Thanks to The Exorcist: Believer for sponsoring today's video.
Hello,
Internet!
Welcome to Film Theory, the show that'll turn its head around 180 degrees for any scrap of lore.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to get dark.
Okay, so it's not really all that rare of an event here on the channels,
but you know what is a rare event?
Us talking about one of the scariest, most influential horror franchises of all time,
The Exorcist.
In case you don't know this one, these films check off all our main criteria for a banger episode:
Kids, check. Possessions, check.
And that's the list.
The original Exorcist back in the day was a very
important movie because it legitimized the horror genre for mainstream audiences
while also giving the chiropractic industry its first ever viral video.
Oh, just felt that one.
It also gave a much-needed boost to the pea soup makers of the world.
Mm-mm-mm, tasty.
And now this year, a new chapter begins.
The Exorcist: Believer, releasing in theaters on October 6th.
In this new movie, two teenage girls disappear for three days,
and when they're found, something's changed.
They act strange. Their personalities are a bit darker.
And their parents eventually realize that,
in true Exorcist fashion, they've been possessed by a demon.
In their terror and desperation,
they seek out the only person alive who's witnessed anything like this before,
Chris McNeil, mother to Regan from the original story 50 years ago.
So already you're dealing with a tried-and-true premise, except this time, it's multiplied by two.
Truly, teamwork makes the dream work, even in the realm of demonic possession.
But then The Exorcist: Believer decided to take it another step further.
While the original 1973 was predominantly written
from a Catholic perspective on demonic possession and exorcism,
Believer brings in the perspective from multiple faiths.
Catholicism, for sure, but also the Pentecostal Church,
the Baptist Church, even root medicine from Africa.
As Chris McNeil says in the new movie, exorcism is one of the oldest human rituals.
Every culture, in every country for as far back as history has been recorded,
has a ceremony to dispel negative energies.
And that right there, that is really cool.
Having the new movie feature exorcisms across different belief systems,
it not only educates the audience on multiple faiths in a fun,
this-doesn't-even-feel-like-learning sort of way -
something that, you know, we always stand on the theorist channels - but,
it also opens the door to some intensely scary entities.
So, I wanted to do a bit of a thought experiment today.
What if we take things just a little step further?
The first movie featured Regan getting possessed by the Mesopotamian wind spirit, Pazuzu.
Now, this newest movie's demonic entity is introducing another
Mesopotamian spirit known as Lamashtu,
daughter of the Sky God, and often depicted alongside Pazuzu.
They're kind of like total besties, with Lamashtu causing nightmares,
attacking pregnant women, and corrupting bodies of water.
In short, these characters aren't just being
possessed by your regular old garden variety Satan,
they're very specific demons from a very specific time and place.
So if suddenly the doors open for bringing in other faiths,
what is the biggest, baddest possession entity that we could face in a future installment?
What are some other demons and spirits that could make
their silver screen appearance in a future Exorcist movie?
And which of them would present the biggest challenge for any
would-be Exorcists looking to bring them down?
Because sometimes holy water and crosses just aren't enough.
Basically, I want to know who would be the final boss of the Exorcist films.
Hold your crucifix close and start praying, loyal theorists.
The power compels ya to keep watching.
Also, right off the bat, I want to say that what we're
covering today are real faiths held by real people
with an incredible amount of nuance, detail, and regional difference.
I want to make it perfectly clear that this is a very top-line,
surface-level discussion that's meant to be fun,
while sparking some creative interest in spooky stuff.
We just think it'd be cool to see some of these spirits and their faiths represented on screen.
And, of course, when that would happen, the filmmakers would consult people of those faiths
to ensure that everything is authentic.
I just want to flag that since, you know,
this is a short online video that's touching on religion and faith.
So just keep that in mind as we roll forward.
The first faith I wanted to bring in here today is Islam,
considering it's one of the most practiced religions on the planet
with nearly 25% of Earth's population identifying as Muslim.
And while not all Muslims believe in exorcisms, or ruqayah as they call them,
there are plenty of stories that have circulated throughout the faith.
For instance, there was one story from 2021 that involved a married couple in Jakarta
moving into a home haunted by evil, the wife becoming possessed,
and the couple turning to three Muslim experts to perform an exorcism.
So what could potentially be doing the possession here?
Well, within Islam, there are spiritual creatures known as jinn,
probably better known by their other name, genies.
Yeah, you heard that right, but hold your Robin Williams there, friends.
These are not your typical celebrity impersonating blue wisps of smoke.
In fact, there are many different types appearing across hundreds of different stories.
In the Quran alone, there are 29 different mentions of jinn,
but records of their existence actually date back to pre-Islamic Arabia.
Jinn, in general, don't tend to be innately good or evil.
