RedHanded - Episode 318 - The 67 Exorcisms of Anneliese Michel

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

With fractured knees and savage bruises – weighing just thirty kilos – 23-year-old Anneliese Michel died in 1976 under some of the strangest circumstances imaginable. But despite looking like she’d been held and tortured against her will, she consented to all sixty-seven of the exorcisms she was subjected to.Why?Because Anneliese, her parents, and two-priests all believed she’d been possessed by a demon, and had become the mouthpiece of Adolf Hitler, Judas Iscariot, and even Lucifer himselfFollow us on social media:InstagramTwitterVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello.

Hello. Look who's talking. It's two smug bitches is what it is. Guys, you did it. You did it. You did it. You did it. I honestly, I cannot believe it.

We won the Listener's Choice at the British Podcast Awards last week here in London. And we, I'm blown away. Yeah. Blown away. The competition was the stiffest it has ever been. Honestly, they've got a lot of fucking followers on Instagram. Like I would say, if you look at their individual followings, it's in the fucking millions.

I think one of them, they said at the award show, because they won something else, that they have 30 million followers on social media. And so Hannah and I didn't even really want to enter when we saw who else was entering. I'll be honest, Wondery plus our agents plus you guys persuaded us to. I felt like we were going to lose. We weren't even planning to go to the awards. And then we fucking won. We won. How? How is it possible? Which is all everybody kept asking me at the awards. How did you win? Well, I think what we've learned is that you can have millions of followers on social media,

but when it comes to podcasting, you can't fuck with us. That's what makes me so happy is that it's about not how many followers you have, but about how engaged your audience is. And this is the first time that people have been like shocked in the past it was kind of like yeah okay red-handed one like whatever and this year people were like how yeah because huge names were gunning for it oh and publicly gunning for it so therefore everybody knew what a huge huge huge huge deal it was and we were at the awards we kind of knew because they did call us a few days before and say are you guys definitely coming you should be coming and we were like no fucking way and then that's when i was like okay i actually need a dress to wear to this and then we got there and we hadn't told the team and the man who um

was announcing the award opened the envelope and he's like and the winner is for the third year and then i didn't hear anything else because i just started screaming and um there was a palpable sense of shock in the room i think yes i think so you could have like picked some jaws up off the floor so thank you guys so much you don't understand it's not just about the fact that we want what it will do is it made everybody in that room the great and the good and the bad and the ugly of podcasting here in britain be like oh shit what's red-handed and they're gonna pay attention to us and that just means that we're gonna be able to make so much more exciting content for you guys we're gonna get so much more opportunities the spooky bitch community is gonna continue to grow it's just also validation more so not for us but for

the team you guys might not know but thanks to you guys listening thanks to our patrons thanks to everybody we now have a team of four other people who work for us, who all work incredibly hard. And I think for them to get that recognition as well, it just means the world. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You'll never know how much it means to us. And now you can listen to this episode. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome.

The time is now, the time is here. Our favourite time of year is upon us. Happy October. Boo. Boo. Boo in the... Boo? Not in the boo. Oh, right, right, right.

I was saying boo-erns. Oh, my God. I was thinking about The Simpsons this morning, actually. I haven't watched it for ages. Well, you are missing out. I know. I haven't, but it doesn't matter, because I remember everything. See my vest.

See my vest. None of that has anything to do with anything. Made of real gorilla chest. That is scary. Like my loafers for my gophers. That's all I know. Excellent. Well, good.

I don't mean to interrupt the creative process. But Hannah, we are here. We are both tired. Varying levels of hungover. Yep. Not feeling tip top form. I was feeling very bad hungover. Yep. Not feeling tip-top form. I was feeling very bad this morning. Yep.

But I have since been reborn. And because I got beaten up by a Thai lady for two hours, which helped. But I also kept falling asleep and waking myself up with my own snoring. Oh. That was nice. Nice. But Mabel is in daycare. Oh.

She got picked up about quarter past eight this morning. Beautiful. I looked rough as shit. So yeah, she's splashing around in a field somewhere. And I hope you are too, dear listener. But probably not because it's October and probably quite cold where you are. Yes, probably. But it is here.

It is the time. It is the season. It is our favourite month here at Red Handed Headquarters. It is October. This is the first episode of spooky month spook month spook month i wish there was a better i know let's work on it we should have worked on it yeah we kept pulling it right night tune in next week then alton towers is gonna sue us anyway you don't care what we call. You just care that today we've got a pretty fucking horrible episode for you.

