Dark History - 187: Possessed Nuns, Mass Hysteria, and an Influencer Priest: DH of Exorcisms

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Hi friends. Happy Wednesday. More importantly... 🎃 Happy Halloween!! 👻 Grab your holiest water and close the curtains, because I've got the perfect episode to button up spooky season. We are diving headfirst into the real Dark History of Exorcisms — and it’s crazier than the movies ever showed us. From a convent full of “possessed” nuns shouting filthy things in 1600s France (yep, horny demons and all), to the actual story that inspired The Exorcist, to modern-day influencer priests turning demonic battles into viral moments online… this episode has everything: mass hysteria, scandal, religion, fame, and a whole lot of WTF. So light a candle, clutch your pillowcase full of candy, and get ready to question what’s real, what’s hysteria, and what happens when... the devil goes viral. ________ FOLLOW ME AROUND Tik Tok: https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram: http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Facebook: http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter: http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest: http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube: http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Goodreads: http://bit.ly/3IVnO7N Snapchat: https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d Discord: https://discord.gg/BaileySarian RECOMMEND A STORY HERE: [e-mail] Business Related Emails: [e-mail] Business Related Mail: Bailey Sarian 4400 W. Riverside Dr., Ste 110-300 Burbank, CA 91505 ________ This podcast is Executive Produced by: Bailey Sarian and Joey Scavuzzo Head Writer: Allyson Philobos Senior Writer: Katie Burris Research provided by: Xander Elmore Special thank you to our Historical Consultant: Joseph Laycock, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Texas State University and author of “The Penguin Book of Exorcisms”. Director: Brian Jaggers Edited by: Julien Perez Additional Editing: Maria Norris Hair: Angel Gonzalez Makeup: Roni Herrera ________ Give your cat the food they deserve! For a limited time, because you are a Dark History listener, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to Smalls.com/DARKHISTORY! One last time: That’s 60 percent off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to Smalls.com/DARKHISTORY! The best way to cook just got better. Go to HelloFresh.com/DARKHISTORY10FM now to Get 10 Free Meals + a Free breakfast for Life! One per box with active subscription. Free meals applied as discount on first box, new subscribers only, varies by plan. That’s HelloFresh.com/DARKHISTORY10FM to Get 10 Free Meals + free breakfast for Life. Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to Zocdoc.com/DARKHISTORY to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. That’s Zocdoc.com/DARKHISTORY.

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Toyo Tires can handle it all. Get up to $100 on a prepaid visa card when you purchase a set of four eligible Toyota Tires. Find a Toyo TreadExperts dealer near you at Treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires are auto repair, we're always there. Treadexperts.ca. It's almost Halloween, which means I'm in the middle of watching Poltergeist, Amityville Horror, Halloween Town, you know, the classics. Well, my friend came over the other day and was like, oh my God, we should watch The Exorcist, and I was like, no, no, we should not do that.

I don't know about you guys, but that movie, uh-uh, mm-mm, no. Growing up, I wasn't allowed to watch it because it was too scary. I guess it was like too evil, too realistic. And so I like, I watched it on, like, later on a couple years ago when I had COVID. And I, it was creepy. Okay? Yeah. I watched the movie anyways because I'm a team player.

But I was like, dang, is this like really what goes down, like, during an exorcism? Are they real? Or is it just something like we see in the movies? Naturally, hi, I'm Bailey Sarian, so I started looking some stuff up. And I knew I was going to find, like, some freaky stories. I mean, we're talking about people. who are supposed to be possessed by by demons, but what I found, I was not expecting. Today, we're going to be talking about mass possession of horny nuns, the nasty aftermath

of the Exorcist movie premiere, and the shocking state of exorcisms today. Oh yes, baby, listen. Welcome to the dark history of exorcisms. Hi, friends. I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian, and I'd like to welcome you to my podcast, Dark History. Here, we believe history does not have to be boring. It might be tragic. Sometimes it's happy.

But either way, it's our Dark History. Before we get into it, don't forget to like and subscribe because I'm always posting new content. and let me know what you think down below in the comments section because I read comments at the end. Hi. Okay. Thank you. Now, let's get into it because, listen, today is funny.

It's not funny. It's not funny. It's actually spooky, but it's like, what? Yes. Usually in exorcisms, a person is possessed by a demon. And today, the word possessed, you know, we kind of use it like as a, a joke. Like, look at this photo of my cat. He looks possessed, huh? It's funny. Look it. But for centuries, demonic possession was considered a serious threat to societies all around

the world. And just like with witches, people blamed any strange or unexplainable behavior on demonic possessions. For example, if you lived in ancient times and you were struggling with like an unexplainable physical or mental condition, you would most likely be considered possessed. So like an ancient Mesopotamia, let's say a person had like epilepsy and they were like having seizures and stuff. Well, back then they didn't know like what that was.