Instead, they tend to have free will and can thus decide on their moral course of action.
That said, there are a few in the stories that are explicitly called out as being evil.
The Ifrit, for instance, are beings of fire coming from the underworld.
There's also the Shaitan, evil devils that lack free will but work to tempt humans to sin.
And these jinn are known to possess humans, though the reasons can vary drastically.
It could be as simple as the human offended them or the jinn just wanted to cause trouble
to them falling in love with the human and wanting to be loved in return.
Sometimes even spirits aren't immune to toxic relationships.
So that's what we're dealing with.
But if we're truly going to identify which is the final boss of exorcism,
we need to know how to evict these guys from our bodies.
Modern strategies for dealing with jinn amount to reciting verses from the Quran.
Nothing too extreme there.
According to Georgetown University Associate Professor Amira El-Zein,
pre-Islamic Arabs would use a combination of beads, incense, salt,
and necklaces made from the bones and teeth of animals to frighten jinn away.
Again, pretty easy stuff to come by.
According to one study,
which looked across various exorcisms performed by Arab Muslim healers,
they found that exorcisms tended to be divided up into three stages:
step one, remove all distractions, including music, jewelry, and pictures;
step two, cleanse the room and try to communicate
with the jinn about their reason for the possession;
then finally, step three, recite the Quran and ask the jinn to leave.
And yeah, that is basically it.
Not to be too reductive here, guys, but jinn, honestly, they're pretty casual.
Clean up the room a bit, you talk about their problems, and then you ask them to go away.
They just need to be heard, guys.
They want a vent, you know?
And interestingly enough, I saw this theme pop up a lot across my research.
In the story of The Fisherman and the Jinni, part of the famous folk tales from 1001 Nights,
a fisherman finds a bottle containing an Ifrit.
The Ifrit threatens to kill the fisherman,
but the fisherman manages to negotiate a peaceful resolution
that gets both the fisherman and the jinn what they want.
Seriously, an exorcist negotiating with a jinn,
and both parties walking away with a win-win scenario.
Sounds more like a conflict resolution meeting with HR
than the big final bad of some spooky exorcism story.
So what other cultures have a rich history of demons and possessions that we can draw from?
Well, next up on the world tour is the Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan,
a faith that holds a lot of reverence for nature and the spirits that inhabit it.
Many Shinto practices seek to communicate with and appease those spirits,
so you can already see how this might fit in with an exorcist story.
See, in Shintoism, everyone has a Reikon,
similar to the Western idea of a spirit or a soul.
However, when someone dies suddenly, their Reikon can struggle to move on,
instead transforming into a Yurei, similar to the Western concept of a ghost.
The Yurei are often driven by very powerful emotions:
revenge, jealousy, love, sorrow,
and it's through resolving that emotional conflict that the spirit can finally be laid to rest.
Another interesting option here is appealing to the spirit's ego.
I found one story where the 12th century Emperor Sutoku died
and became a vengeful spirit haunting his court
only for them to exorcise him by treating him like a demigod.
This calmed him enough that his spirit ultimately departed.
So yet again, we get ourselves an exorcism scenario
that's less about throwing holy water at a child
doing crab walks on the ceiling
and more about having a cup of tea with someone on the couch to talk about their feelings.
Not exactly big screen-worthy stuff.
But while we're busy having tea and cakes with the Yurei,
there is another class of supernatural entities
that could lead to far more unique forms of exorcism.
Those are known as the Yokai.
And though the word can translate literally to demon,
they're not really demons in the Western sense of the word.
Instead, they're more like spirits that represent natural parts of the world
or phenomenon that can't be explained.
As such, there are hundreds of different Yokai,
each with their own personality.
For example, Tsukumogami are possessed tools
ranging from futons and mirrors to shoes and jars.
While other Yokai, like Kitsune Fox Spirits,
have been known to possess human beings
and cause them to take on the physical characteristics of a fox.
So, how then would an exorcist deal with these Yokai?
A sort of general term for a Shinto exorcism or purification is Harae,
which is meant to cleanse one of their sins, bad luck, diseases, and guilt,
along with exorcising any spirits possessing them.
One common way of doing this:
water.
Water, and especially fresh, clean water,
is believed to have purifying properties
that can wash away evil and restore balance.
We're talking things like washing hands,
pouring water over the body,
rinsing out your mouth.
Basically, you're treating the Yokai like a case of COVID-19.
Stay healthy and hashtag stop the spread of mischievous spirits.
That said, there are other more elaborate ceremonies known as Misogi
that can be used for particularly stubborn spirits.
These feature participants dressing in special white garments
and gathering in sacred places like shrines and waterfalls
to chant, meditate, and pray away the Yokai.
