The Roman Catholic church has performed countless exorcisms,
but they’re not the only faith where religious figures battle demonic possession.
Are these stories tales of human madness, fraud, or something genuinely supernatural?
These are ten of the creepiest exorcisms ever performed outside the Catholic Church.
#10. An Ancient Ritual
Exorcisms are rare in Judaism, and are even more rarely performed in the modern day. But that
doesn’t mean Jewish people don’t have their own spirits to fear. Dybbuks aren’t demons,
but they are chaotic spirits that are notorious for causing trouble - throwing objects around
the home and haunting people’s dreams. They rarely enter people’s bodies and possess
them - but a manuscript fragment dating back to the 1800s indicates that if the
dybbuks start to get a taste for possession, the Jewish religious authorities are prepared.
It all started with a death.
A woman named Qamar living in the middle east had lost her husband several years back,
but the widow had found love again and was ready to move on. But her late husband wasn’t. According
to the manuscript, he had become a dybbuk and possessed her. Her terrified groom-to-be
brought her to the temple, where the Rabbi used a rarely-seen prayer to bless the new family,
expel the ghost, and grant protection from it in the future. How often is this ritual used? It’s
a rare occurrence - but Rabbis apparently have some demon-banishing skills in their back pocket.
But not every exorcist is on the level.
#9. A Twisted Rite
Islam has long had exorcism in its traditions, dating back to the early days of the faith.
The rituals pioneered by Mohammed included expelling demons and curing the possessed.
Common techniques involve a sheikh placing a hand on the possessed, reciting a prayer,
and sprinkling holy water. But some radical members practice more extreme members,
and they preyed upon one desperate woman in 2004. Latifa Hachmi, a young Belgian woman,
was desperate to have a baby and couldn’t solve her infertility. She met a group of
exorcists who convinced her she was possessed and needed the demons driven out of her.
But they had far worse intentions.
The exorcists, Hachmi’s husband, and three women who were brought
in to assist in the ritual proceeded to put Hachmi through months of rituals,
including forcing her to drink holy water. It didn’t cure her infertility - but the forced
hydration filled her lungs with water and she became ill. When she was found,
she had passed away - her lungs incapable of taking in air and her body covered in
bruises. All the people who participated in the exorcism were arrested and charged with murder,
as religious authorities warned not to be taken in by self-proclaimed miracle workers.
But other places still revere their exorcists - especially after tragedy.
#8. A Haunted Town
The town of Ishinomaki, Japan was devastated in the 2011 tsunami that was one of the country’s
worst disasters. And in the aftermath, people believed something terrible was happening.
Ghosts were everywhere. Traumatized survivors suffered from horrible visions,
seeing ghosts missing their heads wandering around town. Taxi drivers became superstitious,
refusing to pick up passengers in haunted areas. And many people believed their own
home was haunted by spirits - often of loved ones who died in the tsunami but was unable to move on.
And one woman claimed she could help.
Kansho Aizawa had been performing exorcisms for years, but her services were more in
demand than ever. She was contacted by a man named Shinichi Yamada who had survived,
but was now experiencing disturbing things in his home. His children were ill. He was lying
in bed and felt a supernatural force stepping on his chest. Aizawa advised
him to find a proper shrine for two Buddhist statues he had rescued during the tsunami,
and the supernatural events stopped after he relocated them. Is Aizawa truly banishing
spirits from Ishinomaki? No one can say for sure, but the locals swear by her help.
But much further south, an attempted exorcism went horribly wrong.
#7. New Zealand Horror
Janet Moses was troubled. The young Maori woman had recently lost her grandmother and
had relationship problems with her partner. Her family wondered if there was something
deeper going on here - and if it had to do with a petty crime they’d committed. Some
family members had stolen a lion statue from a nearby hotel, and a local Maori elder advised
them that they should return the statue and help her heal. Her family took that to mean
they should perform a Makutu lifting, a Maori exorcism ritual. There was only one problem.
None of the family members had any experience in this ancient spirit-banishing ritual.
While the elder had blessed her, he soon left and the family performed an
improvised ritual that involved far too much water. The carpet became soaked,
family members injured Janet as they attempted to pick the demons out of her,
and eventually she died from drowning - leading to the arrest of nine members of Moses’ family.
A teenage family member was also injured in the ritual, and the trial lasted twenty-nine days
and led to much debate over the religious rite - but ultimately no one went to jail,
with the coroners stating that only trained elders should perform Makutu liftings.
#6. The Hidden Temple
In the Hindu faith, exorcisms are an ancient tradition - and
one journalist got to see them in person.
When Krzysztof Iwanek traveled to the Balaji temple in 2018, he wasn’t sure what to expect. The
famous center of Hindu exorcisms was located two hundred kilometers from Delhi and is named after a
local deity famous for banishing spirits. Known as “bhuts”, these beings can supposedly enter humans
and put them into trances. But as he entered the temple, without a camera and staying in
the shadows, Iwanek discovered that what was going on inside was both fascinating - and disturbing.
He would see things that would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Those brought to the Balaji temple believed themselves to be possessed. Some were in
trances, while others were chained up. Iwanek was shocked to find a group of people chained to the
temple’s back wall. He saw a woman slide down the stairs like a snake, springing up without
a bruise. The priests and the crowd watching them performed rituals in song and dance,
and the possessed individuals joined in - occasionally reacting violently as if something
was pulling them back. Eventually, the woman seemed to be free of whatever was possessing her
and was released. Iwanek was puzzled, not quite understanding what he had seen - but
the lure of the Balaji temple continues to bring the supposedly possessed to its door.
While most exorcisms are Christian, not all are Catholic.
