Characteristics Of A Successful Exorcist

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Running head: Characteristics of a successful exorcist Essay 1 29/01/11 William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, of the early 1970s tells a horrifying tale of a mother trying to save her daughter from some unknown evil entity with the help of priests as a last resort to curing her daughter. This happens, as a Washington DC actress and a single mom notices sudden and strange changes in her 12 years old daughter, Regan’s behavior. She consults doctors and psychiatrists for her cure but nothing helps. At last when left with no viable medical option, she decides to seek help from a priest to perform an exorcism. She requests father Karras to perform the act. When father Karras sees Regan, she displays very disturbing and gruesome behavior with an evil nature. Though, he hardly believes she still needs an exorcism and that exorcism is the answer to her wild and evil behavior because Regan’s evil behavior still does not point towards a desperate need for an exorcism as per the church’s principle. Finally convinced and having obtained evidence to prove the criticality of Regan’s condition in being possessed by the devil, father Karras agrees to perform an exorcism for which he requests the church for the approval. The church sends an invitation to father Merrin, the more experienced priest in the field of performing an exorcism, and together they save Regan from the evil spirit by performing the procedure. The characteristics of a successful exorcist are clued since the beginning of The Exorcist. At the start, during the conversation with his Iraqi friend after discovering a strange statue and an ornament, father Merrin says to his friend that there is something that he must do. The moment father Merrin discovers the accessories; he knew that he had something left to do in future, which eventually was performing the exorcism. Although, he seemed worried at the

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