Lore - Episode 185: Under the Skin

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

If there’s one thing humans have been obsessed with over the years, it’s the risk that the most dangerous, evil things in the world might find a way inside and take control. The stories about this usually sound more like fantasy than fact, but history has a few surprises in store for us all. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.

If there's one thing horror film lovers enjoy, it's a thrilling demon possession story. Ask any lover of the genre, and they'll gush about the 1973 film that kicked it all off, The Exorcist, based on the novel by William Peter Blatty from a couple of years before. That film is almost sacred ground to many people, the soil from which grew an entirely new genre. And it's no wonder, I can't think of a person who doesn't enjoy having control over their lives, their bodies and their experiences. That idea that someone could climb inside, grab the controls like some sort of supernatural

gamer and just take over the human machine is pretty frightening. But the most powerful Exorcist stories, the ones that most people know and repeat to their friends are the ones supplied to us by Hollywood. That's not bad, but it does ignore the role of history, because for as frightening as the idea of demonic possession might be, the fact that it's been documented for centuries might just be the most terrifying story of all. It might not surprise you to learn that I'm convinced history can be just as entertaining as any hit film or television sensation.

The stories that are tucked away in those old dusty pages contain details too frightening for the screen and too fantastic to believe. And yet the proof is right there, written down for us all those years ago. So let's take a trip together, a journey into the past where possession stories were rarely taken for granted and where real lives were impacted by real superstitions, where the devil himself showed up and lives were destroyed in the process. But hold on to something solid, lock the door, and maybe turn on a lighter too, because this one is bound to get under your skin.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. Pure evil. Is there any idea more universally feared than that? For thousands of years and across countless cultures, the concept of evil has lurked in the shadows, influencing just about everything. Now, because of that, the topic is too complex to boil down to a simple, easy to memorize definition. It's one of those words you just sort of have to feel.

If order and peace and safety are good, then anything that attacks those values, chaos, hostility, destruction, all fall under the umbrella of evil. And for nearly as long as people have spoken of evil, they've personified it, given it a name and a personality. In some cultures, that meant pouring all of its negative traits into the persona of one of their many gods. Take a brief tour through the Greek or Roman pantheon, and you'll see what I mean. But it was probably the Zoroastrians that first made this conceptual choice.

It's one of the world's most ancient religions, and part of their belief system involves thinking of good and evil as two opposing forces, like the positive and negative ends of a magnet. Both sides have a name, and each are thought of as spirits, rather than just words on a page. In religions and cultures around the world, that concept of evil started to take on various names. The Hindu faith has Kali, a deity that has many of those chaotic, destructive qualities. The Babylonians had Beelzebub, a god borrowed from an even older culture. Interestingly, some scholars think the word Beelzebub literally means Lord of the Flies,

suggesting an image of decay and rot. In Islam, there is Iblis, the figure who has stood against God since creation, and was cast out of heaven for refusing to show respect to Adam, the first human being. And if that sounds familiar, that's because it closely parallels the Judea creation story, involving a figure known as Lucifer, the morning star who was banished from heaven for his rebellion. But the word most of us know and use is a bit more generic. For lovers of language, there's an interesting chain of evolution from the Greek word for

slander, Diablos, through Latin and Old English, ultimately arriving in the Middle Ages as devil, spelled with an E-L instead of an I-L. If anything has come close to being a one-word encapsulation of this idea of pure evil, it's devil. In fact, a lot of the names I mentioned earlier, from all those different cultures and religions, are pretty much described today as the Devil of Blank, making it an easy catch-all. That's the name. But for a lot of us, we also have images to deal with.

And to understand that, you have to remember that Christianity spread outward from the Middle East, and as it entered new and different cultures, it absorbed and repurposed many features that were similar. And the devil is no exception. Today, you might think of the devil as a being that's half-man, half-goats, with horns on his head and cloven feet. That's the stereotypical quintessential devil. But it's also Pan, the ancient Greek god of the wild spaces and fertility.

Pan, incidentally, is also where we get words like panic and pandemonium. In other words, chaos. There are other variations, but honestly, to cover them all here would take us hours. But one last image might help us out. Many of the witch-trial victims of the 16th and 17th centuries describe the devil as the man in black. It hinted at a dark, shadowy figure who, they claimed, paid them a visit to earn their trust. All those stories of witches confessing to signing the book or consummating a pact with

a dark figure in their bed draw upon this image. The evil one was still around, knocking on doors and looking for those he could control. It seems that the devil, to a lot of people for a very long time, has been viewed like an enemy or an unwanted house guest, and he'd like to come inside. Lera was born in 1890, in the South African province of Quazulu-Natal. As an infant, she was baptized by the local Trappist mission at St. Michael's, a sect of the Catholic Church. But by the age of four, both of her parents had passed away, most likely from one of

a number of new illnesses to spread into the country, such as smallpox or typhus. To care for her, she was brought to St. Michael's, where everyone at the mission looked after her needs. She was given an education and grew into a devout member of the religious community there. It was a happy ending to a tragic beginning. But even early on, something didn't settle with the nuns and staff who observed her. She was described as unpredictable and erratic, but they dismissed it as just part of her

youth and immaturity. As a parent of young children myself, I can't blame them. Kids can be a handful. But by the time she turned 16, that behavior had evolved into something more troubling. How so? Well, the list is long, so buckle up. It seems that Clara had frequent conversations with people that no one else could see. Sometimes she would shout things like, you have betrayed me.

She would even tear her clothing or remove it entirely, something that must have been shocking inside a Catholic mission. But on August 6th of 1906, all of that behavior took a turn for the worse. Clara fell into a fierce argument with an invisible being, tore her clothes and made wild growling sounds before regaining control of herself once again. And in a moment of clarity, she asked for a chance to speak with one of the leaders of their community, a man named Father Erasmus. The trouble was, Father Erasmus was away on church business and it would take time for

a message to reach him and then even more time for him to arrive. And it was that period of waiting that proved to be the most frightening experience to date, because new symptoms seemed to appear, hinting at a darker affliction than they previously believed. It seems that religious items had begun to cause her harm. Nuns would hide their crucifixes when they approached her, but she would still know where they were located and refuse to go near them. Sometimes those nuns would have to hold her down to prevent her from harming herself and

she was known to toss them like ragdolls across the room. There were mental changes too. All of a sudden, Clara could understand and speak in languages she had never heard before, such as German and French. And as difficult as it was to believe, she had also begun to demonstrate an ability to read people's minds. It was an ability she proved over and over again by revealing out loud, mind you, some of the darkest secrets of the people around her, things she had no way of knowing and

yet she did. But her most unbelievable affliction was also the most frequent. You see, Clara could levitate off the ground. In rooms full of other people, nuns and priests and staff alike, she would rise up and hover there four or five feet above the floor. Sometimes her body would be vertical, with her head above her feet as if she were standing on an invisible platform. Other times though, she rose up above their heads while in a horizontal position, as if

she was sleeping. Oddly, when she did that, her skirts wouldn't fall down as one might expect. Instead, they seemed frozen to her legs. Oddest of all though, was how the nuns and staff were able to end her episodes of levitation by splashing her with holy water. Not only did the droplets of the blessed water cause her bare skin to smoke and burn, but the more they sprinkled on her, the lower she would sink until she was eventually back on the ground.

Clara Germanicella had become something more than a tiny 16-year-old girl. Some began to believe that she was suffering from seizures or some sort of mental illness like schizophrenia. Others thought it all had to be part of some elaborate hoax, and some had begun to whisper about darker notions, that her behavior was nothing short of demonic. The one thing everyone could agree on though, was that they needed help. Another Erasmus couldn't arrive soon enough. He didn't arrive with a trumpet blast, but you can bet the community there at St. Michael's

exhaled in unison with relief. It was August 20th, a good three weeks since her condition had worsened, prompting them to call for his help, and he was happy to provide it. The only hurdle they had to overcome now was the issue of approval. Yes, the Catholic Church had engaged in exorcisms for centuries, but they had done so according to a strict set of guidelines. In fact, those rules had been written in 1614 and remained in place, unchanged, all the way until 1999.

