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Reliance on any information provided in this episode is solely at your own risk. If you think you're having a medical emergency, call your doctor or local emergency number immediately. Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so, the mysterious and unsolved interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped millions of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people.
My name is Halle, and this is the Morbid Curiosity Podcast. What do you feel when you hear the word exorcism? If you said scared, but also curious, you're not alone. Thanks to the prolific use of exorcism in the horror genre, most people hear the word exorcism and think of a battered and bruised girl being shouted at by a priest as she screams in Latin in a deep male voice and convulses.
This highly dramatized version of a Catholic exorcism holds a grain of truth, but it's not the only version of exorcism out there. Exorcism is the practice of evicting demons or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person or area that is believed to be possessed or haunted by that entity. This is usually done by a spiritual leader or religious person and involves an elaborate ritual which forces the entity to depart. The practice is ancient, and part of the spiritual belief system of many cultures and religions.
In this episode, we're going to discuss the history of exorcism rituals, some notable exorcists, and some famous exorcisms. Belief in supernatural entities, such as gods, demons, and creatures, is a nearly universal constant among human civilizations throughout history. The ancient Mesopotamians were the first people to document their terror on the level of supernatural or spiritual beings. These beings were thought to be the souls of the dead, returning to torment the living.
Some examples are the Utuku, the demons of the desert, and the Sheedimans, Lamashtu, and Labartu. Demonic figures were found in ancient Egyptian mythology too, such as Amit, the devour of souls unfit for the afterlife, and Opopis, a demon of chaos and the adversary of Rey. Hindu tradition has several diabolical beings, such as the Asura, power-seeking demons who oppose the benevolent devas. Buddhism has Mara, a malevolent celestial king who tries to hinder the Buddha.
Islam has the Shaitan and their leader Iblis, who whisper in people's hearts to incite them to sin. Certain sects of Judaism have Lilith, the primordial Sheedim and Dibok, malicious possessing spirits. Christianity has Satan, or the devil, who commands an army of demons. Many cultures believe that these supernatural entities can take possession of people, places, and objects.
In the case of people, the entity overrides the soul or consciousness of the original individual and takes control of their physical body. To people in ancient times all the way up to the Enlightenment, demonic possession made sense. It explained the unexplainable. Even today, people still believe possession occurs.
Possession is not always harmful. For example, when voodoo priestesses invite low spirits to possess them in order to heal people. However, the harmful demonic type of possession is the best-known version in western societies, and it's also one of the most popular subjects of horror fiction, film, and television. Most versions of malevolent possession hold that there are three traits that indicate a person is possessed.
A sudden change in personality, exaggerated or uncontrollable body movements, and voice changes, for example, a female speaking in a deep male voice. Christian possession manifestations also include superhuman strength, language changes, such as speaking a language one can't possibly know, knowledge that the victim can't possibly know, such as secrets of those around them, contorted facial expressions, shouting in blasphemous rage, aversion to holy symbols, names, relics, or places, and sometimes grotesque, disturbing or sexually explicit actions and words. These behaviors have been the subject of modern scientific research, which has found that many times the victim is exhibiting symptoms of a mental health or medical condition. Psychosis, Tourette syndrome, epilepsy, schizophrenia, sleep paralysis, and dissociative identity disorder have all been explored as a medical explanation for historic and modern possession symptoms.
Most of the time, these conditions can explain the behaviors, or in modern cases are proven to be the cause. However, there are some rare cases that remain unexplainable. I did an entire episode about possession for Patreon, so if you want to know more, you can become a patron at the lowest tier, two dollars a month. You'll also get ad-free episodes and other rewards for signing up.
It's super easy and you can still listen on Spotify or whatever podcast app you use. The practice of casting out malevolent supernatural entities that are believed to be possessing people is likely one of the oldest magical practices in the world. The word exorcism comes from an ancient Greek word, meaning binding by oath. At the time, the word was used in a legal setting.
