they had all gone over to the convent to witness the exorcism. So the pastor also went there. He had hardly entered the room when he was greeted with a roaring laughter full of vengeance and bitter spleen: "hahaha-hahaha!" as if the devil were about to burst into a fit of malicious joy at besting him. "Today he pulled in his proud neck and was outpointed! I certainly showed him up today. What about your new auto, that dandy car which was smashed to smithereens? It served you right!"

It does serve him right! If you are going to be mean to Satan, Lucifer, Fly Guy, Jacob, and Aunt Wilhelmina, then they will damage your dandy new car…they will smash it to smithereens…hahaha-hahaha! Hope you weren’t behind on your auto insurance! So, we know that the Devil has a sense of humor…but we also know that he has an annoying laugh. But seeing how important the nearby town of Harlan is, the scene of the packed church where Father Steiger gave a presentation on the exorcism, I thought that I would share a couple of jokes that the Devil would probably hahaha-hahaha about:

This hilarious joke ran in the Harlan Tribune on July 17, 1953. Incinerate me…get it? And how about this one:

That ran in the Harlan News-Advertiser on January 3, 1966. And that’s exactly where Father Steiger told Satan to go.

News of this accident soon spread abroad and the people in deep sympathy with their beloved pastor, collected enough money to buy him a new car, so that the devil would receive no satisfaction from his pranks.

It’s funny how none of the devil’s pranks seems to have made it into any newspapers…seeing how the entire state of Iowa appears to know what’s going on.

This just in! Local inhabitants of Earling report that the Devil is up to his old shenanigans again. This reporter was just told that Satan ruined Father Steiger’s dandy new Cadillac. A source from State Farm stated that the car had been smashed to smithereens. A local farmer, who saw the strange event from his porch, reported hearing a very annoying laugh at the time of the accident. Apparently, the priest’s car was insured against an Act of God, but his insurance policy said nothing about an Act of Satan! 

Homily time:

Hence a timely warning to those who use the auto for evil purposes, who decorate it with all sorts of nonsense and who even display figures alluringly immoral. The Church has provided a special blessing under the protection of St. Christopher against evil and disastrous influences. Therefore, it is customary to put one of these blessed medals or medallions in cars for safety's sake. St. Paul calls attention to the fact that the very air is filled with evil spirits.

Do not decorate your car with nonsense and alluringly immoral figures! That’s Ok, the devil hates sex anyway…and what are these alluringly immoral figures that the good people of Earling, Iowa decorate their car with? Have they been painting pictures of naked women on them? Hey! I’ve been to Earling, and this is what I saw:

I know…World War II is a few years away. So, I figure that the good people of Earling set the precedent for such Lurid Displays of Immorality painted on the side of US Airforce planes. And in some weird, parallel world, naughty artwork on automobiles has something to do with spirits in the air; I guess.

I have not yet finished yet. The devil is a lot of things. But what about this:

Allow me to explain:

It should be noted that Satan did not use the tongue of the poor possessed woman to make himself understood. The helpless creature had been unconscious during the greater part of the trial. Her mouth was closed tight. Even when it was open there was not the slightest movement of the lips, nor were there any changes in the position of the mouth. The evil spirits simply spoke in an audible manner from somewhere within her. Possibly they used some inner organ of the body.

I’m on-board with this. I think that Ventriloquist Dummies are creepy too:

And:

This is Caesar…a possessed Ventriloquist’s Dummy who starred in an episode of Twilight Zone, and, when the money was running out, suggested robbery as an alternative means of filling the coffers. And I can’t resist, given the pornographic pictures that the good people of Earling paint on their cars, I suppose that a Ventriloquist performance in Earling would look more like this:

I’m sure that the Puritanical and Prudish Noon-day Devil, Detestable Hellhound, Vile Serpent, Man-killer, Despicable Worm Crawling in the Very Dust of the Earth Satan wouldn’t approve of that. Wait! I know you are but what am I! Ha-ha-ha-ha…got you back! I know a very honest used-car salesman... And strange noises emanating from an inner organ of the body? I must share this, but no, it’s not a belching or farting joke. Even though those are always funny! No! The term ventriloquist comes from the Latin expression meaning…to speak from the stomach. Regan and Pseudo-Anna did a lot of that! The ancient Greeks believed in this, and they called it gastromancy:

The noises produced by the stomach were thought to be the voices of the unliving, who took up residence in the stomach of the ventriloquist.

So now I will break my promise, without breaking wind…I hope. Gastromancy involved the prophet belching up messages from the dead! And unless he says…excuse me! Then he’s rude. Let’s hope the voices of the dead limited their emanation from the stomach. Now for the Bible! We all know the story of the Witch of Endor, a practitioner of the dark arts who had been banned in Israel. King Saul needs to speak to the prophet Samuel. Trouble is…he’s dead. So, he goes to a witch…a very special witch, who has something very special. Well, it’s pretty ordinary, but she can do something special with it. She has a magical device called a…wine skin. And apparently if you blow air into the wineskin, and squeeze it, it will make weird sounds that you can tell people are the voices of the dead! And that means that the Witch of Endor invented the:

Whoopie Cushion! Come on! Don’t laugh! This is serious stuff. Next time I eat something that doesn’t agree with me, I’ll tell the person next to me that it is just a prophet speaking from some inner organ of my body. Of course, there are other interpretations of the Endoric Witch’s strange device, but they aren’t nearly as interesting.