Michael W. Cuneo - American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty

American
Exorcism

Expelling Demons in
the Land of Plenty

MICHAEL W. CUNEO

Broadway Books

New York

Contents

Part One
The Exorcist as Hero

Part Two
Entrepreneurs of Exorcism

Part Three
Charismatic Deliverance Ministry

Part Four
The Rough-and-Ready School

Part Five
The Rise of Evangelical Deliverance

Part Six
Roman Catholic Exorcism

TO MARGARET

Acknowledgments

Id like to thank my editors, Rebecca Cole and Andrew Corbin, and my agent, Claudia Cross. Thanks also to Rebecca E. Cuneo and Shane D. Cuneo.

This is a book about exorcism in contemporary America. On the face of it, this might seem an improbable topic. Demon-expulsion in the land of suburban glitz and high-tech razzmatazz? Could there really be much here worth writing about?

Surprisingly, yes. Over the past several years I have discovered a side of America that I never knew existed. In the course of intensive and far-flung research, I have sat in on dozens of exorcismsnot just Roman Catholic exorcisms but a wide variety of Protestant ones also. I have met with hundreds of people, from various walks of life, who are convinced not only that demons exist but also that they routinely cause trouble in the lives of ordinary women and men.

Standing at the back of an auditorium in suburban Chicago, I have seen several hundred impeccably groomed, middle-class Americans writhing and shrieking and groaning (some simulating masturbation) while attempting to free themselves from demons of sexual perversity. At a drab medical complex on the outskirts of Boston, I have watched an avuncular physician exorcising spirits of guilt and self-hatred from one of his patients. At several conservative Protestant churches in the Midwest, I have observed people retching and cursing and flinging themselves violently to the floor while being delivered of entire squadrons of demons. (On one such occasion I have even been forced to intercede physically on behalf of a minister who was being tossed into the air and bounced off walls while trying to perform an exorcism on a 250-pound accountant.) I have received numerous invitations to undergo exorcism myself, once from two Episcopalians who wanted to shackle me to the support beams of a rural shed so that my demons would depart peaceably. I have observed people at high-toned suburban churches vomiting profusely into trash containers while being purged of their evil spirits. I have heard fabulous accounts (from apparently sincere and lucid people) of gyrating heads, levitating bodies, and navel-licking tongues. I have interviewed psychiatrists charged with the responsibility of evaluating suspected cases of demonic possession for the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. And, not least of all, I have personally encountered more varieties of Catholic exorcismofficial Catholic exorcism, bootleg Catholic exorcism, you-name-it Catholic exorcismthan I ever imagined existed.

As unlikely as it may sound, exorcism is alive and well in contemporary America. Its a booming businessoperating below radar perhaps, invisible to anyone not specifically on the lookout for it, but booming nevertheless. Untold numbers of Americans, many of them staunchly middle-class, the kind of people you might chat with at the supermarket checkout counter or bump into at the local mall, have undergone exorcisms of one kind or another, and many claim to have come out much the better for it.

It wasnt long ago, however, that almost nothing of this sort was going on in the United States. As recently as the late sixties, exorcism was all but dead and forgottena fading ghost long past its prime. It was rarely spoken of and even more rarely assumed to possess any practical significance. By the mid-seventies, however, the ghost had sprung miraculously back to life. Suddenly countless people were convinced that they themselves, or perhaps a loved one, were suffering from demonic affliction; and exorcism was in hot demand.

And what brought this about? A number of factors, but none more important, especially where Catholic exorcism is concerned, than the release of William Peter Blattys The Exorcist and the publication of Malachi Martins demon-busting pulp classic Hostage to the Devil. As if by alchemy, the dramatic (and seductively grotesque) arrival of demons on the screen and the bestselling page resulted in demons rampaging through the bedrooms and workplaces of Middle America. The pop culture industry cast its spell, so to speak, and an obliging nation fell into line. New exorcism ministries were brought into being to deal with the sudden onslaught of demonism, and older ministries were rejuvenated and found themselves with more business than they could possibly handle.

In subsequent years, moreover, it was much the same story. With its incessant demon-mongering, the popular entertainment industry was sometimes responsible for directly stimulating the exorcism market during the 1980s and 1990s, and sometimes (rather more modestly) for fostering a cultural climate conducive to the performance of exorcisms. One way or another, whenever (and wherever) belief in demons and exorcism cropped up during these years, Hollywood and its accomplices in the culture-capitalism field were almost certain to be somewhere on the scene.

Theres something else worth considering at the outset. In a sense the real curiosity isnt that exorcism is practiced in contemporary America, but that it isnt practiced far more widely. It would be difficult, after all, to imagine a better deal. Whatever ones personal problemdepression, anxiety, substance addiction, or even a runaway sexual appetitethere are exorcism ministries available today that will happily claim expertise for dealing with it. With the significant bonus, moreover, that one is not, for the most part, held personally responsible for the problem. Indwelling demons are mainly to blame, and getting rid of them is the key to moral and psychological redemption. Personal engineering through demon-expulsion: a bit messy perhaps, but relatively fast and cheap, and morally exculpatory. A thoroughly American arrangement.

And this is precisely the point. In addition to being influenced by the popular entertainment industry, the practice of exorcism in contemporary America is remarkably well suited to the therapeutic ethos of the prevailing culture. No less than any of the countless New Age nostrums or twelve-step recovery routines on the current scene, exorcism ministries offer their clients endless possibilities for personal transformationthe prospect of a thousand rebirths. With its promises of therapeutic well-being and rapid-fire emotional gratification, exorcism is oddly at home in the shopping-mall culture, the purchase-of-happiness culture, of turn-of-the-century America.

American Exorcism is based on my personal interviews with exorcists and their clients, and my firsthand observation of more than fifty exorcisms. All of the incidents recounted in the book are true. Due to their highly intimate nature, however, I have sometimes disguised real-life identities. The book has two interrelated objectives: to tell the story of real-life exorcism ministries in contemporary America and to investigate the ways in which various cultural forces have helped to inspire and sustain these ministries.

The book is not, I should emphasize, an exhaustive inventory of exorcism in contemporary America. There are entire schools of exorcismAfro-Caribbean, New Age, Eastern Orthodoxto which I give little more than a passing glance. My primary concern is with exorcism as its practiced among mainstream, predominantly middle-class Christiansthe white-bread sector of American society, as it were. Its not the complete story, but its more than enough.