The final stage is Expulsion. It is now that the possessed can be asked to help. The demon protests the host's rebellion and its own expulsion. If the stage is successful, the Presence is no longer felt. Usually, it takes more than one exorcism to expel the demon.
The case "The Exorcist" was based on a possession that happened in 1949 and involved a 13-year-old boy whose name is given as "Roland" or "Douglass Deen." He was exorcized no fewer than twenty times by Jesuit priests, and an Episcopal and Lutheran minister. .
Is demonic possession a reality? Years ago, when I was in college, I read that, when a priest walked through a ward in a mental hospital, some of the patients acted as if they were possessed. Was this, if possession is a reality, the truth? Could be....
Or, is possession a form of paranoid schizophrenia in which the delusion is that the person is possessed and exorcism if the only cure?
There is a case of a woman who believed she was possessed. The witch doctors could not cure her, so she asked a young minister for help. He did not believe in demonic possession, but felt badly for her and performed an exorcism which solved the problem.
Guiley, Rosemary, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. ISBN: 0-8160-2846-X
Martin, Malachi, Hostage to the Devil. ISBN: 0-06-097103-7
Nicola, John J., Diabolical Possession and Exorcism, 1974. Rockford: Tan Books and Publishers. No ISBN. Out of print.
Peck, M. Scott, People of the Lie. ISBN: 0684848597.
Stefko, Jill, A Long Night's Journey into Light: Possession, Poltergeists and Psychotherapy. Unpublished.
