In
1978, Germany, there was a ‘possession’ case, which was so much extreme that it
left the whole world at a situation of flux with the topic of Demonic
possession. It was the very first exorcism case (A/c me as far as I have checked
during the case study) which came out officially and publicly to the world
and based on this demonic possession, the parents of the victim (i.e., her
father Joseph Michel and mother Anna Michel) and the priests (i.e., Father Renz and Father Ernst Alt) were brought under trial and found guilty in the
case of Homicide and sentenced for six months. Although, victim died during the
rituals of exorcism.
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| Anneliese Michel |
What
I had discussed in this blog are the extracted form of the case history and
contain some real photos and audio tape
recording file which had been done by the priest Father Renz during the rituals of exorcism which may be disturbing
and shocking images/sounds, proceed with caution.
Those
who knew Anneliese described her intelligent, reserved in manner and speech,
compassionate, kind, polite and deeply religious. She had a beautiful smile.
She was very knowledgeable of the catholic faith, which she quietly and
faithfully put into the practice. She led an active prayer and sacramental
life. With a clear understanding of the role of suffering from a Christian
perspective, she accepted her trials and tribulations in life. Outside the
events which caused her varying degrees of suffering, she led a normal and
happy life pursuing all the normal things many young ladies do. She fell in
love with a fellow classmate Peter whom she planned to marry in the fall of
1976 and thus fulfill her dream of becoming a school teacher and have a family.
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| Anneliese Michel (at the time of death) |
In
1968, Anneliese got a scholarship of further studies in one of the renowned
high school in Wurzburg and thus moved there away from her family in
Aschaffenburg, Germany. One night at her hostel, she felt something weird in
herself; she by herself explained that incident as;
“It was something...I
don’t know...what it was actually.... but I saw it entered my room and jumped
over my bed and dragged me to the ground”.
That night she started shivering and sweating up and suddenly mutilated strongly, after that night she got admitted in a Psychiatric hospital. A neurologist at the hospital in Wurzburg diagnosed her with ‘grand mal’ Epilepsy and further prescribed her related drugs for that like DYLANTIN, AOLEPT and TEGRETOL.
[Epilepsy is generally a diverse set of chronic
neurological disturbance and disorders which are commonly characterized by
seizures. And this was coming to be very common in those days within young
ones. Long term unconsciousness, involuntary contraction of many muscles of the
body (also as mutilation) were some common symptoms of Epilepsy].
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| Anneliese with her Family |
But
even after regular treatment in the hospital and proper medication, she was
still suffering from the regular long-term seizures and involuntary contraction
of muscles (mutilation), which was
not even enough, on top of the issues she was having problem regarding her
speech and inability to support her own body-weight she was also having sudden
on sets of severe depression and excessive sorrow, but that was also the least
of her problems. Body shaking, paranormal hallucination, unable to control
body, started hearing voices that followed her
like ‘stew in hell ‘.
like ‘stew in hell ‘.
It
crossed approx. 1 year and very soon, she got discharged from hospital and
moved back to her home in Aschaffenburg. Even after taking regular medication,
instead of any cure or any improvement, her status became worst than before.
She started insulting, beat and biting the other member of family. She refuses
to eat, slept on stoned-floor, ate spiders, flies and coal and even started
drinking her own urine. Very soon, she lost hope that medicine is going to help
her and started ignoring her dozes.
The
changes in her crossed its limits when a terrified and unrealistic incident happened
a night on the dining table. During one night at the dinner table, Anna (the
mother) recalls a situation where Anneliese’s hands appeared to be “enormous”,
to extend that she would even claim that they were almost twice their
normal size. After the dining table incident, the mother decided then and there
to contact the exorcists for the relief of her daughter’s suffering. She was
totally convinced that whatever was happening to Anneliese was nothing but a
possession of devil on her.
1973,
her parents requested an exorcism in different pastors and continuously
rejected and recommended to follow the medication and proper treatment. The
request rejection of the case was coming up as the case was not under
requirement and not fulfilling the ‘qualification’ of possession like speaking
different ancient language, super-natural powers, aversion to the religious
things.
After
that incident, Anneliese’s suffering became worst like hell. Except all the
weird things which she was already doing, she could be heard screaming
throughout the house for hours while breaking crucifixes, destroying painting
of Jesus, pulling apart rosaries. She began self-mutilation with high levels,
tearing off her clothes and urination on the floor, sometimes she was also
found totally nude in the areas next to her home. She almost lost her balance.