During court procedures, it meant the act of putting one's legal adversary under oath. This was adopted by religious practitioners and adapted to binding demons through an oath. There are as many different variations of exorcism as there are possession. However, exorcism rituals generally involve invoking a power higher than that of the entity using prayer, gestures, learning the name of the entity, and commands and threats.
In most cultures, the ritual is performed by a professional exorcist, magician, shaman, or religious leader. In western countries, the word exorcism has come to mean the Christian, specifically Catholic practice of expelling demons from humans believed to be possessed. However, it's very likely that the procedure, specifically the pattern of words used to expel a demon, developed from first-century Judaism. There's no earlier documented use of the formula, quote, I exercise you, then the demon's name, in the name of Jesus or a saint, that you, leave this body or go back to hell or whatever the exorcist wants the entity to do.
This ritual formula has been found on Jewish amulets, Greek and Egyptian magical texts from the third and fourth century CE, and then Latin ecclesiastic traditions of the early Christians in the fourth century CE. Another formula, Vadé retrocedana, which means get behind me Satan, in Latin, appears in medieval Latin ecclesiastical manuscripts. The earliest example is an Austrian manuscript from between 1340 to 1350. However, the exact origin is not clear.
In the sixteenth century, many monastic orders began publishing exorcism manuals. The Rituale Romanum, or the Roman Catholic rituals, was originally published in 1614, based on a draft from the mid-1580s. It was a collection of Pontifical writings going back to the eighth century CE. The exorcism writes in the Rituale Romanum, left out the earlier dramatic writings and provided a more restrained approach to exorcism.
However, the book was not compulsory for priests to follow during exorcisms. Writings about exorcism tapered off in the 1650s and were banned by the Catholic Church between 1704 and 1710, along with other books about magic. Protestantism spread throughout parts of Europe at this time, making its way to North America in the 17th century. Puritanism was the dominant form of Protestantism in America throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries, but that changed through a series of revivals known as Great Awakenings, which occurred in the 1730s and 1740s, the 1790s, and from the late 1850s to the early 20th century.
During this same time, there was a rise in evangelicalism, Protestant groups that held strict adherence to the Bible, believed in being born again, the need to convert other people, and that the crucifixion of Jesus saved humanity. In the early 1900s, the Pentecostal movement emerged from evangelicalism. Pentecostalism included supernatural components, like speaking in tongues, faith-healing, miracles, and exorcism. Beginning in the 1950s, evangelical Protestantism grew rapidly and publicly.
Evangelists appeared on both radio and television, and even influenced politics, increasing numbers of mainline Protestants and some Catholics adopted Pentecostal-style worship, a movement known as charismatic Christianity. Like their Pentecostal counterparts, charismatic Christians publicly performed exorcisms, sparking renewed interest in the ritual in the late 1960s and into the 1970s. Belief in demons and Satan was popular again, people were fearful and fascinated. These beliefs and fears attributed to the satanic panic and the modern interest and exploration of exorcism in horror media.
William Peter Blattie's 1971 novel, The Exorcist, based on a real-life story I'll talk about in a moment kicked off this trend. As for the Catholic rights of exorcism, the Rijuale Romanam was revised in 1752 by Pope Benedict XIV, and then amid the rising interest in exorcism in the 1960s, the book was divided into several volumes and revised again. The current authoritative Latin addition of the rights of exorcism were published in 1999 and updated in English in 2004. In this volume, exorcism was described as a nearly sacramental activity and should only be done by ordained priests who specialize in it.
Priests called exorcists. The specific training is needed because of the belief that an exorcism poses great risk and danger to the exorcist himself through his battles with demons. There are several requirements in canon law for becoming an exorcist, valid ordination, and permission from the bishop of the local diocese are the most important. Special qualifications such as knowledge of possession from both theological and medical points of view are becoming more important these days.