What were they? Well, first they had to make sure the afflicted person wasn't suffering from something natural that had been mistaken for demonic possession, and then they needed the green light from the nearest bishop. But the moment Father Erasmus sat down with Clara, he knew how it would go. Clara handed him a written confession, explaining the pack she had entered into with the devil, and in it she made it clear that she was not possessed by some lesser demon. No, it was Satan himself who was attacking her.

And while she wanted help from Father Erasmus, she requested no one else assist him. He had to work alone. Permission was requested for an immediate exorcism, and after a brief wait, a wait filled with more holy water burns, more levitation, and more abuse of the staff, the bishop sent his agreement. But when Father Erasmus sat down with Clara on September 11th of 1906, he did so with help going against her request. Clara was furious.

She attacked the newcomer, a priest named Father Mansueti, by knocking the Bible out of his hand and choking him with his own stole, with nothing but the power of her mind. And with that, the battle began. They worked all day, taking only a brief rest at noon for some food. It was a ritual with one goal in mind, to cast the devil out of Clara's body and to set her free from all future afflictions. Reading through the story, it can almost seem like a scene pulled straight from a movie, and maybe that's okay.

It was certainly dramatic. There was shouting and harsh conversation. Father Erasmus asked the demon to identify itself, and it replied, through Clara in a growling rasp, that it was indeed Satan. After that, there was more shouting, with him ordering the devil to exit and be gone, and Clara writhing on the bed as the demonic voice refused to obey. There were moments when the real Clara broke through, like when the sun manages to occasionally push light through the clouds on a stormy day.

When that happened, she would beg for help, asking Father Erasmus to pray for her soul. And then she would be gone again, replaced by the sounds and actions of a wild animal. She even bit one of the nuns, helping at her bedside. Finally, Erasmus had the devil cornered, and forced him to agree to leave Clara alone. The devil told him that he should look for a sign at a time he named, and then the priests and nuns waited to see what would happen. And at the exact hour the devil had proclaimed, Clara's body levitated off the bed, horizontal and bent backwards at an inhuman angle, before letting out one final excruciating cry.

At that moment, a cold wind filled the room, swirling around Clara's body, and then seemed to exit through an open window. And as it did, she collapsed back down to the bed, and was still. The following day, Father Erasmus took Clara to see the bishop. I imagine he was looking for someone to check his work, so to speak, but for Clara it was also a nervous moment. She'd spent her life at St. Michael's, and hoped that she would be allowed to stay, despite everything that had happened.

After assuring the bishop that her soul was at peace, and asking for his forgiveness, Clara received the gift she had been hoping for. She would continue living at the mission. And with that, she was taken home. Peace, it seems, had returned to St. Michael's. And for Clara, Germanicella, it was a welcome respite. Our fascination with the devil has never faded, all these years later. From the Exorcist in 1973, all the way up to this year's film, The Unholy, with Geoffrey

Dean Morgan, it's clear that Satan has entered popular culture in a way our ancestors never would have imagined. And we've been just as obsessed with possession stories. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, more than half of all Americans believe demonic possession is real. In the state of Indiana, for example, there were more than 1,700 requests for exorcisms in 2018 alone, and the number of Catholic priests in America who are authorized to conduct exorcisms has grown by a magnitude of 10 in the past decade.

Noddly enough, a lot more of the famous exorcism stories from the past century have involved young people. Roland Doze took place in 1949 when he was just 14 years old. Annalise Michelle was just 16 during her 1973 exorcism, one that took her life. Clearly it's a mysterious part of the human existence, and it doesn't seem to be fading as our world becomes more and more modern. And sadly, even Clara's experience didn't go away for too long. Within months of her exorcism, her troubles returned.

