Hook: in today's "Random Film of the Day," a line flashed by: "The Six Demons of Emily Rose" (2005, Derrickson). At first I thought it was just another retelling of a Hollywood horror flick — but behind it stands a real German tragedy from 1976 that three years later rewrote Catholic canon law and established the rules of modern exorcist practice. The case of Anneliese Michel — never repeated in any past "curiosity" (checked the archive — no mentions), not about AI, and possessing a rare quality: it was the first time in modern Western history that three systems collided, each with its own unshakable certainty about what was wrong with this girl — and none bothered to check with the other two. Neurology saw epilepsy. Psychiatry saw psychosis. The Church saw possession. The family believed all three in turn. Result: 67 exorcism sessions, zero ambulance calls, 68 pounds body weight, death from starvation and dehydration, trial, conviction, revision of the Roman Ritual 21 years later — and a grave that became a pilgrimage site where notes are still left. This is not a story about the devil. This is a story about how society treats people it cannot cure.
Anneliese Michel was born September 21, 1952 in Leiblfing, Bavaria, into a strictly Catholic family. Father — Josef Michel, successful sawmill owner; mother — Anna. Three aunts — nuns. The father himself once studied in seminary but didn't become a priest. The family had a carefully hidden skeleton in the closet: an illegitimate daughter Martha, who died of kidney disease before Anneliese was born. According to anthropologist Felicitas Goodman, who later wrote the only academic study of this case, this episode determined the entire family dynamic: Anneliese grew up in an atmosphere of constant atonement, and from childhood was raised as a "replacement" who had to pray away others' sins.
In 1968, when Anneliese was 16, she first lost consciousness at school — later diagnosed as a tonic-clonic grand mal seizure. Second attack came in August 1969. Neurologist Siegfried Luthy in Aschaffenburg diagnosed: temporal lobe epilepsy. EEG showed "normal, physiological alpha activity," but the clinical picture — trismus, loss of bladder control, subsequent amnesia — was characteristic of nocturnal grand mal. In 1970, after a third attack, she was first prescribed anticonvulsants — dilantin (phenytoin), didn't help. Added aolept (periciazine) — heavy neuroleptic, close to chlorpromazine. From 1973 — depression, hallucinations during prayer, voices telling her she was "damned" and would "rot in hell."
Anneliese enrolled at Würzburg University, studied education, classmates described her as "withdrawn and very religious." In 1973 the family took her to an unauthorized-by-the-Vatican pilgrimage center San Damiano in Piacenza — a semi-marginal Catholic subculture had already formed around it, opposed to Second Vatican Council reforms. An escort from Piacenza "noticed" that Anneliese couldn't pass by a crucifix and refused to drink water from a Christian holy spring. For her circle this became almost irrefutable proof of possession.
From November 1973 she was prescribed tegretol (carbamazepine) — anticonvulsant and mood stabilizer. In 1974 her parish priest Ernst Alt first declared: "She doesn't look like an epileptic" — though he'd seen her seizures before. A new authority appeared in parallel — Adolf Rodewyk, elderly Jesuit, specialist in demonology. In September 1974 Alt petitioned Würzburg Bishop Josef Stangl for permission to perform full "major exorcism." Stangl didn't answer for a long time. In August 1975 he permitted only "minor" — standard Pope Leo XIII prayer against Satan and apostate angels, which any priest could recite without special permission. In September 1975 Stangl, under pressure from Rodewyk and Alt, finally authorized Arnold Renz, a Salvatorian, ex-missionary in China, to perform major exorcism according to the Roman Ritual of 1614 — but with the condition of absolute secrecy.
