One of the most horrifying stories of our time about Annelise Michel has generated hundreds of controversies among religious leaders and doctors. What happened to this girl - epilepsy or an obsession with unclean forces - no one can answer this question even forty years after those events. Annelise died, taking all the exciting answers with her to her grave.
The girl was born in the provincial town of Leiblfing in southern Germany in 1952. Her parents were extremely religious, and she was brought up in strict Catholic traditions. Nevertheless, the girl easily communicated with her peers. It looked like the most ordinary cheerful child. But the idyll lasted only until her sixteenth birthday.
Once the girl was taken by an ambulance with strange symptoms: Anneliese claimed that she heard terrible voices, she screamed in a wild voice and made terrible grimaces. From time to time, these attacks passed, and then the girl asked doctors for help. At the hospital she was diagnosed with epilepsy, despite the fact that the electroencephalogram did not show a single sign of the disease. And the doctors themselves later admitted that they gave Annelize such a diagnosis only for the reason that any other simply did not fit.
In the spring of 1973, Annelise's parents decided to seek help from the Catholic Church. However, the clergy were in no hurry to take up the expulsion of evil spirits, motivating this by the fact that the girl was taking potent psychotropic drugs that were prescribed to her by doctors. Only one priest agreed to conduct an exorcism, but the Vatican forbade him to do so.
Annelise Mikhel's condition deteriorated rapidly. She insulted her parents, beat and bit them, screamed in an inhuman voice. Later, the girl gave up the usual food and began to eat exclusively live insects. According to her, the overlord forbade her to eat normal food.
And only two years later, in the end, the Vatican gave permission to conduct an exorcism according to the Roman rite. During one session, the girl said that she was possessed by several demons and demons, including Cain, Nero, Judas Iscariot and Fleischmann - a Bavarian monk who sold his soul to the Devil in the 16th century.
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The sessions were held once a week throughout the year. For a while, this brought the girl to her senses. When Anneliese had seizures, even a few grown men could not hold her back.
The last attack happened on June 30, 1976. Anneliese died fully conscious of severe seizures. The police opened a criminal case. And even though the autopsy showed no signs of epilepsy in the brain, the two priests and Annelisa's parents received six months in prison. The court found them guilty of interfering with the medical treatment of the deceased.
Annelise's parents recorded several dozen videotapes with sessions of exorcism. In the process of studying the records, the priests came to the conclusion that the body of the deceased could not be divided between two demons.
Based on this story, the mystical thriller The Six Demons of Emily Rose was filmed in 2007.
Below is one of Annelise's exorcism recordings: