Is The Exorcist series becoming too ridiculous? A critical examination.

Art Bell on his late-night show, Coast to Coast, once said that the original horror movie, The Exorcist, out-performed others in its genre because it felt real.  Whereas stories of vampires and werewolves clearly belong in the realm of dark fantasy and cultural imagination, stories of demonic possession maintain analogues in the world's religions.  So when The Exorcist franchise extended itself into a TV series, building off of the original novel and accompanying film, the appeal to fans still remains the subject matter's loose sense of realism.  However, in Episode 6 (oh yes! spoliers ahead!), we learn that the Catholic Church has been infiltrated by the demonic, as elite societal power-players gather for what is called Vocare Pulvere, a ceremony of ash.  And while many across the screens of the web love writing on this series, every show critique I've read thus far claims the ceremony is entirely invented for the series or makes no claim at all.  Granted, the ceremony seems absurd, and to think of a bunch of high-ranking Vatican officials secretly running official church business under the name of Lucifer probably strikes most contemporary viewers as ridiculous, even though the show itself continues to brilliantly convince the viewer, at least in a literary sense. 

     But there's more.   I mention it here not to make metaphysical claims on the nature of existence, rather, I want to defend the show's artistic integrity.    If and when the series slips into pure fantasy fiction -or a cheesy paranormal horror - rest assured I will be the first to call it out. But we're not quite there yet.  A conspiracy theory?  Yes.  A conspiracy theory that some "respectable" intellectuals believe? Yes.  Pure hogwash? Not entirely.

     A well-studied and high-ranking Jesuit priest named Malachi Martin was released from his vows sometime in the 1960s. To earn a living, the well-skilled wordsmith worked a variety of odd jobs until finding success as a writer, most notably with his non-fiction description of five exorcisms in the 1976 work, Hostage To The Devil.   Yet he didn't stop there; he also penned a series of Vatican novels under the pretense of fiction, though he claimed over 95% of the content was true.   Among other things, the books mentioned an actual Satanic ritual that had taken place in the Vatican in the 1963, and Martin later claimed that the third secret of the Fatima appearances (a notable event in Portugal in the early 20th century), was the revelation that the Church would be compromised by Lucifer-exalting Satanists, much in the same way The Exorcist TV series depicts.  Among black rites undertaken in his 1996 book, A Windswept House, is something fairly similar to the Vocare Pulvere ceremony seen in episode 6. 

     But rather than digressing on some elaborate theological tangent, I will simply say that I remain a die-hard fan of this show.  What they continue to do with the material is fantastic.  I can't wait for more episodes.      -CLINT SABOM [Clint Sabom also runs a blog and podcast on spiritual themes at The Graveyard Cowboy.]