FILM REVIEW
THE FACTS Reviewed by Joseph Robert Jobe / Assistant EDITOR
..When
I remember back to the very first time that I had viewed The
Exorcist, back when
I was a hell
of a lot younger than I am now,
I can still remember being incredibly afraid of the dark,
needing m ..William Peter Blatty scared the living shit out of an 8 year old kid back in 1973 - this is a statement of FACT. I am now 42... not all that much smarter today than when I was 8... I am an INSOMIAC to this day (always have been since that film, I believe, trying to remember back that long ago), and I have preferred to be the last one awake in the house before going to bed - that way I can somehow assure myself that I am the only one around in the room at the time. For about the last 20 or so years I now consider myself AGNOSTIC (GOD, I hope I'm right on THAT ONE), yet I will watch with absolute fascination and with great interest and understanding almost every A&E or History Channel documentary in regards to the historical accuracy of the Bible, and feel that The Passion of the Christ is one of the best films I have ever seen... go figure...
..I am
a firm believer that the success of this film is due to the screenplay
taking outlandish subject material (the EXORCISM itself) and
putting
that on the back burner... half of the film
is going through the
steps
nesessary to see
if a kid is going nuts or not - that's the basis
of reality th ..When I was doing the research for the -ALTERED STATES- article for this website, I was discovering many, very many familiar PATTERNS of STORY DEVELOPMENT in reguards to both films: patterns of story telling which are based on the actual real world events of the film, people and subject matter in relation to the film itself. This creates a true REAL WORLD fictional scenero surrounded with FACTS - and that's exactly what we are going to be looking at here - Again... STORY:
WHO SATAN -REALLY- IS HERE
..In Mesopotamia: Pazuzu is a winged demon, feared by the people of ancient Mesopotamia: he is a horned demon that rode on the wind and carried malaria, believed to live in the desert - emphasising the demon's destructive role as "lord of fevers and plagues." Perhaps relating Pazuzu to the devouring dragon, Typhon:, "angel of the fatal winds", equated with the disease Typhoid. The wind demon is the most terrible of all demonic entities, having the power to spread loathsome diseases with his dry fiery breath. The demon has "for a head the almost fleshless skull of a dog" representing death, disease, and as the fleshless death's head of the desert scavenger, starvation. ..In Assyrian and Babylonian mythology
the god Pazuzu, sometimes called Zu, was the king
of the demons of
the wind, and son of the god Hanbi, the
god
of the southwest wind known for bringing droughts and famine
during dry seasons, and locusts during rainy seasons. Often
depicted as a combination ..Pazuzu was an evil god who stole the tablets of Enlil’s destiny, and is killed because of this. He also brought diseases which had no known cure. Zu, or Anzu in Persian and Sumerian, (from An "heaven" and Zu "far", in the Sumerian language) is a lesser divinity of Akkadian mythology, and the son of the bird goddess Siris. Both Zu and Siris are seen as massive birds who can breathe fire and water, although Zu is alternately seen as a lion-headed eagle (The Griffin). The Anzu was a servant of the chief sky god Enlil, (possibly previously a symbol of Anu), from whom Anzu stole the Tablet of Destinies, so hoping to determine the fate of all things. In one version of the legend, the gods sent Lugalbanda to retrieve the tablets, who in turn, killed Anzu. In another, Ea and Belet-Ili conceived Ninurta for the purpose of retrieving the tablets. In a third legend, found in The Hymn of Ashurbanipal, Marduk is said to have killed Anzu. ..In Mesopotamian mythology, the Tablet of Destinies (not, as frequently misquoted in general works, the 'Tablets of Destiny') was envisaged as a clay tablet inscribed with cuneiform writing, also impressed with cylinder seals, which, as a permanent legal document, conferred upon the god Enlil his supreme authority as ruler of the universe. In the Sumerian poem 'Ninurta and the Turtle' it is the god Enki, rather than Enlil, who holds the tablet. Both this poem and the Akkadian Anzû poem concern the theft of the tablet by the bird Imdugud (Sumerian) or Anzû (Akkadian). Supposedly, whoever possessed the tablet ruled the universe. In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, Tiamat bestows this tablet on Qingu (in some instances spelled "Kingu") and gives him command of her army. Marduk, the chosen champion of the gods, then fights and destroys Tiamat and her army. Marduk reclaims the Tablet of Destinies for himself, thereby legitimating his rule among the gods, but turns it over to Anu as a gift in Tablet V of the epic.