We certainly do. And it is very, very, very of the utmost importance to let you know that everything you are about to hear actually happened. It might sound like something from a horror film, but it is all true. A young woman called Annaliese Michel, you've probably been saying Michael your whole life like I have, but never mind, we're moving on, we're growth, it's growth mentality. Anneliese Michel from Bavaria, Germany, was subjected to 67 exorcisms. And Anneliese really did speak to priests, saying that she was the mouthpiece of Judas Iscariot,

Hitler, and even Satan himself. A lot of the information that we've used to write this case up for you comes from the notes of a real priest called John M. Duffy. Duffy wrote kind of like an incident report on the Annelies Michel case, and it's called Lessons Learned, colon, The Annelies Michel Exorcism, The Implementation of a Safe and Thorough Examination, Determination, and exorcism. The implementation of a safe and thorough examination, determination and exorcism of demonic possession. Thorough. And whatever you believe was really going on with Anneliese, whether it was an unsettled mind or in fact a swarm of demonic hosts,

there's no escaping the horror that befell this poor 23 yearyear-old woman. Anneliese Michel was born on the 21st of September 1952 in Leibflig, Bavaria, in post-war Germany. Not the best time to be a German, really, is it? No, no, no, no. Her parents, Anna and Joseph, like most Bavarians at the time, were strict Roman Catholics. As we've talked about before, most of Germany after the war was in a state of serious flux. And that's probably putting it quite mildly. Yeah, that's one way to put it. In the climb down from the reign of fascism. Yeah, shunned from the rest of the world, basically.

Yes, quite. And also the guilt associated with the Nazi death camps. Most of Germany was trying very hard to find itself an ultra-pious new identity. Most houses had crucifixes in every single room, most families went to church on Sunday, and most lived a very conservative life, whilst also pushing violently against any talk of National Socialism or the far right. Anneliese's father, Joseph, had fought for Germany in the war,

just ten years before she was born. He was posted on the Eastern Front fighting the USSR in what has widely been recognised as some of the most horrific conditions of World War II. And why's that? Well, we don't have time to go full Mark Corrigan for you, but we will give you a very brief explanation of the Eastern Front. Hitler wanted the USSR, or at least the bit that was nearest to Germany, to kickstart his campaign of world domination. He started with Poland. That was his next step. Hitler attempted to invade beyond the

Iron Curtain in September 1941, but it very quickly became clear that Germany had bitten off a little bit more than they could chew. A little bit more, or a... A lottle bit more, yeah. Yes, quite. So the fighting, which had been expected to be over fairly quickly, actually continued well into the winter, something that the German army were not prepared for at all. Once again, putting it very mildly, it's a big, fat, freezing fucking yikes coming.

German soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front were wildly underprepared. And the Russians had learned a lot since World War I, and they were not. On top of this, even by Russian standards, that winter was particularly grim. Reaching temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but it's fucking cold. Oh, do you know? I know. Do you?

I looked this up. I'm only excited because the answer is exciting. Okay. Well, kind of exciting. I'm a bit delirious right now. Obviously, Celsius and Fahrenheit, different numbers for the same temperature. Yes. Right.

Classically. Famously. There is only one point that both of those charts intersect and have the same temperature and it is minus 40 degrees that's cool as shit isn't that fucking cool as shit yeah yeah so i love that minus 40 degrees celsius is also minus 40 degrees fahrenheit then i will eat my words please nom nom nom delicious so the german troops hadn't even been given hats, coats or gloves. And their vehicles and weapons, obviously, given how bloody cold it was, seized up almost immediately. It's also exactly what happened to the Russians in World War I.

Yeah, that's why they know better. They're like, hats for everybody. I can't do a German. I can't do a Russian accent. Do one. Oh, God. Pink Anastasia. Oh, no.

So I have to do an impression of my friend's mom who was russian and when she was talking about they speak russian at home and i was talking to her about she's incredibly glamorous russian woman never smiles and she was like katya yes russians is very good but ninka ninka makes mistakes okay hats. Hats for everyone. I can't do it. Terrible. Hats. Hats for everyone. Hats for everyone.

Whatever. So yes, it was absolute hell on earth, particularly for the Germans. So Joseph, Anneliese's father, would have seen some of the most tragic sights imaginable, as his fellow comrades slowly lost fingers, toes, and even whole limbs to frostbite. All the while, they lived under the constant threat of being attacked, and were completely unable to protect themselves. In other words, once again, in a massive understatement, Joseph Michel had a pretty hard war. So it's not entirely surprising that Joseph was a little distant

with his daughter Anneliese and her siblings. And Anneliese's mother, Anna, while she didn't have to go out and fight, things for her hadn't been easy either. Growing up in a fairly Jewish area, it's likely that Anna would have seen around half of her local community rounded up and taken away to camps during the war,

many of whom would never return. So, overall, the mood in the house was a tense one. The ghosts of the war stayed with Joseph and Anna, and although they loved their children, they were angry, reserved and damaged from the war, which I think describes that entire generation. So, Annalise, as a result, had a a strict isolated and very restricted upbringing. She wasn't allowed to have any close friends let alone socialize with boys. Anneliese and her siblings

would also often have to do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting when it came to their mother who was incredibly neurotic. And soon like with a lot of families a dynamic quickly developed in which Anneliese would often put her own emotional well-being aside to pacify her mother. On top of this, when things did go wrong and it was time for the children to receive a telling off, religious objects and the wrath of God were always a part of the punishment. Uh-oh. Yeah, it's not a recipe for very stable people, is it? No. Age 12, Annalise was sent off to high school. And it was there that she got her first taste of freedom. She was a dedicated student and started to excel.

