Anneliese Michel was just 23 when she died in 1976 after undergoing 67 exorcisms, during which she was restrained, genuflected in prayer so many times that she broke her knees, and eventually stopped eating.
Anneliese Michel/Facebook/Sony PicturesThe real-life horror story of Anneliese Michel (left) inspired the film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
Despite its PG-13 rating and mixed reviews, the 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose is considered by many to be extremely disturbing. Jennifer Carpenter’s portrayal of Emily Rose, a 19-year-old who dies after an exorcism attempt, has been lauded as one of the greatest on-screen depictions of a person possessed by a demonic entity, while fans of the film also praise how other aspects of the story seem surprisingly realistic and grounded — and there’s a good reason for that.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose was loosely based on the terrifying true story of a young German woman named Anneliese Michel. Between the ages of 16 and 23, Michel experienced medical issues like blackouts, convulsions, and trance-like dazes that had her devoutly Catholic family convinced that she was a victim of demonic possession. In the mid-1970s, she was subjected to 67 exorcisms until the final one led to her death on July 1, 1976.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. These exorcisms weren’t as simple as a priest reading Bible passages, after all. Throughout them, Michel was often restrained, and she knelt in prayer so many times that she broke the bones and ripped the tendons in her knees. Over time, she eventually stopped eating. She became nearly skeletal, weighing just 66 pounds, and her physical health and mental health both quickly deteriorated.
When she died, the German news media endlessly reported on the case, focusing in particular on Michel’s family and the two priests who conducted the fatal exorcism, who were charged with negligent homicide. Doctors testified that Michel had not been possessed by demons at all, but she was rather suffering from severe mental illness that likely stemmed from her religious upbringing and health issues, possibly including her epilepsy.
Years later, the true story became the basis for The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
The Real Story Of Anneliese Michel’s Alleged Demonic Possession
Anneliese Michel/FacebookAnneliese Michel, pictured while in college.
Anneliese Michel was born on Sept. 21, 1952, into the deeply religious home of Joseph and Anna Michel. The Michel family lived in Bavaria, West Germany, and seemingly lived a normal life. They attended Mass twice per week, and as Anneliese grew older, she set her sights on the University of Würzburg.
But things took a turn for Anneliese when she was 16 years old. That year, she unexpectedly blacked out at school and began walking around in a daze. She also experienced the first of what would be many convulsions. Even though she still chose to attend college and tried to put her troubling incidents behind her, it would soon become impossible to do so.
Anneliese Michel continued to experience violent convulsions, which were sometimes accompanied by trance-like states and hallucinations. A neurologist diagnosed her with temporal lobe epilepsy — a disorder that causes many of the symptoms she had been experiencing — and prescribed her medication to help manage it, but the medicine did not help much.
One key difference between Anneliese Michel’s story and The Exorcism of Emily Rose is that the horror movie is set in modern-day America. But the movie does show Emily Rose enduring many of the same health issues as Michel did, and finding that medicine didn’t help her problems.
As Michel’s condition deteriorated further, she began to believe that she was possessed by a demon. Chillingly, her parents agreed with her.
Keystone Press/Alamy Stock PhotoAnna and Joseph Michel, Anneliese’s parents.
It should also be noted that temporal lobe epilepsy can cause what is known as Geschwind syndrome. That condition is characterized by behavioral or personality changes, and it can be marked by hyperreligiosity.
There was something else about the Michel family as well: They had a shameful secret. Four years before Anneliese was born, her mother had given birth to an “illegitimate” daughter named Martha, the shame of which led Anna to wear a black veil on her wedding day.
Young Anneliese grew up with her mother telling her that she must help atone for that sin. Anneliese, who was described as a sensitive and kind-hearted girl, felt it was her duty to atone for the sins of others — a feeling that only intensified after Martha died at the age of eight following an unsuccessful surgery on her kidney. She even slept on a bare stone floor to atone for the sins of drug addicts she saw at a nearby train station.
With her beliefs so deeply ingrained in her, it is perhaps little wonder why, after her epilepsy diagnosis, Anneliese Michel began to hear the voices of demons and see the Devil. She had been afraid her entire life.
Inside The Torturous Death Of Anneliese Michel
In time, Anneliese Michel said she could hear demons whispering to her, telling her she was “damned” and would “rot in Hell” while she was praying. She no longer believed that medicine could help her.
So, she turned to religious solutions instead.
She and her family reached out to various priests to see if they would perform an exorcism on Anneliese, but most rejected their requests, suggesting that she seek more medical help. By then, however, there was no convincing Anneliese that this was anything but a demonic possession.