So they at the time were like this person's possessed. Now today, obviously we know it's called epilepsy, but back then, nah-uh, demon. demon if you think about it someone who has a severe form of epilepsy they might like fall to the ground shaking sometimes their eyes can roll to the back of their head and sometimes maybe even like foam at the mouth and back then they're like demon right they assume demon that kind of sucks because they're going like epilepsy like that sucks and instead they're like demon back then there were a few cures for this epilepsy demon. I guess they would hang a mouse dead, I think, and a branch or a thorn

bush on your door. I guess it would keep the demon out. I don't know. Or you can get an exorcism from an exorcist dressed in a red cloak. Yeah, like this goes way back. I thought exorcisms for some reason were not that old, but they were doing this way back. then every religion and every culture had a way of dealing with what they thought was demon possession but when religions like catholicism rolls around yes that's when things start to look like a lot different especially when exorcism started to be done in public which brings me to our first story so doing my research right and i'm i'm reading the story and i'm like this is so weird i thought I thought it was from like a dirty Fabio romance novel that you would get like in an airport.

But so much of it was documented by legitimate sources. So I think this is real, okay? Listen, I can't wait to like read your responses to this one, okay? Okay. So the story, it starts in the year 1632. And it takes place in this town in central France called Ludun. Now, the town was recovering after being taken over by like a horrifying black plague, a.k.a. the bubonic plague. It was a deadly bacterial infection that spread to humans through rat fleas.

And people basically died of a horrifying infection slowly and painfully. I guess in Ludun alone, like 3,700 people died of this plague. Now, only, um, only, 14,000 people lived in Ludan, so everyone was affected. Everyone knew someone who had died from this. Now this led to a lot of fear and paranoia and obviously sadness. Now especially with the local nuns, Ludun had this convent, aka like a home for nuns, okay? And they had 16 young teenage nuns living there. Now this convent was a little different from others because all of them were from noble or, like, rich families. Now, these women were forced to become nuns because their parents didn't want to pay a dowry,

a.k.a. a price to marry them off. So that was one reason. Another reason that you would end up at this convent, honestly, sadly, was because you were considered too ugly to get married. Yeah. That's kind of sad. How do you break the news? to your child, like, hey, you're ugly, so you're gonna go to this convent? Like, how do you explain that? Hey, you got a big wart on your face. We just can't marry you off.

Yeah. So we got the uglies and we got the ones who can't get married. So to make matters worse, after the plague, the convent closed its doors to keep away the disease, you know, and they would not let the girls leave. They also would not allow visitors to come inside either, okay? So it was like lockdown and it was, it was boring, it was sad, okay? It sucks, there's nothing to do.

I don't think coloring books were invented yet still. They kept busy by doing manual labor in the convent just to earn food. And it honestly seemed like the girls would never get a chance to, like, touch grass again. But then, listen. something spooky happens. In the dead of the night on September 22nd, 1632, one of the young nuns sees something very creepy. Now, it was something that she had never seen before,

and she got a feeling that it was very dark and evil. Now, she swore it was the presence of a priest who had recently died. So she's like, what the fuck, you know? So the young nun, she rushed to tell the head nun, a woman named Jean de'ange. Now, she was expecting Jean to tell her to, like, go pray or tell her that she needed to, like, go get some sleep, something, you know? But instead, Jean, she looks at her and she says,

oh my God, that's so crazy. I literally saw the same thing yesterday. And over the next few weeks, I guess weird stuff started to happen. Dark stuff was going on within the convent. Now, according to the nuns, they would be walking down the halls like, you know, none things. And then out of the corner of their eye, they'd see like, I don't know, a big black orb just following them around. Nuns also said they saw evil skeletons just walking up and down the halls slowly, terrifying everyone. Like literally, they saw Paul just like walking up and down the halls.

Whatever it was, it made everyone feel uneasy. Now then things kind of like went up a notch. Nuns were reporting that they were being punched and even like violent. violently pushed by invisible forces. Nun fight! It's like a fight club, but for nuns. Some girls start to experience weird emotional possessions, like they would start hysterically cackling out of nowhere.

So I was Googling, what is cackling? And I guess it's like a witch's laugh. Sorry. You know, I haven't nailed my witch laugh yet, but they were cackling, witch laughs, it was evil, it was creepy. Listen, this was different in dark because, again, these were submissive, quiet, rule-following nuns, somewhere ugly, and suddenly everyone is like feeling something take over them. They're cackling and they're acting bizarre. And as you can imagine, this was all weird, okay? And the nuns were probably telling themselves, like,

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So the young nuns of Ludun were experiencing some bizarre hauntings, and the women were even starting to experience physical symptoms themselves. So a few weeks after the hauntings began, the head nun, Jean, she felt an invisible hand clench her fist. When she opened her hand, she found three bloody thorn. in her palm. Oh, hell no. Nope.

To Jean, this was a sign from the demons that the possessions were real and they were only gonna get worse. After the thorns, it seemed like every nun in the convent was possessed. Now, a few nuns reportedly started to, quote, bend over backward and walk with their hands clasped to their heels.