..Pazuzu was said to be invoked in amulets which combat the powers of the malicious goddess, and hated rival, Lamashtu: Lamashtu was the enemy of the demon Pazuzu who once defeated her in battle. Although Pazuzu was an evil spirit,, expectant mothers often wore amulets bearing his image to protect themselves against Lamashtu. Pazuzu is also a demon who drives away other evil spirits, thus protecting humans against plagues, evil forces and misfortunes... ..Yet another representation of the wind demon can be traced back to text in the Old Testament, where the devil is described as a hairy black creature; a "haunter of the desert wastelands." ..In Egypt the idea of the wind devil as a desert creature may derive from the concept of Set, the destroyer, most ancient of the gods, who was represented as a strange, dog-like animal, not unlike the jackal. This manifestation of Set, named Shugal - "the desert fox symbolic of Set, the male half of the Beast (666)." The number of Shugal being (333). The "female" half of the Beast is Choronzon (333), another pestilential being - representing Chaos in all its latent or manifested aspects. Choronzon is said to have driven Aleister Crowley insane by his invocation of the entity in the North African desert. Representing the malaise of chaos and destruction Choronzon is probably one of the most complex symbols in western occultism. At
the end of the day, WRITER William
Peter Blatty's character of -SATAN-
in this screenplay that is suposedly posessing the Regan McNeil
character is based on the actual legends and written acounts
spanning through out many, not just one, 2000+ year old ancient
cultures today located in the now recognised Middle Eastern
regions of the world such as Iran and Iraq. This can be traced
and reserched back into the historical records of Mesopotamia
to Egypt. Pazuzu was
an actual DEMON OF LEGEND - FACT.
STORY: CAUSE and EFFECT
..Again, listing chronologically as per the film what methods and pharmaceuticals implemented as a possible cure were: Prescribing RITALIN (Methylphenidate), Performing SPINAL-TAP/X-RAYS (searching for a BRAIN LEISION), Discussions with Physicians reguarding DRUG USE / Possibility of INSANITY / Need for COMMITTAL, Prescribing THORAZINE (Chlorpromazine hydrochloride) - which wasn't done in the film but was discussed as a possible treatment - (THANK GOD... READ FURTHER ON THIS)... Trying HYPNOSIS - PSYCHOTHERAPY, Trying to Perform an EXORCISM as a LAST RECOURSE - Resulting in AMNESIA of the events for the possibly cured patient. ..Our first exposure to the fact that there may be something a little off with Regan is a confession to her mother of the existance of "Captain Howdy", an imaginary friend that talks to her and even plays with, yep - a ouija board. Mother McNeil thinks that the kids full of it - she thinks she is lying about this invisible person so she will not get into trouble when the hard questions are asked of her. Mom just writes this off as lying... but, ah... Mommy... the devil's makin' her do it... ..Well... acording to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM): (An American handbook for mental health professionals that lists different categories of mental disorders and the criteria for diagnosing them, according to the publishing organization the American Psychiatric Association. It is used worldwide by clinicians and researchers as well as insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and policy makers) The development of imaginary friends by a person does not alone necessarily signify a problem or disorder. According to some psychological theories, children often use their imaginary friends as outlets for expressing desires which they would normally be afraid to engage in or for which they would normally be punished. Proponents of these theories state that it is not uncommon for a child to engage in mischief or wrong-doing and then to blame the crime on their imaginary friend, allowing the child to act out fantasies that they are otherwise restricted from experiencing due to societal constraints. Some children report creating or maintaining imaginary friends as preteens or teenagers, and a very few adults report having imaginary friends. This may, however, signal a serious psychological disorder.