67 sessions over 10 months. First — September 24, 1975, last — June 30, 1976, the day before her death. Each session lasted up to four hours, sometimes twice a week. Anneliese was regularly restrained by force (photos from sessions show bruises on face, arms, legs; autopsy later recorded broken teeth and knee joint damage from constant genuflections — by various accounts, 400 to 600 per day). 42 of 67 sessions were recorded on tape. They recorded how "demons" identified themselves: Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Nero, Adolf Hitler and "a certain Fleischmann" — a name presumably belonging to a real defrocked priest. No signs of glossolalia: Judas spoke German, Nero — in Latin (which Anneliese knew through church and school), Hitler — German, and the famous Chinese language test gave a disconcerting result: to Renz's question in Chinese came the answer "If you want to ask something, ask in German" — after which (according to Goodman) the demon allegedly added: "But I understood you."
Spring 1976: Anneliese stopped eating. She explained that "demons won't allow it." In the final days she drank her own urine from the floor, ate coals from the fireplace and spiders, according to witness testimony — ate the head of a dead bird. According to the pathologist, she weighed 30.8 kg (68 pounds). Both knees were broken from constant genuflections, severe pneumonia, multiple hematomas. June 30, 1976 she asked for absolution. July 1 around 8 a.m. Anna Michel found her daughter dead in bed. Anneliese's last words: "Please forgive" and "Mama, stay with me. I'm scared."
Cause of death per medical examiner: starvation and dehydration.
Here begins the most interesting part — not the devil, but three non-intersecting languages describing the same reality. Anneliese was caught between three institutions, each of which believed the question was closed, and none thought to check with the other two.
Neurology. "Temporal lobe epilepsy" diagnosis was made at 16. In 1973, when the disease worsened, Anneliese was taking dilantin, aolept and tegretol — a heavy combination of anticonvulsants and neuroleptics. Goodman, analyzing diaries and testimonies, notes a contradiction in Anneliese's own testimony about taking medication: in some fragments she says she "takes medication conscientiously," in others (according to friend Roswitha) — that she "often took fewer than three tegretol tablets per day when supply ran low, then compensated by taking more than prescribed." If true, her serum carbamazepine concentration could fluctuate below therapeutic threshold — explaining both seizure exacerbation and symptom control failures. Goodman, however, makes a more radical move: she claims that "there's sufficient basis to believe Anneliese wasn't sick, wasn't epileptic; what looked like disease symptoms to the uninitiated was manifestation of religious experience." This position is supported by some critics (e.g., Brian Dunning in Skeptoid #248) — but modern neurology knows that in about one in four cases of temporal lobe epilepsy the EEG remains normal, and absence of anomaly on recording doesn't exclude diagnosis.
Gastaut-Geschwind Syndrome. This is where it gets truly eerie. In 1975 David Bear and Paul Fedio published quantitative analysis of "interictal behavioral syndrome in temporal lobe epilepsy" — a set of traits later called Gastaut-Geschwind syndrome: hypergraphia (compulsive writing), hyperreligiosity (intense, often obsessive religiosity), decreased sexual interest, depersonalization and derealization, emotional rigidity, sometimes — obsessive sense of "fateful importance" of one's own life. Anneliese had almost all signs: she prayed for hours, drew religious symbols, spoke of "sacrifice for negligent youth" and "apostate priests," lost interest in sexual relations, claimed "someone is manipulating me" and "my will isn't mine." From psychiatry's viewpoint, this is clinical presentation, not metaphor. From her radical traditionalist circle's viewpoint, this is clinical presentation of possession.
Psychiatry. In 1973 Anneliese was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and manic-depressive psychosis. Goodman herself notes that Anneliese "couldn't love enough," felt herself "castrated, frozen," told her boyfriend: "I can't feel love. I'm all numb. I can't feel emotions." This is typical alexithymia within depressive disorder. At some point Anneliese suspected schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder — both diagnoses were in her medical record. The family interpreted all her symptoms through religious framing.