Every time she stands, would be violently thrown down to ground and injured
herself badly every time. And very soon, she had lost all the comfortableness
Sometimes, she was also found speaking in masculine and guttering voice. She started having terrifying illusions. She
claimed to see things, namely terror-inciting visions. “I see devil faces on
the walls, they have seven crowns and seven horns.” she had said. Often times,
Anneliese would also somehow force tables and chairs to move about frequently,
constantly rearranging themselves without ever actually physically touching the
items above-mentioned.
September
1975, Bishop of Wurzburg, Josef Srangl, assigned Father Arnold Renz and Pastor
Ernst Alt with the order to perform exorcism on the basis of “Rituale Romanum” which was still a
cannon law from 17th century.
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| Fr. Renz (main exorcist) |
Father
Renz, as the main exorcist and as he claimed that he sent to as many doctors as
he could once he became familiar with what was happening to her actually. He
was constantly trying to see if they could find anything at all that would
maybe explain some, if not all, of the events occurring. In the end, it was
concluded that Anneliese had something “similar to” epilepsy and that she would
need to be prescribed medications for the problem. As a requirement by the
Catholic Church, Anneliese saw MANY psychiatrists, some of which went as far as
to say that it was impossible to cure cases of possession with injections of
tablets. And finally, after all of the doctors had given their diagnosis and
professional opinions, Father Renz decided to perform a “trial” exorcism, which
may, as it sounds, be performed as a ‘test; or a ‘diagnostic’ event.
From
September ’75 to July ’76, regular exorcism sessions taken out every week.
During that 67 exorcism sessions in
the presence of a doctor, the family with the exorcists faced the worst part of
Anneliese. She was seemed to speak in masculine and some confusing voice like
more three people were talking as claimed by the family and Father Renz. She
was also seemed speaking ancient roman language, ethnic language, and some
other different languages too sometimes. During those exorcism sessions, Father Renz
recorded 40 audio tapes of the sessions which include his voice and the
drafting behaviour of Anneliese.
(some of the audio tapes recording are
tagged, though it was dam’ impossible for me to generate the translation. And have also tagged a 90 minutes English
transcript.)
According
to Father Renz, as he claimed that Anneliese was possessed by six major demons LUCIFER,
JUDAS ISCARIOT, NERO, CAIN, HITLER, FLEISCHMANN (who was a Frankish priest) from
the 16th century and some damned souls.
Between
those days, She finds sometimes very much normal and sometimes goes too much
out off that the family members also used to chained her up and holding up by 3
men.
It
was claimed by Father Renz that he exiled the major six demons from her by the
start up of last session and he was going to exile the rest of the demons by
the end of last session. But, Anneliese was actually accepting her suffering by
that end.
Last
exorcism was on June 30th, 1976. She was suffering from pneumonia and high
fever and exhausted so much that she was unable to stand on her knee for the
rituals.
July
1st, 1976 noon, Anneliese died and soon after that the state
prosecutor started the investigations. It took 2 years for the prosecutor to
bring it to the court.
March 30, 1978 the trial began in the district court of Aschaffenburg in Germany.
They
were sentenced to 6 months in jail and probation. The verdict included the
opinion of the court that the accused should have helped by taking care of the
medical treatment that the girl needed.
Now,
what ever I had studied the case of Anneliese Michel, was damn confused with
the things what went wrong with her and it shows the basic irresponsibility of
the church and the humanity including her parents. After the death, when she
got autopsied, it showed that she died due to high-starvation and dehydration.
During the trial, the specialist claimed that if she was forced to eat a week
before, she could be alive.
And
as during her suffering, it was ‘partially’ diagnosed that she was suffering
from temporal lobe Epilepsy. According
to the “Doctrinaire Induction”, the priests treated Anneliese as putting the
psychotic behaviour to Possession level. Her unsettled sexual development
influenced her psychosis behaviour and also due to her ignorance of regular
treatment and medicines, her Epilepsy gets influenced by her psychotic
behaviour which results in her of having terrifying illusions and
self-mutilation and because of that she lost the control on her muscles which
led to her inactivity of speech.
But
what about her behaviour of speaking ancient roman and ethnic languages!!?! And
what about her moving the things without any physical control!!?!, these things couldn't be a part of Epilepsy. According to case study and the arguments took
place during the trial, it suddenly came down on contrast that Anneliese as of
her ritualism she had studied and learned many ancient and ethnic languages. According
to the specialists and psychologists, the behaviour of Anneliese to control the
movement of objects without any physical touch was actually Psycho
Kinesis.
