The Horrifying exorcism of Anneliese Michel
- Mystery Shack
- Nov 4, 2018
- 7 min read
by Ria Melissa Agustin
Today we are going to be doing a case that inspired the creation of the movie “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” in 2005, which is the chilling demonic possession of Anneliese Michel.
The Life of Anneliese Michel
She was a German woman born on the 21st of September 1952. She grew up in a devout Catholic home in a small town of Kligenberg, in Bavaria, West Germany. Three of her aunts were nuns and her father studied to become a priest. She went to church to attend mass twice a week, prayed very often, and even slept on a stone floor as a form of penance. This behaviour is due to the fact that Anneliese believed that it was her burden to pay for the sins of others. Some sources say that she developed this behaviour because of the death of her illegitimate sister, she had to perform penance for her sinful mother.
September 1968
When Anneliese was 16 years old, she blacked out at school and started walking around in a trance like state. Anneliese did not have any recollection of this event though some of her friends and family stated that she looked dazed around that time.
August 1969: 11 months later
Another one of this episode took place which pushed her mother to seek medical help from their family doctor Dr. Vogt, and a neurologist Dr. Luthy. They examined her and even ran an EEG, a brain scan that is used to evaluate the electrical activity on ones’ brain, but found nothing wrong. They suggested that what Anneliese was experiencing might be a form of seizure.
Anneliese would experience other similar episodes for the next three years. According to one source, Anneliese was diagnosed with Temporal lobe epilepsy. This condition would explain the seizures, loss of memory, and the visual and auditory hallucinations. Her neurologist would end up prescribing her two medications, an anticonvulsant medication, and a medicine called Dilantin which is an anti – seizure medication.
Instead of her condition to get better, things just got worse and worse. Though continuing to take her medication, she believed that she was being possessed by a demon and that she needed to look for help other than the medications she was given. She started having hallucinations. She claimed to see demonic faces and began to hear voices which told her that she was “damned” and that she would “rot in hell”. With these occurrences, Anneliese was convinced that she was really being possessed by the devil. It was also reported that Anneliese would become panicked and would snarl at sacred images. One particular occurrence was when an older woman accompanied Anneliese on a pilgrimage. She claimed that Anneliese avoided a particular image of Jesus and that she also refused to drink water from a holy spring. Another occurrence was witnessed by her mother. According to her mother, she had witnessed Anneliese stare furiously at the statue of the Virgin Mary, with eyes apparently turning into jet black.
Her mother came to Anneliese’s neurologist, Dr. Luthy, with these occurrences. He advised that they should consult a Jesuit, a claim that he would later deny. Although this information is unclear, the family did reached out to the church for help and ended up finding a priest named Father Ernst Alt.
November 1973
Anneliese met with a Freudian psychiatrist, she was diagnosed as neurotic with possible epilepsy. She also met another neurologist who found out that she had epileptic patterns, this neurologist also replaced her medication Dilantin with a much stronger drug, Tegretol.
July 1975
Things just got even worse for Anneliese. She would not get any ounce of sleep and would pray intensely all night. She would rip her clothes off, ate spiders, flies, and coal, and even bit the head off a dead bird. She would also lick her own urine from the floor. It was also reported that Anneliese crawled under a table and barked like a dog for two days straight. She also destroyed sacred images, rosaries, and crucifixes. Sources also claimed that Anneliese possessed an inhumane amount of strength, throwing her sister like a rag doll, and effortlessly squeezing an apple using one hand.
With all of these occurrences, not only was Anneliese and the people surrounding her were convinced that she was possessed. Father Ernst Alt believed in her possession as well which pushed him to file a petition to their local bishop, Bishop Josef Stangl, although was denied for the first two times, the request was eventually approved with an order that a local priest, Father Arnold Renz, should perform the exorcism and it must also be in total secret. The two priest were to carry out “The Great Exorcism” on Anneliese, the “Rituale Romanum” being the foundation of the ritual. The both of them would carry out 67 exorcism rites over a period of 10 months. About one or two exorcism sessions would be held each week, with some sessions even lasting up to four hours, resulting to 42 recorded tapes.