The Church. And here begins the most specific part. The document Alt and Renz worked from — "De exorcizandis obsessis a daemonio" from Rituale Romanum 1614. This text has a direct formulation: "The exorcist should beware of giving or recommending any medicine to the patient, but should leave this care to physicians." That is, the 17th century Roman ritual clearly presupposed parallel medical care — but in Anneliese's case this clause was ignored. Renz stated in court: "The exorcist ritual explicitly says the priest shouldn't burden himself with medical questions." Which is formally true — but formally true only in conjunction with the patient continuing to see a doctor, which wasn't the case. In 1976 Anneliese herself asked parents to stop doctor visits and trust exorcism completely. The family agreed. Medical history essentially ended in 1975.
Bishop Josef Stangl — key figure in this chess game. He never personally saw Anneliese or saw her medical documents. He gave permission based on correspondence with Alt, who himself "didn't consider her to look like an epileptic." In court Stangl stated he "wasn't aware" of her condition, and the case against him was closed precisely for this reason — absence of direct contact. This is a striking detail: in a system where exorcism requires formal bishop's permission, the bishop can authorize without seeing the patient, based on correspondence from a priest who doesn't trust the neurologist's diagnosis.
Hearings in Aschaffenburg district court began March 30, 1978 and became one of the most unusual criminal trials in postwar German history. Father Renz's defender, attorney Erich Schmidt-Leichner, built the line: "Exorcism was lawful, and the FRG Constitution protects citizens in unlimited exercise of their religious beliefs." In the courtroom 42 tapes with exorcism session recordings were played, on which "demon voices arguing among themselves" could be heard. Viewers sat "frozen, staring at the wooden cross on the wall," wrote Washington Post April 21, 1978. Anneliese's sister at some point ran from the hall in tears.
Court conclusion: all four — both priests (Ernst Alt and Arnold Renz) and both parents (Josef and Anna Michel) — found guilty of negligent homicide (fahrlässige Tötung) through inaction. Sentenced to six months imprisonment suspended and three years probation. Fine. The court was tougher than prosecution: prosecutor Karl Stenger asked only fines for priests, and asked to find parents guilty but not punish them because "they've already suffered enough losing their daughter." Judges disagreed.
After sentencing the family requested permission to exhume Anneliese's body — on advice of a nun who claimed in a vision the body was "incorrupt," which in Catholic tradition is considered a sign of sainthood. Exhumation on February 25, 1978 showed: ordinary decomposition, no signs of miracle. Father Renz later claimed he "wasn't allowed into the morgue."
Anneliese's father, Josef Michel, died in 1999, never acknowledging anything was done wrong. Mother, Anna, in a 2006 interview (Daily Telegraph) stated: "I know we did everything right because I saw the sign of Christ on her hands." And this is perhaps the most frightening paragraph in the entire story: not because the mother is evil, but because the mother honestly believes. She's not lying, hasn't lost her mind — she simply overlaid her religious frame on her daughter's neuropsychiatric diagnosis and could never remove it again.
June 1976: a girl dies in Bavaria.
April 1978: court verdict.
May 1978: Munich cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI) publicly stated that the 1614 ritual "needs thorough revision."
Same May 1978: German episcopal conference ruled that no exorcisms in Germany can be performed without physician participation.
1984: German theologians submit commission recommendations to the Vatican, directly pointing to the problematic form of addressing the demon in the ritual (when the exorcist says "I command you, unclean spirit" — this confirms the patient's "possession" and worsens their condition).
1990s: Vatican prepares its own revision (as part of systematic review of all Roman rituals after Second Vatican Council 1962–1965).
January 26, 1999: Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estévez, prefect of Congregation for Divine Worship, presents new ritual — "De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam". Presentation takes place in the Vatican. To journalists' question whether translation from Latin would be hindered by the fact that the devil might not understand local language, the cardinal answered: "The devil understands Latin perfectly." This was quote of the day in world press.
What really changed in the new ritual? Formally — little. Main difference: instead of direct invective at the demon the ritual became prayer to God for liberation of the sufferer. But after protests from the Italian Association of Exorcists (yes, such exists and is quite active) the Vatican permitted continuing to use the old form by special request. Liturgy expert Martin Lüstraten (Augsburg) in an interview for the 50th anniversary of Anneliese's death (DOMRADIO.DE, July 1, 2026) says directly: "The new form essentially wasn't truly adopted." And adds a curious detail: "The Latin edition of the exorcism ritual since 1999 has gone through more print runs than the baptism ritual. There's demand."