As real demonic possession is considered rare, there are very few official exorcists. For Roman Catholic exorcists, belief in the existence of God and Satan is essential for an exorcist to succeed. Those who deny the existence of the devil and demons or toy with occult practices are thought to become vulnerable to possession. Exorcists appeal to the Bible to justify their calling, arguing that Jesus gave his disciples the authority to cast out demons.
However, both exorcists and demonologists subscribe to descriptions of demonic possession that are more dramatic and often contradict the accounts found in the gospels. Dr. Brian LeVach of the University of Texas suggests that because the Bible contained limited information about demons and possession, Christian writers had to speculate on the organization of the demonic world and why the demons possessed human beings. According to Dr.
LeVach, modern exorcists claim legitimacy based on reference to the Bible and see themselves as part of a succession of exorcists going back to Jesus, but many aspects of modern exorcism practices have no biblical basis. LeVach gives several examples of this. Exorcists ascribe possession to the devil, but there are no mentions of possession by the devil in the gospels. Jesus casts out demons, not Satan.
The possessing demon's name was very important according to the 1614 Rijuale Romanum, but Jesus never bothered with demons' names in his exorcisms. The idea that demons can't endure or speak the name of Jesus is in direct opposition to the gospels, where demons address Jesus freely by name. There's also no evidence for an aversion to religious objects in the gospel accounts of demon possession. Other dramatic details often associated with exorcism, such as flying objects, levitation, and changes in voice, are also missing from the gospel exorcisms.
Modern exorcisms are either very psychologized and medicalized, or supernatural and dramatic, or sometimes both. By including medical psychiatric expertise in the process of diagnosis, exorcists give demonic possession validity and legitimacy in modern society. At the same time, it is a demonstration of the power of the exorcist and can also be placed firmly within the context of marketing. References to the Bible and the Rijuale Romanum give the impression of an ancient practice with an established efficacy.
Neither the dramatic and supernatural elements, nor the psychological and therapeutic discourses, are to be found in the gospels, but both aspects are part of the marketing of exorcism and other religious healing practices, according to Levok. The most famous early exorcist was Girula Momingi, an Italian Franciscan friar who published the first texts on exorcism in 1576. His best-known works include the first-ever recording of the hierarchy of demons. The official exorcism ritual of 1614 also came from his works.
At the time, society was trying to break from the idea that the church was the only source of truth. Menji's writings were partially an attempt to give new energy and power to the Catholic church, but also to show his sincere belief in the need to drive out demons from society. Menji is often referred to as the father of the exorcist's art and the greatest exorcist of the 16th century. Another famous exorcist is Malachi Martin, a Catholic theologian and former professor at the Vatican's Pontifical Biblical Institute.
Martin worked as an exorcist in the 1970s and early 1980s. Ordained as a Jesuit priest, he served as secretary to Cardinal Augustine Bea during preparations for the Second Vatican Council, an event which was meant to transform the Catholic church in a way that Martin found distressing. Disillusioned, Martin asked to be released from certain aspects of his Jesuit vows in 1964 and moved to New York City. Martin assisted in his first exorcism while working in Egypt on an archaeological project.
Afterwards, he became a self-proclaimed exorcist. He remained a controversial figure in the Catholic world not only for his exorcism work, but also due to his critical opinion of the Catholic hierarchy. In his book, Hostage to the Devil, Martin described what he considers to be the typical stages of an exorcism. Stage 1 is pretense, the demon hides its true identity.
Stage 2 is the breakpoint, in which the demon reveals itself. Stage 3 is the clash where the exorcist and the demon fight for the soul of the possessed. The final stage is expulsion. If the exorcist wins the battle, the demon is expelled and leaves the body of the possessed.
At age 78, Malachi Martin performed an exorcism on a four-year-old girl in Connecticut in 1999 but died soon after, supposedly pushed by an invisible force. Head trauma from the fall was the cause of death. The most well-known exorcist in recent times was Gabriela Amorth. His writings on the subject have been translated for international audiences, spreading his thoughts and opinions on exorcism as well as his experiences as an exorcist inside and out of the Catholic Church.
