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Exorcist report in Strange Online Mag

MrRING

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What did everybody think of the close-up look at the true story behind the Exorcist case?

http://www.strangemag.com/exorcistpage1.html

The detail with which the reporter tracked down the story of the boy whose case inspired the book and film. And, although the orginal guy didn't want to talk to the researcher, he did talk to many of those involved.

His conclusion - that it was just a troubled kid who was acting out.

Opinions? Peanuts? Hot dogs?:D
 
Exorcism

I've read this material several times in other contexts, and my take on it is that a troubled kid acting out is the most rational explanation, but that some of the Catholics involved had a vested interest in maintaining the possession angle. It's also interesting to note how many priests simply didn't buy it, and refused to be drawn in.
 
I've read two books on the subject, one an investigation of the lad himself, and the other purporting to be inspired by diaries written by one of the priests involved in the supposed exorcism.
I remain unconvinced of any possession, which was a disappointment after all the hype surrounding the making of the film. My guess is that it was a case of temporary schizophrenia.
 
ZQY

Has there ever been a very convincing case of exorcism performed that has ever went public (excluding the Warrens)?
 
Convincing Exorcism

None I know of has ever been convincing to those on the other side of the belief fence. In other words, what a true believer may find absolutely rock solid evidence, a skeptic will roll his eyes at. And vice versa.

So there can be no objective case of exorcism. At least, not until all of us buy into the possession concept, etc.

UPDATE - Watched THE EXORCIST last night, and must report that it's an interesting, well-made movie, even for the times. It's more a mystery than a horror movie, just like the book, and in fact is truer to the book than I'd remembered, although it only hints at the homosexual scandals then being covered up in the church, which feature more prominently in the book.

It's quite obvious that Wm. Peter Blatty used the real story of the possessed boy as only a jumping off point for a very savvy, pertinent piece of fiction, and his script for the movie does justice to the book.

Recommended for reviewing, if you can rent it under the nose of today's modern witch hunt against such things.
 
Re: ZQY

Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
Has there ever been a very convincing case of exorcism performed that has ever went public (excluding the Warrens)?

The victim of one of the most detailed instances of demonic possession in 20th century America was a midwestern woman whose real name was never made public. As a child she had been notably pious, but when she was 14 blasphemous inner voices interfered with her religious practice, frightened her, and caused her much shame. In the years that followed she was examined by several doctors. Finding no physical illness or abnormality, they unanimously concluded that her personality was neither nervous nor hysterical - she was "normal in the fullest sense."

Despite this diagnosis, Mary (a pseudonym) began to manifest the recognized signs of demonic possession. She would become furiously enraged and would foam at the mouth when a priest blessed her, and could infallibly tell when an object had been secretly blessed or sprinkled with holy water. She also understood languages she had not been taught.

In 1928, when she was 40 years old, Mary agreed to undergo exorcism. Her exorcist was to be Father Theophilus Riesinger, a 60-year-old Capuchin monk in the community of St Anthony, at Marathon, Wisconsin, a man with considerable experience in the application of the ancient rite. For the place of the exorcism Father Theophilus chose a Franciscan convent in Earling, Iowa, where the pastor, Father Joseph Steiger was an old friend of his.

On her first night in the convent, Mary became furious when she realised that holy water had been sprinkled on her food. She purred like a cat and refused to eat until unblessed food was put before her.

The next morning Father Theophilus and Father Steiger began the exorcism, for which a large room had been made ready. A number of nuns who were physically strong stood by to help, and Mary was laid on a mattress on an iron bed. The exorcism had scarcely begun when she became unconscious, with her eyes closed so tightly that they could not be forced open. They remained in this state throughout the service.

A shrill cry filled the room, loud but seemingly far-off at the same time. And then a din of howling, like wild animals, came from Mary's lips. "Silence, Satan!" Father Theophilus shouted, but the unearthly tortured clamor continued unabated.

