The girl who was possessed by the devil. The most famous case of possession
They say that a 23-year-old student from Klingenberg, Anneliese Michel, was possessed by six demons who did not want to let her go. Over nine months, Anneliese went through 67 expulsion rituals. When this did not help, the girl chose to starve herself to death. In 1976, she forced herself to give up food, thinking that hunger would help her get rid of the devil. When she died, she weighed only 31 kilograms. “Mom,” she said just before the end, “I’m afraid.”
Anneliese Michel was born in 1952 in the small Bavarian town of Leiblfing, received a traditional Catholic education, her life was no different from other children of a prosperous world... Until one day she was hospitalized with strange symptoms...
She “made faces”, heard “voices”, made disgusting wheezing sounds... Between attacks, she plaintively begged the doctors to help her... However, the doctors could not take control of her condition, which they associated with epilepsy
At the beginning of 1973, the parents decided to turn to the Catholic Church in order to heal the devilishness in the girl through prayer. The church noticed that the girl was using psychotropic drugs, which were prescribed to her by doctors, making expulsion difficult.
In 1974, a priest was found who undertook to exorcise the demon from Anneliese Michel, but higher religious authorities forbade doing so...
By this time, Anneliese's illness began to worsen - she began to more actively insult her family members, fight, bite... She refused to eat food, citing the fact that Satan did not allow her to do this... She slept only on the floor, she spent almost all days in growling and screaming, and when the opportunity presented itself, she destroyed church symbols, tore apart icons and broke crosses...
In 1975, the priest finally decided to carry out the process of exorcism according to the Romanesque rite.
At one of her prayers, Anneliese admitted that she was possessed by several demons: Lucifer, Judas Iscariote, Nero, Cain, Hitler, Fleischmann (a Frankish monk who fell into the power of Satan in the 16th century).
Throughout 1975, Anneliese Michel underwent a course of prayers of cleansing from the devil once or twice a week, sometimes her condition worsened - at which point it took the efforts of at least three men to contain her aggression against her relatives, but in general she was able to continue a normal life.
Sometimes she hurt herself, her limbs were cramped, which contributed to partial paralysis of her legs... The last crisis came on June 30, 1976... Anneliese was sick with pneumonia, at some point she began to have convulsions, her face became long, but she did not lose consciousness until the end sighing, she understood what was happening to her. She died suffering unbearable pain...
>During her treatment, her mother and relatives were able to record more than 40 tapes of exorcism...
After Anneliese's death, the prosecutor began an investigation and brought charges against the two priests who performed the ceremony, based on the diagnosis of doctors who claimed that Anneliese was suffering from psychotic and epilepsy... The girl's parents and two priests received 6 months in prison.
Upon further listening and expert evaluation of the tapes by other priests practicing exorcism, it was found that the tape recorded debates and disputes between two devils who tormented Anneliese Michel and quarreled over who should leave the girl’s body first... This story formed the basis of the plot film “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”... The film, directed by Scott Derrickson, was released in the fall of 2005 and became his most notable film. The literary source of the film, in turn, was the documentary book by anthropologist Felicitas Goodman, “The Exorcism of Anneliese Michael.”...
In 1969, a seventeen-year-old German woman, Anneliese Michel, was diagnosed with epilepsy by a doctor, although an electroencephalogram showed nothing. It was only after Anneliese's death in 1976 that a number of oddities came to light, and then thanks to an equally strange trial. Despite the fact that the autopsy also showed no signs of epilepsy in the brain and death from dehydration and exhaustion, the culprits continued to be two priests and Anneliese's parents, who were not allowed to be exhumed. What made Anneliese destroy sacred relics, turn her head left and right with the speed of changing frames, and eat spiders, flies and coal?
Religious family
Anneliese Michel was born on September 21, 1952 in the Bavarian Leiblfing, but was raised in Klingenberg am Main of the same land, which was then also part of the Federal Republic of Germany. The girl's name was a combination of two names - Anna and Elizabeth (Lisa). Conservative parents Anna Fürg and Joseph Michel were a colorful exception in Germany, but commonplace in the Catholic bastion of Bavaria. They rejected the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, on the 13th of every month they held the feast of the Virgin Mary of Fatima, and neighbor Barbara Weigand, who walked five hours to the Capuchin church to receive a wafer, was considered a model in the Michel family.
Strange attacks
Anneliese attended mass several times a week, said rosaries, and even tried to do more than was prescribed, such as sleeping on the floor in the middle of winter. In 1968, a generally harmless incident occurred: Anneliese bit her tongue due to a spasm. A year later, strange night attacks began, during which the girl’s body lost flexibility, a feeling of heaviness appeared on her chest, and due to dysarthria - loss of the ability to speak - she was unable to call either her parents or any of her three sisters.
After the first attack, Anneliese felt so exhausted that she could not find the strength to go to school. However, this did not happen again for some time and Anneliese even played tennis sometimes. In 1969, the girl woke up at night due to difficulty breathing and paralysis of her arms and whole body. Family doctor Gerhard Vogt advised me to see a psychiatrist.
On August 27, 1969, Anneliese's electroencephalogram did not reveal any changes in the brain. True, the girl was later struck down by pleurisy and tuberculosis, and in early February 1970 she was admitted to a hospital in Aschaffenburg. On the 28th Anneliese was transferred to Mittelberg. On the night of June 3 of the same year, another attack began. A new EEG again did not reveal anything suspicious, but Dr. Wolfgang von Haller recommended drug treatment. The decision was not reversed even when the third and fourth EEGs taken on August 11, 1970 and June 4, 1973 showed the same result.
In Mittelberg, Anneliese began to see demonic faces during the rosary. In the spring, Annelise began to hear some knocking. Vogt, having examined the girl and not finding anything, sent the girl to an otologist, but he also did not reveal anything, and the girl’s sisters began to hear the knocking that was heard above or below the witness.