I know, flexible. Wow. Other nuns started frantically whipping their heads from front to back while, like, darting their tongues out. Yeah, little lizards or something. And then get this. And this is according to, like, reports, okay? Their tongues were black and covered with pimples. I don't know what's going on.

I don't know. L-O-L. you know it was happening puberty huh it really gets you geez some nuns would beat their chest over and over again and scream bloody murder and like others would growl bark hiss I guess like a snake uncontrollably so we got all kinds of animals happening growling barking hissing bending over backwards your tongue is covered in pimples, like what is going on? I don't think this is like the worst part

is this is actually freeing for them because some of them would expose themselves. I'd just like rip off their clothes, I guess, or like lift up their, woo, you know. And most shocking, these innocent little virgins would be shouting nasty, sexual, and violent things and encouraging the people around them

to do the same. Now these possessions, weren't like the movies where it happens like one time and then it's like oh they're healed no they were constant they would happen i guess in like a short period of time and when the demons would leave their bodies the women would like be back to normal and be like oh my god what happened that was crazy you were bending over backwards that was wild but then what happened again now this was happening so often that local religious officials decided to call him priests to perform exorcisms but get this these These weren't your typical, like, private exorcisms, you know, done in the comfort of your

own home. Now these were done in the town square in front of a crowd of thousands of people. My question was like, why? Why would they do this? But listen, they would bring out the nuns, town square, bring everyone out, okay? The possessed nuns would start screaming insane things, rip off their clothes. why people probably came. And then like, vomit, throw up, nails. It was insane. Now my question was like, why did they bring them out to the town square? And the answer I could find, it was

complicated, but for the most part, it was like this was essentially a tourist attraction for the town of Lou Dunn for some reason. People across Europe could not believe that like a group of young innocent nuns were possessed by demons, so they brought them out. And the town's like, look, our nuns are crazy. Like, we're meeting here at 12. If you want to see a show, come on out. It's going to get wild. They're going to rip their clothes off. Because like, wouldn't you think it would be kind of like give your town a bad reputation? So what? But they did that. Okay, fine. Weird. Listen, despite their public exorcisms, the nuns didn't seem to be getting better. In fact, they were getting worse.

So the priests, they decided to get to the bottom of it. Now they asked the nuns. You think they did this step one, but okay, after some time had passed, they finally asked the nuns who had done this to them. And the possessed women start naming demons who had possessed them. Asmodeus, behemoth, levayeth, astrath, some wild demon names. Billy Bob Thornton. I don't know, he just came to mind.

After many months, the possessed women finally tell the priest about who was really responsible for all this. And it wasn't a demon at all. In the town square, the possessed nuns started shouting, Urban Grandier! And I was like, what is that, a new restaurant in L.A., where they have, like, you know, is it like a vegan restaurant?

Urban Grandier, sounds like that, huh? So listen, Urban Grandier, what does that mean? The crowd is gasping. Because Urban Grandier was a priest. Listen, not just any priest. Allegedly, a very, very naughty priest. Now, he was allegedly very good-looking. I just saw a picture of him, so I'm going to say allegedly.

At the time, he was good-looking. He has a little bit of a bang. He was arrogant, he was charming, and honestly, he was the kind of guy who liked to stir the pot. Now this man, Urbane, he published a satire piece mocking the local cardinal, which is like a high-ranking priest in the church. Now, hello, this was seen as very disrespectful. Arbonne, he kind of had, he was kind of known, okay, for like, doing stuff. He loved swinging that D around Europe. Uh, listen, he loved love.

He loved inserting objects into holes, his own object. He was known to sleep with any woman with a pulse. It was said he loved to deflower virgins. He loved to quote, unquote, comfort widows. Oh. And he even liked sleep. even liked sleeping with the daughters of noblemen in town. And he was a priest.

So, I don't think you should be doing that. Listen, one time he had offered to give Latin lessons to like an influential person's teenage daughter. And then, you know, he gave her some lessons and he got her pregnant, mm-hmm. Now, most people would be jailed for this or maybe even exiled for this, but not her body. His title of priest somehow protected him.

But the thing Rambon was most famous for was a book that he wrote. In it, he said members of the church, like priests or nuns, shouldn't have to be celibate. People thought he was a pervert for this. Um, this was not in anyone, no, no one was thinking like this at the time. So very controversial. But he didn't care. He loved holes. He loved a wedding.

And girl, when those possessed nuns uttered his name in public, ooh, the rumors were swirling. After a long day at work, the last thing I want to do is go home and figure out what the heck am I going to eat for dinner. What am I going to eat for dinner? What am I going to eat for dinner? You know, and I was thinking to myself, damn, like, how do people plan meals and cook and shop every,

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subscribers only varies by plan. That's hellofresh.com slash dark history 10 FM to get 10 free meals plus free breakfast for life. So the people, everyone, they were now blaming those crazy sexual things the nun said on Erban, assuming that he was like having sex with them. Now, apparently, Erban, he had a very bad relationship with this specific convent. Now, there was a time when he was asked to be a confessor to the convent. You know, one of the priests that sits on the other side of a confessional booth. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been X nowadays since my last confession.