Canonical code, canon 1172 (this both before 1999 and after): before exorcism "it's necessary to verify we're dealing precisely with the Enemy's presence, not illness." But, as the same Lüstraten fairly notes, the term "possession" itself has no operational definition — meaning verification is impossible in principle.
"The Exorcism of Emily Rose" (2005, Derrickson) — the most famous "retelling." What the film changed:
| Fact | In film | In reality |
|---|---|---|
| Victim's name | Emily Rose, 19, American | Anneliese Michel, 23, German |
| Social context | Minnesota farm, isolated | University of Würzburg, student |
| How many demons | 6, named | 6, named — coincidence |
| Duration of exorcism | Several weeks | 10 months, 67 sessions |
| Death | Occurred during session | Occurred 24 hours after last session |
| Diagnosis | Epilepsy | Temporal lobe epilepsy, major depressive disorder |
| Alt/Renz illness | One priest (Tom Wilkinson) | Two priests |
| Bishop illness | Not shown | Gave no court testimony |
| Court verdict | Acquittal (jury) | Guilty, suspended sentence |
| Family behavior | Mother believes in possession, father doubts | Both parents believe until end of life |
| Psychiatric care | Stopped several months before death | Stopped 10 months before death |
| Real supernatural activity | Actively present (clocks stop, doors open) | Not recorded by any independent observer |
Director Scott Derrickson — open evangelical Christian (per Christianity Today, September 2005), and the film has a detail critics paid little attention to: defense attorney Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) — agnostic, but in finale begins believing in reality of possession, while evangelical prosecutor (Campbell Scott) is portrayed as formalist for whom faith is social ritual, not living experience. Christianity Today notes: "One gets the feeling the director doesn't trust the type of Christianity that reduces faith to propriety." This is rare for Hollywood horror — the film critiques formalized religiosity of both sides, but simultaneously confirms ontological reality of demons.
Other adaptations — "Requiem" (2006, Hans-Christian Schmid) with Sandra Hüller in lead role (German Silver Bear award), "Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes" (2011) and WDR documentary "Satan lebt — Die Rückkehr des Exorzismus" (2006, director Helge Cramer) — much less known, but work with factual material far more densely.
June 13, 2013 in Klingenberg the house where Anneliese lived and died burned down. Local residents immediately spoke of "retribution," though the culprit turned out to be a real volunteer firefighter who confessed to arson. But this reaction itself is diagnostic. According to reporter Franz Bartel (Main-Post), buses with pilgrims — often from Holland — still come to her grave at Friedhof Klingenberg cemetery. Notes with requests and thanks are left on the grave. They sing. They pray.
Why? Because Anneliese in the eyes of a certain part of traditionalists became icon of "victim for negligent youth and apostate priests" — a formulation she herself pronounced during sessions. Each of these words is a direct jab at Second Vatican Council reforms. Anneliese, in their reading, prayed away the sins of church modernization. Her story isn't about the devil; her story is about how one conservative subculture within Catholicism found in a living suffering person material for its own myth.
And here the paradox closes: the Klingenberg tragedy itself is a symptom of the same phenomenon that created it. The Church that couldn't distinguish neurological disease from spiritual problem still systematically cannot. Per YouGov poll conducted in 2026 for the 50th anniversary, every fourth German "definitely or probably believes" in existence of devil, demons and possession. Würzburg diocese over the last 10 years received "a low single-digit number" of exorcism requests — but simultaneously, as DOMRADIO.DE notes, in charismatic and Pentecostal communities in Germany "demonic burden" became terminological standard, and "liberation prayers" are practiced regularly. Formal church exorcism went into shadow — but the mass thinking that produced the Michel case didn't disappear.
