Comments on: Joseph Laycock: The Exorcist, Secularization, and Folk Piety http://www.theofantastique.com/2009/10/27/joseph-laycock-the-exorcist-secularization-and-folk-piety/ A meeting place for myth, imagination, and mystery in pop culture. Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:01:18 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Scott Poole: Satan in America TheoFantastique http://www.theofantastique.com/2009/10/27/joseph-laycock-the-exorcist-secularization-and-folk-piety/comment-page-1/#comment-828 Scott Poole: Satan in America TheoFantastique Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:21:52 +0000 http://www.theofantastique.com/?p=1515#comment-828 [...] The Exorcist has been viewed by some as fairly simplistic Catholic propaganda because it portrays the Church as equipped with the power of exorcism. It really isn’t that simple, on a number of levels. I agree, for example, with a number of horror historians who see it as a comment on the state of the family, a very conservative comment in which a single mother has no idea how to handle her adolescent daughter and relationships cannot be restored, the Devil cannot be cast out, until two representatives from the patriarchal tradition come and fix it. I would also note, as Michael Cuneo says in his book American Exorcism, Protestants as well as Catholics seize on this movie and its imagery as a kind of response to perceived secularization in American society. A wave of fascination with possession and exorcism engulfed American religious life after the film appeared and really continues to this day.  Recently, Joseph Laycock has followed up on this discussion in a very fine article that sees The Exorcist as the beginning of a kind of folk religious revival which you have explored with him in a recent interview. [...] [...] The Exorcist has been viewed by some as fairly simplistic Catholic propaganda because it portrays the Church as equipped with the power of exorcism. It really isn’t that simple, on a number of levels. I agree, for example, with a number of horror historians who see it as a comment on the state of the family, a very conservative comment in which a single mother has no idea how to handle her adolescent daughter and relationships cannot be restored, the Devil cannot be cast out, until two representatives from the patriarchal tradition come and fix it. I would also note, as Michael Cuneo says in his book American Exorcism, Protestants as well as Catholics seize on this movie and its imagery as a kind of response to perceived secularization in American society. A wave of fascination with possession and exorcism engulfed American religious life after the film appeared and really continues to this day.  Recently, Joseph Laycock has followed up on this discussion in a very fine article that sees The Exorcist as the beginning of a kind of folk religious revival which you have explored with him in a recent interview. [...]

]]> By: braak http://www.theofantastique.com/2009/10/27/joseph-laycock-the-exorcist-secularization-and-folk-piety/comment-page-1/#comment-814 braak Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:40:07 +0000 http://www.theofantastique.com/?p=1515#comment-814 Hm. If this is the case, then shouldn't there be a kind of concomitance between "belief in the Devil" and "fear of the Exorcist?" Of course, the Western Cultural tradition isn't the only one that has a preoccupation with demonic possession--in fact, it's been in our culture since before major conceptions of the devil were articulated--so there'd be no way to say, "Well, then obviously <i>The Exorcist</i> wouldn't be scary to, I don't know, Hindus, because they don't believe in the Devil." But I think that this touches on a problem with evaluating horror movies, which is the (I think mistaken) assumption that something in a horror movie is frightening because the audience is literally afraid of the object of the fear. If that were the case, then there ought to be a clear connection between film-induced fear and fear that's the product of a literal referent. Like, if I were literally afraid of plane crashes (which I am), I ought to also be afraid of movies about plane crashes (which I am not)--this despite the fact that I know that plane crashes are a real thing that can occur. Simultaneously, I don't believe in ghosts, but can still be scared by movies about ghosts. Why is the argument that the Devil, by virtue of its continued historical presence, in a privileged position regarding such fears? That unlike all other literary bogeymen, the fear of the Devil is not a product of the context in which the Devil is presented, but rather the product of an actual specific fear of the Devil that grips people who do and do not believe in it? Obviously, we could say that even the intellectual elite, who conform to the ecclesiastical tradition of disbelief in demons, may remain subconsciously afraid of it; certainly, it's true that the Devil has been a part of our cultural history for a long time--but, as I said, possession has been a part of our cultural history for even longer. How do we distinguish between an internalized, socially-inculcated fear in a fictional entity, and a wide-spread subconscious fear that comes from a cognitive structural source? Hm. If this is the case, then shouldn’t there be a kind of concomitance between “belief in the Devil” and “fear of the Exorcist?” Of course, the Western Cultural tradition isn’t the only one that has a preoccupation with demonic possession–in fact, it’s been in our culture since before major conceptions of the devil were articulated–so there’d be no way to say, “Well, then obviously The Exorcist wouldn’t be scary to, I don’t know, Hindus, because they don’t believe in the Devil.”

But I think that this touches on a problem with evaluating horror movies, which is the (I think mistaken) assumption that something in a horror movie is frightening because the audience is literally afraid of the object of the fear. If that were the case, then there ought to be a clear connection between film-induced fear and fear that’s the product of a literal referent. Like, if I were literally afraid of plane crashes (which I am), I ought to also be afraid of movies about plane crashes (which I am not)–this despite the fact that I know that plane crashes are a real thing that can occur.