And that, I've always wanted to do that. It seems so fun. And also, the head nun, Jean. She asked him to be her personal, spiritual advisor. Wink, wink, maybe. I don't know. Jean was described as, she was one of the ugly ones. She was described as controlling, mean, and reportedly,

I guess she had a bad hunchback. Yeah, bummer. Listen, she could have asked any priest to come to be her spiritual advisor, but she specifically wanted Erban, but Erban refused. And this was honestly like a slap in the face to Jean. Because I mean, like, he's well known to like sleep with everyone. And like, you know, I'm making an assumption here that, you know, Jean probably wasn't getting it down because, you know, of her appearance.

So she's probably like, ooh, Erban will like, you know, I can like ride that. And he said, he was like, no. And she was fucking pissed. Because of his reputation, when the possessed nuns shouted Erban's name during their exorcism, obviously he looked guilty as hell. He was immediately charged with witchcraft and was put on trial. Now I know what you're thinking. Bailey, hi, I thought this was about exorcisms.

It is, shut up. Listen, pretty much any trial that involved unexplainable circumstances ended in a witchcraft trial. So Erban is on trial, but there isn't exactly concrete evidence to like, convict him of anything. He's basically on trial based on hearsay. But then, prosecutors present a damning piece of evidence during the trial. Some might even call it a smoking gun. Gotcha, bitch. Apparently, during an exorcism, one of the possessed nuns vomits up a piece of paper. Gross. So someone decides to get that, open it up, it's got to be moist. It's a contract with like all these demonic drawings and symbols on it and writing that doesn't make sense. Side note,

beautiful handwriting on this contract. Gorgeous. Calligraphy, beautiful. But the contract essentially stated that Erban had traded his soul away for quote, unquote, worldly pleasures. And It was signed by several demons, including Satan. So the prosecutors, they unroll a copy of the document and show it to the crowd. They're like, look at this beautiful handwriting. It's gorgeous. Listen, I know what you're thinking. A copy?

Yeah. Allegedly, the original copy was filed away in hell. I know. It was very dramatic. So it's showing the crowd. And as soon as they see this, it was over. People were shouting and throwing things, like, you know, it was WWE.

They're like, get his ass, blah, and like so many people in town. Honestly, they had a reason to hate him, Erban, because he either slept with someone's wife, he offended, like, their religious beliefs. He didn't wanna like sleep with them. So just everyone had a reason to hate the guy. Now, the trial wasn't short.

It actually went on for over two years. And in between the trial days, Erban was tortured horribly. One of the ways they tortured him was with this device called the Spanish boot. It was basically a wooden boot with sharp iron spikes inside of it. So you would put on this boot and it would stab you and it would crush your bones. You wouldn't die. Instead, you would be in horrible pain and you would get infections because of the wounds. So they did that.

Every day they yelled at him to confess, but Erban never confessed. He refused saying, quote, I have committed no crimes, sir, only heirs. Being a man, I have often gone astray. He said more, but like, that's the highlight. After two years, Erban was ordered to be burned. burned at the stake. Now here's the crazy thing you never hear about

besides this story. It was custom for the hangman to strangle people to death before they burned the person at the stake. It was almost like a professional courtesy, very kind. But Erban's enemies refused to let this happen. They wanted him to die in agony. And on August 18th, 1634,

Erban was burned at the stake in front of a cheering crowd, RIP. He must have had it like a big dig. But then listen, plot twist. Because listen, not long after the trial, the truth came out. Apparently, the head nun, Jean, the hunchback nun of Lou Don, had a certified sexual obsession with Urban. She had confessed to another priest that she couldn't stop having very intense.

sexual dreams about him, she would get wetties for him all the time, moist, wet, wild. In these dreams, Herbond would appear to her as an angel, but then convinced her to perform all these forbidden sexual acts. Allegedly, Jeanne made advances at Erban, but he was not interested. Yeah, so her feelings were hurt. imagine this man again who sleeps with everyone except for you she was pissed so i bet she thought to herself look if i can't have him no one can so she teamed up with like some very important people in town to get urbane in trouble it turned out that the cardinal urbond insulted wanted him

taken down because they hated his views on celibacy and also catholicism in general and remember that teenage girl that he knocked up, well, her dad was like the town's prosecutor, like he was a big wig prosecutor, and he also wanted to get rid of this guy, okay? So together with Jean, they hatch a plan. So those teenage nuns, well yeah, later, they said that they were tortured into confessing that Erban was the one responsible for the possessions. So, They did it. They said it was Urbond. But here's the mystery. Everyone thought that once Urbond died, the possessions would stop.