Neither Father Steiger nor the nuns could long endure the howling or the sight of the woman's body and face, hideously twisted and distorted by the onslaught. From time to time they had to leave the room, but Father Theophilus, accustomed to the screaming of devils at the pain of exorcism, remained constant and attentive throughout.

Day after day the exorcism continued, and with it the howling, the twisted limbs, and excrement and vomit in vast quantities. Although the victim had taken only a spoonful of milk or water during the entire day to sustain her, she sometimes disgorged bowlfuls of what seemed to be shredded tobacco leaves or other unsavoury materials.

At last Father Theophilus learned the names of the devils infesting his patient. One, calling himself Beelzebub, told him that Mary had been possessed since she was 14 and that she had been cursed by her own father, who had joined the company of possessing demons after his own death and damnation. This demon, Mary's father, Jacob - spoke with Father Theophilus, revealing that he had frequently tried to force his daughter into an incestuous relationship but that she had always resisted him and that he had uttered a curse that she be entered by devils to destroy her chastity. A female demon, who gave her name as Mina, in life Jacob's mistress, joined the colloquy. She was damned she said because she had murdered four of her own children. A fourth demon, Judas, confesed that he had intended to drive Mary to suicide.

Whatever was expressing itself in these voices at times demonstrated an uncanny knowledge of things that could not have been known to Mary. On one occasion as a test, a piece of paper with a Latin inscription was placed on Mary's head. The nuns, thinking the words were a prayer, were surprised to see that the demons tolerated its presence. In fact the words had no religious content at all; but when a second piece of paper, which had been secretly blessed, was placed on the woman's head, it was immediately torn to pieces.

As the painful weeks of exorcism continued, relations between the two priests deteriorated and Father Steiger began to wish he had never allowed the exorcism to take place in his parish. But Father Theophilus viewed this development as the work of the Devil, who seemed to regard Father Steiger with special malice.

"Just wait," a demonic voice said to Father Steiger one day, "until the end of the week! When Friday comes, then..."

On his way back from visiting a sick parishioner on Friday, Father Steiger, remembering the demon's threat, drove with special care. Suddenly just as he was about to cross a bridge over a deep ravine, a black cloud seemed to descend on his car. He could see nothing but he felt the car smash violently into the railing of the bridge and then teeter on the edge. A farmer plowing a nearby field heard the crash and came running. Slowly the pastor crawled out of the debris. He had no serious injuries despite the fact that even the car's steering wheel had been crushed.

When he reached the convent a chorus of malicious laughter greeted him in the exorcism room.

"Today," the demon screeched, "he pulled in his proud neck and was outpointed! I certainly showed him up today. What about your new auto, that dandy car that was smashed to smithereens? It served you right!"

Was it true, the nuns and Father Theoplilus asked?

"Yes, what he says is true. My auto is a complete wreck. But he was not able to harm me personally."

"Our aim was to get you," the demon said, "but somehow our plans were thwarted. It was your powerful patron saint (Saint Joseph) who prevented us from harming you."

(During these and all other conversations, the lips of the possessed woman did not move at all - she was unconscious, and her lips almost never parted. The voices seemed to come from within her.)

For two weeks the solemn exorcism was repeated without any sign of success. Father Theophilus decided to continue the exorcisms throughout the night, giving Satan (and himself) no respite. For three days and nights he prayed, but the demons held their ground; by the 23rd day Father Theophilus was near collapse. But now a change began to occur in the demons' behaviour. They were less aggressive and more apt to moan about the tortures the exorcism inflicted on them. Then, after Father Theophilus had demanded in the name of the Trinity that the demons depart, they agreed.

On December 23rd at about 9pm the possessed woman broke free from the grip of her attendants and stood before them. "Pull her down! Pull her down!" Father Steiger cried, while Father Theophilus blessed her and declaimed "Depart ye fiends of hell! Begone, Satan! The Lion of Juda reigns!"

