What was said back
Rites of exorcism
The rest of this site records what texts claim about spirits. A rite is the other half: the procedure a tradition ran when it believed one was present. Shown clause by clause in the order the book prints them, because the order is the argument — establish authority, adjure, command, demand a sign, in that sequence, across fifteen centuries and three religions.
What this is not
An instruction. These are historical liturgical texts presented as evidence, in the same way the seals and conjurations elsewhere on this site are, and the Roman rite itself spends its first twenty-one rubrics telling a trained priest not to proceed. Nothing here is a diagnostic criterion for anything, and the 1999 revision of this rite directs that medical and psychiatric judgement be sought first.
What the corpus holds
5 rites · 11 clauses transcribed, all carrying the original and a translation · 3 signs of possession · 2 rites awaiting transcription
One rite is populated and four carry no clauses, for three different reasons — 2 awaiting transcription, 1 in copyright, and 1 withheld on principle. Only the first of those is outstanding work. That imbalance is on the page rather than hidden by it: a section carrying only Rome, without saying so, would imply the West produced a single rite and the East none.
1614 · Latin
The Roman Rite of Exorcism
Title X of the Rituale Romanum is short, and most of it is caution. Before a single formula appears, the book spends twenty-one numbered rubrics telling the exorcist what not to do: not to believe too readily that anyone is possessed, not to proceed without the bishop's leave, not to prescribe medicine, not to speak at length with the spirit, not to believe what it says. The rite is built to be difficult to start.
The structure that follows is the one every Western exorcism since has inherited. The exorcist establishes authority by invocation, adjures the spirit in the name of a higher power, interrogates it for its name and number, and commands departure with a sign. The interrogation is the step that later tradition made famous and that the rubrics most restrict: the exorcist may ask the name, but is warned against conversation, against curiosity, and against believing the answer.
What the rite conspicuously does not contain is a demonology. No spirit in this corpus is named in it. The Roman rite addresses whatever is present in the second person — immundissime spiritus, serpens antique, draco nequissime — and never once consults a list. The institution with the most exorcists produced the least taxonomy, and Title X is the direct evidence for it.
The signs, as the book gives them
Three, and no more. Everything the rite says beyond them is that other things of the same kind may occur, and that the more of them coincide, the stronger the indication.
Unknown tongues
Ignota lingua loqui pluribus verbis, vel loquentem intelligere.
To speak in an unknown tongue at some length, or to understand one who speaks it.
The first of the three signs. Note the qualifier pluribus verbis — at some length, not a word or two.
Rituale Romanum X.i.3
Hidden and distant knowledge
Distantia et occulta patefacere.
To disclose things distant and hidden.
Rituale Romanum X.i.3
Strength beyond condition
Vires supra aetatis seu conditionis naturam ostendere.
To display strength beyond the nature of one's age or condition.
The book then adds 'et id genus alia' — other things of the same kind — and says only that the more of them coincide, the stronger the indication. That clause is the whole of its openness to a longer list.
Rituale Romanum X.i.3
The rite, in order
Rubrics of restraint first, then the invocation that borrows authority, then the adjurations, then the dismissal. Note that the exorcist never says “I command”: the grammar shifts from adiuro to imperat tibi Deus, and the subject is God for the whole of it.
Do not believe it readily
Ne facile credat, aliquem a daemonio obsessum esse; sed nota habeat ea signa, quibus obsessus dignoscitur ab iis, qui vel atra bile, vel morbo aliquo laborant.
Let him not readily believe that anyone is possessed by a demon; but let him know the signs by which one possessed is distinguished from those suffering from melancholy or from some illness.
The rite opens by drawing the distinction it is most often accused of ignoring. Whatever else the 1614 text does, it does not assume possession.
Rituale Romanum X.i.3
Ask the name and the number
Necessariae vero interrogationes sunt, ut de numero et nomine spirituum obsidentium, de tempore quo ingressi sunt, de causa, et aliis huiusmodi.
The necessary questions are these: the number and the name of the possessing spirits, the time at which they entered, the cause, and other such matters.
This is the closest the Roman Church comes to collecting demon names, and the surrounding rubrics immediately restrict it: the exorcist is warned against unnecessary conversation, against curiosity, and against trusting the answer. The name is extracted to bind, not to record — which is why no Vatican register of demons exists.
Rituale Romanum X.i.15
Address to the Father
Deus, et Pater Domini nostri Iesu Christi, invoco nomen sanctum tuum, et clementiam tuam supplex exposco: ut adversus hunc, et omnem immundum spiritum, qui vexat hoc plasma tuum, mihi auxilium praestare digneris.
God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I call upon your holy name and humbly beg your mercy: that against this and every unclean spirit which vexes this creature of yours, you would deign to grant me help.
The rite establishes borrowed authority before it addresses the spirit at all. Nothing the exorcist says later is said in his own name.
Rituale Romanum X.ii
First exorcism
Exorcizo te, immundissime spiritus, omnis incursio adversarii, omne phantasma, omnis legio, in nomine Domini nostri Iesu Christi eradicare et effugare ab hoc plasmate Dei.