She enjoyed the long train journey from her small town. And she absolutely loved, at school, the athletics classes. And she even started to make a few friends. So for the next few years, things trundled on okay. But it wasn't her last. Age 16, Annalise experienced the first of several strange incidents. Suddenly, in the middle of class one day, Annalise blacked out. Her friends say that she entered a trance-like state,

becoming unresponsive and not reacting to their voices, or even their physical efforts to bring her back around. Annalise was taken home and sent to bed to sleep it off, which is just like the most like olden timey. Yeah, right. Have a wet paper towel and go lie down. But when Annalise woke up, she felt something heavy pressing down on her chest. She couldn't move, and she ended up wetting the bed in fear. This experience naturally scared Annalise, as it did her parents and classmates. But after a few more months, with no more incidents, it seemed like maybe it had just been a one-off.

So everyone just chalked it up to one of those weird things that happens to teenagers and Annalise cracked on with school. I'm Jake Warren and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story

that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come.

This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. A year later, though, in August 1969, it happened again. Once again, Anneliese was in the middle of class when she blacked out. Again, she was sent home, and again she woke up in the night paralysed and ended up wetting the bed again. Anneliese and her family were now scared that these incidents could be a sign of something more dangerous.

So Anneliese was taken to the family doctor, who's called Dr Vogt. He sounds like something off, like, Futurama. Half lobster, half doctor. Dr Vogt sat and listened as Annelies described the two blackouts that she had experienced in as much detail as she could remember, much to the embarrassment of her mum. But Dr Vogt was unfazed. He took Anneliese's story very seriously and recommended that she visit a neurologist in the nearest big town.

So we're starting off, biomedical model, we're in the right spot. And at first you might be a bit confused as to why Anneliese's mother would be so against her daughter going to see this doctor and why she was, as Hannah said, embarrassed when Anneliese is telling Dr. Wacht what's been going on with her. So let me give you a little bit of context. Anneliese's mother had lived her formative years in the rise of Nazi Germany. The secret police were genuinely listening to every single conversation everyone was having. And they're also just driving vans around and bundling children in the back of them.

Yeah. So one foot wrong, one hint that you might be different or undesirable, and your family might never see you again. And this is why Anna was so obsessed with her family not breaking the mould. You have to understand, Anna's neurotic behavior and her fear that Anna-Lise going to these doctors and that information getting leaked was not unfounded. It developed through survival. So it's hardly surprising that Anna told Anna-Lise she could only go to the doctor if she swore never ever ever to tell any of her friends or more importantly any of their neighbors. And I think that's it we have to understand that anna and joseph lived their lives through a time where one wrong word one misstep

and the stars are at your fucking door absolutely so annalise also understood this and so she agreed to her mom's terms and together they went off to neurologist Dr Sigrid Lutie. Lutie again took Anneliese's claims very seriously and ran a whole host of physical tests and examinations but they all came back negative and when he sent Anneliese off for an EEG scan of her brain it came back with absolutely nothing of note. So Annalise was just sent back to school. However, it wasn't long before she was struggling again. Annalise contracted a whole host of nasty late 1960s diseases. Like pleurisy. Is that a lung thing I meant to look at?

Pleurisy, yeah. Pleurisy. I think it's like a water in the lung thing, isn't it? Yes, inflammation of the sheet-like layers that cover the lungs. Yeah, smashed it pneumonia and the most famous of all tuberculosis my granddad had tuberculosis my granddad had tuberculosis had to go and live on a farm and he made stools oh yeah my granddad had tuberculosis and my other granddad had typhoid oh there you go did you have to have the bcg then i had the bcg

when i was born oh so I never had it in school. Right. I was talking to the team about it yesterday, randomly, and they were like, what's the BCG? Yeah, they don't do it anymore. Oh, fuck, we're old. Yeah, I know. I was like, what do you mean, what's the BCG? Yeah, my brother hasn't had it. I think my sister did.

Yeah. Or maybe she didn't. Anyway, so they don't do it anymore. I remember when I lived in Costa Rica, I used to live with this guy whose son was in panic at the disco and i thought it was so cool and i had got into an argument about i can't remember we're talking about it we were talking about tb and i was like but there's a vaccine and he was like no there isn't i was like yes there is i've had it and they were like he was this is like he's like in his 60s and he was in costa rica to gamble it's like a professional poker player so a lot of americans go down there because the

restrictions are much more lax. There's a whole Leonardo DiCaprio film about it. And he was so insistent that there was no vaccine for TB. And I was like, you can also just take antibiotics. And I was like, look, this scar on my arm, I promise, is from the BCG, which is the vaccine. He was like, no, it isn't. I was like, OK, well, you win, Bruce.

I haven't got a clue. And I don't know how I don't have a big scar on my arm from BCG, which is the vaccine. He was like, no, it isn't. I was like, okay, well, you win, Bruce. I haven't got a clue. And I don't know how I don't have a big scar on my arm from BCG. My mum and dad have both got a big scar from having BCG. But I don't have anything. Anyway, so Annalise is very not well at all and her health deteriorated quite rapidly. Her condition was so severe that she ended up taking an entire year off school.

So by February 1970, she was really, really poorly and was moved to a hospital away from her hometown, which specialised in children with lung diseases. But her health stayed so precarious that after just a month, she was transferred once more, this time to an even further away hospital and an even more specialised clinic. And there, Anneliese got quite depressed. She felt like life was whizzing past without her. And what's more, other children in the unit were incredibly cruel and they bullied her. Even in this ultra-specialised environment for seriously ill children, Anneliese was still an outcast.