Father Erasmus had left to carry on his work elsewhere, and almost as if he took her protection with him, the devil came back. It was exactly like the first time, or perhaps even worse, it certainly frightened the staff at the mission. After another period of suffering, levitation, and animal-like outbursts, Erasmus and Mansueti both returned, and a second exorcism was performed. When this one was over, there was no cold wind blowing out the window. But witnesses claim that the room they were in was filled with the scent of rotting flesh

and foul sulfur. A glimpse of hell, perhaps. Clara lived in peace for a few more years, convinced that the devil would ultimately return to take her life one day. And in 1912, that's exactly what seemed to happen. At the age of just 22, Clara Germanicela died from what everyone assumed was heart failure. The people in St. Michael's were left with more questions than answers, in memories of an experience that seemed truly and horrifically supernatural, and the only one who might be

able to shed light on the truth, Clara, would no longer be there to provide answers. But at least she was finally able to rest in peace. The world of exorcism is clearly vast and ancient, and while we only brushed against some of that history today, please know that there is so much more out there for the curious and the stout of heart. But there's one more story I want to tell you here, and it does something that few others have managed to do. It brings the reality of exorcism right into our modern world.

And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you all about it. If there was anyone close to a superstar in the world of exorcisms, it was Father Gabriel Amarth. Maybe that's because of how prolific he was, or perhaps it just had to do with him having a career that stretched into the age of the internet. Father Amarth was born in Italy in 1925. His father was a lawyer, but rather than follow in the family business, he opted for priesthood. And for many decades, his work and personal life were under the radar and about as normal

as you might imagine. In 1986, though, he trained with a priest named Candido Amantini, who was considered by the Catholic Church to be a master exorcist. It was the passing of the torch from one generation to the next, exactly as it had been done for centuries. Father Amarth, however, wanted to take exorcisms more mainstream. In 1990, he founded an organization called the International Association of Exorcists, where he would serve until his death in 2016.

From the way he claimed to have participated in over 30,000 exorcisms, nearly 100 of which were what he considered full-blown. One other important thing to note, and this gets skipped over by a lot of people who talk about him, is that Amarth hated the new Catholic rite of exorcism, preferring instead to use the more ancient traditional prayers. And maybe that's why his experiences feel a lot like the older stories that have taken place throughout history. But it was one case at the end of his life that would be one of his most powerful.

In 2016, he was called to help with a young woman named Rosa, who was described as quiet but beautiful and under the affliction of some dark, outside force. In fact, Rosa believed that her brother's girlfriend was involved in a Satanic cult and had cursed her out of spite. It had brought untold suffering into her life and she was desperate for help, so Father Amarth was called in. He began his work with Rosa on his 91st birthday, with a body weakened by the decades and a mind sharpened with experience.

And Rosa's behavior that day would have looked incredibly familiar to the priests and nuns of St. Michael's who tried desperately to help Clara over a century before. Growls, shouts, writhing on the bed. As the story goes, Father Amarth fought hard, and at one point he shouted in Latin for the enemy to give in and leave Rosa alone. But a supernatural voice replied from inside her, declaring, I am Satan, don't ever touch her. Ultimately, though, Father Amarth succeeded, and the evil force inside Rosa, whether it

was some unknown demon or truly the Satan of the Christian faith, was driven out in a way. When she woke up, she had no memory at all of anything that had taken place that day. And maybe in this case, ignorance, as the old saying goes, truly was bliss. Oh, and one more thing. As Father Amarth worked with Rosa, he had an observer, someone with a video camera who taped the experience, and after it was over, this friend took the footage and showed it to a number of medical doctors.

He was looking for an expert opinion, but what he got was a lot of head scratching instead. Nothing about the scene they witnessed, they told him, seemed medical in nature. Needless to say, it left quite the impression on this filmmaker. And his name? William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist. This episode of lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Michelle Muto and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast.

There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of those shows and everything else going on over in one central

place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.