Lore - Lore 253: Compelled

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

One of humanity’s deepest fears has always been focused on the evil forces that scheme to destroy us, and how far they will go to get that job done. Written and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with research by Alexandra Steed and music by Chad Lawson. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com Sponsors: BetterHelp: Lore is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/LORE, and get on your way to being your best self. Mint Mobile: For a limited time, wireless plans from Mint Mobile are $15 a month when you purchase a 3-month plan with UNLIMITED talk, text and data at MintMobile.com/lore. Squarespace: Head to Squarespace.com/lore to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code LORE. To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to [e-mail] with the name of the company or organization so we can look into it. ———————— To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here. ———————— ©2024 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

Are you a business owner or marketer looking to reach highly engaged podcast listeners just like you? AdvertiseCast can help. Whether you are looking to promote a national brand across Canada or a regional event or service, we've got you covered. Reach out today to Bob A little over a decade ago, archaeologists announced that they had found something intriguing. Two objects had been discovered under the floor of a building in the ancient city of Sardis in modern-day Turkey. They were containers, and both dated back nearly 2,000 years. Each of them held a set of bronze tools, along with some other seemingly random items, such as coins and eggshells. To you or I, they would probably look a lot like primitive trash cans, but to experts in this sort of thing, their purpose was crystal clear.

Collections of items of that sort were often assembled back then for one specific purpose, to ward off evil spirits. In fact, eggshells alone were pretty common in ritual objects from that region of the world. In the ancient lands that are now Iran and Iraq, for example, eggshells were region of the world. In the ancient lands that are now Iran and Iraq, for example, eggshells were part of the typical demon traps that they crafted. And it's discoveries like this that help put our beliefs and folklore into perspective.

For a very long time, cultures around the world have believed two complimentary things. Evil spirits are real, and there are things that we can do to ward them off. Whether or not you agree doesn't matter here. This was one of the truths that ancient people built their lives around. From talismans to demon traps and everything in between, humans have spent thousands of years so worried about the powers of evil spirits that they devised countless ways to protect their households and loved ones from them. But all of that deals with the problem of keeping demons away.

A more frightening question to ask, of course, is what we're supposed to do if they actually get in. I'm Aaron Manke, and this is lore. It's always a good idea to ask the question, where did that come from? This goes for any strange food you might find at the back of your fridge, but it's also true when we examine folklore, because there's so much to learn from digging a little deeper. you might find at the back of your fridge, but it's also true when we examine folklore, because there's so much to learn from digging a little deeper.

So when I mention the word exorcism, I think we need to be clear that you and I probably have a go-to mental image, right? A Catholic priest in a black cassock holding a Bible and a crucifix over a bed while a tortured person, usually a woman, writhes on the sheets and screams with an inhuman voice. But cultures have been casting out demons for thousands of years. For a really long time, one sign that someone was possessed was any sort of outwardly visible illness, something like epilepsy or Tourette's, or even mental health issues like depression

or anxiety. Evil spirits were believed to be the cause, working as a force of darkness against the person. One way ancient cultures fought back was through drawing. The ancient Babylonians would carve an image of the demon onto a clay tablet, and then, in an act of violence against the spirit, they would break it. It was symbolic, of course, but also an essential tool.

Back in 2020, a clay tablet was unearthed in modern-day Iraq that showed just such a drawing. Archaeologists believe that it's at least 2,700 years old and it shows a figure that might look familiar, a half man, half goat with horns and hooves. And above the sketch, a written out description of epilepsy, possibly the oldest in the world. Oh, and this particular tablet, it's unbroken, which makes me wonder, was that demon actually

defeated? And holy water? Well, it might surprise you to know that little tool was being used for exorcisms nearly 3,000 years ago by Zoraster, the founder of one of the world's oldest religions, Zoroastrianism. In the first century AD, Roman historian Josephus wrote about a man named Eliezer, who was known for performing exorcisms. His special tool was a ring, in which he had embedded a substance that was rumored to attract demons. He would hold the ring near a person's nose, and the demon inside would be attracted to the smell of it and then get pulled out.

