In 1973, the world was shocked and horrified by the supernatural horror film The Exorcist.
One of the highest grossing horror films of all time, the movie has had a major impact
on pop culture, and even scored itself 10 Oscar nominations.
But perhaps the scariest thing about the Exorcist are the true tales that inspired the novel
from which is was adapted by William Peter Blatty.
Since, the stories that have surfaced in the media about real life exorcisms have haunted
the mainstream for years, and are no easy subject to digest.
So today, we’re taking a closer look into these terrifying tales with our list of the
top 5 scariest real life exorcisms.
Be warned, some of this stuff is unsettling and disturbing.
5 Anna Ecklund In 1912, 14 year old Anna Ecklund began acting
strangely.
She would speak in tongues, disturbing voices would emit from her throat, and she would
be repulsed by religious iconography and spaces.
A priest was brought in to conduct an exorcism, which was initially thought to be successful,
but in 1928, Anna’s conditions began to reoccur, and she would commit terrible acts,
claiming she was plagued by the voices of demons.
They conducted another series of exorcisms, binding her to an iron bed, but on one occasion,
she ripped through her restraints, jumped into the air and allegedly clung to the wall
above.
She had to be dragged down by nuns, howling and crying.
Then began the vomiting, which according to reports contained tobacco leaves.
Her body swelled, she became disfigured, and her eyes apparently began to glow red like
embers.
Eventually, the demons were exorcised according to reports.
Time magazine even did a profile on the priest in 1936 who was in charge of her exorcism,
a fellow named Father Theophilus Riesinger, calling him a potent and mystic exorcist of
demons.
4 Michael Taylor In 1974, a man named Michael Taylor made headlines
for an event referred to as the Ossett Murder Case. Taylor, who lived in Ossett in England,
was a butcher, and was married to a woman named Christine.
He began feeling what he described as evil within him, and at a meeting at a Christian
Fellowship Group, he viciously attacked the meeting’s facilitator.
Every meeting afterwards, despite being apologetic, his behavior grew more erratic, and finally,
the group believed that the only way to rid him of this was to call upon a local priest
and cast the demons out of Taylor via exorcism.
On October 5th and 6th of 1974, the exorcism was conducted, and according to witnesses,
40 demons were cast out of Taylor.
Eventually, he was allowed to go home, even though they believed that he still had demons
remaining inside of him.
Big mistake, because Taylor would go home and murder his wife Christine with his bare
hands, tearing out her tongue and eyes, as well as strangling their dog to death.
A policeman would later find him naked on the street covered in their blood.
He would later be acquitted for his charge of murder and sent to a high security psychiatric
facility, which he would be released from after four years.
In 2005, he made headlines again after inappropriately touching a teenage girl, and leading up to
his prison sentence, he attempted suicide four times.
He was sentenced to psychiatric treatment as a result.
3 The Smurl Family The Smurl family may ring a bell to those
of you who are fans of the Conjuring film series.
It’s one of the real life cases that famous demologists Ed and Lorraine Warren had investigated
in the 70s.
The family claimed that they were being haunted by ghosts, plagued by demonic activity in
their home.
Ed and Lorraine visited them, and noted that a very powerful demon was present in the house.
This led to the couple attempting several exorcisms to be rid of the ‘dark shadow’
that lurked throughout the building.
While the exorcism was unsuccessful, the haunting would eventually cease by 1987, which only
furthered the ridicule they had already received from the media about the whole thing being
an elaborate hoax.
2 Annaliese Michel Remember the film The Exorcism of Emily Rose?
Personally, out of all the exorcism movies, that’s the one that freaked me out the most.
It features the protagonist of the movie, Emily, being possessed, waking up at the hour
of the devil, and going through some pretty horrific stuff.
Turns out that the movie was inspired by a real life exorcism of a young woman named
Annaliese Michel.
Michel was a young German woman who struggled with mental illness, and as her symptoms intensified
over the years, she began showing an aversion to religious iconography.
Her family, being Catholics, believed that this was because of demonic possession, and
when she was 22, she was subjected to ten whole months of exorcism rites, which including
just under 70 exorcism attempts inside of a church.
She eventually died, with the cause of her death officially being malnutrition, starvation
and emaciation.
The priests and her family were criminally charged with negligent homicide and manslaughter.
1 Roland Doe We mentioned earlier in our intro that the
Exorcist film was inspired by a novel of the same name.
The book came out in 1971, and was inspired by a true case; the demonic possession and
exorcism that author William Peter Blatty had heard about in 1950 while attending Georgetown
University, based on the accounts of a British archaeologist that excavated the caves in
which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.
The possessed individual was a young 14 year old boy from Cottage City, Maryland, in 1949,
who is often referred to as Robbie Mannheim, or Roland Doe. 48 people were said to have
witnessed the exorcism, with nine of those being Jesuits.
The family of the boy reports hearing strange noises and seeing ordinary objects levitate
when he was nearby, so they called upon their local pastor.
When he was observed over night, he had to be restrained, which led to the exorcism attempts.
During on attempt, he managed to slip one of his hands out of his restraints and slash
the priest’s arm.
Marks of the devil allegedly appeared on the boy’s body during the exorcism, with him
scratching other marks that read hell and Christ into his skin with his own nails, and
his mattress would shake.
The accounts of the exorcism are what Blatty would later adapt into his novel, much of
which made it into the film.
It was later noted in 2013 by one of the eye witnesses that there was no attainable proof
that the boy was possessed by malevolent spirits, but that they were unqualified to give a confirmation
on the record.
There we have it friends!
Pretty eerie stuff.
Which of these exorcisms made you cringe the most?
And what other real life exorcism stories have you heard about before?
Let us know in those comments below!
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