Amorth considered his divine mission to spread the idea that the devil and demonic possession were very real, and thus exorcism was a necessary part of the Catholic world. His media presence made him the face of Catholic exorcism in Italy. In his lifetime, Amorth claimed to have performed 160,000 exorcisms. In 2013, he stated that by his definition, an exorcism is any blessing or prayer to remove demonic influence.
Out of his hundreds and thousands of exorcisms, 94 were full-blown possessions. The International Association of Exorcists, which was founded by Amorth and others in the 1990s, currently consists of around 250 people from various countries across the globe and was recognized in canon law in 2014. Amorth is on the conservative end of the Catholic spectrum and criticizes the Church for its recent liberalization. He applied a literal reading to the Bible and thus to his vocation as an exorcist.
He believed that the old exorcism ritual was the most effective, especially when done completely in Latin. He also believed all priests should be allowed to perform exorcisms. His fame and the controversy surrounding his opinions has attributed to the recent popularization of Roman Catholic exorcism. Amorth died in September of 2016.
As suggested by Amorth, there are several types of exorcism in the Roman Catholic Church. Baptismal exorcism, which occurs during an infant baptism, to cleanse the evil of original sin, minor exorcism, which is performed for a place or thing to rid it of demonic influence and major exorcism, which rids a human of a possessing entity. Going forward, we're going to focus on major exorcism. Generally, a local priest must first determine that the person is indeed possessed.
This requirement has become very important in more recent times as more and more mental health conditions have become recognizable and treatable. Both Catholic doctrine and the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fifth edition, aka the DSM-5, recommend a mental health physician attend the patient to rule out mental illness before an exorcist is even contacted. Because of this, in the modern era, Catholic bishops rarely authorize exorcisms. Sometimes natural occurrences that took place in the vicinity of the victim, such as shooting stars, animal deaths without apparent cause, and insect swarms were deemed to be omens of demonic interference.
The concept of omens originates to the medieval era when religious people were startled by these seemingly unexplainable phenomena. If they coincidentally occurred near or around a person who also displayed symptoms of possession, they were taken into account when determining if that person was possessed. If it's believed that an exorcism is needed, an exorcist is appointed by the local bishop. The exorcist must prepare themselves and anyone else who will be present during the ritual.
Performing an exorcism is considered an incredibly dangerous spiritual task. The exorcist must go to confession and mass and dress in specific vestments before undertaking the ritual. Before starting, everyone involved must pray together for protection and guidance. The ritual assumes that the possessed person retains their free will, though the demon may hold control over their physical body.
They are encouraged to help with the exorcism by confessing, praying, and receiving the sacraments. Indeed, such voluntary cooperation and consent is essential. Early exorcism rituals included blessings and prayers in almost every step, but these steps were quite aggressive. The victim was often bound, supposedly for the exorcist's protection.
The exorcist began with leading questions, which are questions designed to get specific answers. The rituals that followed were designed to amp up and exhaust the victim, sometimes including sleep and food deprivation and physical violence. Through this tactic, the exorcist attempted to induce the victim to confess any sins, announced that they were possessed and the demon to name itself. This methodology is strikingly similar to those methods used during torture.
The modern ritual is less aggressive and focuses mostly on invoking higher powers to cast out the entity. Two types of prayers are used, imploring and imperative. Imploring prayers are when the exorcist asks the higher powers to free the victim from the devil. For example, quote, repel O Lord the devil's power, break asunder his snares and traps, put the unholy tempter to flight, end quote.
The other type are imperative prayers, where the exorcist demands in the names of higher powers that the devil leave the victim's body. For example, quote, I cast you out unclean spirit along with every satanic power of the enemy, every specter from hell and all your fel companions in the name of Jesus Christ, end quote. Between prayers, the exorcist will sprinkle all those present with holy water, lay hands on the victim, trace the sign of the cross on himself and the victim, and hold a catholic relic to the victim's skin, usually across or an object associated with a saint. The ritual usually ends with the Lord's prayer and a blessing of the home.