I cast you out, most unclean spirit, every incursion of the adversary, every phantom, every legion, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be uprooted and put to flight from this creature of God.
Addressed to an unnamed second person, and to categories rather than individuals — incursion, phantom, legion. The rite is built to work without knowing what it is talking to.
Rituale Romanum X.ii
Behold the Cross
Ecce Crucem Domini, fugite partes adversae; vicit Leo de tribu Iuda, radix David.
Behold the Cross of the Lord: flee, hostile powers. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered, the root of David.
Drawn from Revelation 5:5. Printed as two halves rather than one sentence — the exorcist says 'Ecce crucem Domini, fugite partes adversae' and those present answer 'Vicit leo de tribu Iuda, radix David' — so the line is a call and a reply, not a single utterance. It circulates far outside the rite, on medals and in later grimoires, which is unusual for liturgical material.
Rituale Romanum X.ii (versicle and response)
Adjuration of the ancient serpent
Adiuro te, serpens antique, per iudicem vivorum et mortuorum, per factorem tuum, per factorem mundi: per eum, qui habet potestatem mittendi te in gehennam, ut ab hoc famulo Dei N., qui ad Ecclesiae sinum recurrit, cum metu et exercitu furoris tui festinus discedas.
I adjure you, ancient serpent, by the judge of the living and the dead, by your maker, by the maker of the world, by him who has power to send you into Gehenna: that you depart in haste from this servant of God N., who takes refuge in the bosom of the Church, with your terror and the army of your fury.
Per factorem tuum — 'by your maker' — is the theological hinge of the whole rite. The spirit is a creature, and the adjuration works by reminding it whose.
Rituale Romanum X.ii
God commands you
Imperat tibi Deus Pater; imperat tibi Deus Filius; imperat tibi Deus Spiritus Sanctus.
God the Father commands you; God the Son commands you; God the Holy Spirit commands you.
The grammatical subject is God throughout. The exorcist never says 'I command'; the shift from adiuro (I adjure) to imperat tibi (he commands you) is deliberate.
Rituale Romanum X.iii
Depart, and give place
Recede ergo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti: da locum Spiritui Sancto, per hoc signum sanctae Crucis Iesu Christi Domini nostri.
Depart, then, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: give place to the Holy Spirit, by this sign of the holy Cross of Jesus Christ our Lord.
The dismissal, and the rite's demand for a sign: departure is to be marked, not merely assumed.
Rituale Romanum X.iii
What was made of it afterwards
The three signs the book actually gives are unknown tongues, hidden knowledge, and strength beyond one's condition. The list most people can recite — revulsion at sacred objects, a changed voice, levitation, physical marks — comes from later exorcists' manuals, from nineteenth-century popular demonology, and above all from the 1973 film, which took the 1614 rite's Latin cadences and attached them to a set of signs the rite never lists.
The gap between the two lists is one of the widest between a primary text and its reception anywhere in this corpus, and it runs in the direction people least expect: the institutional text is the restrained one.
4 carrying no clauses
The other four rites
Grouped by why they are empty, because the three reasons are not the same thing and counting them together would read as one backlog. One of the three is a task. The other two are positions, and they are not going to resolve.
Not yet transcribed
2 of 4Public domain, reachable, and simply not done yet. These two are the only outstanding work in this section, and the edition to work from is named on each.
The Exorcisms of St Basil and St John Chrysostom
attributed 4th c.The Eastern prayers, still in use. They adjure and narrate rather than interrogate, and they are addressed to God far more than to the spirit.
The Sarum Exorcistic Forms
printed 1506The pre-Reformation English rite, from the Sarum Manuale. Shows what a Western exorcism looked like before Rome fixed one in 1614.
In copyright
1 of 4Described in this project's own words with the original-language column left empty. Not a gap in the corpus and not a task: the text is someone else's to publish.
De exorcismis et supplicationibus quibusdam
1999; emended 2004The rite that replaced the 1614 text. Tighter signs, an explicit caution about psychiatric illness, and a deprecatory form of prayer alongside the imperative one. In copyright: described here, never quoted.
Withheld on principle
1 of 4Out of copyright, and still not reproduced. This is an exorcism carried inside an operative magical handbook, with words of power given as things to speak. Being permitted to publish something is not a reason to publish it, and this will not change.
The Spell of Pibechis
c. 300 CEA Greco-Egyptian exorcism adjuring the spirit by the god of the Hebrews and by Jesus, older than any standardised Christian rite. The bridge between grimoire and liturgy.
A note on the text
Every clause below has been checked against a scanned printing of the Rituale Romanum carrying the Paul V text of Title X. Eight matched exactly; three did not and were corrected, including one rubric that said the right thing in Latin the book does not contain — the worst kind of error here, since it carried a citation to a work that did not support it. Orthography is normalised to the classical forms, so this page reads Iesu and adiuro where the printing has Jesu and adjuro. The English is this project’s own rendering and is labelled as such wherever it appears, in the same way translated excerpts are handled on the source texts.