And her relationship with the other children on the ward wasn't helped when on the 3rd of June 1970, Annalise woke up the entire ward with a blood-curdling scream. That will do it. That will make things much worse for you. But also in a children's hospital, I feel like that's a reasonably often thing that happens. Often? Frequent. Learn English. But let's talk about exactly what happened. Because Annalise had woken up in the night unable to move.

And once again, she'd wet the bed in terror. So after this incident, rumours quickly started to spread. The children who had seen Annalise wake up that night said that she had had a violent expression on her face as she screamed. And they also claimed that she'd stuck her arms and hands out rigidly like a zombie during her meltdown. And within a few days, Annalise was being called a freak. And soon, the word around the ward

was that Annalise Michelle wasn't just a freak, but she was possessed by the devil. And as if that wasn't all strange enough, soon another strange occurrence happened to Anneliese. Only this time, it seemed to be a little bit more positive. While saying the rosary one day, Anneliese was hit by the most beautiful smell she'd ever encountered. And Anneliese reported being flooded with an incredible feeling of ecstasy and euphoria.

But she was quickly dragged away from this beautiful experience by some of the other patients who'd begun shaking her. Apparently, Anneliese had gone into yet another trance, and they wanted to snap her out of it. But snap out of it she would not, and Anneliese became obsessed with what she'd felt that day while saying the rosary. Anneliese became obsessed with what she'd felt that day whilst saying the rosary. Anneliese quickly began saying the rosary more and more often in the hope that those blissful feelings would return. Meanwhile the clinic were becoming more and more concerned

and so Anneliese was sent off to yet another specialist, this time a doctor called Dr. Von Huller who ran another EEG scan on Anneliese's brain. This time he did pick up some irregular brain waves, and so now Anneliese was put on anti-seizure medication. And this medication did, at least for a while, appear to work. But try as Anneliese might, she just couldn't recapture the rosary magic. Still though, it doesn't mean she was symptom-free. Anneliese started reporting seeing bright flashing lights at night and later on she reported seeing a grimacing face looming over her in the dark. Incredibly at this point, despite telling the clinic and her family about these

incidents, Annalise was discharged and sent home. This was despite the fact that medical professionals at the clinic had told her family they thought her intense experiences may have been the result of temporal lobe epilepsy, a condition that can cause hallucinations. But since her lung issues had cleared up, and that was what had caused her to go to the specialist unit in the first place, they decided she was cleared to go okay so they're like you're just here for that lung issue we know you've still been freaking out and having meltdowns and wetting the bed and seeing things and hearing things but we only do lungs here we're very we're ultra specialized you're gonna have to see somebody else about that so annalee's went back to leapfling

and actually enrolled in college to study to become a teacher, something which her mum thought would be good for her. However, we are jumping ahead a little bit there. Let's stick with when the Michelle family first brought Anneliese home. Immediately, her parents noted a massive change in their daughter's personality. Gone was their sweet, placid and good-natured child. Instead, Anneliese was quick to anger, and she was a depressed young woman. This was a change that was also noted at the local church, where Anneliese had become distinctly less involved. In fact, she now seemed downright resentful of the church, and anything remotely religious. And much to the dismay of her parents, Anneliese also very quickly began to experience blackouts again.

The sleep paralysis came back, and so did the bedwetting. Things only got worse when Anneliese started college. The stress of being back in a classroom increased these incidents significantly. It was also around this time that Anneliese's mother was approached by a family friend and a fellow churchgoer. This friend, just like the literal children in the sick children hospital ward, was concerned that Annalise was possessed by a demon. Are you fucking serious?

Can you imagine someone just coming up to you at the school gates being like, have you considered demonic possession? This is the 70s. This is happening in the 70s. Can I just remind everybody of that fact? I think that because the really famous picture of Annalise is black and white, everyone thinks it happened so much earlier. No. This is happening in the 70s.

Like, this is ridiculous. This person's just like, have you considered? Have you ever considered that maybe you're possessed by a demon? Jesus. Now, this incident marked a significant turning point for Annalise. She had become increasingly frustrated with her constant visits to the doctor and the lack of any real progress, which is completely understandable. This poor young woman is trying to cope with life,

going to doctor after doctor, everyone she can. You know, they're not shirking away from that. They're going everywhere the medical professionals tell them. They're doing all the tests. And yet nobody is able to give her an answer as to why she is so terrified and these scary incidents keep happening to her so of course she's frustrated and also by this point annelise was on a cocktail of medications all of which were having absolutely no positive effect but still heaping on myriad of side effects so imagine it's just like all

of the shit stuff but you're still feeling crazy and after yet another eeg came back with no clear answer things for annalee started to change both she and her mother anna now became convinced that maybe she was indeed possessed by the devil. And also, this wasn't an opinion that they kept to themselves. So Anna really does quite a turnabout. She goes from not wanting anyone to think that Annalise is going to a quote-unquote nerve doctor to now being quite open with regards to her daughter's supposed demonic possession. And on the 3rd of September 1973, Anneliese expressly told her doctor that Satan was inside of her and that the fire of judgment would soon come down

upon everyone. And it was at this point that her family doctor noted that Anneliese could no longer be trusted to look after herself. It's also now that a new character enters our frightening tale. Father Ernst Alt. Alt was a Roman Catholic priest who, according to nobody except himself, could use his telepathic abilities to see whether someone was possessed or just mentally ill.