Exorcisms are usually not concluded in one go, a day is usually spent in this ritual, sometimes repeating it after breaks for food and drinks. In cases where multiple demons are believed to possess an individual, many days or even weeks are spent conducting multiple exorcisms in order to cast out all demons. You'll see the variation in time and technique of exorcisms as I discuss a few well-known cases of possession and exorcism now. One of the most famous early documented cases of possession occurred in 1634, a whole convent of Ursulaan nuns in Ludon, France was believed to be possessed by demons.
Priorist, Jean des Anges presided over 17 nuns who averaged in age around 25. Five months after an outbreak of plague in the area, the first reports of possession occurred. Several of the nuns claimed that the demon Azmodai was attacking them. The nuns increasingly extreme behavior drew a considerable number of spectators.
They shouted, swore, raged, and barked like dogs. The catholic church investigated and believing their claims to be true, confined to the nuns. The convent was closed to the public to keep the demon from possessing other people outside it. A local priest named Yerbaan Grandie was accused and eventually convicted of sorcery and bewitching the nuns.
Previously, he was suspected of fraternizing with the local elite women, possibly even fathering a child with one. Grandie had also written a book criticizing the law of celibacy among the priesthood, as well as a scathing satire of Cardinal Rislu, a powerful authoritarian statesman and clergyman. After his conviction, Grandie was burned at the stake. Two of the most famous cases of demonic possession and exorcism occurred in the modern era.
The first occurred in the late 1940s in Maryland. Priests of the Roman Catholic Church performed a series of exorcisms on a 14-year-old boy referred to as Roland Doe or Robbie Mannheim. The boy was the alleged victim of demonic possession, and the events of his exorcism were recorded by the attending priest, Raymond J. Bishop.
Roland's aunt was a spiritualist. Beginning in the 1850s, a social religious movement spread across the West. Spiritualists had two beliefs that contact with spirits is possible and that spirits are more advanced and intelligent than humans. Spiritualists believe in communication with the spirits of dead people and that spirit mediums enable this communication.
With this movement, reports of possession rapidly rose in western countries. The movement slowed down in the 1920s, but pockets of belief still existed around the world. Roland was supposedly introduced to a Ouija board by his aunt at a young age. After her death, the family experienced strange noises, furniture moving by itself, and objects flying or levitating around Roland.
The family turned to their Lutheran pastor, Luther Miles Schulls, for help. Long interested in paranormal phenomena, Schulls arranged to observe the boy for a night. The pastor allegedly witnessed Roland's bed shake, objects fly around him, and Roland speaking in a guttural voice and avoiding sacred words and symbols. Schulls advised Roland's parents to seek a Catholic priest.
According to the story, Roland's mother contacted the Jesuit communities of Washington, D.C. and St. Louis. The Jesuits are a Roman Catholic order of religious men founded in 1540.
Roland underwent medical and psychiatric assessments that found nothing abnormal. After the assessments, Jesuit priests were brought in to perform in exorcism at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C. Roland spat, screamed in Latin and convulsed. Apparently, he also cut one of the priests with a bed-spring coil that he ripped from his hospital bed.
When this attempt did not stop the paranormal phenomena, a second exorcism was undertaken. This took place in the Alexian Brothers Hospital, now called the South City Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. Father William Bodern was assisted by fellow priests, Walter Halloran, Raymond Bishop, and E.
Albert Hughes. Father Halloran stated that words such as evil and hell, along with other various marks, appeared on Roland's body and his mattress shook. Roland also broke Halloran's nose during the process. According to the story, Roland ended up going through over 20 exorcisms in two months.
