Exorcism

Exorcism is a religious or spiritual ritual intended to expel a possessing spirit, demon, or other malevolent entity from a person, place, or object — the practiced response to claimed possession, covered separately on its own page. Practices described as exorcism appear, largely independently, across a wide range of religious traditions — most prominently within Christianity and Islam, but also within Judaism and numerous other belief systems — with rites, requirements and underlying theology that differ substantially between them. Exorcism remains an actively contested subject, both between religious traditions with differing theological views of possession, and between religious practitioners and the mainstream medical and psychiatric establishment — see Possession for the fuller discussion of the underlying phenomenon and its clinical treatment.

Christianity

Catholic Church

The Catholic Church's formal Rite of Exorcism traces its roots to the ministry of Jesus, described in the Gospels as having cast out demons on multiple occasions, including the healing of the Gerasene demoniac. By the third century, "minor exorcisms" — protective prayers rather than responses to possession — had become part of the baptismal rite for new converts. The Church's major exorcism rite, addressing claimed cases of possession specifically, was formally codified for the first time in 1614 with the publication of the Rituale Romanum, and remained essentially unaltered for nearly 400 years.

On 26 January 1999, the Vatican issued the first full revision of the rite since 1614, published as De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam ("Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications") — the last of the Church's liturgical books to be updated following the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). The revision modernised the ritual's language and explicitly directed exorcists to consult medical and psychological expertise before proceeding, a change some contemporary press coverage summarised, not entirely accurately, as pitting the Church "with Freud against the Devil" — in fact, appealing to psychiatric consultation had already been informal practice for some exorcists well before the revision. Some traditionalist Catholics regard the 1999 revision as a weakening of the original rite's language, while others maintain the ritual is essentially unchanged in substance; a 2001 decree from the Congregation for Divine Worship permits exorcists to continue using the 1614 rite with their bishop's specific permission.

Under current Catholic discipline, an exorcism may only be performed by a priest specifically and individually authorised by his bishop for each case, following a thorough medical and psychological examination intended to rule out mental illness or physical conditions that could account for the person's symptoms; the revised rite explicitly forbids exorcisms on those believed to be mentally ill. The exorcist is directed never to conduct the rite alone, and is typically equipped with holy water, a crucifix, and relics of saints. The Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained describes exorcism, in this tradition, as a confrontation rather than simply a prayer — once begun, the rite is understood to need completion, and a successful exorcism can take a single session or, as in some documented cases, span months.

Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthodox churches maintain their own formal exorcism rites, most commonly incorporated into baptismal ceremonies, alongside separate services for cases of claimed demonic influence outside that context.

Protestantism and Pentecostal "deliverance"

Protestant practice varies considerably by denomination. Mainline Protestant traditions have generally moved toward interpreting demonic possession symbolically — as a personification of systemic evil or a description of psychological distress — rather than as a literal external entity requiring ritual expulsion. By contrast, Pentecostal, Charismatic and many Evangelical communities have retained and actively practise what is usually termed "deliverance" rather than exorcism: an informal ritual, typically involving prayer and the laying on of hands, that — unlike the Catholic rite — does not require ordination or any specific ecclesiastical authorisation, reflecting these traditions' theology that the authority to cast out demons belongs to all believers rather than a designated specialist. Pentecostal deliverance ministry saw a significant modern expansion through the Charismatic movement of the 1960s, which carried these practices into mainstream Protestant denominations, and it remains particularly prominent in the rapidly growing global Pentecostal movement.

Islam

The Islamic practice most closely comparable to exorcism is ruqyah: the recitation of Quranic verses and prophetic supplications to treat illness, magic, or affliction attributed to jinn — spiritual beings acknowledged in Islamic theology as capable of limited influence over humans. Ruqyah's textual basis comes primarily from hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, describing the Prophet Muhammad himself performing ruqyah and teaching specific protective supplications, and it is regarded as a form of prophetic medicine (thibb al-nabawi) rather than a specialist clerical ritual. Unlike the Catholic rite, ruqyah may in principle be performed by any observant Muslim rather than requiring clerical authorisation, though reputable practice discourages theatrics or payment-based rituals and recommends seeking a scholar grounded specifically in Quranic method.

