As much as I love Ellen Burstyn’s arc of becoming an “aware parent” in the film, I prefer THE EXORCIST as Father Damien’s story. He is a man of science (a Jesuit psychiatrist) whose faith in God is slipping away. But like Adrienne Lynne’s JACOB’S LADDER, how you see the paranormal has more to do with your own perception and your own personal filters. If you’re awash in negativity, you see a demon. If you’re open and accepting to what they symbolize, you will see angels. I think in a way the demon that comes to possess Reagan is a messenger from on high. Its manifestation by showing real-life evil purges Damien’s doubt, eventually restores his faith and makes his sacrifice heroic and meaningful.

My friend Linda is a Catholic, which means she’s never watched THE EXORCIST. I think she’d actually love it, but this argument has become my own personal Waterloo. I think she believes seeing it will somehow invite the darkness in. It’s a shame because she’s missing the film’s philosophical complexity. The sideshow vulgarity is nothing compared to the questions it asks us to contemplate: is Captain Howdy — and therefore all paranormal phenomena — just an elaborate psychological disorder? And if not, then what kind of a God would allow a little girl to be possessed by such a force of evil? Where was He when all this was going down? Perhaps the shadow of God is proof of God. Or perhaps, it is just us — like Father Merrin in the desert –standing there alone for all eternity, to face down the Darkness with nothing but a chasm between us.

Damien: “If you’re the Devil, why not make the straps disappear?’
Demon: “That’s much too vulgar a display of power, Karras.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su4s7C1bEfY