Simultaneously, I don’t believe in ghosts, but can still be scared by movies about ghosts. Why is the argument that the Devil, by virtue of its continued historical presence, in a privileged position regarding such fears? That unlike all other literary bogeymen, the fear of the Devil is not a product of the context in which the Devil is presented, but rather the product of an actual specific fear of the Devil that grips people who do and do not believe in it?

Obviously, we could say that even the intellectual elite, who conform to the ecclesiastical tradition of disbelief in demons, may remain subconsciously afraid of it; certainly, it’s true that the Devil has been a part of our cultural history for a long time–but, as I said, possession has been a part of our cultural history for even longer. How do we distinguish between an internalized, socially-inculcated fear in a fictional entity, and a wide-spread subconscious fear that comes from a cognitive structural source?

]]> By: Joe Layock http://www.theofantastique.com/2009/10/27/joseph-laycock-the-exorcist-secularization-and-folk-piety/comment-page-1/#comment-811 Joe Layock Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:25:30 +0000 http://www.theofantastique.com/?p=1515#comment-811 What I am arguing, and what Douglas Cowan argues in Sacred Terror, is that there are no subconscious fears when it comes to religion and horror movies. The Devil has been part of our Western cultural heritage for over a thousand years. If American audiences are frightened by a film about demonic possession, it seems counter-productive to assume they are not literally frightened by demons. I think that what you are getting is a Jungian reading in which Blatty's film taps into a dark archetype that is part of the universal human experience. So far as I know, such a film reading has never been done before. It might be an interesting project. The psychoanalytical readings that I am dissenting from are Freudian, not Jungian. In these readings, our repressed fears are not universal, they are neuroses specific to our culture, i.e. "Americans who raised their children in the 1960s are secretly afraid of their own offspring and so seeing a possessed child frightens them." Furthermore, I think it would be hard to publish a Jungian reading in film studies precisely because Jung's ideas defy the secularization narrative. What I am arguing, and what Douglas Cowan argues in Sacred Terror, is that there are no subconscious fears when it comes to religion and horror movies. The Devil has been part of our Western cultural heritage for over a thousand years. If American audiences are frightened by a film about demonic possession, it seems counter-productive to assume they are not literally frightened by demons.

I think that what you are getting is a Jungian reading in which Blatty’s film taps into a dark archetype that is part of the universal human experience. So far as I know, such a film reading has never been done before. It might be an interesting project.

The psychoanalytical readings that I am dissenting from are Freudian, not Jungian. In these readings, our repressed fears are not universal, they are neuroses specific to our culture, i.e. “Americans who raised their children in the 1960s are secretly afraid of their own offspring and so seeing a possessed child frightens them.” Furthermore, I think it would be hard to publish a Jungian reading in film studies precisely because Jung’s ideas defy the secularization narrative.

]]> By: braak http://www.theofantastique.com/2009/10/27/joseph-laycock-the-exorcist-secularization-and-folk-piety/comment-page-1/#comment-809 braak Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:50:49 +0000 http://www.theofantastique.com/?p=1515#comment-809 Joe: I'm curious about this comment: <i>The secularization narrative is so powerful, that even when audiences are fainting from terror while watching The Exorcist, it is assumed that this is the catharsis of some repressed and previously unknown fear, rampant in our collective subconscious, because the idea that modern Westerners could actually be afraid of the devil seems an impossibility. </i> Are these necessarily incompatible conditions? It seems to me that it's at least plausible to suggest that "Fear of the Devil" is itself a manifestation of a collective subconscious function. If the idea of a kind of separation between an increasingly rationalized ecclesiastical religion and an increasingly (or, at least, stubbornly) superstitious folk religion is accurate, then I think we're left with an interesting conundrum: did <i>The Exorcist</i> reinvigorate a Western "Fear of the Devil" that can be identified as being fundamentally separate from some broader subconscious fear, or was the consequence of <i>The Exorcist</i> that this broader subconscious fear was given a form and name ("The Devil") by people who otherwise would have never named it? Joe:

I’m curious about this comment:

The secularization narrative is so powerful, that even when audiences are fainting from terror while watching The Exorcist, it is assumed that this is the catharsis of some repressed and previously unknown fear, rampant in our collective subconscious, because the idea that modern Westerners could actually be afraid of the devil seems an impossibility.

Are these necessarily incompatible conditions? It seems to me that it’s at least plausible to suggest that “Fear of the Devil” is itself a manifestation of a collective subconscious function. If the idea of a kind of separation between an increasingly rationalized ecclesiastical religion and an increasingly (or, at least, stubbornly) superstitious folk religion is accurate, then I think we’re left with an interesting conundrum: did The Exorcist reinvigorate a Western “Fear of the Devil” that can be identified as being fundamentally separate from some broader subconscious fear, or was the consequence of The Exorcist that this broader subconscious fear was given a form and name (“The Devil”) by people who otherwise would have never named it?

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