Which, yes, for exorcisms is a little on the nose. Of course, not long after this, Christianity was born and exorcism became one of the tools they took around the world with them. Some of that had to do with how portable the tradition was. It didn't require a special building or some limited resource that had to be managed. And in a lot of ways, this helped exorcism become popular. They were used as a form of medicine by a lot of people. Again, just like the folks thousands of years before, there was this perceived connection

between illness and evil spirits. It's easy for us to scoff at that kind of belief today. But remember, a more medical alternative for most of these folks would have been balancing their humors. And naturally, exorcisms were also used as a weapon. Centuries ago, everywhere the church went, it encountered old religions, the sort that they would label as pagan. So it was pretty common to find exorcism used as a way to defeat or banish these old belief systems and replace them with Christianity.

For example, in 1634, some Franciscan friars in what is today New Mexico actually exorcised a boulder that the indigenous people there held sacred. It had what looked like claw marks on it, allegedly made by a witch. So the friars held mass over the rock and then considered the matter closed. One thing that really fueled interest in exorcisms, though, was the advent of the printing press. The very first book about it was written in the year 1400. A couple of centuries later, the Ritual Romanum was published and became the official handbook for exorcisms in the Roman Catholic Church.

And as we've seen with other branches of folklore, like witchcraft, for example, when someone writes a how-to manual, all of a sudden they become a lot more obsessed about testing it out and putting it to work. So even as the church split up into smaller denominations and spread around the globe, many of them carried exorcism as a key part of who they were with them.

By the Renaissance though, common folk were starting to see it less as a law of nature and more as a superstition. The Catholic Church held onto it as a legitimate sacred rite, but most others just sort of let it fade into the past. As a result, exorcism stopped being a thing that most people bumped into in their daily life. And the idea that evil spirits might be infecting and afflicting a person

started to seem like a distant memory. But there were, of course, a few exceptions. In 1671, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had a devil of a problem on their hands. Quite literally, that was the year that the village of Groton experienced something, well, odd. Groton was, like a lot of the first settlements in New England, a Puritan town. It was strict and oppressive if you weren't a religious white man. Women worked horrible hours, taking care of everything from cooking and childcare to home repair and more. They were often illiterate

and treated like possessions more than partners or an equal. In contrast, the local preacher in town was a man named Samuel Willard. He was young, Harvard educated, well-off, and free to experience life. As a Puritan, though, he was known for his fiery sermons and his hard-line stance on witchcraft and devil worship. In fact, when Salem erupted in hysteria two decades later, Willard actually traveled there to help the community through his own personal brand of preaching. In October of 1671, the day before Halloween, in fact, the Willard's household servant, Elizabeth Knapp, began to complain about aches and pains.

She felt pressure around her neck, as if she were being strangled. She also suffered seizures, outbursts of screaming, and fits of deep sadness. And she saw things, too. She said there were people walking around the room. Except there weren't. And on another occasion, she said there was a man floating above her bed. Now, these might sound like odd things to say, but one of the common beliefs of the time was that witches, men and women who practiced the dark arts, could bilocate themselves,

literally be in two places at once. So, Elizabeth's real accusation was that someone in Groton was a witch. On the first Sabbath of her illness, Elizabeth's symptoms got worse, and all the while Samuel Willard sat by her taking notes, observing her with an open mind, and even asked questions when he was able. Once she fell on the floor so violently that she nearly rolled into the fireplace. Or maybe the evil spirit inside her tried to throw her in. It was hard to say at the time. She would shout out, too, words that were sometimes unintelligible and broken. Willard said that they were almost like the voices of another person projecting out of the

young woman's mouth, and sometimes they could be heard when her mouth was closed. On November 2, just three days after the events began, Willard started to get answers out of Elizabeth. She told the minister that she had been meeting with the devil for over three years, and that he had asked her to sign a book. It was full of what she called blood covenants, and had been signed by dozens, perhaps hundreds of other people already, and her mission was to destroy men like Samuel Willard. Her confessions came in bits and pieces over the next few days, but as they did, her seizures and fits increased with them.

