What Does a Modern Exorcism Look Like? We Asked a Catholic Priest.

Exorcism has always been a sensationalised trope in our horror film fodder: demonic voices, blood-stained eyes, levitation, possession. From Annabelle, to The Conjuring, to perhaps the most famous, The Exorcist, our obsession with the spirit world clasping onto our puny human lives borders that of unhealthy. But how close does a real-life exorcism actually come to the one in movies? Do they really exist?

We asked Father John Corrigan, from the Roman Catholic Church – a priest based out of the country town Ballarat in rural Australia. (Side note: he kind of reminds me of the priest out of Fleabag: young, hip, cool). For seven years he spent his life in a seminary studying theology, history, Latin, Greek and Hebrew before graduating to priest. Then, a few years ago, he flew to Vatican City for their annual exorcism course (which he subsequently wrote an article from, titled, “Lessons Learned From an Exorcism Course”. 

“There was this very famous exorcist, Father Amorth, and he organised it because he discerned there were Diocese where [exorcisms] weren’t being taken seriously and people were being neglected or harm was getting done,” Corrigan told VICE.

“He organised the course, which had the blessing of the pope in Rome, where it’s now semi-official.”

Under the impression that he would be taking part in a practical exorcism course, Corrigan was disappointed when it felt more like a conference than training. Despite that, he got an inside peek into the reality of modern exorcisms. 

At this point, Father John Corrigan hasn’t exorcised a demon out of a possessed person (“I hope I never see it,” he says), but he has dealt with matters of infestation – a house haunted by spirits.

So we thought we’d ask him some questions about what a true exorcism is like. 

VICE: When I think of an exorcism I think “cross” and “holy water” to pull demons out of a person. Obviously there’s a lot of myths around exorcisms…

Father John Corrigan: Yeah, there's a lot of Hollywood treatment of exorcisms. And The Exorcist is the most famous, but very inaccurate. The Rite, starring Anthony Hopkins is a pretty close to true portrayal of what exorcism is, what it looks like, the way the church treats it. Because of course, we have to be aware as well, that there's a lot of Protestant Christians who would also be in this ministry of exorcism that would have a totally different approach. And a dangerous one. All those headlines every now and then where someone dies in an exorcism… that wouldn't happen in the Catholic Church because we've got all these rules. So it's interesting. I think that Hollywood, when it treats exorcism, always uses the Catholic priests.

So The Exorcist is the most famous movie and that’s completely false?

That's the sensational treatment. Like, levitation and the projectile vomiting, climbing on the wall. And that's really extreme stuff. The scariest in my view is The Exorcism of Emily Rose. That's interesting. I mean, these are all based on historical cases. I guess we just have to be aware of sensationalising things, because the danger with sensationalism is that it can make dark and dangerous stuff attractive. People get curious.

So, what would an accurate exorcism be like?

So one of the things I learned in Rome, that I didn't know, was that the ritual of exorcism isn't some sort of magic that can change things overnight. It's important, but what's more important is a whole change of lifestyle. It's actually very similar to what I've learned in psychology. You can go to your therapist and have an hour of therapy but that doesn't change a person's life as much as having good relationships, good friends, good diet, good food… having a family around you that supports you. 

The exorcism itself is very straightforward. I just read from the book, sprinkle holy water. You can use Latin or English. There's lots of prayers to our Father and to Our Lord and to the Saints. Anyone could do it... it's just by the book. What’s interesting about this book is it's very hard to get. My bishop had to request it on my behalf. So bishops are allowed to get this book, but priests aren't. 

To speak again to that renegade role of exorcism, the Catholic church really regulates it, because we take it so seriously. Some people would say this is crazy. But I don't think it's crazy. Like: I think there is evil and it's intelligent, and it's smarter than us.

I thought that when I was called to be an exorcist I wasn't holy enough, I'm not good enough, or have these gifts that a lot of exorcists seem to have. Because I’m a sinner. But they really teach us in this course that it's not about the personal holiness of the priest,  it’s about the church that ministers this, and the priest is just acting on behalf of the church. 

If I was to do this without permission from my bishop, and without blessing from the church, then I'm on my own, and it can get dangerous for me and to the person who has this demonic problem. And that's why with those renegade exorcists, deaths have occurred. 

I've been doing this for a few years and almost all the people who come to me just need good psychological treatment. So I helped them to build up a community of like minded people and their lives improved, but they're not possessed. Possession in Australia is very rare, because people in Australia don’t believe in this stuff. In a place like South America or Africa, where there's a lot of poverty and a lot of violence and strong religious practice,  there's also witchcraft. So Catholics will blend witchcraft in with their own faith to try and deliver them from, say, poverty… or to help their kids survive gang warfare, and that's when you get really dark demonic stuff going on. Whereas here a few teenagers will go use a Ouija board, do seances and try and talk to the dead, but they're not organising black masses or blaspheming Jesus. So ironically, atheism and agnosticism in this country kind of protects us against really dark, evil stuff.

I don't want to diminish the people who have come to me – they do have problems – but they're not possessed. Possession is the biggest level of evil in a person's life. 

So do you think there has been anyone that's come to you where you think it's a legitimate case?

I guess the spooky stuff for me, and this is more common, is infestation. So human beings are possessed, but houses or spaces, they're infested. And that can be really weird. Maybe you've experienced this, or have friends who have experienced this, where you can walk into a room and it's always four or five degrees colder than the rest of the house. Even on a warm day, when you open the window, it's still freezing in this room. 

A lot of people can relate to visions of ghosts in a certain part of the house, or just pins and needles or goose bumps whenever they pass a certain area. That’s spooky, because it's hard to think that they're imagining it if you walk into the same room and have the same experience, but maybe that’s also the power of suggestion. I have dealt with that a lot. 

Also, another thing that surprised me, is that an exorcist can come in and it can take months or years, which is really discouraging to people. You go in, you sprinkle holy water and blessed salts. Catholics are familiar with holy water. Blessed salt is rarer. But it's the same idea. The thing about holy waters is that it evaporates. But salt is sprinkled around a room and stays there until it's vacuumed up. So you use these Sacramentals or physical things, to combat this invisible spiritual reality, it seems to work a bit. But often it can take weeks or months or years for this coldness or this presence to leave. 

Most of the time ghosts are people’s imagination. There's an explanation, like Scooby Doo-type. Ghosts, or human spirits, sometimes there's unfinished business and you're in this space and they need prayers. They're imprisoned in this physical space and it’s hard to make sense of because spirits don't have bodies. But often these ghosts are not human spirits, they’re demons pretending to be human spirits, just to ensnare us. So I kind of treat all ghosts, first of all, as imagination. And once I've eliminated that possibility, then I'll just treat it like an evil spirit rather than a human spirit.

Have you ever talked to a spirit?

So, no, this is something that in the movie, The Exorcist, is misleading. The priests there, they engage, they talk to these demons. Although even in the movie it's portrayed as dangerous to talk to these demons because they're smarter than us and they'll trip us up. It's just better not to. 

When I did this course in Rome, you don't dialogue in any sort of way with these spirits. They'll talk at you, but you ignore them and you just talk to God, keep praying to God. So I wouldn't play around with that stuff. I mean, I do believe in seances, for example, in a Ouija board, but I've never done that. And the reality is that most people that do that, there's no problem, but maybe one in 10 people who do try and communicate with the dead, that's when their life will often get really crappy. And these movies… they're not completely wrong. 

I think in The Exorcism of Emily Rose, it's portrayed that there's a long period of bad luck before this person calls for the priest. Like: one job loss after another job loss, relationship failure after relationship failure, instability, psychosis and delusions. That's, I think, the danger of communicating with the dead. One time out of 10, you might actually get something real, but then it makes life miserable. 

Ah, so it’s not always like someone comes in and they’re talking in another voice and their eyes are changing colour?

See, that kind of case would be possession. And I have not seen that yet. I hope I never see it. I guess I'll see it eventually because it does happen. All I can go on then is the testimony of others. It’s the weird stuff that you can’t explain. Anyone can put on a voice. But often people who are badly possessed, not only have they got this weird voice, they'll sort of vomit up metal objects that they haven’t consumed or it’ll come through their skin. 

I know that a lot of people outside the church would think that it's all superstitious, but one of the rules for Catholic exorcism is that you've got to eliminate all of the natural explanations first. So, if I was to find someone who I believed was possessed, in an exorcism, I would work with a psychologist – they would also be going to that psychologist for treatments – because maybe there is psychosis and delusion there as well. You're gonna have a GP and sometimes a psychiatrist. We've got to use all of those disciplines to treat the person, not just a couple of prayers and some superstition, because often if a person has religious delusions, and they come to the church, if they're not getting psychological help, but the priest goes along with it, they're gonna make the delusions worse and actually contribute to a worsening of the mental health.

There's now a very rare brain disorder – a neurological disorder rather than mental illness – that actually manifests symptoms very similar to what we call possession which brain surgery can cure. If you look at the Bible, there's a lot of cases of Jesus healing people who are called demoniacs. And they’re possessed by evil spirits and a lot of modern sceptics will say, “Oh, they all had mental illness. That person was epileptic. They weren't possessed. This person over here had paranoid schizophrenia”, but people thought it was demons. And maybe sometimes that was true. We've got to discern physical and medical disorders from spiritual ones. I found that fascinating.

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