#5. Depression or Demons?
Nurse Amy Stamatis had been troubled for a while, having dark thoughts urging her to do harm to
herself. It culminated when she fell out of a window at her home, leaving her paralyzed from the
waist down - and leaving many people wondering if she had jumped. She denied it, but wondered if she
was going through a mental breakdown. She received visits from religious leaders in the community -
and one claimed she had another explanation for Stamatis’ disturbed thoughts and erratic behavior.
She saw the presence of demons in Amy Stamatis.
Cindy Lawson was a Pentacostal evangelist who was known for her demon-castings, and claimed to have
banished ten demons from worshippers. She visited Stamatis - and claimed to immediately be able to
see the demons surrounding her. After anointing the injured woman with oil and saying a prayer,
Lawson claimed that the demons were gone - and Stamatis agreed. While she has no
memory of the exorcism, she claims that the thoughts that were plaguing her are now gone.
Many doctors and psychologists believe this was psychological influence rather
than the supernatural, but Lawson and Stamatis remain staunch believers.
But half a world away, an exorcism took a horrible twist.
#4. The Tanacu Exorcism
In the aftermath of the collapse of the communist government in Romania, the Romanian Orthodox
church had made a comeback. But one nun who joined the monastery in Tanacu would soon become
famous - for all the wrong reasons. Maricica Irina Cornici had a hard life before she joined,
spending time in an orphanage after her father’s death. But she behaved oddly,
giggling uncontrollably during mass. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia and returned to the
monastery - but her brother had another theory. He claimed that he had seen Satan enter his sister.
He chose to report this to the priest - a tragic mistake.
Daniel Petre Corogeanu had a checkered past of his own, turning to the Priesthood when he
didn’t gain admission to law school. He had frequent conflicts with the local diocese,
and saw the exorcism as a chance to make a name for himself. He ordered his nuns to bind Cornici’s
feet and hands and lock her in her room. They would later drag her into church tied to a cross
and leave her there for three days, with a towel in her mouth to keep her from screaming.
They claimed to cure her - but shortly after they brought her back to her room,
she fainted and died from dehydration and exhaustion. Corogeanu and the nuns who
helped him were all arrested, with the Priest eventually being sentenced to seven years.
One of the most terrifying exorcism stores ever traces back to 19th century Germany.
#3. Terror in the Village
Gottleibin Dittus was an unassuming young German woman in 1842, but villagers soon
noticed her behaving oddly. She started by claiming that her house was haunted,
and later fell into strange trances. It would be the start of a descent into madness for the
German woman, and it would attract the attention of one of the most famous religious scholars
of the era - the Lutheran theologist Johann Blumhardt. The fast-rising writer would visit
the town and begin the process of exorcising Dittus - but it wouldn’t be an easy fight.
In fact, the affair would become known as Blumhardt’s Battle.
Dittus became violent as soon as Blumhardt arrived,
having to be restrained. It would be two years of Blumhardt performing different exorcism rituals,
which led to horrific reactions. Blumhardt’s writings would later claim that Dittus vomited
objects including glass and nails. But eventually, the demon cried “Jesus is
the victor” and was gone. Did this all happen as claimed? No one is sure, but Blumhardt’s
followers believed - and it led to him starting a new branch of Christianity. His parish grew,
as did his territory, and his mission adopted the demon’s last cry as its iconic motto.
One British case asked...was it murder, or possession?
#2. The Strange Case of Michael Taylor
In 1974, Michael Taylor worked as a butcher - but the quiet West Yorkshire man had a dark side. He
had an affair with the leader of a local Christian Fellowship group, and later admitted that he felt
as if there was evil in him. The local Anglican priest watched as Taylor became more erratic,
and gathered other priests to lead an exorcism. It was an all-night ceremony, and the priests
believed that they had successfully banished over forty demons from the man - including those
driving him to blasphemy, lewdness, and adultery. Taylor was allowed to go home, supposedly cured.
But not all his demons were gone.
Not long after the exorcism, Taylor turned on his wife Christine and brutally killed her. He
was later seen wandering the streets, covered with blood, and quickly arrested. But everyone
knew about the exorcisms that had come before. Was Taylor truly a killer - or had something
evil been left in him? That question confused the jury so much, they found him not guilty by
reason of insanity. The possibly possessed killer spent only four years locked up,
and was released - where he’s been behaving erratically for almost fifty years since.
But once case fascinates exorcism aficionados to this day.
#1. The Yatton Daemoniac
It was 1778 when Joseph Easterbrook, the Anglican vicar of Temple Church,
was summoned to the small village of Yatton. The subject was a tailor named George Lukins,
who many in the village believed was possessed. The humble man had begun singing and screaming
in ways that didn’t sound human. While he had previously been a church-going man, he had since
begun acting in disturbing ways. Doctors were unable to diagnose him, so the town had turned
to the Church. And when Easterbrook questioned Lukins, the man made a frightening claim.
He said there were seven demons inside him.
Lukins had issued a challenge. The seven demons could only be banished by seven clergymen, and
Easterbrook gathered many of his fellow Anglican friars. Through a night of intense prayer and
rituals, the clergy claimed to have banished the demons and Lukins himself boasted he was cured.
The aftermath saw the case become one of the most documented and studied incidents of demonic
possession ever - and led to much debate. Was George Lukin a true possession case, a lunatic, or
a fraud? Those who believe in demonic possessions are still trying to find the answer to this day.
For more on the ultimate evil, check out “How the Devil was Born” or watch “The Demonic Possession
of the Nuns of Loudon” for a famous case that pitted the Catholic Church against demons.