The possessed person is immersed in cold water
to cleanse away any impurities while the rituals perform,
which involves a lot of clapping,
bowing, and prayer to try and drive out the possessing demon.
But if that's still not enough,
well, thankfully, there's tools of the trade to use
if things become more confrontational.
These include the Ofuda,
a sort of talisman made from paper or cloth
meant to keep people and places safe,
the Gohei,
wooden wands with zigzagging paper streamers
representing the presence of the divine,
and the Katana,
a traditional Japanese sword symbolizing power and strength,
allowing the exorcist to cut through negative energies.
An exorcist with a sword, huh?
Put that one on your next blockbuster movie poster.
That is awesome.
However, across all my research,
there was one spirit that truly stood out
as the biggest and baddest of the bunch,
one that appears to be far more violent
and far more fearsome than the rest.
The definitive final boss of any exorcist story
hailing from Native American folklore,
specifically coming from the indigenous peoples
of the plains and Great Lakes,
I'm talking about the Wendigo.
Now, the thing about the Wendigo
is that they have been misappropriated to heck and back
by a lot of mainstream media,
so what is with the Wendigo exactly?
Well, the Wendigo is, traditionally speaking,
a spirit of winter
and a symbol of the dangers of selfishness.
It's often said to be a malevolent spirit
which sometimes chooses to possess human beings,
invoking feelings of insatiable greed and hunger.
Probably the most iconic trait of the spirit
is that it causes the victim to turn cannibal.
Despite their depiction as creatures
similar to werewolves or yetis in a lot of pop culture,
according to most native legends,
the physical form of the Wendigo
is actually very human-like,
oftentimes with hearts of ice.
Some describe the Wendigo
as having bodies entirely made of ice.
They're gaunt and emaciated,
so hungry for human flesh
that they've chewed their own lips off.
Whenever a Wendigo would eat another person,
they would grow in proportion to what they just consumed
so they could never truly be full.
It also means that over time,
Wendigos grow to be gigantic.
So, how does one become possessed by a Wendigo?
Well, there's actually a few methods.
You could be specifically cursed by a shaman,
you can encounter a Wendigo in your dreams
where it follows you into the real world,
or probably the most common method
I've seen floating around
is that it's punishment for some sort of dishonorable act,
breaking a major taboo,
like resorting to cannibalism during a time of starvation.
So, what do we know about exercising a Wendigo spirit?
Well, here's the thing.
In almost every case I could find,
you can't.
Once someone becomes possessed and transformed into a Wendigo,
there's no coming back.
This isn't a sit down on the couch
and talk about your feelings kind of possession.
A quick mouth rinse with water
ain't washing this one away.
The solution in the stories that I read
was to kill the possessed
so they can't continue their cannibalistic murder rampage.
It is that hardcore.
In short, the Wendigo is a spirit that cannot be exercised,
which, honestly, is pretty darn horrifying.
Even more horrifying, though,
is that this isn't just something that exists in folklore.
It is a real thing.
There's actually a modern psychiatric condition
that borrows its name from these stories.
It's called Wendigo Psychosis,
and it's characterized by an intense fear of becoming a cannibal
while suffering from intense cravings for human flesh.
First off, that right there,
that could play really well in some sort of exorcist story
with the Wendigo spirit.
Maybe some of the characters are suffering from this Wendigo psychosis
without actually being possessed,
mixing in a bit of mystery as to who's the one truly in need of help.
But diving even more deeply into the psychosis,
I did find treatments of the condition in some Kree folklore.
Here, they ate fatty animal meat and drank animal grease
in an attempt to drive the psychosis out of the patient.
As the stories go,
some of the people who are treated this way
would allegedly vomit up ice as part of the curing process.
Given that the Wendigo, the spirit of winter,
is supposed to have a heart made of ice,
a pretty easy connection to draw there.
Maybe the curate is literally throwing up the ice heart of the Wendigo.
So in total, across our spiritual battle,
we have talk about your feelings,
wash your hands,
throw up a heart made of ice.
I think I know which on that list is going to be the most difficult to accomplish.
Wendigo wins the exorcist battle hands down.
At this point, you could probably tell Chris McNeil
was 100% right in The Exorcist: Believer
when she said that every culture on Earth has purification rituals like exorcisms,
each as intricate and unique as the last.
Just from these three cultures alone,
we have wildly different spirits that can all possess you in different ways
with markedly different strategies of exorcism.
And that was without even touching on the faiths
that were represented in The Exorcist: Believer.
But that's because you should probably go see it for yourself
when the film comes out in theaters this Friday.
I certainly know I'll be there,
hiding behind my hands.
These movies are scary, man.
But until then, remember my friends,
it's all just a theory.
A film theory.
Aaaaaaaand cut.