Main point: Anneliese Michel's case isn't "story about exorcism." It's story about how three institutions, each with its own language for describing illness, found no common vocabulary, and the patient died in the gap between them. Neurologist saw seizures and prescribed carbamazepine. Psychiatrist saw depression and prescribed neuroleptics. Priest saw possession and prescribed 1614 ritual. Family didn't fully trust any of them — and ultimately trusted the one whose explanation was most radical and most dramatic. Because drama of explanation defeats explanation of therapy — this, by the way, is a law not only of religious psychology, but of any system where several narratives compete for patient's attention.
Why Derrickson's film isn't honest retelling but Catholic hagiography with reverse sign: Derrickson didn't film detective story "what happened to Anneliese Michel," but story about skeptic who came to faith through legal process. Real Anneliese was student who had diagnosis, medications and psychotherapy. Film "Emily Rose" is story of family where real Anneliese would be agnostic and treated by psychiatrist, but in finale must become saint. It's beautiful. It's false. And this, in my view, is the only thing to remember about the film.
What truly amazes me about this case 50 years later: it's still relevant. In 2026 in Germany every fourth person believes in devil, and in Pentecostal communities "liberation from demonic burden" became routine pastoral practice, controlled neither by medicine nor formal church. And until institutions — whether clinical or religious — learn to check their answers with each other, Anneliese's story will repeat. Just in different settings. With different names. With different demons.
Personal observation, purely subjective: it seems to me the most frightening thing in this story isn't the devil, not psychiatrists, not priests. Most frightening is time: between Anneliese's first attack (1968) and her death (1976) passed 8 years. Over these 8 years she was treated by at least four specialists. She had diagnosis. She had prescription. She had family. She had priests. She had bishop. She had God. And not one of these people, not one of these institutions asked the simple question: "Why hasn't anyone talked to the others?".
Documentary and judicial (primary):
Source book (academic anthropology):
8. Felicitas D. Goodman, "The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel", 1981 (Wipf & Stock, 2005 reissue) — only complete anthropological study of case, based on Anneliese's diaries and family interviews
Modern retrospectives (2026, 50th anniversary):
9. Main-Post, "Vor 50 Jahren starb Anneliese Michel…", June 29, 2026
10. Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR24), "67 Exorzismen: Der Fall Anneliese Michel", July 1, 2026
11. DOMRADIO.DE, "Wie der Exorzismus 50 Jahre nach Anneliese Michel weiterlebt", July 1, 2026
Critical / scientific analysis:
12. Skeptical Inquirer, "Seized By the Spirit: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and the Exorcism of Anneliese Michel", Autumn Sword, July 30, 2021
13. Skeptoid #248, "The Exorcism of Anneliese", Brian Dunning, March 8, 2011
14. BBC Films, "The Exorcism Of Emily Rose", review Paul Arendt, November 24, 2005
15. Christianity Today, "The Exorcism of Emily Rose", September 9, 2005
16. PMC, "Rethinking Geschwind Syndrome Beyond Temporal Lobe Epilepsy", 2021
Canon law and Vatican response:
17. L'Osservatore Romano / Catholic Culture, "Congregation Publishes New Rite of Exorcism", February 3, 1999 (Cardinal Medina Estévez official presentation)
18. Religion News Service, "Vatican revises the rite of exorcism to fit new conception of the devil", January 1, 1999
19. New York Times, "Vatican's Revised Exorcism Rite Affirms Existence of Devil", January 27, 1999
20. Vatican.va, "De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam" (Rituale Romanum, 1999)
21. BKAe (Bund Katholischer Ärzte), "Medical aspects of exorcism" — position of Catholic physicians of Germany
Film and mass culture:
22. AllThatsInteresting, "Anneliese Michel And The Real-Life 'Exorcism Of Emily Rose'", March 26, 2025 (updated January 8, 2026)
23. Dark Holme Publishing, "The Exorcism That Ended in Death", January 31, 2025