Islamic scholarship distinguishes between possession proper and the more commonly described waswasah — whispering or temptation by jinn or Satan — with the Quran (Surat al-Nas, 114:1–6) addressing the latter as the more routine spiritual concern. Classical Islamic scholars have historically cautioned against over-diagnosis: the medieval theologian Ibn Taymiyyah's writings are cited alongside modern commentary warning that most cases attributed to jinn possession have psychological or physical causes, and that exorcists too quick to diagnose possession may be motivated by profit rather than genuine concern. Practice and institutional attitudes toward ruqyah vary considerably by region, from broad mainstream acceptance to significant folk-healing economies built around it in parts of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

Judaism

Jewish tradition's most distinctive possession concept is the dybbuk (from the Hebrew davak, "to cling"), the wandering, unrepaired soul of a dead person that attaches itself to a living body, a term first recorded in print in the 16th century, with the earliest published account of a dybbuk exorcism appearing in Basel in 1602. Unlike the Christian and Islamic traditions, a dybbuk is understood within Kabbalistic theology (drawing on Isaac Luria's teaching on gilgul neshamot, the transmigration of souls) not as a demon or independent evil entity, but specifically as a human soul that failed to complete its own spiritual repair and become trapped between worlds.

Traditional dybbuk exorcisms were typically conducted publicly in a synagogue, in the presence of a minyan (a quorum of at least ten Jewish men), often involving seven Torah scrolls, seven black candles, and the sounding of ram's horns. Rather than a confrontational expulsion, the process was frequently a form of negotiation — the rabbi would interview the possessing spirit to learn its identity and grievances and attempt to persuade it toward its own release, a marked contrast with the more adversarial framing found in Christian ritual. Documented cases persisted into the 20th and 21st centuries, including a widely reported 1999 exorcism performed on Israeli national television by Rabbi David Basri in Dimona.

Other traditions

Beliefs and rituals recognisable as exorcism appear in most cultures and religious traditions worldwide, including within Hinduism, Buddhism, and numerous Indigenous and folk-healing traditions, though the specific theology and practice differ substantially by culture.

The Glatzel case and Arne Cheyenne Johnson

A further widely-cited American case involved eleven-year-old David Glatzel, whose family, following a series of reported disturbing visions and behavioural changes in 1980, contacted paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Warrens arranged for Catholic clergy to become involved; Lorraine Warren later said six priests took part in a series of what she described as "minor" exorcisms — a characterisation never independently confirmed by the Catholic Church itself. During one of these rites, witnesses said Arne Cheyenne Johnson, then engaged to David's sister, challenged the entity to leave David and take him instead. Johnson later killed his landlord, Alan Bono, and his attorney's attempt to argue demonic possession as a legal defence — the first of its kind in the US — was formally barred from trial by the presiding judge. See Arne Cheyenne Johnson for the full case history, trial, and the Glatzel family's own later dispute with the Warrens' published account of events.

The 1949 Roland Doe case

One of the most widely known American exorcism cases involved a Maryland teenager, later identified as Ronald Hunkeler and given the pseudonym "Roland Doe" by contemporary newspapers, whose reported experiences in 1949 inspired William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel The Exorcist and its 1973 film adaptation. The disturbances reportedly began after the death of an aunt who had taught the boy to use a Ouija board, and escalated to reported scratches, moving objects, and dramatic behavioural changes; Jesuit priests Father Raymond Bishop and Father William Bowdern conducted an extended series of exorcism sessions in Maryland and, later, St. Louis, over several weeks. Hunkeler's real identity was not publicly confirmed until his death in 2020.

The Anneliese Michel case

The most consequential modern exorcism case, in terms of its lasting legal and pastoral impact, involved Anneliese Michel, a devout German Catholic woman who began experiencing seizures at 16 and was ultimately diagnosed by physicians with temporal lobe epilepsy and psychosis. After years of ineffective psychiatric treatment, and following an assessment by a Jesuit priest recommending exorcism, her local bishop authorised the rite in 1975. Between September 1975 and her death, priests Arnold Renz and Ernst Alt performed 67 exorcism sessions over ten months, several of which were recorded on audio tape. Michel died on 1 July 1976, weighing approximately 30 kilograms; the official cause of death was malnutrition and dehydration, having largely stopped eating during the final months of the ritual.

Her parents and both priests were tried and, in April 1978, convicted of negligent homicide, receiving suspended six-month sentences. Physicians testifying at trial described her presentation as consistent with temporal lobe epilepsy compounded by severe psychiatric illness, in a rigid religious environment that gave her symptoms their specific shape, and argued the exorcism process had progressively narrowed her options until refusing food came to feel, to her, like an act of religious obedience. The case is widely credited with a subsequent decline in the frequency of exorcisms performed in Germany, and directly inspired later dramatised films including The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and Requiem (2006).