After these exorcisms, he was apparently freed of all the demons possessing him. Father Halloran told a reporter that after the rites were over, the anonymous subject of the exorcism went on to lead a quote, rather ordinary life, end quote. Father Bishop kept a diary of these events which would later become the basis for a popular novel and an even more popular film, The Exorcist. Unfortunately, many of the details of this story were later revealed to be embellished.
Author Mark Upsasnek questioned neighbors, friends, and eventually Father Halloran himself in 1999. Much of the commonly accepted information is based on hearsay, is not documented, and was never fact-checked. According to Upsasnek, individuals connected to the incident were influenced by their own specializations. To psychiatrists, Roland suffered from mental illness.
To priests, he was demonically possessed. To writers and film and video producers, his situation was a great story to exploit for profit. Each emphasized only the information that fit their own agendas. After the book and the film were released, the popular concept of demon possession changed.
The symptoms displayed in the film, such as vomiting, walking backward, and oral fours, and head spinning became the go-to manifestations of demonic possession in films, books, and television shows. The film The Exorcist also had a very real effect on the mental health of many who saw it, triggering many previously unidentified traumatic conditions to manifest themselves. The last case I'm going to discuss comes from Germany in the 1970s, a young woman named Anna Elizabeth or Anna-Lease Michelle had been diagnosed with epileptic psychosis, known today as temporal lobe epilepsy. She had a history of psychiatric conditions and treatments that had been ineffective.
After five years of hearing voices, depression, tonic colonic seizures, and ineffective drug treatments, she became suicidal and intolerant of religious symbols. Increasingly obsessed with religion, she told her friends that she was damned and withdrew from most social activities, she and her family began to believe that she was possessed by demons. In 1975, her parents stopped consulting physicians at Anna-Lease's request. Jesuit priests Ernst Alt and Wrens began conducting a series of exorcisms.
Remember, the Rijuale Romanum didn't include a clause forbidding exorcisms on people with mental health conditions without consulting physicians before 1999. In June of 1976, after 67 exorcisms, Anna-Lease died. The autopsy report stated that her cause of death was malnourishment and dehydration. The physician who was called to issue her death certificate refused to do so, believing foul play had been involved due to the emaciated, battered, and bruised state of her body.
During the criminal court case, her parents and the two priests were found guilty of negligent homicide. Several years later, the Catholic Church retracted their claim that she had been possessed. Several films are based on her story, including the 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, the award-winning 2006 film Requiem and the 2011 film, Anna-Lease, The Exorcist Tapes. Most physicians agree that most of the time, so-called possession, is in fact an undiagnosed mental or physical illness.
They also suggest that the performance of an exorcism in such cases can exacerbate the condition and even be considered abuse. Researchers Nicole M. Bauer and Jay Andrew-Duel argue that by including a medical expert in the process of diagnosis, exorcists attempt to give legitimacy to demonic possession in modern society and present it as, quote, a valid medical healing practice superior even to medical solutions, end quote. Treating mental illness and neurological disorders, such as the temporal lobe epilepsy suffered by Annalise Michelle, is no simple matter.
Working with a physician to find a new medication or combination of treatment options, even including something as unusual as exorcism, is the safest and most likely to be effective approach. In medicine, a correct diagnosis is essential to healing. If a patient has symptoms of what appears to be a mental disorder to a psychiatrist, but those same symptoms indicate possession to an exorcist, what are we to do? As you can see, the scientific study of possession and exorcism is fraught with difficulties.
On the medical scientific side, there is reluctance to examine intangible and unquantifiable mental states because we can't prove or disprove anything. Yet, we cannot write off the people who believe they have experienced possession. It's real for them. There is no easy solution, but one thing we can do is narrow down the possibilities by proving not what the cause is, but what it isn't.
Medical professionals can help eliminate some of the possible causes for possession behaviors, such as mental illness through testing. Medication can control most of the behaviors, helping the patient deal with their condition. But for those rarest of cases, we are left with a tantalizing mystery. There is no way to know for sure, which is why possession and exorcism spark our morbid curiosity.