Oh, what a relief. Get Alt on the phone. And that's very convenient because that's exactly what Anneliese and her family were very keen to find out. What was significantly less convenient was that, according to Father Alt, Anneliese was very much possessed. However, as much as Alt was interested in Anneliese, his services were in high demand. He was a very busy priest.

He couldn't devote his full attention to the demon girl from Bavaria. Although he would pop up sporadically over the next few years, checking in to see how she was doing. I'm like, what's going on? You're saying she's definitely, definitely, definitely got a demon inside of her. Yeah, can't help though. But you're like, soz love. Yeah.

I'm real busy. I've got so many masses to say. Chock-a-block. So many babies to exercise demons from. But I'll pop back every now and then just to make sure you, you know, haven't brought the fucking second coming or whatever the fuck. I don't know enough about this. Brought the apocalypse.

Just, you know, be good till then. And so in Father Alt's absence, Anneliese and her family sought counsel from their local priest, who was called Father Herman. Herman was probably a little bit more like what Anneliese really needed. He didn't believe that the young woman, who was now 20, was possessed, but he did think that she was troubled, so he would regularly spend time just listening to her talk, telling him what was bothering her. They would talk about her life,

and then they would pray together. Anneliese would tell Father Herman things like, I can't cope with reality. And Father Herman would do his very best to give her helpful guidance, which is a priest's job. Father Herman is the best person in this story. Poor Father Herman. He tries. Yeah, he does try. And he's not perfect by any means, but he was giving Annelies what she desperately needed, which was stable, genuine care. During this time, Annelies did seem to settle into life as a trainee teacher. And for a brief period, she actually managed to get her life back on track. She made friends, enjoyed college, and even got a boyfriend called Peter.

But, as you might have guessed, the good times didn't last. By the end of 1974, things had started to go south once again. Annalise's hallucinations became more frequent, and she started to suffer from violent mood swings. These mood swings were so severe that Annalise's friends and family said it was like she had become a different person. Then, in May 1975, Anneliese, who was now 22 years old, received the devastating news that her grandmother had died. And things went from bad to worse. By 1975, Anneliese was being visited more frequently by the supposedly psychic father alt

and his new sidekick father arnold renz both priests started to spend more and more time with the troubled young girl and the more time they spent with her the more fascinating she became to them the once pious god-fearing annelise now became increasingly obsessed with the concept of evil demons and the devil himself. Which makes sense, because she had been totally convinced, for quite some time now, that she was possessed by a demon. In fact, not just one, fucking loads of them. Names like Cain, Nero, Hitler, Judas, and even Lucifer began to tumble from the young woman's lips whenever she spoke about her possession. And eventually it was decided that things had gone too far.

Father Alt came to the conclusion that it was well within his priestly duties to perform an exorcism. And a decision like this cannot be taken lightly. After all, an exorcism is a complex operation and so Alt had to go to his superiors first. First, Alt hit up Bishop Stangle, his religious line manager, to ask for permission. Like, I understand that, like, obviously, like, dioceses need to be organized and there needs to be a hierarchy, but I find it so funny that, like, priests have, like, a boss. Yeah. He's like, um, I don't't know have you submitted this request in writing i really don't think that we can you know move

forward on this until the legal team have had a look but none of that was actually going to be red tape standing in alt's way because once he described analisa's symptoms to bishop stangle that was enough for stangle with with no second opinion, to give Alt verbal permission to conduct a small exorcism. Just a baby one. He's like, look, budgets are mad this year. You can do a small one and nothing more. This was step one. Alt was not yet allowed to conduct the much more drastic full exorcism, let alone the Hollywood-style great exorcism that you all might be imagining. We'll get to that later.

Regardless, this was enough for Father Alt to be getting on with. So he, with the help of his sidekick, Father Renz, conducted a low-key exorcism, which, according to Alt, seemed to make some improvement. For a time, Annalise seemed to be feeling a lot better. Her mood improved. She was talking about Hitler less, and things started to look up. Still, Father Alt wrote to Bishop Joseph Stangle to say that while things had improved post-exorcism, he was still worried about, quote, further demonic molestations.

Horrible word. It is a horrible word. I hate the word molest. Molestations is even worse. And also, yeah, like, again, just for context, this is happening in the 70s. Not ideal to be living in Germany and your daughter is just like constantly talking about Hitler. And like how he's living inside her or whatever. Yeah. And based on the lingering concerns that there was still something demon-y going on, Bishop Strangle gave his written permission for Father Alt to perform a full exorcism.

And so, on the 24th of September 1975, children, Father Alt did just that. And it really was all downhill from there. Unfortunately, this began a cycle of short-term gain and long-term loss. With the second full-fat exorcism, temporarily Anneliese began to feel a lot better afterwards. But then, just as quickly, she deteriorated once more, nose-diving to a point lower than where she had started. But this state was rectified by a third, more convoluted exorcism, which again brought temporary relief before Anneliese spiralled once more. Because of the secrecy surrounding Anneliese from her curtain-twitching mother, plus the fiery beliefs of the two mental priests in charge of the proceedings, we don't know that much about what these exorcisms actually entailed. However, because all of this happened in the 70s, we do have tape recordings,

which you have probably heard of. Now, we're not actually going to play you the full one hour and 26 minutes of recorded audio that is out there. If you really want to get it and you really want to listen to the whole thing, it's on YouTube on youtube knock yourself out we're not going to play it here because a it is far too long and b it's all in german so yeah go terrify yourself in your own time if you would like to here we are just going to listen to a small snippet to get a vibe for what we're talking about Im Namen des Vaters, des Sohnes und des Heiligen Geistes. Amen. Nicht die Hand schalten, das heißt es. Ja, ja, aber das glaubt gar niemand. Wir können es denn nicht sehen.

Alle mal. Sage die ganze Wahrheit, sage noch mehr. Im Namen des Vaters, des Sohnes und des Heiligen Geistes. Amen. So langt es noch nicht an, neorcisms, at least by the end, were about as Hollywood as you can imagine. The recordings mostly showed Father Alt and Father Renz reciting biblical verses, and Annalise rasping back to them in a harsh, gravelly voice. Remember, when this is being made, she's a 23-year-old woman. She was still claiming to be channeling the spirit of Hitler and Satan himself. So of course, as you

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Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favourite podcasts. In fact, the real nail in the coffin came when Annalise claimed to have been possessed by a long-dead, disgraced local priest called Father Fleichmann. Fleichmann's name was infamous in the area for having beaten a man to death in a drunken rage.

But Father Ault was sure that Annaliese could not have known about that incident. How? I mean, it's literally an infamous event that happened in the local area. But he's like, there's no way she could know this. Yeah, so he decides that there's no possible way that Anneliese would have heard about this very talked about incident in the small town in which she lives. Yeah, it's not like she's suddenly speaking in Aramaic. Like she's literally just telling them something that happened which she lives. Yeah, it's not like she's suddenly speaking in Aramaic. Like, she's literally just telling them something that happened in that town.

Yeah. But fuck that, Father Alt decided that this was irrefutable proof that Anneliese was in fact possessed. And so, the exorcisms continued regularly for the next ten months. During that time, Anneliese received a horrifying 67

exorcisms. And they took their toll. Between September 1975 and July 1976, Annalise lost over half of her body weight. She was 31 kilos at her lowest, which is about 4.8 stone. That is like a six-year-old, maybe. I don't think I was born 4.8 stone. I haven't got a clue. It's absolutely horrific. And anybody who's ever even come across this case,

you will have already seen the pictures that Hannah alluded to earlier, the black and white ones of Annalise. She's in bed. She's incredibly emaciated. It's horrific. It's absolutely nightmarish. And let's, you know, a reminder for everybody. Anneliese Michel was 23 years old. Her eyes sunken, her face was gaunt, her limbs wasted away. And this shocking weight loss, because shocking it is, is the subject of some debate. Anneliese's parents and the two priests insisted that Anneliese herself refused to eat. However, others have suggested that the family and the priests may have been following a passage of the Roman Ritual,

which is basically a book of Catholic paperwork, which suggests that some demons have to be starved out. Now, regardless of why Anneliese was starving, the important thing to know here is that she was never taken to a medical professional. And so, inevitably, her condition only got worse. She continued to deteriorate, and on the 1st of July 1976, Anneliese Michel died aged just 23 years old. Not only did she weigh just 30 kilos, she also had bruises and cuts all over her wrists, as well as fractured knees from repeatedly kneeling in prayer as part of her many exorcisms. It's unbelievable.

They tortured this girl to death. Now, obviously, just again, a reminder, we are in 1976, not the Middle Ages. So Annalise's death immediately led to a police investigation. And again, although this only happened in 1976, the details about this investigation are actually quite hard to find. What we do know is that during the police interrogation father alt claimed that the marks and bruises found on analise's body were the result not of him tying her up or you know any of the other various things like starving her and therefore causing incredible malnutrition etc no no no they were a result of the stigmata. Cool.

Now, if you don't know what that means, in other words, basically saying that those wounds on Anneliese's wrists and hands correspond to the wounds found on Christ after the crucifixion. Therefore, he said, they were a spiritual phenomenon and definitely not the result of any wrongdoing on his part. According to him, they absolutely weren't because Anneliese had been physically restrained for days weeks months after an autopsy annelise's death was ruled as the result of malnutrition and dehydration and annelise's parents anna and joseph as well as father alt and his sidekick father

were all charged with negligent homicide this is a side sidebar. Mm. But I went to go watch, because we were meant to go watch together. Oh, yeah. And then sadly, you couldn't because doggy daycare situations. Went to go watch Dr. Samuel Weiss in the Harold Pinter Theatre in London. It was really, really good.

If you can, when you're listening to this, it might already be over. If you can go watch it, get tickets, go watch it. It was so good. And I did think I knew this before, but I forgot and I was still like, oh, that's so interesting, is what autopsy tickets. Go watch it. It was so good. And I did think I knew this before, but I forgot. And I was like, still like, oh, that's so interesting. Is what autopsy means. Oh, fun.

To see for oneself. Interesting. Yes. So it's basically the idea of don't take someone's word for how someone died. The autopsy is to see for oneself how the death occurred. So I thought that was interesting. That's very interesting. So, as a result of this autopsy, there is a negligent homicide charge

and the court case began two years after Annelies died and naturally became a media sensation. And with clips like this being showed inside the courtroom, it is not difficult to see why. So, yeah, as you just heard, more of the same, just harrowing stuff. And it was the first time in German legal history that the prosecution had to make the case against the concept of demonic possession. The prosecution argued that a combination of epilepsy and a strict religious upbringing had caused Anneliese to appear possessed, but in reality she was just really, really unwell.

They also argued that anyone with a modicum of common sense could have seen that Anneliese was deteriorating and that whatever they were trying to do clearly was not working. Even if everyone did truly believe that Anneliese was possessed, the fact that she was dangerously underweight should have been enough for somebody to call in medical help and i agree yeah i'm all for for all and drama and all of that but i'm i'm not even going to remotely stand in this at all no the defense on the other hand went with a two-pronged attack firstly the two priests tried to argue that Anneliese had legitimately been possessed, and therefore their religious aid was the only productive thing for her well-being. They pointed to the various voices which had spoken to them through Anneliese, including, according to them, the Führer himself, and of course the disgraced local priest.

And they said that this was all undeniable proof of demonic forces. The defence also cited Anneliese's right to refuse other treatment. She had after all, without a doubt, verbally consented to every exorcism performed on her. But it is important to remember that while Anneliese was cognizant and willing to go along with all of this mayhem, the prosecution just had to point to the doctor, who three years previously had said that Anneliese was not fit to make her own decisions,

and that she needed other people to look after her best interests. Eventually, after a long and confusing and bizarrely harrowing trial, both Anneliese's parents and both of the priests were convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to just six short months in prison. That's nuts. Even more strangely, this was eventually reduced to just three months probation. So what in the cinnamon toast fuck has happened here? At first glance, it feels like the buck really stops with Joseph and Anna, Anneliese's parents.

How on earth could they watch their daughter starve to death in front of them without contacting any kind of medical professional? Well, there isn't an excuse. We're not even going to try. But why don't we look at some context instead? Firstly, like we said at the top of the show, Joseph was notoriously emotionally absent with all of his children. And despite wanting to be caring, he really struggled to be present in their upbringing. And on top of this, he'd undoubtedly seen some absolute horrors during his time on the Eastern Front,

including watching the men around him freeze and starve to death. So is it possible that Joseph had just become desensitised and that the sight of his starving, emaciated, dying daughter didn't make him seek alternative action? Anna, on the other hand, was incredibly present. But if you remember, she was also super neurotic. And as we discussed earlier, the children often did the emotional labor in this family. Anna didn't want to believe that her daughter was mentally ill. We already know that from her first trip to the doctor. I think it's safe to say that Anna would much rather have believed that Anneliese was possessed than she was mentally ill. Anna was also

incredibly religious and would have seen Father Ault and Father Renz as equal, if not better, perhaps, than medical professionals. And also, we have to remember that they hadn't gone to Father Alt and Father Renz first. The Michels had spent years taking Annelies to various doctors all over the country, and none of them had found an answer or cured their daughter. And finally, this brings us on to Alt and Renz. What on earth were they doing? And why? Well, it's safe to say that Renz was definitely more of a follower.

It was absolutely Ernst Alt who really drove this nonsense forward. And in the years since Anneliese's death, it's very much been suggested that Ernst himself was pretty mentally unwell. Firstly, remember, he thought he was telepathic. He also previously told people that he could literally hear the voice of god talking to him in his head a point yes every priest says that the telepathic thing fine but the voice of god especially in the roman catholic church is very very present so like to when you're um when you decide to become a priest or a nun or a monk, the moment is very much the voice of God speaking to you.

Oh, interesting. So that's very accepted. Oh, so the whole thing of like, you can speak to God, but if he speaks back, you're crazy. That's not for the Roman Catholics. Not for the Catholics, no. I see. I see. Chatting all the time. But voice of God, normal or not, it is widely recorded that the clergy did see ernst alt as

a bit of an oddball so it suggested that this whole situation could have been a bit of a folia jur or a folia sank with annalise michelle ernst alt joseph anna and rens all sharing this group delusion and encouraging progressively more intense behaviour. And on top of all of that, for the bajillionth time, this is 1976. And we know for a fact that Ernst Alt had watched William Friedkin's The Exorcist and he had read the original book. Excellent book. If you're stuck on something to read this October, go read William maybe william

peter blatty's the exorcist i've started listening to the secret history of the world which is basically how mysticism never went away it just became the secret societies but once i'm done with that maybe i'll start with the exorcist it is a great book and according to some of our sources father ernst alt was a bit obsessed with the exorcist which fair enough he's a priest and it's a good film but it could be that his fascination may explain why he got so interested in annalise in the first place it gave him the opportunity to fight a good fight to battle demons on earth and to be a hero demon banishing priest and i think that makes the most sense like i think he's like, I'm going to go down in history

