51. The Haunting of Anneleise Michel

In 1952, a devout Catholic girl was born in a small Bavarian town. By 1976, she was dead at 23, weighing 66 pounds, after 67 exorcism sessions conducted by two Catholic priests while a medical diagnosis went untreated. Her name was Anneliese Michel. You probably know her as Emily Rose.

At 16, Anneliese began experiencing seizures and was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy and depression. She was hospitalized multiple times. But the psychiatric medications weren't working, or she believed they weren't, and she began to experience visions of demonic faces during her prayers. She grew convinced she was possessed. Her deeply Catholic family agreed.

In 1975, Bishop Josef Stangl of Würzburg granted permission for a formal exorcism under the Roman Ritual. Father Arnold Renz and Father Ernst Alt began conducting sessions at the Michel family home in Klingenberg am Main. One to two sessions per week, each lasting up to four hours. They recorded everything on cassette tape. Forty-three tapes survive. On them you can hear Anneliese screaming, growling, barking like a dog, and speaking in voices that identified themselves as Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Nero, Adolf Hitler, who argued in Bavarian dialect, and a disgraced 16th-century priest named Fleischmann.

Her parents stopped consulting doctors at her request. On July 1, 1976, Anneliese Michel died of malnutrition and dehydration. The priests and her parents were tried and convicted of negligent homicide in 1978 and sentenced to six months suspended. The court was clear: she was mentally ill, not possessed.

Her grave in Klingenberg am Main has become a Catholic pilgrimage site. Buses come from across Europe. People leave notes requesting her intercession.

She was 23 years old.

SOURCES — Anneliese Michel

• Wikipedia — Anneliese Michel — comprehensive overview with primary source citations
• All That's Interesting — The Real Story Behind Emily Rose — detailed narrative account
• Goodman, Felicitas D. — The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel (Doubleday, 1981) — the only full-length scholarly book on the case; Goodman was an anthropologist who analyzed the tapes
• Fortea, Fr. José Antonio — Catholic theological perspective on the case
• Find a Grave — Anneliese Michel Memorial — grave location and documentation
• The Local Germany — "Fire Resurrects Devil Talk in Exorcism Town" — reporting from Klingenberg am Main
• Medium / History Retold — "The 67 Exorcisms of Anneliese Michel" — detailed timeline of sessions
• EBSCO Research Starters — Anneliese Michel — academic summary
• Transcript of Exorcism Sessions — partial transcripts available via Scribd (translated from German)
• German court records — Landgericht Aschaffenburg, Case No. 1 Ks 4/77, verdict April 21, 1978 — conviction of Josef Michel, Anna Michel, Fr. Arnold Renz, and Fr. Ernst Alt for negligent homicide
• RTD — "How a Girl Believed to Be Possessed Underwent 67 Exorcisms" — biographical detail
• Dark Holme Publishing — The Exorcism That Ended in Death — medical and legal analysis