She spoke of a man in a black robe and of sealing her pact with the devil in her own bed. She contorted and sometimes needed to be held down by three or four or even five grown men, and Willard watched it all, taking notes while he did. Then on November 28th, roughly a month after things began, Elizabeth had the biggest seizure of all, one that lasted over 48 hours before collapsing into a catatonic state. For ten days, she lay silent and unmoving. No fits, no screams, no dark confessions.

And then on December 8th, she awoke. On January 15th of 1672, Willard made some more observations, hinting that things had finally come to an end. It was his conclusion that her condition was no act, no trick or performance designed to fool him. It was real and powerful. Because, of course, a man like Willard couldn't be fooled, could he? He also concluded that the symptoms were nothing short of diabolical, originating from dark forces. Even the voices were rooted in the devil's influence. But with all of that said, Willard refused to admit that Elizabeth had

willingly brought it all upon herself with a pact. There were too many holes in her story, he said, too many inconsistencies, which meant, in 17th century language, that she was a victim and not a criminal. For those who are curious, Elizabeth pops up in the documentation one final time. Two years later, at the age of 19, she married a man named, and I'm not making this up, Samuel Scripture. After that, as far as the historical record is concerned, Elizabeth Knapp disappeared. He fit that description that people everywhere seemed to whisper after the fact. He was such a normal kid. And that was true for Roland for a long time.

Born in 1935 to a family with branches outside of Washington, D.C. in Maryland and St. Louis in Missouri, he had a lot of support and love. Like a lot of families that lived through the Great Depression, they had sort of compressed, with multiple generations all living under one roof. And others visited often, like Roland's Aunt Harriet. She was a bit different than the rest of them, though, because she was a spiritualist. Yes, that movement was pretty long in the tooth by the 1940s, but it still had followers. And when Harriet showed up in January of 1949, she came armed with a fun new demonstration for Roland, a Ouija board. Later that night, after putting the tool to use, something strange happened.

Both Roland and Harriet heard a dripping sound coming from somewhere in the house. After checking all the faucets and not finding the source, they entered Roland's grandmother's room and discovered the answer. The painting of Jesus above the woman's bed was shaking. What happened next was the stuff that you would usually expect. Mom and dad came home, noticed a scraping sound coming from behind the painting, and assumed they had an animal in their walls. But after an exterminator came and found no sign of any sort of critters, they were stumped.

And to make matters worse, the sounds kept returning night after night. Aunt Harriet returned home to St. Louis, and the noises continued. But finally, on January 26th, eleven days after they'd begun, they stopped. A date, by the way, with one other significant event. Aunt Harriet suddenly passed away. A lot happened after that, and very quickly. And all of it was focused on young Roland. He was already an awkward teen, but school became even more difficult when his desk began to

shake and move on its own. At home, his bed would tremble, and even at neighbors' houses he was unable to escape it. Some invisible force was following him. When objects began to fly off of shelves and tables around him, and Roland started to have fits and make weird angry animal sounds, his parents decided to get help. So they called in a local minister to see if he could assist them. But after a number of sessions spanning multiple locations, even he was stumped. In late February, long red scratches began to appear on Roland's body, as if carved by some invisible knife.

Scratches that looked a lot like letters. Desperate for help, his parents had the boy checked into a local hospital for evaluation by some invisible knife, scratches that looked a lot like letters. Desperate for help, his parents had the boy checked into a local hospital for evaluation and just generally to keep him safe. And from everything I can tell, he stayed there from February 27th until March 4th. That was when his parents decided to try a change of scenery. Packing everyone up, they took Roland to St. Louis, where they had more family. Maybe it was a way to see if the events were fake and somehow tied to their house, or perhaps they just needed

the reassuring feeling of being surrounded by family. Whatever their motivation, it was on that trip that things took a dark turn. The family there noticed how troubled and afflicted Roland was and called in for a pair of Jesuit priests, who studied the boy and realized very quickly that he needed a supernatural type of help. So after consulting with their archbishop and getting permission, they grabbed their copy of the ritual Romanum and got to work. Now don't think of this exorcism as a one-night thing. They might have started out hoping for that on March 16th of 1949,