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..William
Peter Blatty's
OSCAR WINNING SCREENPLAY of The
Exorcist was based on reported
events that supposedly took place in Maryland aledgedly on
a
"possession" of a 14-year-old teenager named John
Hoffman. Blatty, who was
majoring in English Lititure at Georgetown University at the
time, read about this story in Washington, DC newspapers in 1949. However,
it wasn't until 1967, with his screenwriting
and literary career taking off, that Blatty was able to interest
a publisher in
his idea. He
created The Exorcist -twenty years- later after
the Original news story. Blatty
completed his novel in 1970 and it was published
by Harper & Row
in 1971. The
book spent 55 weeks on the "New
York Times" Bestseller List. 
y
bedroom door
cracked
slightly open to allow the hallway
light to shine in. I would lay in bed rigid with fright - trying
to
listen intently for voices and sounds that were never there,
and yes, I truly
believed that Satan itself
was hiding inside my bedroom closet..
just sitting in there behind the closed closet doors watching
me through the entire nite. I would try to scream out for
help, utterly in terror, but my voice had no sound... I
was TOTALLY, ABSOLUTELY
CONVINCED that EVERY EVENING that
if I would ever start to fall asleep - It
would mean my
DEATH will certainly come... I was literally being Scared
to Death..
at
not only the story hinges upon,
but adds credibility to what is about to follow. Working
on articles like this for V
I S I O N S magazineonline.com
gives a writer, such as myself, a certain perspective
on
things.
You
can possibly find out perhaps the elusive question of WHY,
be it through
the very long hours of intense online research, reading source
material, and of course
the re-watching
of these films, that a certain
film may have effected
you in
some particular way...why
did it work on you the way they did. 
..What
starts out quite innocently, if not admittedly slightly obscure
if you are not schooled
in ancient archalogy, is really historically
acurate story set-up for what needs to be a solid, based in reality
explanition of what the movie is eventually
getting to - The EXORCISM of Regan
McNeil (Linda Blair). The
film starts far off with an archaelogical dig in Northern Iraq
with Father Merrin (Max
Von Sydow) discovering an ancient relic of a reality-based
demon of ancient cultural legend:
Pazuzu.
of
animal
and human parts, he has the body of a man, the head of a
lion or dog, eagle-like
taloned feet, two pairs of wings, a scorpion's tail,
and a serpentine penis. He is often depicted with his right
hand
pointing upwards and his left hand downwards; the position
of the hands basically means respectively, life and death or... creation and destruction. As
the most ruthlessly destructive demon of the long list of
ancient gods, the wind devil represents the destruction
of human life itself. (Writer's
Note): THIS is EXACTLY the
pose re-created in the Georgetown bedroom EXORCISM of Regan McNeil.)
..How
does one get
to the point of being in need of an Exorcism...
which in the film, as well in reality, would probably be the ABSOLUTE last
step in the search for a cure to certain physical or psychological problems
that one is exhibiting? Looking at the REACTIONS
of the SYMPOMS that the Re
gan
c
haracter
was seemingly enduring in the film is what I broke down chronologically as
the -EFFECTS- in
order as this: imaginary
friends, sleeplessness, destructive
personality changes, self-mutilation, hyperactivity, loss
of lucidy and violence.
..So
what is the -CAUSE- of
all these devilish shinagans? The focus of the character's
psychotic anti-social behavior ond outbreaks is that "it's
all in her head..." The film was very
specific in what was going to be the workflow
of Regan's treatment - In fact the procedures they list and
explore take
up virtually more than half of the film's running time. Some
of these measures are rather quite drastic to say the least, BUT...
THIS IS THE WAY IT WOULD REALLY WORK. The actual cause,
as we find out later in the second half of the film of all of this extreme behavior
is actually -DEMONIC
POSESSION-. The procedures for (reaching
that point of
conclusion) in this screenplay seem to be quite highly textbook
and
based
in the reality of Today's modern medical practices, seemingly
leaving
no psyical
or psychological stone
unturned... they went by-the-book...