as the greatest exorcist of all time. And it would also explain why Anneliese was never able to shake the idea that she had been taken over by supernatural forces. Even when her local priest, Father Herman,

told her that she wasn't. Anneliese was being consistently told by Father Alt and Father Renz, two priests is better than one. She was being consistently told by them that she was possessed. Didn't matter what Father Herman said. Which leaves us with poor Anneliese herself. What was really going on with her? Was she possessed? Well, obviously not. But we can't

push aside Anneliese's beliefs or how they would have impacted the manifestation of her condition. As we're about to show you, the very specific set of symptoms that Anneliese experienced are about as close as a person can get to feeling like they're possessed by a demon. First and foremost, according to every medically grounded source that we found on this case, Anneliese was almost certainly suffering with severe psychosis and some form of epilepsy, which was resulting in seizures. On top of this, another phenomenon connected with epilepsy is sleep paralysis. And that would be why Annalise woke up in the middle of the night, unable to move, and it would even explain the demonic apparitions that she saw. Anyone who has ever suffered from sleep paralysis will know

that it's absolutely fucking terrifying, even before you throw in a healthy chunk of psychosis, religious or otherwise. And all of this combined, once again compounded by a heavily religious upbringing with distant parents, it's certainly enough to make anyone feel possessed. And it also explains all of the symptoms that Annalise had. From the mood swings to the magical thinking to the blackouts and even the chats with Hitler, everything adds up. And that's before we even come on to Jeschwin syndrome. Jeschwin syndrome is a condition linked with temporal lobe epilepsy

and the symptoms associated with it are, for all intents and purposes, akin to being Hollywood-grade, possessed. Firstly, we've got hyper-religiosity. Sufferers either experience an intensely positive or negative obsession with religion and religious symbolism. Either way, they tend to display a deeper, more connected feeling to their chosen religion. And secondly, we have circumstantiality. This is talking uncontrollably, at length, about things which are not always relevant to the conversation or becoming incredibly fixated on trivial and specific details of a conversation

that may not seem relevant to others. This is often explained away as verbal diarrhea, but it is an important symptom. And thirdly, atypical sexuality more than 50 percent of people with jeshwin syndrome see a significant drop in their sex drive while the others see a significant increase in their sex drive and even a dramatic change in their sexual proclivities so what do you get if you combine all of this someone who could look really fucking possessed, especially to people who are already looking at a person through a religious worldview lens. Another very real possibility

is that Anneliese was suffering from bipolar and experiencing manic episodes. Ed Ergenzinger, a neuroscientist and writer who himself has suffered from bipolar for most of his adult life, has spoken about his own experiences within a manic episode. And there are some interesting parallels between his experiences and that of Annelies Michel. Both experienced obsessive thoughts about religion and religious symbolism.

Ed Erzinger, through the religious undertones of Salvador Dali, and Annelies Michel, through more conventional biblical study. And both of them experienced delusions of grandeur. True, Ed Erzinger felt that he was a prophet from God and Anneliese thought that she was the mouthpiece of Lucifer. But both of them are very undeniably grand appointments. So where does all this leave us? Who do we think was responsible for Anneliese Michel's death?

Clearly not Anneliese. She was obviously incredibly unwell and was let down by the people closest to her. Both her mother and her father, regardless of their religious beliefs, should have prioritised their daughter's health above everything else. Even if they truly did believe she was possessed, common sense should have kicked in when they saw Annalise was starving to death. She died at 30 kilos. Though we do also understand, and I think it is important to say,

that for them to have challenged the authority of two priests would have been unimaginable for them to do, I think. I think the real people in this are obviously Alt-Renz and also his fucking line manager. Yes. Like, what was the church doing when they knew? Because the clergy also thought, like I said, that Ernst Alt was a bit of an oddball, quote unquote. They did know that he said things like he thought he was telepathic and things like that. What were they doing letting him conduct 67 exorcisms on a vulnerable young woman like this

with no oversight whatsoever but yeah the whole thing is a complete mess it's absolutely terrifying and i think that just to hammer home again before anybody really wants to place the blame on her parents in particular just imagine how difficult it would have been for them to stand up to ernst and rens when they were faced with things like this. I think it's safe to say that the fear would have been incredibly real. But also for Anneliese. And even if Anneliese and her parents and the priests all really believed that she was possessed and thought it was some sort of test from God,

other religious figures in her life, like good old Father Herman, could see that it wasn't that at all. He could see that Anneliese needed medical help. And her parents and the other priests should have seen that as well. And as Saru said, you can't let the higher-ups in the church off the hook either. How could they allow this man to act with such impunity? In 1976. Just to hammer that home. Yeah. The fucking exodus was in cinemas making people throw up. Just awful. Just awful. I've been wanting to do that one for a while because, you know, it's the most famous

case of quote-unquote legitimate possession. But it's just awful. It truly is. So yeah, there you go, guys. That is the start of the month of October here at Red Handed. We will be back with other things very soon, and stay tuned. And if you don't, I'll tell my mum. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal.

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