Her behavior changed at a disarmingly rapid pace. Before long, she was compulsively performing 400 squats per day, crawling around on all fours, barking like a dog, licking her own urine from the floor, eating spiders and coal, and even biting the head off a dead bird.
Anneliese Michel/FacebookAnneliese Michel’s condition during her exorcisms. Her horrific true story later inspired The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
“Anneliese was a kind, loving, sweet, and obedient girl,” her mother told The Telegraph in a 2005 interview. “But when she was possessed, it was something unnatural, something that you can’t explain.”
Come 1975, Anneliese felt there was no hope. She was depressed, contemplating suicide. Her requests for an exorcism continued to be denied. Then, her mother found a priest named Ernst Alt.
Alt petitioned the local bishop, Josef Stangl, who ultimately approved the request. He permitted a priest named Arnold Renz to perform an exorcism, on the condition that it be kept secret.
Over the course of about 10 months, Renz and Alt visited the Michel home weekly, sometimes twice a week, to conduct four-hour-long sessions to expel whatever demons were possessing Anneliese. She claimed that there were six demons in total: Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Adolf Hitler, Nero, and a disgraced priest known as Father Fleischmann. The demons, she said, would argue with each other for control over her body, all while she continued to mentally and physically deteriorate.
Keystone Press/Alamy Stock PhotoErnst Alt and Arnold Renz (sometimes called Wilhelm Renz).
The priests recorded about 42 hours of the exorcisms, during which Anneliese would speak in tongues and different voices, scream obscenities, and talk about “dying to atone for the wayward youth of the day and the apostate priests of the modern church.”
Notably, The Exorcism of Emily Rose focuses more on the prosecution of the exorcists of Emily Rose than the deadly exorcism itself, but there are many terrifying flashbacks that show the deterioration of the doomed character. However, Anneliese’s actual fate was more horrific than any film.
By the summer of 1976, she was emaciated and suffering from pneumonia. Her knees were broken from frequently dropping to pray. She was no longer eating. She was 23 years old and 66 pounds, and on July 1, 1976, she died of malnutrition and dehydration in Klingenberg, West Germany.
“I don’t regret it,” her mother said. “There was no other way.”
Of course, most people strongly disagreed with her assessment.
The Trial That Helped Inspire The Story Of The Exorcism Of Emily Rose
Just over a year after Anneliese Michel died, The New York Times reported that both Renz and Alt, as well as Michel’s parents, were charged with negligent homicide. They appeared before the court for the first time on March 30, 1978, determined to defend their actions.
During the trial, the priests and the Michel family argued that there was no other way to try and help Anneliese. Her epilepsy medications hadn’t worked, and her symptoms seemed to be worsening. Alt even argued that Anneliese “didn’t look like an epileptic” when he first saw her.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, made the case that had the family sought further medical attention, Anneliese could have been helped. It was also possible that conducting the exorcisms reinforced the delusions she had already come to believe. Other religious leaders, such as Father Dieter Feineis of the St. Pankratius Church in Klingenberg, later said they would not have conducted the exorcism on Anneliese if they had been asked.
Keystone Archive/Getty ImagesErnst Alt, Arnold Renz (or Wilhelm Renz), Anna Michel, and Joseph Michel during the trial.
Ultimately, the jury sided with the prosecution. The two priests were found guilty of manslaughter resulting from negligence, with a sentence of six months behind bars (later suspended) and three years of probation.
Anna and Joseph Michel were also found guilty, but they were exempted from punishment, as it was determined that they had “suffered enough.”
The Catholic Church later recanted their finding that Anneliese Michel had been possessed, attributing her condition to mental illness. As for the rest of Klingenberg, a local named Christiana Metzler said the town was “ashamed.”
“People don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “There is a feeling that it was the parents’ fault because they were so religious they didn’t see what was happening. Sometimes Catholic pilgrims come to her grave because they think she can save lost souls. But there are not many of them.”
Sony PicturesA chilling scene from The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
The release of The Exorcism of Emily Rose cast a new light on Anneliese Michel’s story, which also brought new concerns that more pilgrims would be visiting her grave. For Anneliese’s mother, Anna Michel, these pilgrims reaffirmed the faith that she clung onto.
“I give out a prayer to pilgrims who come to visit her grave,” she said. “They are prayers to be said every day and they thank God for her giving her young life for other sinners so that we can be shown how to devote ourselves to the will of God.”
For many people today, though, Anneliese Michel’s story is a sad, cautionary tale about how blind faith can sometimes make people blind to the truth.
After reading about the horrific true story that inspired “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” learn about the alleged possession of Roland Doe and how it inspired “The Exorcist.” Then, go inside the shocking murder trial that inspired “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.”