Then the stiffness left Mary's body and she fell onto the bed. A sound arose, so piercing that the room vibrated, and then a babble of voices, repeating the names "Beelzebub, Judas, Jacob, Mina," again and again, more and more faintly until with the final words "Hell - hell - hell!" they disappeared.

Then, Mary sat up, opened her eyes and quietly smiled, "My Jesus, Mercy!" she said. "Praise be Jesus Christ!"

Exorcism: Fact not Fiction - Martin Ebon (ed.) pp212 - 245
 
Belief

Sounds like a case of an obstinate child swallowing a belief system, then playing it to suit her contrary nature all the way through to death.
 
Re: Convincing Exorcism

FraterLibre said:
although it only hints at the homosexual scandals then being covered up in the church, which feature more prominently in the book.

What now????
 
Read the Book

If you read the book The Exorcist by Wm. Peter Blatty, you'll find that much of the backstory involves homosexuality in the priesthood, and how many Bishops are fighting to keep it hidden, etc. Exactly parallels the later child molestation scandals of today, yet The Exorcist was written in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
 
The victim of one of the most detailed instances of demonic possession in 20th century America was a midwestern woman whose real name was never made public.

I was raised in the midwest and went to Catholic schools. I had heard this story from a school friend whose uncle was a Monsigneur in the church. The school friend and her family were of the belief that this case was the basis of the Exorcist, but evidently not.

The story scared the hell out of me then and still continues to do so, but I suppose it could be explained by a Sybil-like psychiatric breakdown fueled by the superstitious gullibility of the chief exorcist. But how to explain the priest's car wreck and the girl's knowledge of it? And IIRC didn't something really similar occur in the supposedly true :rolleyes: Amityville Horror haunting? I guess this just must be Satan's modus operandi?
 
Fear As Control

The fear engendered by such stories helps the church maintain control, of course. That's part of their function.

Amityville was a more complex case than the original movie let on, and in fact revolved around murders more than a haunting, although there were odd haunts involved, too, including a small room in the basement painted blood red all over and some hints of demonic possession.

There is an excellent documentary about the Amityville murders that makes the rounds of the documentary channels. Keep an eye open for it, it's well worth watching.
 
Uhh....I may be completely wrong, but I was CERTAIN that I read somewhere that the Amityville "haunting" was a complete hoax.... I'll be back after I check Snopes.com (and other sources)
 
Amityville

There were murders there, that much is true. It's when one starts hearing about all the "mysterious" goings on that the hoaxing enters into it, as usual.

After all, isn't Jack the Ripper still marketable due to just this sort of myth-making?
 
This case is scary for all the wrong reasons!

In November 1973 Anneliese Michel, a young student at the University of Wurzburg, West Germany, was taken by her parents to see the parish priest in her hometown of Klingenberg. She had developed some worrisome signs of abnormal behaviour at the university - refusing to eat, flying into violent rages, screaming, and trying to attack those around her - and her parents were deeply concerned.

In the priest's view, Anneliese was possessed by demons, and he recommended a ritual exorcism. As Roman Catholic procedure requires, the case was investigated by a leading authority on exorcism and demonic possession, Father Adolf Rodewyk, an 81-year-old Jesuit. Father Rodewyk agreed with the priest's diagnosis, and on his recommendation the regional bishop, Father Josef Stangl, gave permission for the exorcism to take place. The exorcists chosen for the task were the Reverend Arnold Renz and the Reverend Ernst Alt. By then Anneliese had been receiving medical treatment for epilepsy for four years.

On July 1st, 1976, after severalmonths of exorcism, Anneliese died of malnutrition and dehydration at the age of 23. She weighed 70 lbs. On March 2, 1978, the two exorcists and Anneliese's parents were charged with negligent homicide, on the grounds that they had allowed the young girl's condition to deteriorate to the point of death without seeking medicalhelp for her. Bishop Stangl and Father Rodewyk, who seem not to have known that medical help was being withheld, were not charged. In April 1978 the two priests were found guilty and were given suspended prison sentences of six months.