but these priests ended up spending weeks with Roland. Each night they would pray, and the boy would writhe and thrash on the bed, growling like a wild animal and speaking with an inhuman voice. Objects in the room would fly around on their own, and when they tried to hold Roland down, it often took a number of full-grown men to do so. Every time one of the priests prayed out loud, the teen would scream as if being attacked, and if the reports are true, he was. Each prayer would be followed by more of those strange red scratches on his body, which seemed to take the form of letters. At times, Roland could only scream and growl, but he would also occasionally grow worryingly

calm and then taunt them with insults or sing songs at them to mock their efforts. One night during all of this, Roland managed to slip out of the bindings holding him down and then used a loose mattress spring to slash at the arm of one of the priests. It was an injury that required over a hundred stitches, but also a physical reminder of the danger they faced. Something dark and powerful was behind Roland's actions, and they needed to stop it. In mid-April, as Holy Week began in the lead-up to Easter Sunday, the priests became hopeful.

Perhaps their proximity to such an important part of the church calendar would grant them extra power to finally drive the demon away. And amazingly, that's what seems to have happened. The day after Easter, April 18th, was their final session with Roland, and the storm seemed to have finally passed. Since Monday at 11 p.m., one of the priests wrote in his notes, there have been no indications of the presence of the devil. It would be an understatement to say that a lot of cultures throughout history have been obsessed with demonic possession. Whether we're talking about ancient peoples in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East or religious

colonizers in the New World, this idea that we humans are at war with dark invisible forces has always been relevant. The threat of evil spirits has led to a huge amount of folklore and tradition, so much so that I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who's never heard of the concept, and that's what makes a word like exorcism so universal. For a very long time, that word offered a sense of hope. Eventually it transformed into a verbal boogeyman, frightening people by its mere presence. Today, though, that evolution has continued, with exorcisms even bleeding into popular entertainment.

But in the 1950s, it was a term that left Roland D'Eau feeling a mix of emotions. has continued, with exorcisms even bleeding into popular entertainment. But in the 1950s, it was a term that left Roland Dau feeling a mix of emotions. Relief, yes, and probably a bit of joy. But under all of that was a dark layer of shame. Even as he grew up and went through all the things that teenagers and college kids experience, that dark period from his life in 1949 lingered like a ghost in the corner. And his greatest fear of all? That others would find out about it. He worried that it would drive away friends or ostracize him from work colleagues.

And that last bit might have been his biggest risk, since after college, Roland managed to land a job at none other than NASA. Heck, during his career there from the early 60s until 2001, he worked on some major scientific achievements, like the Apollo missions and the moon landing of 1969. What would his rational, equation-driven co-workers think of that supernatural chapter from his youth? You can see why he hoped that it would never get out.

But of course, it did. Not at work, though. No, just a few months after his exorcism experience had ended, an article about it was published in the Washington Post, called, Priest Freeze Mount Rainier Boy, reported held in Devil's grip. Once in print, it would stick around forever. After all, as my research team loves to remind me, there is nothing like a good newspaper archive when it comes to finding stories, which is how a novelist stumbled upon it some years later. Throw in a dash of the leudon possessions in France, which we've covered here before,

and a few other elements of folklore, and soon enough he had the seed for a powerful book. The novel he would end up writing took the country by storm in 1971. It landed on the national bestseller list and quickly caught the attention of Hollywood. Two years later the film version arrived, further transforming our culture's relationship with demonic possession. And the name of the book, the film, and the franchise that came about because of Roland Doe's horrifying childhood experience? It was none other than The Exorcist. Possession stories have fascinated us for a very long time,

so I hope our brief dip into these unholy waters has given you a better understanding of the historical roots. But of course, because of that, this isn't a limited aspect of folklore, so we've tracked down one more story to tell you. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I'm going to be transparent and admit that sometimes it's all a bit too much. Here in the booth, I am waving my hands at the entire world around me.

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This episode was also sponsored by Mint Mobile. My favorite spring cleaning reward is that post clean clarity that you get. I always think, wow, how have I been living like this? It's kind of like when you find out that you've been paying a fortune for wireless, when Mint Mobile has phone plans for $15 a month when you purchase a three-month plan. Wow, how have I been affording this? It's time to switch to Mint Mobile and get unlimited talk, text, and data for $15 a month. Robin, one of our senior producers over here at Grim and Mild, set up her Mint Mobile account all by herself. And by skipping all of that in-store stuff,

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go to MintMobile.com slash Lore. That's MintMobile.com slash Lore. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at MintMobile.com slash Lore. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only, speed slower above 40 gigabyte on unlimited plan, additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. And finally, this episode was sponsored by Squarespace.