According to the girl herself, it began to seem to her that she was possessed at the age of 13. The first, or at least one of the first, who realized that something was wrong with Anneliese was Thea Hein, who accompanied the girl during a pilgrimage to the Italian San Damiano. She noticed that Anneliese walked away from some image of Christ and refused to drink water from the sacred Lourdes spring.
Attempts at exorcism
Four years of treatment, which included taking anticonvulsants such as Centropil and Tegretal, yielded nothing. By the way, on November 15, 1972, at a general audience dedicated to the spiritual struggle of the Church with the devil, Pope Paul VI noted: “... the presence of the Evil One is sometimes very obvious. We can assume that his crime is where... lies becomes strong and hypocritical in the guise of obvious truth (...) It is easy to ask... the question “what means, what measure should we use against the actions of the devil?”, but in practice everything is more complicated.”
In the summer of 1973, Anneliese's parents turned to several priests, but they were told that until all signs of possession (Latin infestatio) had been proven, an exorcism could not be performed. The following year, Pastor Ernst Alt, after observing Anneliese for some time, requested permission from Bishop Joseph Stangl of Würzburg to perform an exorcism, but was refused.
At this time, Anneliese's behavior changed: she refused to eat, began breaking crucifixes and images of Christ in the house, tearing off her clothes, screaming for hours, biting family members, injuring herself and doing up to 400 squats a day. And one day Annelise climbed under the table in the kitchen and barked like a dog for two days. Thea, who arrived, called on the demons to leave the girl three times in the name of the Trinity, and only then did she come out from under the table as if nothing had happened.
However, this turned out to be temporary and Anneliese was later found above the Main, ready to throw herself into the water due to repeated calls from demons to commit suicide. On September 16, 1975, Stangl, in consultation with the Jesuit Adolf Rodewick, based on the 1st paragraph of the 1151st chapter of the Code of Canon Law, appointed Alt and the Salvatorian Arnold Renz to perform the exorcism. Its basis then was the so-called Roman Ritual (“Rituale Romanum”), developed back in 1614 and expanded in 1954.
Anneliese indicated that she was commanded by six demons who called themselves Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Nero, Fleischmann and Hitler. Valentin Fleishman was a Franconian priest in 1552-1575, later he was demoted, accused of cohabitation with a woman and addiction to wine. Fleishman also committed a murder in his parish house.
From September 24, 1975 to June 30, 1976, approximately 70 rites were performed on Anneliese, one or two weekly, 42 were recorded on tape and listened to later in court. The first ceremony took place at 16:00 and lasted 5 hours. When the priests touched Anneliese, she shouted: “Take your paw away, it burns like fire!” The attacks were so severe that Annelise was either held by three people or tied up with a chain. However, between the attacks the girl felt fine, went to school and church, and passed exams at the Würzburg Pedagogical Academy.
Death
On May 30, 1976, after attending one of the rituals, Dr. Richard Roth allegedly told Father Alt in response to a request for help: “There is no injection against the devil.” On June 30 of the same year, Annelise, feverish from pneumonia, went to bed and said: “Mom, stay, I’m afraid” (“Mutter bleib da, ich habe Angst”). These were her last words. The next day, at about 8 am, Anna declared her daughter dead. It turned out that by this time Annelise weighed only 31 kg.
Trial
On April 21, 1978, the district court of Aschaffenburg, where Anneliese studied at the gymnasium, put the girl’s parents and both priests in the dock. It is not clear why the parents were not allowed to exhume, and Renz later said that he was not even allowed into the morgue.
The head of the German episcopal conference, which stated that Anneliese was not possessed, Cardinal Joseph Höffner admitted on April 28, 1978 that he believed in the existence of demons. However, in 1974, a study by the Freiburg Institute for Marginal Psychology showed that only 63% of Catholic theologians in Germany believed in the existence of the devil.
A number of experts in their individual books, among whom the Protestant Felicitas Goodman, who defended Anneliese's obsession, stands out ("Anneliese Michel and Her Demons"), criticized the trial. In 1976, a German press agency revealed that of the 22 German Catholic dioceses, only 3 practiced the rite of exorcism, and all were in Bavaria - Wurzburg, Augsburg and Passau.
Anneliese's grave in Klingenberg is visited by groups of Catholics. Some of them believe that after many years of struggle, Anneliese's soul defeated the demons. In 1999, Cardinal Medina Estevez, for the first time in 385 years, presented to journalists at the Vatican a new version of the Roman Ritual, which had been in the works for more than 10 years.
The Six Demons of Emily Rose
This story formed the basis of the plot of the film “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.” The film, directed by Scott Derrickson, was released in the fall of 2005 and became his most notable film.
The literary source of the film, in turn, was the documentary book by anthropologist Felicitas Goodman, “The Exorcism of Anneliese Michael.” By the way, at the end of 2006, the film was recognized as the best horror film and was awarded the Saturn Award, awarded annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.
The story of Anneliese Michel raises many questions to this day. Some continue to believe that the girl was, by all accounts, possessed by a legion of demons, and others that she suffered from a mental illness, which was influenced by the family’s religiosity. But in any case, this is a warning to everyone who is used to taking things lightly that are not worth joking with. After all, the devil does not always have to come when called, so that in our souls we carry the most terrible demons within ourselves...
“I know we did the right thing because it was a sign of Christ. Her suffering was a sign from God indicating that we must cast out the demons. She died to save other lost souls and atone for their sins."
Anna Michel - Anneliese's mother, 2005
Today we will leave our bar and go on a journey to the homeland of the coven of witches, spirits and demons - to Germany.
The story of this girl, which became the basis of two feature films, took place more than thirty years ago, but continues to arouse interest today. The main question that everyone who is familiar with this drama asks is what really happened to Anneliese - was she really possessed or was her death the result of a serious illness. It is unlikely that we will answer this question now, but this does not prevent us from hearing the true story of the short life of Anneliese Michel from Germany.