But even after his death, the possessions allegedly got worse. The demons, I guess, were spreading. They started to possess people around the nuns. The judge who was in charge of the Erban trial and even approvals. and even a priest apparently dropped dead after being possessed. Again, there are legitimate sources that document what the nuns saw in the convent, including the demonic possession. So it seemed like it was like really happening,

and maybe the wrong guy just like took the heat. Like literally, though, he was burned at the stake. But listen, I guess we'll never fully know what happened at that convent in Lou Dunn. The confessions were proven to be fake. But at the end of the day, the possessions were considered to still be real. And as far as we know, it still happened. Now, many thought it could have been a result of mass hysteria. Some believe that the possessions were just the real demons were there, high.

But many still to this day have no idea what the hell that was about. This is for my dark history deep cut viewers. Did you watch our episode on the dancing plague of something, something, something? This kind of reminds me of that, where it's like people just kind of freaking lost it. And like there was no clear understanding as to what the hell that was about. I don't know. Was it demons or was it hysteria? What was it?

All I know is, hell hath no fury like a horny nun scorned. Okay, let's just admit it. Most of us, we put our health issues on the back burner. We all do it. This is America, right? It's not top priority. And then all of a sudden you get a rash that's not going away. It's been there forever.

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A 13-year-old boy named Ronald Hunkler started exhibiting some very unusual behavior. During the day, he was his normal happy self, but at night he turned into someone completely different. I guess Ronald would like erupt in horrifying screaming fits, thrashing himself around the room. His skin would transform, like scratches and red lines would suddenly appear all over his body. and then he would slip into a trance and start speaking in a very deep, dark voice. Now this would go on all night, and then Ronald, the next morning, would be completely normal. So after seeing pastors, doctors, and even spiritualists, Ronald's parents were desperate for help. They traveled to St. Louis, so Ronald could be seen by a priest who handles extreme cases.

This priest took one look at Ronald and announced that he needed an exorcism. And I guess that's when all hell broke loose. There were hamburgers flying everywhere. Chicken McNuggets. The McRib is back. Ronald McDonald's, come on. It was funny. Shut up.

For months, priests performed very intense exorcisms on Ronald. So, when a preacher is about to perform an exorcism, they really, something called a ritual of exorcism from the ritual Romanum which is like the official book of the Roman rite and is what Catholic priests use you know and like every like exorcism movie they always like have the book so I guess that's what they're reading typically you know they read from this book and they perform and they do the exorcism and it does the trick but with Ronald it wasn't working. They also had to throw holy water, recite scripture, and even use like prayers to try and cast out demons.

It was reported that demons would be screaming at the preachers through Ronald's body while he was strapped down in bed. Spooky. I got the chills right now. I don't know. So the priest performing the exorcism said that it was so intense and violent, Ronald's bed would move on its own. One's even like sliding across the room and knocking everyone over. And then finally, on April 18th, after months of trying everything, priests decided to whip out the Big Mac of Exorcisms. A massive crucifix. I wonder how big it was. It isn't standard practice, but they had to try everything, right?

So they got a big one. They got a big one. So they take this big crucifix and the, put it on Ronald's body, and they start shouting at the demons, you know, telling the demons that they're not going to stop fighting for Ronald's soul. You know, it's intense, okay? They're screaming. There's thrashing. They're reciting, well, whatever they're saying, okay? After seven minutes, Ronald woke up, turned to the priest, and simply said, quote, he's gone. This case did get some media coverage, but it wasn't taking over national headlines or anything.

That is, until a writer named William Peter Blatty discovered the case. So William, he had a career as a very successful comedy screenwriter in Hollywood. But deep down, secretly, he always wanted to write about a story that he had been obsessed with for decades. You see, in college, William read about Ronald's episodes of possession and like he always just wanted to write about it. But throughout the years, you know, he's telling people like, I want to write this. I want, I just want to do it. Everyone told him no. No one's going to be into that. No, don't do it. No. No. So fast forward to the late 1960s and there was like this big conversation happening in culture about the existence of God and the devil.

In 1966, Time magazine published a cover that read, Is God Dead? It was a very controversial issue that was all about spirituality and its role in culture. William has his little light bulb moment, and he's like, hell yeah, like, this is my moment. He tells his agent, he's like, listen, I want to write like a spooky book or something. Well, you know, and his agent is like, no, you're a comedy writer. Don't do it. No. But in 1968, William decides, you know what?

I'm going to trust my gut. I'm going to do it anyways. One night, William and his wife, they go see, like, one of the hottest movies of the year, Rosemary's Baby. Now, Rosemary's Baby was, like, a major box office hit. It had satanic themes. So William was like, see, see, people are into this. And like after seeing the movie, William was like, you know, he tells his wife, like, come on, I could do that. I could write a movie.

