Some of the incidents and inferences in this story may seem of a sensational nature. They are not, however, inventions of the author. A few readers—particularly non-Catholic readers—might ponder Father Sargent’s indulgent attitude toward Freudian analysis and think it contrary to official Catholic opinion. These readers need only be reminded of William J. Devlin, S.J., M.D., of Chicago’s Loyola University (mentioned briefly in the story), a Catholic priest and doctor who is also a Freudian therapist who has said, “Freud had the right idea operationally.” In this connection, it is interesting to quote from the book God and Freud by Leonard Gross (New York, 1959): “. . . Many Catholics still believe that psychiatry is a detour a sinner can take to avoid the consequences of his acts. Priests who know better deplore this tendency . . .”
Father Sargent’s alcoholism may be offensive to many readers, despite the fact that “whiskey priests” are not new to fiction (the protagonist of Graham Greene’s greatest novel, The Power and the Glory, is a priest who drinks to excess, and Mr. Greene is a Catholic). The attention of such readers is directed to Father Ralph Pfau, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, whose struggle with liquor is recorded in his engrossing and instructive book, Prodigal Shepherd (New York, 1958).
The revelation, during the exorcism, of possible incest may strike some readers as gratuitously lurid. But this element, repulsive though it may be, is only one of several elements lifted almost bodily from the account of a 1928 exorcism in Earling, Iowa, documented in a Catholic booklet entitled Begone Satan! (English from German, Rev. Carl Vogl; tr. Rev. Celestine Kapsner, O.S.B.; Collegeville, Minnesota, 1935, under Imprimatur of Jos. F. Busch, Bishop of St. Cloud).
All the “documentation” notwithstanding, this book is a work of fiction, its characters and incidents imaginary and not intended to depict actual persons or events.
The following, however, is not fiction:
While I was working on Chapter XIII, in which the exorcism ritual culminates in the words “Begone, Satan!” I was annoyed by the sudden appearance in my study of a large horsefly, almost the size of a bee, which buzzed about my head and kept me from working. It was not yet “fly weather” and, in addition, my windows were tightly closed. I was forced to interrupt the writing of the chapter, roll up a newspaper, and take time out to kill the intruder. Settling down to resume work, I had scarcely typed a half dozen more lines of the ritual when I was “attacked” by a second fly of the same size. Stopping work again, I killed the pest as I had killed the first. There were to be four such flies in all, each presenting itself only after the preceding fly had been killed. The flies stopped coming after I had typed the words of exorcism, “Begone, Satan!”
The bothersome interlude amused me when it was over, but upon leaving my study after completing the chapter, I confess to experiencing an instant of superstitious fear: for suddenly I remembered a piece of information I had learned years before but had forgotten until that moment. Beelzebub is the name of Lucifer’s lieutenant. The name Beelzebub, in Hebrew, means Lord of the Flies.
Ray Russell