The events in question became the subject of attention in 1976. The public has been closely watching the unprecedented trial of two Catholic priests accused of causing the death of a young woman, Anneliese Michel.
She was born in 1952 in a small Bavarian village into a Catholic family. Her name is a combination of two names, Anna and Elizabeth. Anneliese's parents, Anna Fürg and Joseph Michel, were practicing Catholics, very conservative, if not orthodox. They rejected the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Fatima on the 13th of every month, and neighbor Barbara Weigand, who walked five hours to the Capuchin church to receive the wafer, was considered a model in the Michel family.
Anneliese regularly attended mass several times a week, said rosaries, and even tried to do more than was prescribed, such as sleeping on the floor in the middle of winter. In 1968, the first attack occurred: Anneliese bit her tongue due to a spasm. A year later, night seizures began, during which the girl’s body lost flexibility, a feeling of heaviness appeared in her chest, loss of the ability to speak - the girl could not call her parents or any of her three sisters. After the first attack, Anneliese felt so exhausted and empty that she could not find the strength to go to school. The attacks were followed by periods of calm and Anneliese even sometimes managed to play tennis.
In 1969, the girl woke up at night due to difficulty breathing and numbness in her body. Family doctor Gerhard Vogt advised me to see a psychiatrist. On August 27, 1969, Anneliese's electroencephalogram did not reveal any changes in the brain. However, later the girl was struck down by pleurisy and tuberculosis. At the beginning of February 1970, she was admitted to a hospital in Aschaffenburg. On the 28th Anneliese was transferred to Mittelberg. On the night of June 3 of the same year, another attack began. A new EEG again did not reveal anything suspicious, but Dr. Wolfgang von Haller recommended drug treatment. The decision was not reversed even when the same result was shown by the third and fourth EEGs taken on August 11, 1970 and June 4, 1973. In Mittelberg, Anneliese began to see demonic faces during the rosary. In the spring, Anneliese began to hear a knocking sound. Vogt, having examined the girl and found nothing, sent the girl to an otologist, but he also found nothing, and the girl’s sisters also began to hear the knock.
According to Anneliese herself, it began to seem to her that she was possessed from the age of 13. The first person to realize that something was wrong with Anneliese was Thea Hein, who accompanied her during a pilgrimage to San Damiano, Italy. She noticed that Anneliese walked away from the image of Christ and refused to drink water from the sacred Lourdes spring.
Four years of treatment yielded nothing, and in the summer of 1973, Anneliese’s parents turned to several priests, but they were explained that until all signs of possession were proven, an exorcism could not be performed. The following year, Pastor Ernst Alt, after observing Anneliese for some time, requested permission from Bishop Joseph Stangl of Würzburg to perform an exorcism, but was refused. At this time, Anneliese's behavior changed: she refused to eat, began breaking crucifixes and images of Christ in the house, tearing off her clothes, screaming for hours, biting family members, injuring herself, eating spiders, flies and coal. One day Anneliese climbed under the table in the kitchen and barked like a dog for two days. Thea, who arrived, called on the demons to leave the girl three times in the name of the Trinity, and only then Anneliese came out from under the table as if nothing had happened.
On September 16, 1975, Stangl, in consultation with the Jesuit Adolf Rodewick, appointed Alt and the Salvatorian Arnold Renz to perform the exorcism. Its basis then was the so-called Roman Ritual (“Rituale Romanum”), developed back in 1614 and expanded in 1954.
Anneliese indicated that she was commanded by six demons who called themselves Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Nero, Fleischmann and Hitler. Valentin Fleishman was a Franconian priest in 1552-1575, later he was demoted, accused of cohabitation with a woman and addiction to wine. Fleishman also committed murder in his parish house.
From September 24, 1975 to June 30, 1976, approximately 70 rites were performed on Anneliese, one or two weekly, 42 were recorded on tape and played later in court. The first ceremony lasted 5 hours. When the priests touched Anneliese, she shouted: “Take your paw away, it burns like fire!” The attacks were so severe that the girl was held by three people or tied with a chain. However, between attacks she felt fine, went to school and church and passed exams at the Würzburg Pedagogical Academy.
On May 30, 1976, after attending one of the rituals, Dr. Richard Roth allegedly retorted to Father Alt in response to a request for help: “There is no injection against the devil.” On June 30 of the same year, Annelise, feverish from pneumonia, went to bed and said: “Mom, stay, I’m afraid.” These were her last words. The next day, around 8 a.m., Anna pronounced her daughter dead. It turned out that at the time of her death, Anneliese weighed only 31 kg.
On April 21, 1978, the district court of Aschaffenburg, where she studied at Anneliese, sent the girl’s parents and both priests to the dock. It is not clear why the parents were not allowed to exhume, and Renz later said that he was not even allowed into the morgue. It is also interesting that the head of the German episcopal conference, which stated that Anneliese was not possessed, Cardinal Joseph Heffner, admitted on April 28, 1978 that he believes in the existence of demons. However, in 1974, a study by the Freiburg Institute for Marginal Psychology showed that only 66% of Catholic theologians in Germany believed in the existence of the devil.
A number of experts in their individual books, among whom the Protestant F. Goodman, who defended Anneliese’s obsession, stands out (“Anneliese Michel and Her Demons”), criticized the trial. In 1976, a German press agency revealed that of the 22 German Catholic dioceses, only 3 practiced exorcism, all of which were in Bavaria - Würzburg, Augsburg and Passau.
After an investigation, the state prosecutor stated that Anneliese's death was premature and the girl could have lived at least another week. Four defendants went to the dock: Anneliese's parents, Pastor Ernst Alt and Father Arnold Renz.
The trial began on March 30, 1978, and aroused great interest. The priests were defended by a team of lawyers paid for by the church. The defense insisted that exorcism is an inalienable right of citizens, protected by the constitution, like the right to religious beliefs.
