The lady behind “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”: Anneliese Michel

The Possession Diaries Part XI

In 1976, a German Catholic woman died of malnutrition and dehydration after a series of sixty-seven exorcism rites.

Her name was Anna Elisabeth “Anneliese” Michel, born in September 1952.

Anneliese and her three sisters were raised by their strictly religious parents, Joseph and Anna. Anneliese went to Mass twice a week. Aged 16, she suddenly had a severe fit and was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy.

In June 1970, Anneliese had another seizure at a psychiatric hospital she had been staying at, and they gave her anticonvulsant drugs which had no effect on her problem.

She said she saw “devil faces” throughout the day. In the same month, she was prescribed a drug intended for psychoses including schizophrenia.

By 1973, she was going to University in Wurzberg and was suffering with depression, hallucinations whenever she was trying to pray, and kept hearing voices that said she was damned and would “rot in Hell”.

After taking pharmaceuticals for five years and having long-term treatment at the hospital, Anneliese was growing increasingly frustrated with her medical care. She was also becoming intolerant to Christian spaces and objects such as the crucifix.

She took a pilgrimage to San Damiano with a family friend, who concluded that she must be possessed after seeing her inability to approach a crucifix or drink water from a holy spring.

“…she was unable to enter the shrine. She approached it with the greatest hesitation, then said that the soil burned like fire and she simply could not stand it. She then walked around the shrine in a wide arc and tried to approach it from the back. She looked at the people who were kneeling in the area surrounding the little garden, and it seemed to her that while praying they were gnashing their teeth. She got as far as the edge of the little garden, then she had to turn back. Coming from the front again, she had to avert her glance from the picture of Christ [in the chapel of the house]. She made it several times to the garden, but could not get past it. She also noted that she could no longer look at medals or pictures of saints; they sparkled so immensely that she could not stand it.^“

— Father Ernst Alt

Anneliese’s mother claimed she had seen stigmata on her daughter’s hands, and Anneliese herself believed she could communicate with Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Her family and acquaintances grew convinced that she was possessed and petitioned several priests to exorcise her, but the priests refused and told the family to continue to try to treat the illness medically.

Anneliese’s condition deteriorated until she was behaving aggressively and doing things such as drinking her own urine and eating bugs. She was “growling, seeing demons, and throwing things” despite taking antipsychotic drugs and mood stabilisers.

A priest named Ernst Alt finally agreed that Anneliese was possessed and obtained permission from the Bishop Josef Stangl for an exorcism to be conducted.

The exorcism was done by Father Arnold Renz in secrecy, according to the Rituale Romanum.

The first exorcism was done on September the 24th. Anneliese was talking more and more about “atoning” for the wayward youth of her day, and her parents stopped seeking help from doctors at her request.

She went through 67 exorcism rites, one or two a week lasting 4 hours each, over about ten months from 1975 to 1976. Towards the end, Anneliese was refusing to eat.

On July 1st 1976, Anneliese died in her home. By then she weighed 30 kilograms and had broken knees from continuous genuflecting, couldn’t move without aid, and contracted pneumonia.

The autopsy found the cause of her passing was malnutrition and dehydration, and the state charged her parents and the priests with homicide by negligence.

The trial happened in March 1978, and drew a lot of interest. Doctors testified that Anneliese hadn’t been possessed and that her behaviour had been a result of her religious upbringing and her epilepsy.

The defense played recordings from the exorcism sessions of “demons arguing” to try to prove that Anneliese had been possessed. Both priests (Renz and Alt) claimed that she had been possessed by Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Hitler, and Nero.

Bishop Stangl said he hadn’t been made aware of Anneliese’s severe epilepsy and didn’t testify in court.

In April 1978, the Michels and the priests were found guilty. They were given suspended prison sentences and had to pay legal costs.

In a conference several years afterwards, German bishops retracted the claim that Anneliese had been possessed.

Almost two years after her burial, Anneliese’s body was exhumed and reinterred in a nicer coffin, and her grave became a pilgrimage site for some Catholics.

Her father died in 1999.

In 2006, during an interview, Anneliese’s mother said “I know we did the right thing because I saw the sign of Christ in her hands”.

In 2013, the Michel’s house burned to the ground. Local police said that it was arson.

Three films have been based on Anneliese’s story: The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Requiem, and Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes.

Read more of The Possession Diaries: