Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

144Demonic Texts and Textual Demonscontemporary culture, when we are more likely to expect psychological, socialor historical explanations, not references to the religious idea of supernaturalevil. In this context, the names of Nazi concentration camps operateas statements, too. They affect the reader by evoking images of systematicextermination of men, women and children by a modern, Western state. Theoverall effect of this opening to the novel is twofold: it establishes the religiousposition and brings the dilemma of evil into a contemporary and realisticcontext. On the other hand, the gesture works also in the other direction:contemporary horrors are also made mythical and alien. The criminalsand Communists are grouped with Nazis to evoke the mythical figure of theopponent, the demonised Other of Christianity.The tension between the religious or mythical level and the demand ofrealism is central to The Exorcist. It contributes significantly to the particular,striking effect this book and the subsequent film (1973, directed by WilliamFriedkin) have on the audience. The narrative structure of the novel isseemingly simple, and hides many important complexities that invigorate itat a thematic level. To grasp the attention of the secularised, modern audiencewith a narrative dealing with the devil and demons, The Exorcist employsevery available means to make the incredible credible, and to suspenddisbelief. The novel is relatively well researched. The basic symptoms of possession,as well as the ritual of exorcism, and the supernatural occurrencesduring it, are based on documents and accounts of such cases from the historyof the Catholic church. Blatty himself presents his role as a documentarian:“I don’t think I had anything consciously to do with formulating theplot for The Exorcist. The only real work I consciously did was on researchingthe symptomology of possession and the medical information.” 3 Also,when producing his book as a movie, Blatty strongly supported WilliamFriedkin as the director because of his solid live television and documentaryexperience; Blatty wanted The Exorcist to have a “look of documentary realism,”and Friedkin was able to provide it. 4 Questions of the mythical and theactual, of faith and disbelief, are inscribed into the tensions that structureThe Exorcist, and contribute to its numerous demonic conflicts.THE REAL ENEMYThe pursuit of ”authenticity” and the interrelated degree of belief invested inthe supernatural phenomena described in the novel and the movie make TheExorcist quite a special case in the history of modern horror. It is a religiouswork of art, but – one might say – a perverted one. It does try to make anapologetic statement about the existence of God but very indirectly; insteadof affirming the good, it employs demonology and the Catholic Christiantradition to convince the reader and the film audience of the continuous influenceof supernatural evil. The jacket blurb for the original US edition of3 Travers - Reiff 1974, 16.4Ibid., 28.