Ultimately, the defendants were convicted and sentenced to 6 months of suspended imprisonment.
Anneliese's grave in Klingenberg is visited by groups of Catholics. Some of them believe that after many years of struggle, Anneliese's soul defeated the demons. In 1999, Cardinal Medina Estevez, for the first time in 385 years, presented to journalists at the Vatican a new version of the Roman Ritual, which had been in the works for more than 10 years.
In 2005, a film was released directed by Scott Derrickson, based on the story of Anneliese Michel, The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
2006 - film by German director Hans-Christian Schmid “Requiem”, also dedicated to Anneliese
Anna Elisabeth Michel, better known as Anneliese, died at the hands of an exorcist on July 1, 1976. She was only 23 years old.
Anneliese was born into the family of Joseph and Anna Michel, deeply religious and very religious Catholics. Joseph's three sisters were nuns, and he himself was predicted to become a clergyman, but he chose to become a carpenter. Anna had an illegitimate daughter named Martha, who died of cancer as a child. Nevertheless, Anneliese’s mother was so ashamed of her illegitimate daughter that she even wore a black veil at her own wedding.
Little Anneliese was brought up in strictness, despite the fact that the girl was a weak and sickly child. However, Anneliese herself gladly accepted such an upbringing: while other teenagers rebelled, she regularly attended mass twice a week and regularly prayed for her lost peers. The girl's problems began only in 1968, when Anneliese was already 16 years old.
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One day, Anneliese bit her tongue because of a strange spasm that suddenly seized her body. A year later, such attacks became regular: the girl suddenly lost the ability to simply move, felt a heaviness in her chest, she began to have problems with speech and articulation - sometimes she could not even call someone close to her for help. The parents immediately sent their daughter to the hospital, where she was given an electroencephalogram. The examination did not reveal any changes in Annelise’s brain, but doctors nevertheless diagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy, and in February 1970 the girl was hospitalized in a clinic with a diagnosis of tuberculosis. There, in the hospital, a serious seizure occurred. Doctors tried to treat it with anticonvulsants, but for some reason they didn’t work. Anneliese herself claimed that she saw “the face of the devil” in front of her. Doctors prescribed the girl a drug used in the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental disorders. But it didn’t work either: the girl fell into depression, during prayers she began to hallucinate, and she also heard voices that promised her that she would “rot in hell.”
Annelise was transferred to a psychiatric ward, but the treatment did not help her. Then the girl decided that she was possessed by the devil. After leaving the hospital, the girl made a pilgrimage to San Giorgio Piacentino with family friend Thea Hein. Hein confirmed Anneliese’s fears about possession: Anneliese refused to touch the crucifix or drink water from the holy spring, and therefore Hein convinced the girl that there really was “a devil inside her.” Returning home, Anneliese told her family about this. Together they began to look for a priest who would perform the exorcism.
Several priests refused this to the Michel family, explaining that such a rite, firstly, requires the permission of the bishop, and secondly, complete confidence in the possession of the patient. Between attacks of mental illness, Anneliese led a completely normal life as an ordinary girl, adjusted for her increased religiosity. But her condition steadily worsened.
At some point, Anneliese's episodes of frustration became truly frightening: she tore her clothes, ate insects, urinated on the floor and licked urine, and once bit off the head of a bird. In a fit, the girl suddenly began to speak in different languages and call herself Lucifer, Cain, Judas, Nero, Adolf Hitler and other names. Periodically, the “demons” inside her began to swear among themselves - in different voices. Doctors prescribed Anneliese another drug, but it didn’t help either. The investigators of this case later concluded that the dosage was insufficient for such a serious disorder. The psychiatry of that time, in principle, could not cure Anneliese, but it could help her: the disorder could be controlled. But Anneliese refused treatment, and her family did not insist on it. Instead, they began looking for an exorcist.
A priest named Ernst Alt was the first to respond to Anneliese's request to free her from possession. He wrote to the girl that she did not look like someone with epilepsy and he would try to find a way to rid her of obsession. In September 1975, Bishop Joseph Stangl allowed Alt and another priest, Wilhelm Renz, to perform the ceremony. On September 24 this happened for the first time. After the first ceremony, Annelise stopped taking medications and visiting doctors. She completely trusted the exorcism.
Over 10 months, priests performed 67 rites of exorcism. Once or twice a week, Annelise had another ritual, some of which lasted up to 4 hours. 42 rituals were captured on camera, and then these recordings were used as evidence in court.
On the morning of July 1, 1976, Anneliese was found dead in bed. When Alt was informed about this, he told her parents: “Annelise’s soul, cleansed of satanic power, rushed to the throne of the Most High.”
At the time of her death, Anneliese weighed about 30 kilograms and was 166 centimeters tall. Her whole body was covered in bruises and unhealed wounds, ligaments were torn, and joints were disfigured from constant kneeling. Anneliese could no longer move independently, but nevertheless, even the night before her death, she was tied to the bed. This had to be done so that the girl would not hurt herself. An autopsy showed that Anneliese was terribly emaciated and sick with pneumonia, which, in all likelihood, killed her.
Formally, Anneliese did not die from an exorcism ritual. But it was the rituals that brought her to this state, coupled with the lack of drug therapy necessary for a mental disorder.
The trial in this case began 2 years later, in 1978. Alt, Renz and Michele's parents were charged with criminal omission resulting in death by negligence. All the accused were found guilty. They were given a suspended sentence of six months' imprisonment with a probationary period of 3 years.
Alexandra Koshimbetova
This terrible story happened quite recently, in 2011. Residents of the Voronezh region, spouses Elena Antonova and Sergei Koshimbetov, killed their own 26-year-old daughter Alexandra while performing a ritual of “exorcism.”
Alexandra's mother Elena suffered from a mental disorder and was very religious. She repeatedly informed those around her that she was “sent to earth by God for a special mission.” At some point, it seemed to her that her daughter was possessed by the devil. At the same time, the woman believed that the devil came to her daughter in the form of a husband, and now Alexandra is in love with the “evil spirit.” Alexandra’s father Sergei immediately believed his wife.
