If You Liked The Movie...

Most do other work as well. LeBar is chaplain at a psychiatric hospital and is well aware of the danger of mistaking psychological symptoms for spiritual ones. He calls in a psychiatrist and medical doctor before any exorcism, but, he notes, "there comes a point, when somebody is climbing up the wall or floating on the ceiling or talking a language they've never studied, when it's harder to put it in the 'psychological-problem' bin." The highest levitation he has witnessed, he says, was of a woman who "rose up above pew level and stayed there a little bit and went back down." Some cases of possession, he says, can take decades to resolve.

Many exorcists think their job prospects are looking up because the need has grown. The culture's lack of a moral anchor, its acceptance of abortion and an increased flirtation with paganism, says Kowalski, can lead the susceptible to "put themselves proximate to darkness." Many exorcists praise The Exorcist for its realism. Kowalski, for one, is looking forward to seeing the movie, which has been re-edited to add 11 min. of footage. "How could I not go," he asks, "and root for the home team?"

--With reporting by Greg Burke/Rome