For the Roman catholic Church, the death of Anneliese Michel was a nightmare come true, demonstrating the dangers inherent in the ritual of exorcism and the murky distinctions between priestly and medical responsibility. In Father Rodewyk's own handbook on possession and exorcism, originally published in 1963 and translated into English under the title, Possessed by Satan, priests are urged to consider medical explanations for apparent possession. One section of the book, in fact, is titled "Let's Not Always Think of Possession!" Father Rodewyk, outlining the bishop's responsibilities, says that he "may appoint a commission of theologians and physicians to undertake a further investigation" and warns that the exorcists "must guard against playing the role of physician when encountering physiological symptoms." He quotes the authoritative Roman Ritual (of exorcism): "The exorcist should avoid giving or recommending any sort of medication to the possessed; that is the physician's task." Although such statements clearly suggest that a physician may sometimes be needed before and during an exorcism, there is no stipulation that a doctor must be in attendance.

This deficiency in church procedure wa corrected, at least in Germany, after the conviction of the two priests in the Michel case. In May 1978 the German Bishops' Conference ruled that in the future no exorcisms would be permitted unless a doctor was present.
The New York Times, August 8, 1976; Time, 111: 80-81, August 8, 1978
 
Priestly Hubris

What an appalling case, what can that priest have been thinking? Also, the parents, to have dragged their daughter into this over typical teenager acting out? Absurd and tragic.
 
Aha....as I thought. The whole Amityville haunting WAS a hoax. The details of the whole case can be read here http://www.amityvillemurders.com/index2.html and here http://www.castleofspirits.com/amityvillehorror.html

For those of you too sodding lazy to click the link, here's a short history of what happened. The house was eventually sold to a family called the DeFeo's who lived there for a couple of years. The horrific culmination of all of this was the eldest son, Butch (Ronald Jr), killing his entire family with a shotgun. All the family members were found in the same position in their beds. Butch was sentenced to six life-sentences, and apparently was eligible for parole in March this year.
The house was later bought by a family called the Lutz's. They stayed in the house for 10 days, but they weren't too sure that they wanted to stay there after hearing about the DeFeo murders. They stayed with a relative who told them that they could expand their bad feelings about the house into a horror story. They went to a chap called William Weber for more information and subsequently wrote the book (incidentally beating Weber to the market with a book about the murders). The book detailed all sorts of fun items of dubious voracity and truthfulness, and apparently even contradicts itself wildly on a number of occasions.

And from what I read of the movie...it's not worth watching, either.
 
As I recall, the Amityville thing went through several stages and
became increasingly fantastic - in the sense of incredible.

The first version was a series of articles for the US Good Housekeeping
magazine. In that form it was syndicated and I recall reading parts of
it in a UK Women's magazine in the seventies. Then it became a book,
with the incidents heightened. Then there was the film which added
levitations and other extreme piffle. It spawned a franchise and the
films kept on coming for the direct-to-video brigade.

I gather that the family were in financial straits and the ghosties were
a way out.

The films are a pretty good demonstration of why extended ghost stories
are a contradiction in terms. :rolleyes:
 
I've actually driven past the Amityville House (used to live on Long Island, a few miles from there) - the DeFeo murders were well known to the local populace, but most of them described the book as a work of fiction: none of them had heard of possessions etc until the book came out.

The author was Jay Anson, BTW. Guess the Lutzs wanted to bolster their negative equity:).

Stu
 
Fictionallizing Reality

Note that, by the time Jay Anson's book came about, they had come up with a rationale -- wonky though it be -- for just about everything, but especially for the murders. One suspects this is what's a the root of many a ghost story, the desire to figure out what happened to make someone do something horrific.

As for cashing in on a good ghost story, what's wrong with that? If it sells, it must be striking some chord in the public.

I've only seen the original movie, and that only once, when it came out. My wife and I, having read the book, were eager to see the pig, but alas, they made it so hokey we could only laugh. Cheated of this anticipated shiver, we turned on the movie from then on. They messed it up and made a piece of dreck, when it might, just might have been an enjoyable little shudder movie.
 