From the testimony of Sergei Koshimbetov: “I put it down. They gave me a glass of water. She kicked it all out with her hands. Lena says: why can’t you cope with her? Just pour some water, she will calm down.” From the testimony of Elena Antonova: “I began to bite her stomach, then he told me: grab her navel. I grabbed my belly button and held it, I shouldn’t have let it go.”
Sergei and Elena forced their daughter to “drink” about five liters of water. The mother, who continued to torture her daughter all this time, tore out part of her daughter’s intestines with her bare hands. And even after this, the parents did not calm down: they continued to beat Alexandra and jump on her wounded body. As a result, the girl died from multiple rib fractures and massive internal bleeding.
The parents laid the body “freed from evil spirits” in their own bed. Moreover, in addition to them, Alexandra’s grandmother and their youngest thirteen-year-old daughter were in the apartment. The wife's grandmother and granddaughter were told that everything was fine and the girl would resurrect in three days. Only then did the grandmother decide to call the police. Before that, she said, she was afraid to intervene, because both her youngest granddaughter and herself could become victims of crazy spouses.
Elena Antonova came to court with a Bible and immediately began preaching. The woman declared that she was God's chosen one and tried to find evidence of this in the Bible. The woman denied her guilt and stated that she did absolutely the right thing. Her husband shared the same view. In their opinion, they did not kill their daughter, but simply freed her from obsession. The parents assured everyone that Alexandra would soon be resurrected.
The examination found both spouses insane. The diagnosis is a severe form of schizophrenia. Both were sentenced to compulsory treatment.
Marika Irina Kornich
In 2005, the abbot of a Romanian Orthodox monastery, 31-year-old priest Daniel Petru Corogeanu, killed his mentally ill parishioner. The priest did not admit his guilt at the trial and did not appear repentant.
23-year-old Marika Irina Kornich grew up in an orphanage and entered a monastery just three months before her death. The girl suffered from schizophrenia, and therefore the priest considered her possessed by the devil. To save the unfortunate “victim of evil spirits,” the priest decided to perform an exorcism. To do this, he chained her to a cross, gagged her so that she would not “call on the devil with her screams,” and locked her in the basement for three days without food, drink or light. At the end of the third day, some nun could not stand it and called the police. Doctors who arrived at the monastery, accompanied by police, found the girl already dead. The young novice died from dehydration and suffocation.
The church condemned the priest's actions and removed him from his post as rector. Father Daniel was arrested only a month after the girl’s death. When asked by investigators whether he suspected that the novice might not be possessed, but suffering from a mental disorder, the priest replied: “The devil cannot be driven out of a person with the help of pills.”
The priest and nuns who helped him perform the exorcism answered questions from investigators for 11 hours. The court found everyone guilty of murder with aggravating circumstances. Daniel Corogeanu was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Janet Moses
22-year-old Janet from New Zealand died during a traditional Maori ritual performed by her family. Relatives, convinced that Janet was possessed by the devil, decided to hold the "ceremony" at her grandparents' house. In total, about 30 people took part in the ceremony. For several hours, the relatives brutally tortured the girl, in particular, they tried to suck out Janet's eyes, believing that this would save her from the curse. Another girl, 14-year-old relative Janet, was injured during the ritual. But, fortunately, she survived. And Janet died after they started pouring water down her throat in order to “drive out the devil.” The girl choked.
Nine members of the Moses family appeared in court. They all insisted that they did not want to kill the girl, but, on the contrary, tried to save her.
Unnamed victim
The last known victim of exorcists died about six months ago, in February 2017. Nicaraguan pastor Juan Gregorio Rocha Romero, along with three accomplices, burned a 25-year-old woman alive, declaring her possessed by the devil. When doctors and police arrived at the crime scene, the unfortunate woman was still alive. Doctors diagnosed burns to 80% of the body. Despite the efforts of doctors, the girl died.
The pastor was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Three of his accomplices, including one woman, were each sentenced to the same term.
It happened in 1949 in Georgetown, a 13-year-old boy “played” a seance. In those years, summoning spirits was a very fashionable activity among adults and children. Soon the “souls” got in touch - the boy heard strange knocking, scratching... In a word, the game was a great success! However, at night, when the child was put to bed, a crash was heard around the icon hanging in his room, then creaks, sighs, and heavy steps were heard. This went on for several days and nights. The parents decided that this was the spirit of a recently deceased relative who was very attached to the child during his lifetime.
However, the “spirit” behaved too strangely for the loving uncle: the child’s clothes began to disappear, and then suddenly appear in the most unexpected places. The chair in which the boy was sitting suddenly turned over. At school, notebooks and textbooks of classmates were flying through the air! Finally, the parents were asked to take the boy out of school and hire him private teachers. But first, show it to the doctors.
The doctors listened to the story of the young patient’s parents, did tests and declared the child absolutely healthy. However, when the boy’s voice suddenly changed - from a child’s voice to a low, rough, hoarse one - the parents were seriously worried.
The priests gave the boy a “diagnosis”: possession by the devil. The ritual of exorcism (expelling the devil) lasted 10 weeks. All this time during the sessions, the child demonstrated unprecedented strength, easily throwing aside the priest's assistants holding him. He moved his head strangely, like a snake, and spat straight into the eyes of those around him. Once during the ceremony he managed to escape from the hands of the servants. He rushed to the priest, snatched the ritual book and... destroyed it! It was destroyed, not torn: before the eyes of astonished eyewitnesses, the book turned into a cloud of confetti! After ten weeks, the child forgot that, while trying to escape, he broke the hands of two assistant priests, that he threw himself at his own mother with a knife... He became a zealous Catholic and lived a righteous life.