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also offer customers the option to buy now and pay later with Afterpay and Clearpay. And I still love their new asset library feature that lets me save all the necessary images for my site, like the cover art for all my shows, and then have them available across the Squarespace platform. So what are you waiting for? Build your new website today. Just visit squarespace.com slash lore to start your free trial website. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code Laura checkout to save 10%. Squarespace, build something beautiful. I mentioned a little while ago that exorcism followed Europeans into the New World. There was of course the 1634 New Mexico story of the friars holding mass over a sacred boulder to defeat what they perceived as paganism, but it wasn't the

only example of something like that. Over a century later, in June of 1763, another friar in that area came upon yet another holy rock. This man, Juan Jose Toledo, put on his full holy vestments, grabbed his crucifix and holy water, and then went to war on it. It was a pillar of some kind, and he managed to push it over, splitting it into many pieces. And then he dashed it all with holy water, exercised it, and that was that. The problem was solved. A month or so later, though, a local woman named Maria Trujillo started to experience some physical symptoms. She was pregnant, so not feeling well was

something she was already used to. But this was different. Odd bruises had shown up on her body, mostly on her right arm, extending down from the shoulder to the palm of her hand. That was the first sign. The second was less visible, but no less real. After delivering her baby safe and sound in late November, she slipped into a deep period of postpartum depression. But after two weeks of that, a massive headache arrived and her body seemed to begin fighting some horrible illness. And then, on December 14th, she was in the middle of prayer at home when she fainted.

When she awoke, her behavior frightened her husband so much that he went to the local priest for help, none other than our Father Toledo, the rock exorcist. And when he examined her, he immediately became the embodiment of that old adage, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Not long after that, another young woman in town, 18-year-old Francisca Barrella, began to have seizures and hear noises from invisible animals. She was taken to the local mission for help, and it was Father Toledo who came to her aid. In front of him, she angrily lashed out, while imitating the sounds of wild animals.

So Toledo sprinkled her with holy water and read passages from the Gospel of John, hoping to fight back. Francisca was so strong during these fits that she would need to be tied water, and read passages from the Gospel of John, hoping to fight back. Francisca was so strong during these fits that she would need to be tied down, and sometimes even held down by others in the mission. And her symptoms hinted at something darker going on behind the scenes. For example, the mere sight of Toledo's Bible would send her into a raging fit. Soon enough, a total of five women were all experiencing similar things. Fearing the evil machinations of some unknown local sorcerer, Toledo began to hold frequent masses

and reading the Bible out loud almost constantly. And every time he did this, many of the women would convulse with seizures. Now, this was almost a century after the Salem witch trials, and it came on the tail end of hundreds of years of panic throughout Europe over evil spirits. So it would have been easy enough for Father Toledo to drum up an appropriate amount of public fear and then guide his community toward an inevitable witch trial. But he didn't do that. Instead, he issued a blanket, community-wide edict of grace, essentially opening the church up for no strings, confessions, and forgiveness.

And after that, things in town seemed to calm down a bit, even if a few of the exorcisms he had performed didn't seem to have been completely effective. In February, the governor of New Mexico created a council to look into the matters, and everyone involved walked away absolutely certain that the demonic possessions had been real. But rather than drop the hammer on everyone afflicted, grace was extended, and thankfully crisis was averted. It's hard to look back on an episode like this and not see a mix of postpartum depression and some poorly timed public expressions of mental and physical health issues.

Or maybe, as some historians have proposed, it was an outward sign of an indigenous people group chafing under colonial rule and the changes these new leaders demanded. What the real motivations and causes were, we will probably never know. But we can be thankful that it was all handled without the loss of life or a wider panic from neighboring communities. Possession, after all, often acted like an infectious disease. And nothing spreads faster than superstition. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Ali Stead and music by Chad Lawson. Don't like hearing the ads? We've got a solution for you.

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