A YOUNG WOMAN WRITHES in a chair, her body contorted, her head swaying and eyes closed. Suddenly, in a deep, guttural voice that sounds nothing like a woman in her 20s, she shouts: 'I won't leave her, she is mine.' A cluster of people close round her in a circle, watching and reciting prayers over the woman who writhes in what appears to be agony. As the incantations fade, she lifts her head and lets out a sinister giggle. She leans forward and roars like a lion and makes faces at those gathered around.
A man, dressed in a white shirt and tie, clutches a bible in one hand and points at the woman with the other. 'In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave her,' he states defiantly. This is not some Hollywood film set, the video of the ceremony shows a neat office in Kowloon Bay during a midweek afternoon. A real life exorcism is apparently taking place and the small congregation believes they are witnessing Danny Ma Kwok-tung banishing demons from a possessed woman.
The ceremony continues, as Ma entreats her to listen to God, and reject the devil. The woman's face twists from softness to an angry mask of rage. Her ramblings sound like the crazed cacklings of a pantomime witch. Her hands slap her thighs as she laughs grotesquely. Ma does not flinch. As the tight knot of Christians starts singing, her hands clasp her ears and she moans: 'Stop singing, it really hurts.' But this devil doesn't want to give up without a tussle. Half an hour later, 'it' still has not gone and the woman, or her demon, depending on your viewpoint, shouts: 'Who are you? Want to chase me away? Don't bother me, you're trouble . . . She doesn't have the power to trust Jesus, she doesn't even have the power to chase me away.'
A missionary at the Hong Kong Christian Short Term Mission Training Centre, Ma has been a practising exorcist for 14 years, in which time he has carried out about 400 exorcisms. He offers his services free and says he has helped people from all walks of life, from clerks and housewives, to models and computer programmers. He says even triad gangsters and policemen have sought his devil banishing services.
It seems demons are back in fashion. Ma is currently doing in average one exorcism a week in the SAR. Interestingly, The Exorcist was first released back in 1973 and the increase in reports of demonic possession in the US can be charted from then. Figures are not available for Hong Kong. The film's story focuses on the possession of a 12-year-old girl and contains frightening scenes where actress Linda Blair shouts in demonic tones, twists her head 360 degrees and spews green vomit.
Somewhere between the 1973 release and the October 2000 re-release of the movie, the ancient rite of exorcism has built up a healthy following. The Exorcist was the second-most-popular film in America during its first week of re-release and has taken more than US$22.3 million (HK$173.7 million) in just three weeks.
Hollywood's fascination with exorcism comes as no surprise but the increase in interest in real-life exorcisms is perhaps a little more perplexing. Devils and demons have been around for a long time, the Bible mentions that Jesus Christ was possessed twice, and even conducted exorcisms himself. That was 2,000 years ago but demons, kept alive in the public imagination by Hollywood are enjoying something of a comeback.