The Roman Catholic Church believes that demons, having taken possession of a person, can manifest themselves in two ways: either by knocking, an unpleasant odor, the movement of objects - this is an “invasion” into our being, or by changing the behavior of a person who “suddenly begins to shout obscenities, his body beats convulsions." This state is called obsession.
In 1850, a woman appeared in France, around whom strange knocks and cracks were always heard, foam sometimes came out of her mouth, the unfortunate woman convulsed and shouted obscenities. And having come to a more or less calm state, she suddenly began to speak Latin... There, in France, fifteen years later, two brothers lived who suffered from obsession. In addition to the traditional “set” of oddities - convulsions, shouting blasphemy and other things, they could also predict the future and make objects fly through the air.
In 1928, in Iowa (USA), the story of a woman who suffered from obsession since the age of 14 was very popular. Her illness was that she experienced a physical aversion to the church and objects of religious worship. The woman was already over 30 years old when she decided to undergo an exorcism ritual. At the very first ritual words, some unknown force tore her from the hands of the church servants, carried her through the air and seemed to stick her to the wall high above the church door. There was nothing to hold on to the wall, but with great difficulty they managed to separate the possessed woman from the wall and return her to the hands of the servants. This went on for 23 days. All this time, knocking, grinding, and wild howls were heard in the church building, horrifying the parishioners. Then the unclean spirit left the woman’s body and the walls of the temple, but after a while it returned and tried to do its dirty deeds again. The second rite of exorcism went much easier and the demon left his “object” now forever.
The Canadian newspaper The Sun in 1991 described the ritual of exorcising a spirit from a 15-year-old Indian girl. A young and not very experienced priest, Guntano Vigliotta, took it upon himself to exorcise the demon from the poor thing. He was warned that it was dangerous to perform an exorcism alone. However, Vigliotta did not heed the advice. The session in the house of the possessed woman lasted two hours. Suddenly the girl’s mother, who was watching what was happening from another room, heard strange screams. Then everything went silent. After some time, the mother entered the room where the ceremony was being held and saw a terrifying picture: the priest’s body was literally torn into pieces, and the possessed girl was unconscious. Having come to her senses, she remembered the voice that sounded in her brain during the ritual: “My name is the Devourer! Kill the priest!
In October 1991, a report was broadcast on one of the US television channels about the exorcism of a demon from a 16-year-old American girl, Gina. That day, about 40 percent of the country's viewers gathered around the TV sets. Bishop Keith Silamons authorized such a display and accompanied it with the words: “The devil really exists. He is strong and has been active on the planet throughout all centuries.”
Peter Johnson, a 50-year-old government employee, was a model citizen. He lived a quiet life in South East England. He worked hard, loved to garden and adored his wife Joan. There was nothing unusual in his life. But then Askinra came - a “demon” that ate into his soul and took control of Peter’s life. “It was like there was something foreign living inside my body,” Peter says. “It entered my body, my brain.” Peter first felt the presence of Askinra during sleep. In his nightmare, a dark, forbidden entity entered Peter's body and took control of him. At first, the old man ignored the recurring nightmares, but eventually they began to flow into his daily life. Acute headaches made his life unbearable. Uncontrollable dizziness and attacks of narcolepsy overwhelmed him without warning. This was enough to break the person, but soon hallucinations also came. "I thought I was going crazy," Peter says.
Around this time, his wife began to notice changes in his behavior. Peter's feelings and emotions changed like spring weather - from ecstatic lust to feelings of deep despair. His physical condition was also similar—bouts of vomiting, sudden diarrhea, and temperature fluctuations. My joints ached with unbearable pain.
Peter was hospitalized several times, but, as it turned out, he did not suffer from any known illness. He was eventually placed under the care of Dr Alan Sanderson, a renowned consultant psychiatrist with an interest in esotericism. Dr. Sanderson was familiar with similar cases - Peter's soul was possessed by an evil spirit. He was obsessed.
"It's more natural and common than people think," says Sanderson, a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. “If you have used a board to summon spirits or asked spirits to come to this side of life, one of them may take possession of your soul.”
Many consider exorcism to be a relic of the Middle Ages that has no relevance to the 21st century. “Demon possession has no serious basis! This is a figment of the imagination of idiots and storytellers!” - many can subscribe to these words. But, oddly enough, exorcism is attracting more and more trust from the medical profession and remains part of the religious mainstream.
Not long ago, the Vatican University announced that they are now offering special courses on the practical aspects of exorcising evil spirits. The British Channel 4 filmed a real exorcism ritual. More than a hundred American medical schools have introduced courses in spiritual medicine. Increasingly, psychiatrists are referring their patients to private exorcists.
“I don’t doubt for a minute that the spirit world is real,” says Dr. Sanderson. “I believe that there are many types of spiritual entities that can penetrate us. Most often, the souls of dead people are found - they did not get to “heaven” and are looking for peace in the world of the living.”
For most people, exorcism will always be associated with the famous Hollywood movie. But the story of Father Damien Karras's duel with the devil is based on real events that took place in 1949 in St. Louis, Missouri. True, the actual rite of exorcism was performed on a 14-year-old boy, and not on a girl, but it was no less terrible.
The story began with 14-year-old Richard and his aunt summoning spirits. Shortly after this, his aunt died under mysterious circumstances. A few days later, strange events began to occur around the boy himself. Tables and chairs moved around the room on their own, photographs fell from the walls, and someone’s footsteps could be heard in the attic of the house. But even stranger things were happening to Richard himself: an inscription appeared on his chest, as if carved into his flesh, and strange signs appeared on his arms and legs. A Catholic priest was called to perform the exorcism.
At first, Father William Bowden tried to exorcise the demon with a few simple prayers, but he soon realized that he was faced with a serious opponent. Every time Richard tried to renounce Satan by saying a prayer, a terrible force seized control of his body, preventing him from uttering a word. During the exorcism, Richard was filled with a terrible force - three adult men helped the priest hold the boy. Day after day, the priest battled the demon inside Richard, who constantly teased Bowden and spat at his assistants. One day the boy grabbed Father Bowden’s hand and said, “I am the devil myself.”
