By BARBARA DOUGLAS

You have to wonder what evil lurked in the mind of William Peter Blatty. Author of the epic horror novel "The Exorcist," Blatty managed to get under the collective goose bumped skin of millions of readers when the book was released in 1971. Literature and cinema was never the same.

The book is based on a 1949 exorcism of Robbie Mannheim that Blatty heard about while he was a student in the class of 1950 at (Jesuit and Catholic) Georgetown University.

Every year at this time, I dust off my dog eared, coffee cup stained copy of The Exorcist and get my literary ghoul on.

The demon Pazuzu. Father Merrin. Regan MacNeil. Father Damien Karras. Levitating beds. Pea soup. Readers of the book and lovers of the movie will recognize these icons of American literature (and cinema). Authors have tried to match Blatty’s achievement, but none have succeeded. The Exorcist is and will always be the penultimate horror novel. No matter how many times I read it, and it’s been many, many years, I still check under the bed before lights out.

What an excellent day for an exorcism.