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

162Demonic Texts and Textual Demonsstream-of-consciousness. The heterogeneity and blasphemous nature of thislanguage points toward the modern condition: nothing is sacred any more. 64The voice of the demon is just an amplified and exaggerated version of thesame mixture; the demonic language is playing with all the signs indiscriminately– it transgresses the limits of the holy and the profane, the significantand the senseless, and aims only at chaos and despair. The linguistic analysisof the demonic voice as compared to Regan’s own does not reveal the conclusiveevidence of two distinct personalities: the “cold” analytical mind isunable to reach resolution. However, as Karras listens to Regan’s own voice(a taped message to her father), he momentarily finds certainty: “throughthe roaring of blood in his ears, like the ocean, as up through his chest andhis face swelled an overwhelming intuition: The thing that I saw in that roomwasn’t Regan!” 65 Karras is spurred to stop ruminating by the thought andimage of his recently deceased mother; the mother is identified with Regan –“The eyes [of his mother] became Regan’s … eyes shrieking … eyes waiting….[/] “‘Speak but the word….’” 66 Significantly, his mother was illiterate;a Greek immigrant, she was unable to either read or write any English. 67When Karras is lost in his futile attempts to find the significant sign amongthe torrent of demonic communication, he comes across a faded languageexercise book that Mary Karras had used in her “adult education”: letters ofalphabet, over and over, and then an attempt at a letter: 68The facsimile of “mother’s handwriting,” with its shaky and waveringline, intrudes itself among the printed line of intellectual thought, among argumentsand counterarguments. It bears the mark of his mother’s body, hershaking hand and the emotional tie that Karras feels as painful guilt; as apriest, he has not been able to help his mother in her poverty, nor get herbetter treatment as she was dying in a mental institution. The problem offaith Karras is experiencing is connected with the body, and specifically thematernal body – religious faith has emerged as love, as the elevated, pure andspiritual form of love that also functions as an escape from the imperfectionsand “dirt” of the “low” domain of bodily love. Karras’s thoughts andperceptions in his mother’s apartment warrant such an interpretation:64 In the movie version the swearing is even more striking, as is the use of alcohol andcigarettes; all the adult characters appear to be neurotic chain-smokers. – See also the discussionon the sacred and the blasphemy in chapter ten.65 E, 229.66E, 228.67 E, 47.68E, 227-8.