On the 24th of September 1975, the first exorcism rite was performed by the two priests. Over the period of ten months, Anneliese revealed that she was being possessed by several demons: Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Nero, and Adolf Hitler. She also mentioned Fleischmann as one of her demons, a Frankish priest in the 1500s who was excommunicated due to bad behaviour. She also mentioned a few damned souls that manifested themselves in her body. These spirits would fight with each other for control over Anneliese’s body, and would communicate using her mouth with low growls. Also, apparently throughout these sessions, Anneliese would always talk about dying to atone for the sins of others.
It was observed that Anneliese would perform hundreds of genuflections everyday which resulted to broken bones and ripped tendons in her knees. She was bruised and had open sores all over her body, she would scratch herself and bleed. Her eyes all sunken and her hair shredded, she hadn’t bathed for long and stank horribly.
May 1976
Anneliese’s condition even worsened. She would constantly bang her head against the wall, and even bite herself and other people. This led to the decision of her family to tie her up to prevent her from hurting herself and others. At this point, Anneliese also refused to eat and drink, because according to her, she wasn’t being permitted to eat.
June 1976
By June, Anneliese’s face was all sunk in. She also refused to seek medical help even though she was experiencing a really high fever. On the 30th of June, another exorcism rite was performed on Anneliese, only saying to her exorcist “Beg for Absolution.” And to her mother, “Mother, I’m afraid.” The next morning, on the 1st of July 1976, her family would find her lying on her bed, gone. She died at the age of 23, weighing only 68 pounds (30 kilograms), after 67 exorcisms, with the cause of her death being malnutrition and dehydration.
After her death
Anneliese’s parents and the two priest that performed the 67 exorcism rites were accused of negligent homicide. The case went to trial in 1978.
Her parents and the two priests presented eye witness testimonies, even provided the recordings of the exorcisms that were carried out, but the court still didn’t take them seriously. They also argued that Anneliese had the right to deny medical treatment, also expounding on the fact that the medical treatment would include tranquilizing Anneliese, force-feeding her, and electroshock therapy that would all be done against her will. They even have a family friend to back up their argument that Anneliese refused medical help. According to Thea Hein, their family friend, that in 1976 (months before her death), that Anneliese begged on her knees for Hein to not suggest medical attention to anybody. Another fact is that Father Alt actually considered medical help towards the end. He had his friend Dr. Richard Roth to visit Anneliese on May 1976, Dr. Roth claimed that Anneliese had no external injuries which was opposed to what Father Alt claimed before, that Anneliese’s body was bruised all over, swollen cheeks, and black eyes.
According to the autopsy that was performed on Anneliese, it revealed that she had a healthy brain, and had no damage that could possible cause epileptic seizures, which contradicts the supposed epileptic attacks. Besides the testimonies of eye witnesses and the submitted recordings of the exorcism, the court also turned a blind eye on the fact that Anneliese’s eyes were unusually dilated, and the absence of ulcers on her body, which are commonly found on the bodies of starvation victims.
The prosecution argued that Anneliese had epilepsy and psychosis. They claimed that her parents and the two priests should be held responsible for failing to act in time to be able to save Anneliese. They also questioned the credibility of Father Alt, with two experts concluding that Father Alt was schizophrenic. The prosecution also explained that the medications that were given to Anneliese were successful in suppressing the epilepsy-like seizures, and that this resulted to a psychosis associated with epilepsy. They also claimed that the exorcisms only played into Anneliese’s fantasy, and that Anneliese would often behave normally in between the sessions of exorcisms. It was unclear if the medication stopped the epilepsy-like seizures or if they stopped on their own. With these things to keep in mind, we also have to consider the fact that Anneliese’s visions predate the alleged medical suppression.
In the end, her parents and the two priests lost the case. The court sentenced the four defendants to six months in prison, and a three year suspension for the two priests, and payment for all court costs. The court ruled that Anneliese was incapable to make decisions for herself and should have been forced by the people close to her to succumb to medical help. According to some sources, the parents didn’t go through with the punishment of the law because they already had suffered enough, a factor that was recognized by the German law. Anneliese was then buried beside her illegitimate sister, Martha, on the outer edges of the cemetery, which can be seen from their old home. Even after all of this, her parents, and the people around her, still believed that she was possessed.
What happened to Anneliese Michel was really terrifying, but, it was also devastating. Especially for her family to witness such a bright young woman to deteriorate right in front of their eyes. We can never know for sure if she really was possessed or just suffered from an extreme mental illness. Up to this day, the horrifying case of Anneliese Michel would still remain a mystery.
Comments