I could do something better than that. Just let me do it. He decides, you know what, even though everyone told me not to do it, I'm going to do it anyways. And he decides to revisit his passion project, turning Ronald's story into a fictional horror novel. So he tweaks the story. he makes it more entertaining for the masses. He replaces Ronald with a 12-year-old demon-possessed girl named Reagan, and he adds edge to the story with shocking sexual content. And if you're watching over on YouTube, you can see Paul came dressed as Reagan. You look creepy. You really

nailed it. I don't like it. You're creeping me out. Now, William is so confident in this idea. he ends up going to like a cocktail party where he knew publishers were going to be there, you know, and he's like, okay, now's my chance to like kind of pitch my story in real life. So William's pitching to these editors and important people, and he's like, yeah, I want to write a book and it's going to be called The Exorcist. Yeah, that one. So I guess there was a publisher that loved the idea and ended up to be called the exorcist. giving William a $25,000 advance.

Now in today's money, that's like $225,000. So William, he, you know, he takes that money and essentially locks himself in his home in Los Angeles and he is writing like his life depends on it. He had a deadline, so he's going. It was said he wrote over 16 hours a day, every day. It was said that like William wrote this book on some kind of upper so he could make his deadline.

But also, if you've read the book, it's kind of like bananas. So, you know, I believe it, allegedly, I should say. I assume they all are, I don't know. Anyways, doesn't matter. His fingers are like bleeding, it's just going so hard. He ends up completing his passion project. And once he was done, the book was published in 1971, The Exorcist.

Now immediately, it shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list where it stayed for over a year. Now, William, he's like, this needs to be a movie. So he's like pitching it to different like studios and whatnot. He had a really hard time finding studios to produce the movie. but eventually he sold the rights to Warner Brothers, and the rest was history. So, The Exorcist, it premiered on December 26, 1973, the day after Christmas. Question for you. Why do they always release, like, really horror movies after Christmas?

What's that about? Let me know down below. Why not, like, around Halloween? I don't get it. Why do they do that? I want to know. There's got to be an answer. Nothing was the same after it.

Movies changed forever, especially when it came to like what was considered entertainment. I mean, listen, today we're all desensitized to horror movies. Okay? It's hard to imagine a horror movie single-handedly changing culture. But that's exactly what happened with The Exorcist. Days after the movie premiered, the story started coming out. People were barfing in theaters, fainting, screaming, I guess, running out in the middle of the theater. Okay?

They were traumatized. They were scared. One theater owner in the 70s said, quote, I've been in the business 47 years and I've never seen anything like it. Going on to say that whenever the movie was shown, there was, quote, an average of four blackouts, six cases of vomiting, and numerous people fleeing the theater. I know, those poor janitors. So theaters were playing it all day, every day, just trying to keep up with the demand.

Because people were talking about it. Like, if you saw the movie, you would go to your friend and be like, I just saw this fucked-off movie. It was so scary. Like, whoa, so then that person was like, well, I got to go see this movie. You know, and everyone wanted to see it. Lines were up to 5,000 people long. Everyone wanted to know what the heck was up with this movie.

Have we had a movie like that, Reese? We haven't really had, maybe like hereditary. That one was pretty fucked up. Same with Midsummer. Blair Witch. Paranormal activity was pretty scary. But we don't do that anymore. I guess the last time I saw people lining up to see a movie was for Twilight.

So, okay. Anyways, the truth was the movie, okay? The Exorcist. It really mentally messed with a lot of people. Some left the movie like so disturbed, they were convinced that they were possessed. There was a surge in exorcisms after this movie came out. Now this is what is described as the Exorcist Effect. Listen, there's actually a great book about this written by our expert for today's episode by Dr. Joseph Laycock.

Apparently, before the exorcist, there were only two documented exorcisms in the United States in modern history. It was considered something that was possible, but it was rare. But after the movie, listen, your mom was possessed, your cousin was possessed, your dog was possessed, your neighbor was possessed, your car was, it was out of control. Everyone was possessed. or at least believing they were possessed. In 1975, a report was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease describing how the exorcist had caused, quote, cases of traumatic neurosis and even psychosis.

Some people even had to be hospitalized immediately after the movie. Could you imagine? Now, it's hard to even like understand this, but you have to understand there was no, no movie out there like this. So like this was just like, it was so new. Drop it, Bailey, move on. There was even a new mental illness diagnosis

created specifically because of the movie. People were being diagnosed with something called cinematic neurosis, which is defined as quote, the development of anxiety, somatic responses, dissociation, and even psychotic symptoms after watching a film. I got that from Bambi. Do you remember when the mom gets shot?

Yeah, that kinda fucked me up. Mm-hmm. Let me know down below. What movie did that for you? Anyways, because of this movie, lots of people gained from it, the film industry profited, psychiatrists profited,

even the church profited from it because more people were afraid of, demonic possessions. So they were attending church. Now for my own like research and like data and stuff. I was wondering how many exorcisms or possessions happened during this time. I was just curious, you know. But there's no way to actually know because there's like a rule where it's private between the priest and like the client, which is kind of nice. It's like if I were possessed, I wouldn't want everyone to know. You know, if I needed an exorcism, I wouldn't want everyone to know. It's kind of like HIPAA, but for demons. I thought that was cool. So we don't have any like

data, is what I'm saying. I guess they're not allowed to talk about it. Even though the exorcism hype somewhat died down over the years, it never truly went away. It just evolved into something different, which brings us to exorcisms today, which is like a whole different, new situation. Because listen, we have something they didn't have in the 70s. The internet. Oh, the goddamn internet. Everyone's got a pro.

