Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with an eerie feeling that someone,
or something is watching you?
Or maybe you've seen a pair of eyes in the darkness, staring back at you and deep into
your soul.
Are demons responsible for these spine-tingling moments?
Are demons even real, and is it possible to become possessed by one?
These terrifying real life stories seem to suggest that they're more than just fables.
These demonic possession stories will send shivers down your spine.
First up is the possession of German-born Anneliese Michel.
This terrifying account was so convincing that Hollywood couldn't help but make a film
out of it.
The 2005 film "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" was based on the real life case of Anneliese
Michel.
Michel had always had problems whilst growing, she suffered from epilepsy and mental illness
for which she was treated at a psychiatric hospital.
However it was not until 1973 when Michel was 20 years old, when things really started
to get weird.
Michel became suicidal, she started to vehemently reject all religious objects and symbols,
she drank her own urine and started hearing voices which told her to "rot in hell".
She also started seeing the faces of devils.
Catholic Bishop Josef Stangl used his upmost authority as a member of the Catholic church
to deduce that this behave wasn't normal for a 20 year old girl.
And she was likely possessed by a demon.
Stangl performed an exorcism ritual in total secrecy.
Over the next 10 months Michel had a staggering 70 exorcisms performed on her.
Meanwhile her parents stopped treating her epilepsy and mental disorders.
After a year of this she died and dehydration and malnutrition.
The priests who conducted the exorcisms were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced
to six months behind bars.
I think there's an important lesson here, if the first 20 exorcisms don't work out,
the next 50 probably aren't going to either.
Next up is the unnerving story of Michael Taylor who lived with his wife Christine in
a small town called Ossett in Great Britain.
The couple were very religious and regularly attended a Christian prayer group.
At one peculiar meeting in 1974 Michael's wife Christine Taylor accused her husband
of having an affair with the leader of the prayer group.
Taylor obviously wasn't too pleased with the accusation because he began to spew obscenities
at his wife and started to act extremely erratic, which was very much out of character.
Witnessed concluded that he had been possessed by some kind of evil spirit.
This insane behaviour continued for months until Taylor eventually consulted a priest
who performed an exorcism on him which lasted for a gruelling 24 hours.
According to the priests involved in the exorcism, they removed forty demons from Taylor's body.
However the priests warned him that the demons may still remain dormant in his soul.
And he wasn't far wrong, because Taylor then went home and brutally murdered his wife and
their dog, after which he wandered the streets for hours, covered in blood, before being
arrested.
Next up is the real life account that the infamous 1974 film "The Exorcist" is based
on.
But there's a twist, the actual possession happened to a male, not a female, like in
the film.
The actual possession happened to fourteen year-old Roland Doe, which is actually not
his real name.
The Catholic church assigned this pseudonym to him to protect the boy's privacy.
The bone-chilling real-life story goes like this: It was the late 1940s in Cottage City,
Maryland, and Roland Doe attempted to contact his late aunt, through a Ouija board.
Many believe this is what opened the door to a flurry of demons who wished to possess
him.
Unfortunately the countless horror films where little Jimmy find a Oujia board in the attic
and accidentally brings through a thousand evil demons hadn't yet been made, so poor
Roland Doe was none the wiser.
His family started to hear strange sounds around the house like scratching, dripping
water and unexplained footsteps.
Then religious artefacts started flying from the walls.
Then Doe levitated into the air, his body unnaturally contorted, speaking in tongues
in a guttural voice.
It was about then that the boy's family decided it was about time to do something about this
unnatural behaviour.
They brought in a priest to perform an exorcism.
The ritual was performed over 30 times before the priest deemed it successful.
Doe injured the priest multiple times during the exorcisms.
Those present reported a horrible sulphuric odour lingering in the air afterwards.
Afterwards Doe returned to his normal life.
Next up is George Lukins a man from England in the late 17th century.
Lukins was a greedy bugger because he claimed to be possessed by not one, but seven demons,
and he requested seven different priests to remove the demons from his body.
It all started when Sarah Barber, a close fried of Lukins noticed that he had started
to act rather strangely.
According to Barber, Lukins had slowly deteriorated mentally and physically over the past 18 years.
He started to have seizures and growl at people around him.
He talked in disturbing, supernatural tones.
In 1778 seven priests performed a lengthy exorcism on Lukins at the Temple Church in
Bristol, England.
As soon as the exorcism commenced with one of the priests singing a hymn, Lukins turned
extremely violent and started barking and hissing at the priests.
Lukins then cycled through seven different demonic personalities over the span of the
exorcism, before finally declaring out loud that he was the "devil himself".
Afterwards, according to the priests who were present, the exorcism was a success, the demons
were sent back to hell, and George Lukins returned to a normal life.
