CROW’S FEET PROMPT #67

The Real Story Behind ‘The Exorcist’: It’s True

And it’s even scarier than the Hollywood version

Kathleen Murphy
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age
6 min readOct 14, 2024

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Image generated by Freepik

When I was a teenager, nothing was as terrifying as watching the movie “The Exorcist.” The story tells the tale of a 12-year-old girl who uses the family Ouija board to ask questions of “Captain Howdy” — a demon who takes possession of her soul. Lots of head-spinning and pea-soup spitting ensue.

As a young girl, I found the movie so horrifying that (duh) my BFFs and I just had to play Ouija at our next sleepover. For those unfamiliar with Ouija (pronounced WEE-gee), here’s how it goes:

Two or more people sit around the board. It’s flat, with the letters of the alphabet laid out in semi-circles above the numbers 0 through 9, plus the words “Yes,” “No,” “Hello,” and “Goodbye.”

Image by Freepik

You place your fingers on the “planchette” — a type of sliding pointer — and ask a question. Then you watch, dumbfounded, as the pointer glides about the board, spelling out the answer.

Naturally, as hormonal teenage girls, we had to ask Ouija which boys liked us and who we would…

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Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

Published in Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

“The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” (Frank Lloyd Wright) Non-fiction pieces, personal essays and occasional poems that explore how we feel about how we age and offer tips for getting the most out of life.

Kathleen Murphy
Kathleen Murphy

Written by Kathleen Murphy

Health writer and essayist offering insights into physical and emotional wellness and successful aging. Subscribe: https://kathleenamurphy.medium.com/subscribe