As My Name is Legion: The Strange and Terrifying History of Demonic Possession becomes more concrete, taking on shape and connecting those all-important historical throughlines, I’ve become aware that the entire story of this phenomenon can be defined by two occurrences: The 1973 release of the film of The Exorcist (which ignited 20th-century interest in possession and carried it forward into the next millennium); and the Biblical story of “the Gerasene demoniac,” or, put more simply, the tale of Legion.
This account, which is found in the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), is about Jesus sailing across the Sea of Galilee and stepping onto the shore only to be met by a possessed man, who lives in a graveyard, is naked, and covered in self-inflicted cuts (he cuts himself with stones). When Christ asks his name, he gives it as Legion; his demons then beg not to be returned to “the abyss,” but sent into a nearby herd of swine. Jesus agrees, casts the evil spirits out of the man, and they enter the pigs - 2,000 in number - who then rush into the water to drown themselves. The man, now freed of possession, begs to go with Jesus, but instead Jesus tells him to go preach at the nearby cities. Meanwhile, the local townspeople, having heard from the swineherds of this miraculous exorcism, come out to see for themselves…and promptly order Jesus to leave, which he does.
Wha-HUH? Yeah, not the ending you were expecting, is it?
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