After 28 days of fighting, an exhausted Father Bowden tried to exorcise Richard again. But this time everything was different. When Richard tried to say “Our Father,” some force took possession of his body and helped him finish the prayer. Richard was released. The boy later said that Archangel Michael himself intervened to help him say the prayer. He also saw a vision in which the saint fought with Satan at the exit from the burning cave.
Peter Johnson's obsession was no less strange. Askinra's presence was only discovered when Dr. Sanderson hypnotized the old man. Under hypnosis, Askinra temporarily gained complete control over Peter's body and used his voice to communicate. The demon stated that it came from "dark flames" and its main purpose was to "cause pain." Askinra also expressed his intention - “I will only be free when I destroy HIM.”
Dr. Sanderson decided that the demon must be released. It was “released” that Sanderson did not perceive the words “expulsion” and “exorcism”. He sought to negotiate with the spirits, to convince them to leave the illegally acquired body peacefully. This is less traumatic for all parties involved and also gives the spirit a chance to find peace and tranquility.
Sanderson managed to convince Askinra to leave Peter's body. As soon as the demon left the body, he began to describe typical dying visions - a glowing white path, places of “mountains and light.” After this, Askinra could no longer influence Peter in any way. Before leaving our reality, the demon said: “I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. Come and see me in my new place..."
The small Bavarian town of Klingeberg became a place of mass religious worship. Thousands are eager to visit the burial site of Anneliese Michel, who tragically died at the age of 23. Her mysterious story is repeated in the script for The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which references the real-life trial of a priest whose actions led to the death of a young girl.
From birth, Anneliese's life was filled with fear. Her family was religious: her father wanted to become a priest, but fate decreed otherwise, but three aunts were nuns. Michelle's family, like any other, had its own secret. In 1948, Anneliese's mother gave birth to a daughter, Martha, although she was not married. This was considered a shame to such an extent that even on the wedding day the bride did not take off her black veil. Four years later, Anneliese was born. The mother actively encouraged the girls to serve God, with which she tried to compensate for the sin of birth. At the age of eight, Martha died from complications after having a kidney tumor removed. The impressionable and kind Anneliese felt the need for atonement even more acutely.
More and more often, the girl noticed traces of sins around her, trying to get rid of them. While the children of the 60s were trying to expand the boundaries of freedom, Anneliese slept on the stone floor, trying to atone for the sins of the drug addicts who slept on the floor of the station building. At the age of 16, terrible attacks appeared - Annelise convulsed like an epileptic, and the medications prescribed by doctors did not have the desired effect. Loss of consciousness and depression became the girl’s constant companions. The parents decided that it was all about the demons that attacked Annelise during prayers. Every day this conviction gained strength.
Doctors diagnosed advanced epilepsy, and the girl herself complained of devilish hallucinations that began with prayer. In 1973, Anneliese began to experience depression, during which she seriously considered suicide. The voices that the girl heard spoke about the futility of her actions. Then Anneliese turned to the local priest with a request to perform a ritual of exorcism, but he refused her twice. The reason was that the girl’s condition was not similar to when demons take over. That is, there were no supernatural abilities, barking, speaking in unknown languages, and so on.
Her health deteriorated every day, but despite this, Anneliese performed 600 bows every day, kneeling. This ultimately led to serious knee ligament injury. Then other strange things began. She crawled under the table and barked and howled from there for several days, ate spiders, pieces of coal and even the head of a dead bird.
A few years later, Anneliese, already driven to despair, began to beg the priest to perform the ritual, but he always refused. Only when she began to attack her parents, destroy the image of Christ and tear down crucifixes, did the priests come to her home. Having started the sessions, which were given the go-ahead, Anneliese completely stopped taking medications. Doctors later diagnosed him with schizophrenia, which is treatable. According to rumors, the girl could be impressed by the film “The Exorcist” from director William Fradkin. But, regardless of what caused the disease, the belief that hallucinations are real only intensified.
The ceremony was performed by Father Arnold Renz and Pstor Ernst Alt. For nine months, the priests conducted 1-2 four-hour sessions per week. According to them, the priests identified several demons, including Judas Iscariot, Lucifer, Cain and Adolf Hitler, and they spoke German with an Austrian intonation.
Forty-two hours were recorded on tape, but experts say it is incredibly difficult to listen to. Inhuman roars alternate with curses and dialogues of demons about the horrors of hell. Anneliese herself thrashed about so much during the sessions that she had to be tied, and sometimes chained, to a chair.
In the spring of 1976, the girl developed pneumonia as a result of exhaustion of the body. On July 1, without regaining consciousness, Anneliese died. The parents buried the girl next to Martha behind the cemetery, where a place was reserved for illegitimate children and suicides. Even after death, Anneliese did not get rid of the sinfulness with which she stubbornly struggled all her life. It is impossible to prove the veracity of one of the versions, because the treatment did not bring the desired results, and the girl took medication for 6 years. It is quite possible that she simply lost faith in the effectiveness of the treatment.
Despite the fact that the girl’s parents claimed that satanic forces were to blame, justice still took place. At the hearing, 42 hours of recordings of howls and dialogue that were heard from Anneliese's room were analyzed. But the sentence was quite lenient. The parents, as well as two priests, were found guilty and sentenced to 6 months probation.
After Anneliese's death, religious madness did not end. In 1998, an East German nun told Michelle's family that she had had a vision. Based on her words, the girl’s body did not decompose in the grave, which means it is at the mercy of dark forces. Anna and Joseph obtained the exhumation and, in the presence of the mayor and a huge crowd, opened the coffin. The mayor, who looked into the coffin first, warned the parents that the sight of the girl’s remains would interfere with preserving the image of their daughter. But they nevertheless looked in and calmed down only when they saw a terrible-looking skeleton.
