Exorcise

Exorcise (pronounced ek-sawr-sahyz)

To seek to expel from a person or place an evil spirit by means of adjuration or solemn religious ceremonies.

1350-1400: Use of the verb predated this date but formerly it entered Middle English from the fourteenth century Old French exorciser from the Late Latin exorcizāre, derived from the Ancient Greek exorkízein (bind by oath; banish an evil spirit) and the sense "call up evil spirits to drive them out" was dominant by the sixteenth century.  In England, exorcize was actually an alternative spelling but this is now one the rare instances in English where the US adopted -ise rather than -ize which some etymologists suggest may have been because of the influence of "exercise" although why that would be compellingly persuasive seems never discussed.  What is more likely is the use of "exorcise" in so many church documents brought to the American colonies, there being more reluctance to edit "sacred" works.  Some US academic sources do suggest exorcize is "a rare but correct" alternative, a concession not extended to exercize.  The rarest of the related forms are exorcismal, exorcisory, exorcistical and the wonderful exorcistic.

The noun exorcism (a calling up or driving out of evil spirits) was a fifteenth century creation formation from the Late Latin exorcismus, from the Ancient Greek exorkismos (administration of an oath) which, in Ecclesiastical Greek existed as exorkizein (exorcise, bind by oath), the construct being ex- (out of) + horkizein (cause to swear), from horkos (oath) of uncertain origin although some have suggested there's a link to  herkos (fence), the idea being of a oath with boundaries one accepts as "restrictions, ties & obligations" or "a magical power that fences in the swearer".  It's speculative and one etymologist noted dryly that the discipline's enthusiasm to adopt the view "was restrained".  A fourteenth century form describing the ritual was spelled exorcization.

Exorcism: Vade retro satana (Step back, Satan)

Saint Francis and the Dying Impenitent (1788) by Francisco Goya (1746-1828)

Exorcism in Christianity is the practice of casting out demons from a person or place possessed by the Devil.  Although the biblical origins are dubious, depending on contested translations, by early in the second century of Christianity, the word was in general use and paintings of exorcists and their ceremonies are among the darker and more dramatic in medieval and later sacred art.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the rituals were formalized in 1614 because of Rome’s concerns about clandestine, underground exorcisms performed without their consent and the guidelines remained substantially unchanged until the Vatican’s revisions in 1999, a process necessitated by a late twentieth-century spike in demand.  Interestingly, for more than a decade after the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II (1962-65)), it was really not done for clergy to speak of Satan as if he really existed, the modernizing church preferring the language of psychology and psychiatry for those displaying symptoms which would once have been blamed on the Devil.

Exorcism of Nicole Aubry (1563), etching by unknown artist.

Popular culture, especially cinema, revived interest in the ritual, with both churches and the medical profession reporting an upsurge in claims of demonic possession and most significantly, Saint Pope John Paul II (1920–2005, pope 1978-2005) had a more robust attitude to the Devil’s role upon earth than any of his twentieth century predecessors.  In 2004, JPII again warned that occult and new age practices were raging out of control in Europe, providing gateways for evil that could result in demonic attachment and possession.

It’s been good business for the Holy See ever since.  The most recent Course on Exorcism and Prayer of Liberatio, held at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum (an educational institute under the auspices of the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ) in Rome, attracted some two-hundred and fifty priests from fifty countries.  Until the disruption caused by COVID-19, the week-long course, entitled Exorcism and the Prayer of Liberation had been held every year since 2005, attendance more than doubling over the years.  Cost per head was €300,  (Stg£252, US$315); bookings were essential and an entry-ticket included discounts on rooms and food & beverage in several Rome hotels.

The Exorcism of Charles II of Spain

Charles II of Spain (Carlos Segundo 1661–1700), was the last king of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty, sovereign of the Spanish Empire which stretched from Mexico to the Philippines.  The only surviving son of his predecessor, Philip IV (1605-1665) and his second wife, Mariana of Austria (1634-1696), his birth was greeted with enthusiasm by the Spanish people because, as was the fashion of the time, had the old king died without a male heir, a war of succession would have ensued.

However, Charles was physically disabled, disfigured, mentally retarded and found later to be impotent, usually a drawback for any king but a disovery which brought relief to many courtiers.  He uttered no words until the age of four, didn’t take his first step before he was almost nine, suffering throughout childhood a range of diseases including measles, varicella, rubella, and smallpox.  Left almost uneducated because of his frailty, his mother was regent most of his reign and he came to be known to history as El Hechizado (the Bewitched), the name applied because both court and country believed his mental and physical incapacities were due to an act of witchcraft.  Modern science suggests otherwise, the condition actually the consequence of the strong preference for endogamy within the Spanish branch of the Habsburg royal family which led to its segregation toward neighbor communities and the emergence of consanguinity.  In short, Charles II was inbred: his grandparents were at the same time his great-grandparents; her father, who was married to her sister's daughter, was also her great-uncle, and her mother happened to be her cousin as well.  One could see how things might not have turned out well and the condition was well-known in Europe and not restricted to aristocracy and royalty.  The slack enforcement of marriage laws on much of the continent was one of the reasons there were so many victims of the Nazi euthanasia (Aktion T4, 1939-1945) programme and the scandal of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (circa 575–641; emperor 610-641) marrying his niece Martina (circa 590-circa 644) had been made still worse by the condition of some of the children the union produced.

However, to speak of incest in the royal family was just not done so the feeling at the time was to blame witches or the Devil and the court sought the advice of Fray Antonio Álvarez Argüelles, vicar of the Encarnación de Cangas del Narcea convent and a noted Asturian exorcist who advised “…last night the demon told me that the King is evilly bewitched to rule and to beget. When he was 14 years old, he was enchanted with a chocolate in which the brains of a dead man were dissolved to take away his health, corrupt his semen and prevent his generation”.

Exorcism of Charles II of Spain, engraving by Lechard, circa 1840.

That must have been convincing because soon after the king was subjected to what was, even by the standards of the time, a most macabre exorcism.  By coincidence, the remains of his ancestors were being transferred to a new pantheon at the Royal Seat of San Lorenzo de El Escorial and the exorcist had their coffins opened, conducting a ceremony in which the corpses of his relatives and, in an advanced state of putrefaction, that of their his beloved first wife (María Luisa de Orleans (1662-1689)), were exhibited, the hope being the array of the dead would drive off the demons so tormenting the king.

It was in vain and the suffering continued.  Ill his whole life and king since the age of three, he lingered until 1700, dying at thirty-nine, the announcement one of the more eagerly awaited events in the courts and chancelleries of Europe, such was the anticipation of the struggles which would erupt to decide the succession.  Summarizing a sad life in Carlos, the Bewitched (1962, published in the US as Carlos: The King who would Not Die), his English biographer John Langdon-Davies (1897–1971) wrote: "Of no man is it more true to say that in his beginning was his end; from the day of his birth, they were waiting for his death".  On his deathbed, his last words were: "Everything hurts".