Next up is an infamous serial killer who was supposedly spurred on to kill by a demon.
He was known as the Son of Sam, although his real name was David Berkowitz.
Berkowitz began murdering in 1976 and continued his ruthless killing campaign for an entire
year before he was caught.
His killings all had a very similar MO.
He would approach a stranger in the dead of night and shoot them with a .44 revolver,
then he would leave immediately without uttering a word.
However at one of the crime scenes the police found a stomach turning note left by Berkowitz.
The note talked about his father called "Sam" who drank blood and kept Berkowitz locked
in an attic.
The note also said that "Father Sam" commands Berkowitz to "go out and kill".
But this is the strange part, Berkowitz didn't have a father named Sam, his father was actually
called Tony, so who on Earth, or hell was Sam?
Well get this, according to Berkowitz, Sam was the name of the demon who possessed his
neighbour's dog.
Yes, dog.
When Berkowitz a.k.a the "Son of Sam", as he had come to be known, was finally arrested
in 1977 after killing 6 known victims, he confessed to the murders.
He explained how his neighbours dog was a conduit for an evil demon and the dog had
commanded him to carry out every murder.
Remember guys, if you don't have an alibi, you can always blame it on the dog!
Actually no, wait, that doesn't work at all, David Berkowitz got six life sentences for
his evil demon-dog fuelled murders.
Next we go to Natal, South Africa.
Where, in 1906 a Christian student named Clara Germana Cele started to act very strangely.
Up until the age of sixteen Clara had always been a very ordinary girl, but that all changed
pretty quickly, when Clara started displaying some rather incredible, yet creepy, superhuman
powers.
Clara started to speak and understand German, French, and Polish, fluently, despite the
fact that she had never studied or even heard this languages before.
Clara was also able to reveal the most intimate secrets about people whom she had never met
before.
Clara started to mysteriously levitate vertically out of her bed and she had superhuman levels
of strength, able to throw people twice her size across the room.
It is said by witnesses that her voice sounded like "a veritable herd of wild beasts orchestrated
by Satan".
Clara later revealed that she had made a pact with Satan, giving him the ability to take
over her body.
Had she really made a pact with Satan?
Well, the local priests certainly thought so.
Two priests performed an exorcism on Clara that lasted two days, during which, over 170
people witnessed her levitating several feet in the air, whilst the priests read Scriptures.
After the exorcism it was the general consensus of the priests and those present, that the
evil spirits had been expunged from her body.
Presumably Satan was displeased that Clara hadn't kept her end of the bargain.
In 2008, a board-certified psychiatrist at New York Medical College, named Dr. Richard
Gallagher was given a very unique opportunity.
A bishop asked him to provide psychiatric analysis of a woman who claimed to be possessed
by demons.
Usually scientists and doctors just pass off these cases as mental illness, but Gallagher
put his prejudices aside and agreed to examine her.
During the examination, the woman, who was given the pseudonym of "Julia" to protect
her identity starting out completely normal.
But then demon's obviously reminded her of the small fact that she was possessed because
she suddenly went into a trance like state followed by a fit of rage.
She started to shout at Gallagher and others in the room, telling them to "Go away you
idiots!
Leave her alone".
Julia started to shake violently, then objects flew from the shelves.
After Gallagher examined Julia a decision was reached between the bishop and himself
that Julia should be exorcised.
During the exorcism Julia screamed obscenities at the priests in Latin and Spanish.
She reportedly levitated 15 centimetres off the ground for half and hour and she screamed
in pain when she was sprinkled with holy water.
And finally is the infamous murder trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson in 1981.
This was the first ever case in the US where a lawyer pleaded their client's innocence
on the grounds of demonic possession.
In other words, "he didn't do it, it was the demon".
But how did Johnson find himself in court, well about a year earlier Johnson stabbed
his landlord, Alan Bono, to death with a pocketknife, in Connecticut.
Before the stabbing, family members close to Johnson began having demonic visions and
heard noises in the house, such as footsteps, doors slamming, and mysterious voices.
Johnson's fiancé's younger brother, David, reported seeing an apparition that looked
like “a man with big black eyes, a thin face with animal features and jagged teeth,
pointed ears, horns, and hoofs.”.
Shortly afterwards David started having convulsions and bruises appeared on his body.
He started to shout at the family in Latin.
A few days later Johnson himself said he had also become possessed.
It eventually came to a climax a few weeks later, when the family held a party in their
home.
According to everyone who attended the party, Johnson went into a trance, walked slowly
towards his landlord, growling under his breath, then all of a sudden stabbed him multiple
times in the chest.
A year later and the judge at Johnson's murder trial ruled that demonic possession was not
a valid defence against murder and Johnson was given a twenty year prison sentence.