Need tires? I've got a pro. Car making a weird sound? I've got a pro. So who's that pro? The pros and tread experts. From Toyos Observe Winterline to Celsius and open country, Toyo tires can handle it all.

Get up to $100 on a prepaid visa card when you purchase a set of four eligible Toyota tires. Find a Toyota Treadexperts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires are auto repair, we're always there. Treadexperts.com. So in 2018, a journalist, his name was Andrew Goldz, he traveled to Argentina to film a documentary about exorcisms for the BBC. Listen, this wasn't just like a standard exorcism story. This was about a man named Padre Manuel Acuna.

And he's a modern day exorcist with an eye for social media. So Andrew, the journalist, he traveled to Padre's home church, which was in Santos Lugaris to witness, like, one of these exorcisms firsthand. And if you're like me, you're picturing an old school church with gold crosses, red benches, wallpaper, you know, I don't know. But when Andrew gets there, he's like, oh, this is different. Okay. All right.

So he gets there and he realizes that his Padres, place was decked out in movie posters where Padre's face was photoshopped into the starring roles, let's say. So like there's a poster featuring him in The Exorcist. There's a poster of like X-Files with his face photoshopped in there. He had his face photoshopped onto Brittany's body on Crossroads. He had a poster of Howard the Duck. Him as Howard, of course. Total recall.

Oh, yeah. Him as Arnold. Come on. Who doesn't want to be Arnold? From Crossroads on? That was a joke. Have you seen Howard the Duck, though? Can we talk about it for a minute?

Let's pivot here. It's a movie about a duck who has sexual relations with an adult woman and then in the movie they show the duck having sexual relations with her. It's very odd. Have you seen it? Let me know down below your thoughts. Um, I find that movie to be a bit disturbing. Thank you. I guess Padre got his first taste of fame in 2015 when one of his exorcisms went viral. So Padre posted a video on social media in March of 2015, called The Exorcism of Laura. Now the girl in the video,

her name was not actually Laura, it was Paula. I'm not sure why they switched the name, but maybe HIPAA. Maybe it was the HIPAA. I don't know, maybe it was a typo, but that's fine. He posted it. Paula had spent most of her young life

in a psychiatric ward in Argentina struggling with mental illness, and at the age of 22, after, you know, exhibiting some unusual behavior, Paula went to Padre's church to look for spiritual guidance to help her. Now it was determined that Paula was possessed by the devil and she needed an exorcism.

So Padre performed an exorcism on her and, of course, made sure to film it. He's like, use the Facetune app so my face looks like flawless, whatever. Padre performed an exorcism on her and made sure it was filmed, for the internet, of course. And according to Christianpost.com, local religious leaders gathered at Padre's church

to witness the exorcism. Now, allegedly, the scene was horrifying. Paula is sweating and writhing on the ground, screaming and cursing at religious leaders, including Padre. And then they put this on the internet, I'd be so pissed if I was Paula. HIPAA.

In the video, church members are frantically trying to hold Paula down as Padre holds a crucifix above her chest and shouts at the demons, leave. Leave her now! Eventually, a church member puts something in Paula's open mouth. Then Paula's head falls back and she relaxes. I know I had some questions. I said, what did they put in her mouth? I don't know. But they, uh, they, uh, they, uh, they, um, They claimed that the exorcism was a complete success. What they put in her mouth? Was it a Xanax? Was it some, was it a muscle relaxant? Tylenol, what was it? So the secret to getting rid of a demon is to pop a muscle relaxer. You're welcome.

After this, Paula moved far away from her family and dedicated her life to Padre's ministry. Hmm. I don't know. She's now Padre's assistant. She organizes consultations with people who want to have an exorcism, and she talks to people who want to be exorcists themselves. Yes, yes. Padre is not a gatekeeper. He runs his own school for aspiring exorcists. Padre is pretty busy. He averages like one to two exorcisms per week. good for him, you know, and he continues to be one of the most famous exorcist in Argentina. And most importantly, one of the modern faces of exorcisms. Listen, if you think about it really hard and you squint, an exorcist influencer,

kind of inevitable, huh? I could see that. Like, what are you, like, posting, like, with the Bible and you're like, hashtag exorcist. you hashtag save the world hashtag no demons here hashtag demon deem out and listen I'm not here to judge you know I can't decide if it's good or bad I don't really care live your lives as long as you're not hurting others um but you know to take it up a notch uh there are apps where you can get like an exorcism on demand these ones I was like okay I don't know

I don't know about this. I know. I was thinking, there's no way. There's no way. But then again, this is America, huh? Yeah, we're probably, I mean, this is, this is 2025. This is the future. If you go to, like, your app store and you type in Exorcism,

a ton of apps show up offering different exorcism options. One app lets you chat with a priest to get guidance on an exorcism. It's probably AI. another app offers guidance for priests to perform exorcisms uh it's like task rabbit for exorcisms i guess it's a it's a lot i'm not going to share the names of these apps because i don't i'm not a nope sounds scammy to me i don't like it but whatever do you do you okay wow what a journey that was huh from a horny, angry nun, to mass hysteria, to following your dreams and ruining lives. To wait, now, exorcism influencers?