Psycho
kinesis is the power to flit or teleport small objects through
space. It is caused by the transfer of psychic energy to objects. The one
giving off this type of energy is generally under great deal of stress and
intra-frustration. PK involves objects over one pound. It typically happens to
those children who’re intra-frustrated, conservative and anger (then in that
case I should quit anger management, its cool to levitate the objects). But for
a note, I also want to mention here that till now no experiments has yet shown
this kind of behaviour from a human mind. So, the PK thing is till now just a
matter of theoretical fact but not a practicality one.
Whatever
I study about the very sharp statements and other facts given by many
psychologists who were either a part of the trial or any articles on Anneliese,
I got one thing that why these psychologists are smart and sharp enough to give
sessions!!, because they have answer of every thing whether its a natural fact,
paranormal or a supernatural fact. They have everything’s reason in their books
except the cure.
During
the trial, both side tried their best to defend each other. The priests showed
the 40 recorded tapes which they had taken during each exorcism sessions, but
the most amazing thing is that the court totally disqualified the tape due to
some reason, though the tape was examined properly in the lab.
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| Anneliese with her mother Anna |
The
doctors who had examined Anneliese in the beginning of the exorcism sessions
and declared that whatever happening to Anneliese was out of normal situation
in psychic terms and recommended Father Renz to execute the exorcism as
medicine couldn't cure her, suddenly these all doctors pulled their hands from
the case. Some of them changed the stories; some of them said that they
recommended medication not rituals of exorcism and all, some of them got
disappeared.
According to some specialists on spirituality, the drugs, which Anneliese was taking, influenced her possession to a high rate because those drugs were high dosed and may sometimes shut down the power of brain which let those ‘demons’ to attack with their full sources and that’s why the exorcism sessions were unable to exile all demons from her. And that’s why Father Renz recommended Anneliese to stop taking those drugs as they may create conflicts in between the exorcism sessions. But may be if she was not suffering from any type of ‘demonic possession’ and whatever she was facing was just a psychic behaviour, then recommendation of ignoring medication by Father Renz was a poor and irresponsible advice and may be if she was possessed by any ‘demons’, then in that case recommendation of high-dosed drugs by doctors was a poor advice. Well, very much confusing. The Spiritual based Specialist were blaming the doctors and the doctors were blaming them.
I
also have noticed that during trial, nobody was enabled to prove that whether
it was a ‘Demonic’ possession or a psychic thing. Every specialists and Priests
from both sides were just talking on water. They were discussing and describing
those facts which always starts with a tag of ‘May be’ or ‘may not be’.
Those facts were actually not having any type of strong evidences or strong
statements.
But
the most baloney thing was that after the respective delinquents got sentenced
for six months, suddenly a commission of German-Bishops Conference declared
that Anneliese Michel was not possessed.
Personally
after studying the case of Anneliese Michel, I got totally confused that
whether to support or resist. It had created a hybrid of both in me. Well,
whether to support or to resist, end of the day a 23 year girl died due to
irresponsibility of humanity either of the doctors who gave her drugs for
medication or of church which had assigned two priests to perform exorcism and
in fact after a proper agreementation and analyzing Anneliese and suddenly
backtracked from all the things and declared that Anneliese was not possessed.
Anneliese,
a 23 year girl who suffered to a great extent when she was alive and even after
her death, people’re not letting her to rest in peace. Even after her death, regularly
in every ten years, her corpse gets exhumed just to confirm that it had decayed
as would have been expected under normal circumstances or not.
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| Grave Of Anneliese Michel |
It
was said that by the death of Anneliese, she was having STIGMATA sign on her
hands and legs.
(Stigmata are generally a sign or
wound on hands or legs which show that god had touched it or interact with that
particular person who is having that sign).
And that’s why today, her grave remains in a place of
pilgrimage for rosary-praying for those who believe that she bravely fought the
‘devil’.
It was true and proved too that the girl died due to demonic caper whether it’s of any devil like Lucifer or in the form of any human. I believe that I had tried my level best to put the exact and required information and actual case of victim but if I am lacking somewhere then I really want to apologize.
Now
from here, I want to leave the rest of the thing to the readers to think that
who was right and who was wrong!?!.....who suffered...And who
survived!?!......what to believe...on facts or ‘features’!?!.
[References: - Anneliese Michel – A true story of Demonic
Possession by Father Jose Antonio Fortea, The movie; Exorcism of Emily Rose, Requiem and some interviews articles and some online articles].
