The exception seems to be Pazuzu, who is described in ancient texts as "the son of Hanbu and king of the wind demons." He stands on two legs and has human arms ending in claws, with two pairs of wings, a scorpion's tail, a snake-headed, erect penis, and a horned, bearded head with bulging eyes and snarling canine mouth. Amulets with images of his full body or, more often, just his head, were common in the early first millennium B.C. Although not everyone will recognize the name "Pazuzu," his monstrous form appears in many unexpected places. A giant version by the contemporary artist Roberto Cuoghi comes to mind. SNL Transcripts: Richard Pryor: 12/13/75: Exorcist II". snltranscripts.jt.org . Retrieved 2017-02-14. Pazuzu is standing behind Lamashtu, with one arm raised. Even though his gesture may seem threatening and, with his scaly winged body, dragon’s head, scorpion’s tail, and talons, he is physically as fearsome as his spouse, he is nonetheless there to protect the patient by coaxing his wife to retreat.

As an apotropaic entity, he was considered as both a destructive and dangerous wind, but also as a repellant to other demons, one who would safeguard the home from their influence. In particular he was protective of pregnant women and mothers, whom he could defend from the machinations of the demoness Lamashtu, his rival. He is invoked in ritual and representations of him are used as defense charms. Christians and all people need to know that Ouija boards are not a gateway to communicating with dead loved ones. Ouija boards are direct communication with Satan and his demons only. When a person passes away, they can no longer communicate with the living (Luke 16:19-31)."The Exorcist III takes place 15 years after the original film. The film was adapted by Blatty from his own novel. Lieutenant Kinderman, who was also in the original film, has been on a murder case about mysterious deaths committed by an anonymous person. It is later found out that Pazuzu convinced the Gemini Killer, who died at the same time as Father Karras, to inhabit his body as punishment for saving Regan. However, as result of his suicide, his brain was severely damaged, which demons/spirits need when they possess a body. The Gemini Killer spent years stimulating his brain so he would be of use, and then began committing murders by possessing the bodies of the other inhabitants of the hospital where Karras had been staying. In the end of the movie after a turbulent exorcism is done, Karras regains control of the body and asks Kinderman to kill him, which he does by shooting him in the head, keeping him from being possessed again. Amulets and other iconography of Pazuzu have been found in locations ranging from the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Iran to the Greek island of Sámos, while written sources describing Pazuzu began to appear around 670 B.C.E. El-Kilany, Engy (2017-01-01). "The Protective Role of Bes- image for Women and Children in Ancient Egypt". Journal of Association of Arab Universities for Tourism and Hospitality. 14 (2): 19–28. doi: 10.21608/jaauth.2017.48140. ISSN 1687-1863 . Retrieved 2022-03-26. A statue of Pazuzu is also briefly shown in the Godzilla: King of the Monsters trailer and is seen for a split second before being blown away in a cave by an explosion. [7] Pazuzu is a fictional character who is the main antagonist in The Exorcist horror novels and film series, created by William Peter Blatty. Blatty derived the character from Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, where the mythic Pazuzu was considered the king of the demons of the wind, and the son of the god Hanbi. In The Exorcist, Pazuzu appears as a demon who possesses Regan MacNeil.

Pazuzu first appeared in William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist in 1971. [1] The novel is about a 12-year-old girl, Regan MacNeil, possessed by a demon. The demon is later revealed to be Pazuzu; though never explicitly stated to be the demon, two references were made about his statue, which was uncovered in the prologue by Father Lankester Merrin in northern Iraq. After Regan's mother worries about her daughter being possessed, Merrin and Karras arrive at her house and perform an exorcism on Regan and successfully force the demon out of Regan's body. In their struggle to free Regan from the thrall of Pazuzu, both priests perish.Much later in Brothers and The City, Salim and Jason reach a gargantuan cavern where all the vampires seem to be nesting in cocoons. This area is buried underneath Naram-Sin’s temple, meaning that these creatures have been here for thousands of years well before the rise and fall of the Akkadian Empire. Nineveh. The demon in the film is very specifically intended to be Pazuzu. Yet the surprise of encountering this demon from The Exorcist in the British Museum is actually an insight into why this is such a memorable film. There is obviously a vast amount of literary and theological material behind it, similar to the densely specific apocalyptic plots of comparable films such as The Omen and its sequels. But what's so clever and haunting about Friedkin's film is that while all these complex intimations are there, the least hint of explication has been ruthlessly edited out. There is no long-winded explanation offered by anyone for what is happening. Everything is suggested, rather than explained, and connections are left hanging in mid-air. Why, for example, does the possession take place in Washington DC? Is there a political implication - or not? We are never told. And yet Watergate-era Washington is brilliantly portrayed, in a way that makes the film's location seem significant. Jason Rodriguez is a guides writer. Most of his work can be found on PC Invasion (around 3,400+ published articles). He's also written for IGN, GameSpot, Polygon, TechRaptor, Gameskinny, and more. Niederreiter, Zoltán (2018-01-06). "2017. "Two Pazuzu-head amulets inscribed with the standard B incantation" Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale 111 (2017) 109-132". Academia.edu . Retrieved 2022-03-26. Pazuzu is imagined as an especially frightening figure capable of scaring off any lesser demon or ghost.

In the film, Pazuzu is a demon who possesses the body of a young girl named Regan, transforming her from an innocent little girl into a foul-mouthed, blistered nightmare who expels green slime from her throat and twists her head a full 180 degrees. Although Pazuzu itself is only seen briefly, the few fleeting moments of its on-screen appearance leave a lingering impression. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. Bible tours are a familiar sight at the British Museum. There are many artefacts in its collections that are associated with various books of the Bible - the current exhibition Babylon makes these links explicit. But why should Christians have it all their own way?The gospels of the New Testament depict Jesus Christ routinely driving demons from various individuals and the Book of Acts, Revelation, and others describe demons in the service of God's adversary, Satan. In the letter of I John 4:1 in the New Testament the writer admonishes his readers to test every spirit to see if it is of God, and to reject it if it is not.

Guiley, Rosemary (2009). The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology. Infobase Publishing. p.197. ISBN 978-1-4381-3191-7. Plaque for protection against the female demon Lamashtu- https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/plaque-protection-against-female-demon-lamashtu However, the image was so sinister and creepy that they decided it might be fun to splice the image into the film to add to the sense of uneasiness. The Exorcist has quite a bit of subliminal messaging through creepy sounds, hidden imagery, and small details that fans might not notice until they've seen the movie several times through. A balanced phase, in the Old Babylonian Period, when cylinder seal designs often mix images (gods, symbols, and other motifs) of good and bad associations with respect to mankind.Maiden, Brett (2018-01-01). "Counterintuitive Demons: Pazuzu and Lamaštu in Iconography, Text, and Cognition". Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions. 18 (1): 86–110. doi: 10.1163/15692124-12341295. ISSN 1569-2116 . Retrieved 2022-03-26. William Peter Blatty's creations of Pazuzu and The Exorcist were based on a heavily reported series of 1949 events in St. Louis, Missouri concerning the possession of a 14-year-old known as " Robbie Mannheim" (or sometimes "Roland Doe"). Blatty, who was a student at Georgetown University, read about the story in Washington, D.C. newspapers and created The Exorcist twenty years later. [2]