In the 1973 film *The Exorcist*, secrets are primarily used as psychological weapons by the demon (Pazuzu) to erode the characters' willpower and faith. These secrets range from deeply buried personal guilt to hidden physical ailments and lies about specific events.
### **Father Damien Karras: Guilt and Despair**
Father Karras’s secrets are the emotional core of the film’s tragedy.
* **The Loss of Faith:** Karras is a Jesuit psychiatrist who is secretly experiencing a profound crisis of faith. He confides to a fellow priest that he feels like a "hypocrite" because he is counseling other priests on their vocations while privately wanting to leave the priesthood himself.
* **Guilt over his Mother:** Karras harbors a secret sense of failure regarding his elderly mother. He feels he abandoned her in New York to serve the Church in Washington. When she dies alone in her apartment and isn't found for days, his guilt becomes a secret "wound" that the demon later exploits by manifesting as her and asking, *"Damien! Why did you do this to me?"*
### **Father Lankester Merrin: Fragility and History**
Father Merrin is an experienced exorcist, but he keeps his vulnerabilities private to maintain the ritual's authority.
* **Secret Heart Condition:** Merrin suffers from severe heart disease. He is shown taking nitroglycerin pills (heart medicine) discreetly, and at one point, Karras notices his hands shaking uncontrollably. He keeps the extent of his illness a secret to ensure he is allowed to complete the exorcism.
* **A Pre-existing Connection:** The opening sequence in Iraq reveals that Merrin has faced this specific demon before. While the Church knows he is an experienced exorcist, Merrin keeps the deep, foreboding sense of his own impending death—sparked by finding the Pazuzu amulet—to himself.
### **Chris MacNeil: Protective Denial**
As a famous actress and mother, Chris’s secrets are rooted in her attempt to maintain a facade of control.
* **The Broken Marriage:** Chris keeps the pain of her divorce and her ex-husband’s neglect relatively private. Her explosion of anger when he fails to call Regan for her birthday reveals the depth of the resentment she usually hides from her daughter.
* **The Crucifix Mystery:** When Chris finds a crucifix hidden under Regan’s pillow, she confronts her domestic staff. This leads to a web of minor lies and secrets among the household members, as no one admits to placing it there, highlighting the "secret" invasion of the supernatural into their secular lives.
### **Regan MacNeil: The Victim’s Secrets**
* **Captain Howdy:** Before the possession is obvious, Regan keeps her "friend" Captain Howdy a secret, only revealing his existence through the Ouija board.
* **The Death of Burke Dennings:** The most significant plot secret is the truth behind the death of the director, Burke Dennings. While the police and Chris are initially told it was an accident, the demon eventually "reveals" through Regan’s physical contortions and voice that she (under the demon's control) pushed Burke out the window and twisted his head backward. Regan herself remains unaware of this "secret" act.
### **Karl (The Butler): Accusations and Silence**
* **Hidden Past:** During a dinner party, the character Burke Dennings drunkenly accuses Karl of being a "Nazi" (Karl claims to be Swiss). While never fully resolved, this creates an atmosphere of hidden history and suspicion.
* **The Crucifix Denial:** Karl denies putting the crucifix under Regan’s pillow. In the original novel, Karl is keeping a much darker secret (a daughter who is a drug addict), but in the 1973 film, his "secret" is reduced to his suspicious denial of the religious artifacts appearing in the house, which leads Chris to distrust him.