Yeah, what a time to be alive, huh? Let's stand for the national anthem. For the red, white, and blue, for the funny things you do. America, America, this is you. And on that note, happy Halloween. Okay, listen, hard pivot here. But in our next episode of Dark History, we are diving into something personal to me. Now, listen, if you didn't know, I am part Armenian.

And when I was little, I remember hearing a lot of adults talking about the Armenian genocide. But they never got into the details, you know, and I definitely, never learned about it in school. Now even though the Armenian genocide happened over 100 years ago, it's still a very heated topic for many people. And it made me wonder why. And let me tell you, I thought I knew like some understanding of it, but the truth was so much darker. And it reminded me of the fact that history seems to always repeat itself. So, Join me next episode as we uncover the dark history of the Armenian Genocide. Hey, I love to hear your guys' reactions to today's story.

So make sure to leave a comment below so I can see what you guys are saying. And your comment might even be featured in a future episode. Tell me, though, what's your favorite scary movie? Because I'm going to go down. I'm going to have a little marathon. So let me know. Now, let's read a couple of comments that you guys have left me. Young Money

1723 left us a comment on our teapot dome scandal episode Quote, I had a crush on Simba so I feel ya, girl, end quote. Thank you. Thank you. But Simba was a cartoon.

That's fine. I'm not judging. Because I also had a crush on Aladdin too. If you didn't watch that episode, I mentioned I had a crush on Robbie Sinclair from the dinosaurs. I'm, I, I'm, I, I'm, eh, uh, it's a safe space here, okay. And, um, you know, Simba, okay, good for you.

The grown up Simba or the young one? I hope the grown up. The young one might be a little weird. Thank you for sharing. I'm glad I'm not alone in, you know, the ones we could never have, you know, those, the loves that we could just never have. I could never have Robbie Sinclair. never have Zimbab, but we still love them, right? Something special about that. Thank you.

Chris 6461 commented on our Ed and Lorraine Warren episode saying, quote, I also had a problem with creepy stains and oozing, but eventually the divorce cleared things up, end quote. My mind is going in many different directions. Was your previous partner oozing and staining? Or did you get like stress acne from the divorce that was oozing and staining? Did you have possessions? I'm confused, Chris. Let me know down below for, I just need some clarification, but I hope you're happy and I'm glad there's no more oozing and staining. What the hell are you getting at? I'm confused on that one. Never mind. We have to move on. Paul Payne 1006 left us an episode suggestion. Quote, in light of recent events,

a dark history episode on Nintendo may be worth your time. And quote, oh, I love. Okay, yes, I am addicted. Okay, let me, let me take a breather. Okay, I've circled back to my Animal Crossing obsession. I'm all in again. Okay, I am doing nothing else. All right. I am full animal crossing in. My island is so... I'm not going to brag because I've seen better ones, but like my island, I'm loving it. But maybe we should do a dark history on Nintendo because they actually have an interesting history. I used to have a Super Nintendo. I still actually do. And me and my sister would play all the time and it was so fun. I wonder if there is something there. I'll check into it. But if you're playing Animal Crossing, send me a DM. Give me

your island code so I can come visit. I'll do it. Seriously. I'll come visit your island. I love visiting other people. I'm not going to let you see mine. It's not ready yet. I have to like do some of my paths. Need to be fit. I'm still remodeling. Oh, but I'm, uh, okay. Anyways, listen, it's over. We're done. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Be safe out there. Keep on commenting because maybe your comment will be featured in a future episode. And did you know you can join me over on my YouTube where you can actually watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs? And while you're there, did you know you can catch my murder mystery and makeup? Hello? Don't forget to subscribe because I'm always here for you.

And hey, if you did not know, dark history is an audio boom or I want to give a special thank you to our expert, Joseph Laycock, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Texas State University, and author of The Penguin Book of Exorcisms. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. I hope you have a good rest of your day. You make good choices, and I'll be talking to you real soon. Goodbye. Everyone's got a pro. I've got a pro. Car making it a weird sound. I've got a pro. So who's that pro?

The pros at Tread experts. From Toyos Observe Winterline to Celsius and open country, Toyo Trio tires can handle it all. Get up to $100 on a prepaid visa card when you purchase a set of four eligible Toyota tires. Find a Toyota TreadExperts dealer near you at Treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires, auto repair, we're always there. Treadexperts.com.