Oh, I agree that there's nothing wrong with cashing in on a good scare story - and calling it fiction...what I (and many others) find wrong about what the Lutz family did was toting the whole thing as a "True Story" and titled under "possession and demonology research". This did more harm than good for the community of Amityville and for the subsequent owners of the house. It's kinda like writing a fictional story about the "Haunted Fortean Times Message Board" and claiming that "All the events herein are true". The amount of unnecessary crap from people wanting to know how to get the ghosts to do the haunting thing to the message board would be VERY unwelcome to the regulars of the board, if I'm not mistaken.
 
Being Fooled

Fayyaad - Yes, good point. I suspect it's because people feel they've been made fools of, for perhaps having fallen, even momentarily, for the claim that it's all true.

It seems that publishers are given a fair bit of leeway when it comes to certain categories, such as the paranormal. They can pretty much publish anything they want, even tabloid level inanities and wild-eyed nonsense, and call it TRUE with impunity, as long as it fits into fringe categories.

Look at Whitley Strieber's tight-rope act, beginning with Communion and going on for four more books, at least, plus all manner of peripheral cashings-in, such as radio, TV, and guru-hood.

And after all, there is no one to sue, or to cry foul, or to investigate and enforce claims of truth in such subjective, ambiguous areas as the Fortean. Caveat emptor in excelsis, in short, when it comes to Fortean considerations.
 
Re: Read the Book

FraterLibre said:
If you read the book The Exorcist by Wm. Peter Blatty, you'll find that much of the backstory involves homosexuality in the priesthood, and how many Bishops are fighting to keep it hidden, etc. Exactly parallels the later child molestation scandals of today, yet The Exorcist was written in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

I HAVE read the book (which I shall re-read tonight) but I don't remember anything about homosexuality in it - can you bve a bit more specific?

I don't know too much about Amityville (sp???) - Can anyone point me to a good site?
 
Blatty's Book

Haven't got it in front of me, sorry, and read it years ago. Please let us know what you find as you re-read it.
 
I thought the satanic swine was the only properly scary bit of the book, too.
 
Explanation

Tomsk's comment holds reference to The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

Mobeena's are about The Exorcist by Wm. Peter Blatty.
 
Looks like the story of Anneliese Michel is being turned into a feature film, The Exorcism of Emily Rose:

http://www.upcominghorrormovies.com/movies/exorcism.php

Star Laura Linney spoke with SciFi Wire about the film, saying: "The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel is based on a trial that happened in Bavaria in the late '70s. It will not take place in Bavaria, nor will it take place in the late '70s, but it's about a woman who went through a series of exorcisms and then died a young girl of 22."

She continued... "The priest [who led the exorcism] was arrested and put on trial for negligent homicide. Tom Wilkinson [Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind] is playing the priest. Campbell Scott [Dead Again] is the prosecuting attorney, and I'm the defense attorney. So it deals with all of that stuff."

When asked if the film would have dramatic or supernatural elements, her reply was: "I think there probably will be flashbacks to the exorcism and what happened there, because it's a court case, and you're dealing with different viewpoints of the event. And that's basically one of the things that will happen: ... You will take a look at an exorcism and how different people interpret what they're seeing."
 
I've nothing to offer regarding the 'exorcist' case or the facts behind it, as the subject never really interested me and I've always thought the film was highly-overrated cinematic tedium.
 
I actually saw the Exorcism of Emily Rose, last night (Why it seems to have taken so much longer for a UK release, I do not know).

From what has been described earlier in this post, when they flashed up the "Based on a true story" tag for the trailer it really does seem to be in the hollywood tradition of "Based on..." really meaning "Kinda like..."

There doesn't seem to be an awful lot of similarities in the outcome and real case details and this film. The film wasn't bad at all. It's just I'm not sure there is a lot of common ground.

Does anybody know any more information about the case this was based on, or where I could find any?
 
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