[95miyu]

Hi!

I watched The Exorcist for the first time 3 weeks ago, and I immediately fell in love with it! it's an amazing movie, one of my favorites so far, and I've watched it 5 times up to now 🙂 I had to watch it several times to understand the story, though, and now I understand everything, except a thing: what has to do the demon Pazuzu with the story? Regan is possessed by Captain Howdy, isn't she? so why Pazuzu is shown in the last exorcism when she rips the straps and raises up? i mean, the demon is shown in the first part of the movie when Merrin is at the excavations in Iraq… how could it contact Regan?

Sorry, maybe I've just written an heresy to you fans, but I didn't understand this thing. Thanks in advance for your replies 🙂

[granville1]

Pazuzu is not the possessing demon. The real demon is nameless. Pazuzu is only a symbol of “the demonic”. The real demon is the one Merrin defeated in Africa twelve years eariler. it is not the Middle Eastern god known as Pazuzu. True, the Pazuzu statue shows up during the exorcism, but this is merely a vision seen from Merrin's point of view – the culmination of all his premonitions at last manifesting in a demonic vision.

 

The real demon is an anymous spirit that Merrin encountered in Africa. Pazuzu is just an ancient Middle Eastern god. They are quite separate, linked only by the premonitions that Merrin receives while working on the Iraqi dig. Pazuzu is “demonic” but is not THE demon from Africa who possesses Regan.

Captain Howdy is the real demon's “friendly mask” by which it induces Regan's trust. So Regan is not really possessed by Howdy – Howdy was always just a fictional, temporary, throw-away trick device – but by the anonymous, faceless demon.

[95miyu]

thank you really much for your reply, now I understand! 

[granville1]

You are very welcome :)  To be fair, there are others who do make a case for Pazuzu being the same entity as the “African” demon (of course, demons, if they exist, probably don’t really have nationalities).  But I follow what Blatty himself said about Pazuzu:

“Even in terms of my novel, I have never known the demon’s identity. I strongly doubt that he is Satan; and he is certainly none of the spirits of the dead whose identity he sometimes assumes. If I had to guess, I would say he is Pazuzu … but I’m not really sure. I know only that he’s real and powerful and evil and apparently one of many and aligned with whatever is opposed to love.” (The Exorcist: from Novel to Film, Bantam, 1974)

When considering the demon’s identity, I take the “guesswork” out of Blatty’s formula and go with his agnosticism – The Exorcist’s author himself doesn’t know the demon’s identity. That’s my prime data-bit. The author doesn’t know, we don’t know, I don’t know. This not-knowing preserves us from pinning a defunct Assyrian god’s name to the demon and diminishing him by “domesticating” him.

The Roman Ritual insists that the exorcist try to obtain the name of the demon, which supposedly gives the priests power over it. Now: if Merrin knows that the demon is really Pazuzu, surely he would have addressed it by name at certain points during the exorcism. But he doesn’t: he can only refer to the possessing entity anonymously, as “the demon”. It does not seem that Merrin identifies the entity with Pazuzu. He simply identifies it with that nameless demon he fought twelve years earlier in Africa. So I prefer to leave the demon nameless and simply keep Pazuzu as a skillful symbol for “demonic presence/demonic activity”.

[95miyu]

But in the movie the story of the demon that Merrin fought is not described, is it? The demon just says “I am no one”

[granville1]

Right – in the movie the demon is not named. Merrin knows it's the same demon he fought in Africa, but apparently not even Merrin knows its name, if it has one. The earlier exorcism is not described in the movie beyond a few lines like, “Besides, he's (Merrin) had experience … twelve years ago in Africa … supposedly the exorcism went on for months. I heard it damn near killed him.” Three other films attempt to show the African exorcism – Exorcist II the Heretic, Exorcist the Beginning, and Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist. But Blatty's own novel and screenplay do not give any details of the African exorcism.

We don't know what the demon said about itsefl, if anything, in the African exorcism. In Regan's possession, among other gibberish, it says, backwards, “I am no one”. But of course the demon IS “someone”. So its backwards-speech saying “I am no one” doesn't really identify the demon – it's just another trick to deceive Karras.

[fatherbowdern]

Howdy  95 miyu!

 

Here's a link to a file on here that I did a long time ago. It may help in understanding granville's point, especially why Merrin never uses a name (another wonderful aspect from granville as usual).

 

My video helps, in what I believe, to understand that there are multiple “souls” crying out from Regan's body. Are they all evil “demons”? Hear what you think below:

 http://captainhowdy.com/2009/0…..n-tongues/

(See page 2 because I can't directly link or you can search “Speaking in Tongues” to find it on the website's search box.)

 

Father Bowdern

 

PS: Check out Captain Howdy's Translation of the conversation between Karras and Regan/Pazuzu/Captain Howdy/et al. The conversation, in my eyes, is an intentional bait and switch that successfully leads Karras into the right direction of what then was a “confirmation” that the Catholic Church would accept as a true sign of possession. Just pay attention to the replies to Father Karras's questions …

Translation

Ever wonder what the conversation between Father Karras and Regan/Pazuzu translated into?  I did, so I went and did some investigating to find out what it all means in English… here is a translation of that scene which occurs the second time Father Karras visits Regan and records her voice.  Enjoy!

Regan
mirabile dictu, don’t you agree?
miraculous to talk about, don’t you agree?

Father Karras
You speak Latin?

Regan
Ego te absolvo
I pronounce you clean (forgiven)

Father Karras
Quod nomen mihi est?”
What is my name?

Regan
Bon Jour
Good Day

Father Karras
Quod nomen mihi est?
What is my name?

Regan
La plume de ma tante.”
The pen (or quill) of my aunt.

 

 

[ReganMacNeilfan]

This really makes you think is why I enjoy it s much.

[melisa08]

regan speak french, I know, I'm French !

[Author]

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