Anneliese's mother lives in the same house and to this day has not recovered from these events. Joseph died and the other three daughters left. Anna Michel is over 80 years old today and she herself bears the burden of these memories. From her bedroom windows you can see the cemetery and her daughter’s grave with a wooden cross.
One of the well-documented cases of possession in the 20th century. The peculiarity of the case of Anna Ekland is that the victim was possessed by both diabolical and demonic entities. Ekland was born in Midwest around 1882. She was raised a devout and devout Catholic. For the first time, symptoms of obsession—aversion to religious objects, reluctance to attend church, and constant sexual obsessions—appeared at the age of fourteen. Ekland became completely obsessed in 1908. Her torment is described in the book “Get Out, Satan!” by the Rev. Karl Vogl, published in German and translated into English by the Rev. Celestina Kärsner.
The book reveals that Anna's obsession was caused by her aunt, Mina, who was believed to be a witch. She bewitched the herbs that Ekland ate. Father Theophilius Risinger, a native of Bavaria, was a Capuchin monk of the Brotherhood of St. Anthony in Marathon, Wisconsin, successfully exorcised demons from Anna on June 18, 1912. However, Ekland again fell victim to the devil after her father cursed her, wishing for a demon to possess her daughter. In 1928, when Anna was 46 years old, Father Theophilius again tried to perform an exorcism. Looking for a place where Ekland would not be known, Father Theophilus turned to his friend, Father F. Joseph Steiger, parish priest in Earling, Iowa. With great reluctance, Father Steiger agreed that the exorcism should be performed at the nearby convent of the Franciscan Sisters.
Ekland arrived in Earling on August 17, 1928. Trouble began immediately. Sensing that someone had sprinkled holy water on her dinner, the possessed woman threw a tantrum, purring like a cat and refusing to eat until the unconsecrated food was brought to her. After that, the demons that possessed her always felt when one of the nuns tried to bless food or drink and began to complain. The ancient ritual began early the next morning. Father Theophilus invited several strong nuns to hold Ekland on a mattress placed on an iron bed.
The possessed woman was tied tightly so that she would not tear off her clothes. When the exorcism began, Ekland pursed her lips and lost consciousness. This condition was accompanied by unusual levitation. The woman quickly got out of bed and hung on the wall above the door like a cat. It took a lot of effort for those present to pull her down. Despite the fact that all this time Anna was unconscious and did not open her mouth, she moaned, howled, and also made animal sounds as if of unearthly origin. The screams attracted the attention of the townspeople, who gathered in the monastery, thereby destroying Father Theophilus's hope of keeping the exorcism a secret.
The exorcism was carried out for twenty-three days, in three sessions: from August 18 to 26, from September 13 to 20 and from December 15 to 23. During this time, Ekland was physically on the verge of death. She didn't eat anything, just drank a little milk or water. Nevertheless, she vomited a monstrous amount of foul-smelling waste, reminiscent of tobacco leaves. Besides, she was spitting. Anna's face was incredibly distorted and disfigured. The head swelled and elongated, the eyes bulged from their sockets, the lips swollen, reportedly to the thickness of the palm. The stomach swelled so much that it almost burst, then retracted, becoming so hard and heavy that the iron bed sagged under Ekland’s weight. In addition to the physical changes, Anna understood languages she had not previously spoken, experienced an aversion to sacred words and objects of worship, and also discovered clairvoyant abilities, revealing the secrets of the childhood sins of the participants in the exorcism.
The nuns and Father Steiger were so frightened and worried that they could not stay in Ekland's room throughout the ritual, but worked in shifts. Father Steiger, teased by the devil for agreeing to perform an exorcism in his parish, was especially frightened and apparently suffered as a result in a car accident predicted and to some extent arranged by the devil. Only Father Theophilus, confident in his strength, remained firm.
Ekland was possessed by hordes of lesser demons and vengeful spirits, which are described as a "swarm of mosquitoes." But the main tormentors were the demon Beelzebub, Judas Iscariot and the spirits of Anna's father - Jacob and his mistress, as well as Aunt Ekland - Mina. Beelzebub was the first to reveal his presence. He engaged in a sarcastic theological conversation with Father Theophilus and confirmed that when Anna was fourteen, she had been possessed by demons thanks to Jacob's curse. Father Theophilus tried to contact Jacob, but was answered by a spirit calling himself Judas Iscariot. He admitted that he had to drive Anna to suicide so that her soul would go to hell. Eventually Jacob spoke up too. He said that he cursed his daughter because she did not give in to his sexual advances and called on the devil to tempt Anna’s chastity in all possible ways. Jacob took Aunt Ekland, Mina, as his mistress while he was still married and repeatedly tried to seduce his daughter. Whether Anna's virginity remained intact even at forty-six years old or whether her father forced her into incest is unknown. Throughout this ordeal, Eklund was pious.
Anticipating his triumph, Father Theophilus continued to conjure the demons, demanding that they leave Anna. At the end of December 1928, they began to give in and were already moaning, rather than screaming, in response to his actions. Father Theophilus demanded that they return to the underworld, and as a sign that they were leaving, each had to say his name. The demons agreed. On December 23, 1928, at about nine in the evening, Anna suddenly jerked and sat up in bed. It seemed like she was going to rise to the ceiling. Father Steiger called the nuns to lay the woman on the bed when Father Theophilus blessed her and proclaimed: “Come out, fiends of hell! Be gone, Satan, lion of the kingdom of Judah! Anna collapsed back onto the bed. Then a terrible cry was heard: “Beelzebub, Judah, Jacob, Mina,” followed by: “Hell, hell, hell!”, repeated many times until the sounds died away in the distance. Ekland opened her eyes and smiled. Tears of joy flowed from her eyes. She exclaimed: “Oh my God! Glory to Jesus Christ!” The demons left behind a stench. When the window was opened, the smell disappeared.