Medical safeguards within the practice

The relationship between religious exorcism and medicine varies significantly by tradition. The modern Catholic rite specifically mandates prior medical and psychiatric evaluation before an exorcism may proceed at all, and forbids the rite entirely where mental illness is the more likely explanation — see Catholic Church, above. Some exorcists work directly alongside psychiatrists as part of this evaluation process; Dr. Richard Gallagher, who has evaluated possession claims for the Catholic Church for decades, has stated that the great majority of cases referred to him involve conventional psychiatric or medical conditions rather than any inexplicable phenomenon. For the fuller discussion of how mainstream psychiatry classifies and treats claimed possession itself — including the DSM-5's "possession-form" Dissociative Identity Disorder criteria — see Possession.

Documented dangers

Exorcism carries genuine, repeatedly documented risk when medical care is withheld or when physical restraint is used, particularly outside the more heavily regulated Catholic framework. Beyond the Michel case, other fatalities include the September 2021 death of three-year-old Arely Naomi Proctor during a twelve-hour Pentecostal exorcism in San Jose, California, in which she was asphyxiated; her mother, uncle and grandfather were subsequently charged with felony child abuse causing death. In December 2015, a 41-year-old woman died during an informally-conducted exorcism at a Frankfurt hotel after relatives restrained her and pressed on her chest and abdomen; five family members were charged with murder, and a psychological examination found no grounds to reduce their criminal liability. Cases such as these are cited by medical professionals and by cautious voices within religious traditions themselves as the clearest argument for mandatory prior medical evaluation and against unsupervised, informally-conducted ritual.

A rise in demand

Multiple exorcists and Church officials have reported a significant, sustained rise in requests for exorcism over roughly the past two decades. Father Vincent Lampert, exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis since 2005, noted that the number of designated exorcists in the United States grew from around 12 when he was appointed to an estimated 125–150 by the mid-2020s. In Italy, Sicilian priest Benigno Palilla stated that reported cases requiring exorcism had roughly tripled to approximately 500,000 a year, a trend he and others have linked to rising interest in tarot, fortune-telling and occult practices, while cautioning that the great majority of these cases reflect psychological or spiritual distress rather than genuine possession. The Vatican-recognised International Association of Exorcists, representing Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox priests, formally described the increase as a "pastoral emergency" and has run recurring international training courses in response, warning explicitly against untrained, "self-taught" exorcists as a source of serious error.

VAULT ASSESSMENT

CLASSIFICATION

Cross-cultural religious/spiritual ritual practice

EARLIEST REPORT

Antiquity (independently across numerous traditions); first standardised Catholic rite 1614; earliest recorded dybbuk exorcism 1602

MODERN REPORTS

1614–present (Catholic rite); ongoing rise in reported demand since approximately the early 2000s

EVIDENCE

Extensive ritual documentation, witness testimony and, in some cases, audio recordings across traditions; no ritual practice has been independently shown to be effective against a genuine external entity under conditions accepted by mainstream science — see Possession for the fuller discussion of the underlying claim itself

INVESTIGATIONS

Felicitas D. Goodman (anthropological study of the Michel case); International Association of Exorcists; Dr. Richard Gallagher (psychiatric evaluation for the Catholic Church)

ASSESSMENT

Exorcism sits at a genuinely difficult intersection between sincere, long-standing religious practice and documented cases of serious harm. Formal traditions with built-in medical safeguards — most notably the modern Catholic rite's mandatory prior clinical evaluation — appear to carry substantially lower documented risk than informal, unsupervised rituals, which account for the clearest cases of serious injury and death. The underlying question of whether claimed possession itself reflects a genuine external entity is addressed separately on the Possession page.

STATUS

Contested — actively practiced across multiple religious traditions; not recognised as an effective treatment for any medical or psychiatric condition by mainstream medicine

See also

• Possession
• Ed Warren
• Lorraine Warren
• Arne Cheyenne Johnson
• Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis
• Poltergeist
• Anomalistic Psychology
• The Conjuring

External links

• Wikipedia — Of Exorcisms and Certain Supplications
• Wikipedia — Anneliese Michel
• Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine — See no evil, hear no evil? The role of psychiatry in exorcism
• Hektoen International — Spirit possession in Jewish folklore: the dybbuk