In 2005 “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”, one of the most famous modern films about exorcism was released in theatres. The film was very successful in terms of earnings, but also received much criticism for the topics it dealt with.
It was later announced that the film is inspired by the story of an exorcism actually performed on a German girl, Anneliese Michel. This is her true story.
Anneliese Michel
Anneliese was born in Germany in 1952 into a Catholic family. As a very religious girl, she went to Mass twice a week.
At the age of 16 years she was seized by strong convulsions and was diagnosed with epilepsy.
Despite this she managed to finish her studies and enrolled in university.
In 1970 she suffered a second seizure and was taken to a mental hospital. Here, during the same year, she suffered a third attack, and the doctors prescribed her, for the first time, with a medication to treat seizures.
The drug had no rapid effect, and Anneliese began to see “demonic faces.”
The doctors then also prescribed another drug for psychosis and schizophrenia.
In 1973 she began to hallucinate and hear voices that would tell her:
You will rot in hell!
The treatments were slow to show results and Anneliese, a fervent Catholic, attributed her sufferings to the actions of the devil.
She therefore decided to go on a pilgrimage together with a family friend.
The latter, seeing that Anneliese could not manage to walk near a crucifix, deduced that she must have been possessed by the Devil.
Anneliese’s family became convinced their daughter was possessed by a demonic presence and asked several priests to perform an exorcism on her.
The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel
The priests told the family that an exorcism must be authorized by the Church and that real evidence had to be presented.
The family was sure of her possession and claimed that Anneliese had these symptoms:
- she was aggressive
- she had started to self-harm
- she drank their own urine
- she ate insects
The girl met a priest, Ernst Alt, who said that the girl did not seem epileptic. He decided to press for the local bishop to authorize the exorcism.
In September of 1975 the bishop authorized it and appointed Arnold Renz as an exorcist priest, but asked him total confidentiality.
The first session of the exorcism began on September 24, 1975. 66 others followed.
The rate was one or two sessions a week, and in the meantime Anneliese’s parents interrupted her medical care, relying completely on the religious treatment.
Anneliese died on July 1, 1976. The autopsy revealed that the cause of death was malnutrition and dehydration.
At the time of her death she weighed only 30 kilos, and the day before she broken her knees due to the constant genuflections she had been forced to perform.
Legal consequences
Anneliese’s parents and the exorcist priest were accused of manslaughter.
The process began in 1978 and several doctors testified that
Anneliese was not possessed and that her demonic visions were caused by the religious environment in which she grew up.
The priests’ lawyers did listen to the recordings of the exorcism during which, according to them, those speaking were the demons inside Anneliese’s body.
The priests also claimed that the exorcism was successful and that the girl would was freed from the demons just before her death.
The defendants were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, which was later suspended.
Anneliese’s grave became a pilgrimage site and her story inspired three films.
Demonic possession or mental illness? Have your say in the comment section.
It happens. I was a complete skeptic until a met a girl who started telling me strange stories about herself and her family. I witnessed many strange occurrences that I saw on a daily basis and that others also saw. As a skeptic I found out I was wrong and some things cannot be explained and it’s better not to judge something until you have your own proof. Not everything can be explained by science. When you see something with your own two eyes it changes your perspective.
It happens. I was a complete skeptic until a met a girl who started telling me strange stories about herself and her family. I witnessed many strange occurrences that I saw on a daily basis and that others also saw. As a skeptic I found out I was wrong and some things cannot be explained and it’s better not to judge something until you have your own proof. Not everything can be explained by science. When you see something with your own two eyes it changes your perspective.
My name is Korey and I was told that I had strange things happen to me like levitation and flying across a room and spitting up green mucus that when we t landed it would turn to fire, I also was told that I could run to n all fours faster then an animal or human… etc…Odd things as such was performed on me though church people and now I was wondering if it could happen again.. this event happened in Hilo in a house by the beach keaukaa beach…
Bible říká, že bojujeme proti svetovladcům této tmy,neboli démonům.Dokonce se můžeme z Bible dozvědět,že bohem tohoto světa je satan, ostatně je to poznat i z toho jaké je na Zemi zlo.Takže je možné že byla ovládaná démony, protože to co se jí stalo,nemohlo vzejít z ní samotné.Jsou velmi zlí a krutí,neboť zuří, ví že budou brzy zničení Bohem!
It can happen.
I had possession experiences as a child, levitation winessed by 12+ adults when I performed a large standing backflip at age 4( my mother, a skeptic says it looked like I was thrown into the air by an unseen force. During the same time I remember being taught incantations by a dark human figure in an unused room across from my upstairs bedroom. My Mothers roommate at the time later told me there was no person at that time that would have been using that room. The incantations I dont remember, we sat cross legged, and were not prostrating.
I also remember angry orbs with faces coming out of a cloud of black smoke billowing out of a corner of my room near the ceiling, the flew out of the smoke, alight like plasma, snarling, and flew into my right side which was so painful I passed out.
A friend of my Moms told her I was possessed, and that really pissed her off, my father and others attempted an intervention, but she refused and threatened to take him to court for total custody. within 2 years he killed himself and my stepfather came into the picture and events calmed down significantly.
I experienced upramps of paranormal activity occasionally from age 14-37 every few years, UFO’s , shadow beings passing through my body, but mostly things were “normal” except for occasional precognitive events.
At age 47 I watched the movie “Baskin” while my wife was out of town. Within a week of her return all hell broke loose, I suffered possession events that others have sometime witnessed at home, work. Physical manipulation of my body, scratches, sexual molestation, chanting, sucking air out of my body so that parts of my body suck in like a force is pushing into my skin, invisible force sucking my skin outward so that my skin wiggles, mental changes, couches and bed shaking, car rocking……I have experienced daily events ever since.
I realized these beings were “Djinn” after studying reports and comparing strange signatures of djinn possession, like inhabiting my toilets and messing with me while going to the bathroom. I was told early on by an invisible human sounding voice over my right shoulder that I “need to pray 5 times a day”
I avoided that for awhile, but after my wife suffered three misscarriages within 13-14 months before the events started and through the worst of the initial phase I decided to try praying to Allah, and have tried to adopt to a muslim way of life. The severity of the events reduced significantly slowly over a few years.
In Islam not all djinn are considered evil, I come to accept I have been messed with by evil djinn, but that only Allah should ultimately be feared. That outlook and Allahs blessing has apparently allowed me to tolerate the physical and mental evil assaults ….that thankfully seem to be moderate in intensity compared to truly severe cases of possession. I consider myself better off than not to have faced this truth and with Islam I was able to better my life overall, even though the djinn continue to harrass me.
My wife was harrassed for a few days during this experience herself, and when she was young, experienced possession at a lake that I also suffered am event at.
@CG what lake?