Methylphenidate (MPH) (LEFT) is
a prescription 
stimulant
commonly used to treat Attention-deficit hyperactivity
disorder, or ADHD. It is also one of
the primary drugs used to treat the daytime drowsiness
symptoms of narcolepsy and chronic fatigue syndrome.
The drug is seeing early use to treat cancer-related
fatigue. Brand names of drugs that -contain
methylphenidate- include Ritalin (RIGHT) (Ritalina,
Rilatine, Attenta, Methylin, Penid, Rubifen);
and the sustained release tablets Concerta, Metadate
CD, Ritalin LA, and Ritalin-SR. Focalin is a preparation
containing only dextro-methylphenidate, rather than the
usual racemic dextro- and levo-methylphenidate mixture
of other formulations. A newer way of taking methylphenidate
is by using a transdermal patch (under
the brand name Daytrana), similar
to those used for hormone replacement therapy, nicotine
release and pain relief. 
..Cerebrospinal
fluid (CSF) is
a clear bodily fluid that occupies the subarachnoid
space and the ventricular system around and inside
the brain. Essentially, the brain "floats" in
it.
..PNEUMOENCEPHALOGRAM:
(sometimes abbreviated PEG) is
a medical procedure in which cerebrospinal fluid
is drained to a small
amount from around the brain and replaced with air,
oxygen, or helium to allow the structure of the brain
to show up more clearly on an X-ray picture. It is
derived from ventriculography, an earlier and more
primitive one where the air is injected through holes
drilled in th
e
skull. The procedure was introduced in 1919 by the American neurosurgeon
Walter Dandy.
problems that may
persist for one half year to two years after the injury
may include
irritability, suicidal
ideation, insomnia, and loss
of the ability to experience pleasure from previously
enjoyable
experiences. Other problems include apathy, anxiety,
anger, paranoia, confusion, frustration, agitation,
and mood swings. About one quarter of people with TBI
suffer
from clinical depression, and about 9% suffer
mania. Different
behavioral problems are characteristic of the location
of injury; for instance, frontal
lobe injuries often
result in disinhibition and inappropriate or childish
behavior, and temporal
lobe injuries often cause irritability and aggression. (Writer's
Note):THIS is EXACTLY what the Doctors
were looking into as THE CAUSE of Regan's abnormal and
anti-social behavior)
..The results
of traumatic brain injury vary widely in type and duration.
A head injured patient may experience physical
effects of the trauma such as headaches, movement disorders (e.g. Parkinsonism), seizures, difficulty walking, sexual
dysfunction, lethargy, or coma. Cognitive symptoms include
changes in judgment or ability to reason or plan, memory
problems, and loss of mathematical ability. Emotional problems
include mood swings, poor impulse control, agitation, low
frustration threshold, self-centeredness, clinical depression,
and psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and
delusions.
..The Gamma Knife Unit:
The Gamma Knife contains up to 201 cobalt-60 sources
of approximately 30 curies each, placed in a circular
array in a heavily shielded unit. The unit directs gamma
radiation to a target point. Such target points selected
in the brain can be placed at the center of the radiation
focus, allowing a tumoricidal radiation dosage to be
delivered in one treatment session. Gamma
Knife surgery represents one of the most advanced means
available to manage brain tumors; arteriovenous malformations
and pain or movement disorders. The procedure is unique
because, with the Gamma Knife, no surgical incision is
performed to expose the target. The Gamma Knife
can destroy deep-seated blood vessel malformations in
the head and
brain tumors once
considered inoperable. It can also
eliminate pain conditions and certain movement disorders,
as well as silence malfunctioning areas of the brain
precisely, to stop seizures or ease disabling pain problems
that have not responded to other 
management strategies.
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| The opinions, beliefs and practices presented within this article are- NOT- necessarily those of the Visionsmagazineonline.com editorial staff. However, we do believe in giving our readers diversity in the many subjects we put forth in front of you. The words in this article are those of the author. They are edited for content and clairification. The Author's methodology, procedures, and evidence presented here in this article are theirs and theirs alone. We are not endorsing nor condemning them for these practices. We are presenting you with information of what other people involved in paranormal investigations today are doing on a worldwide basis. The choice is yours. |
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