Demonic Posession- Anneliese Michel Essay Example

not even to sing in the church choir. (ebscohost) At age sixteen Anneliese began to suffer from bizarre seizures that occurred during the night. These fits would cause Anneliese's body to become stone like. She also experienced the feeling of a great mass compressing her chest.

Ultimately, she had lost all control of her body. Becoming greatly concerned, Anneliese's parents decided to take her to the psychiatric clinic in Wurzburg, Germany, where she was diagnosed with grand mal epilepsy. After her diagnosis, Anneliese was sent to a psychiatric hospital because of the severity of her condition.During her years stay at the hospital her affliction only intensified, even though she was heavily medicated. Anneliese told her doctors that she was seeing the faces of demons during her daily devotions.

Seeing that she was not improving the doctors decided to release Anneliese, assuming there was nothing they could do. In 1973 Anneliese was contemplating suicide, so she went to a local priest and pleaded for an exorcism. She told him that she was constantly seeing demonic faces and that it was difficult for her to be around sacred places and objects.Anneliese's attempts at an exorcism were unsuccessful, as the priest turned her down twice. Without an religious intervention her condition continued to get increasingly alarming.

"She began insulting and attacking her family, and screamed for hours while she mashed up crucifixes and destroyed pictures of Jesus, mutilating herself with the fragments. She would perform more than six hundred genuflections a day, causing her knee joints to rupture, and became convinced she had to lay down her life for others. " (ebscohost). Anneliese's became non-existent.She professed that her possessors prevented her

from eating ordinary food, so instead she ate spiders, flies, coal, and licked her urine off the floor.

In 1973 Anneliese was finally granted the exorcism that she so desperately needed. Father Arnold Renz and pastor Ernst Alt would be performing the exorcism using the full Rituale Romanum. For nine exhausting and seemingly endless months the priests endured the wrath of Anneliese. Even though she was extremely underweight Anneliese was able to exert super human strength, so much so that she had to be chained to her bed.Her exorcists reported that they dealt with the damned souls of Nero, Hitler, Judas of Iscariot, Cain, and Fleischmann, all of whom manifested themselves through Anneliese.

Anneliese was also recorded speaking in different tongues, shouting obscenities, and declaring the eminence of hell. After withstanding sixty seven rites of exorcism, Anneliese knew she was going to die. Despite being severely undernourished and barely able to speak, Anneliese managed to say her last words, "Mother, I'm afraid. " She died almost instantly after on June 30, 1976. Possession is not an accident.The victim of demonic infestation must at least unconsciously or consciously become cooperative with the devil.

Anneliese's possession stemmed from having to atone from her mother's sins as well as the sins of others, thus causing her to make make the unconscious decision to cooperate with the devil. Even though she did not show profound signs of being possessed at a young age, It is most likely that Anneliese's possession started and an earlier age than sixteen. At around the age of five, Anneliese would have been vulnerable to the devil causing her to suffer from diabolic oppression. Diabolic oppression is a

ransom discomfort. We must remember that symptoms and gravity differ greatly case by case. This oppression can strike health, job, affections, relationship with others, and so on.

Its symptoms include unexplainable rages and a tendency to complete isolation. Oppression can affect both individual and groups" (Graham). Grand mal epilepsy is sometimes an acute warning sign of being possessed. Having fits of convulsions and hearing the voices of the demonic are also common signs among the possessed.Anneliese exhibited both of these signs at age sixteen when she was diagnosed with epilepsy, at this is time is an accurate guess of when Anneliese's diabolic oppression turned into diabolic possession.

"Diabolic possession is the gravest form of demonic activity, which allows a continuing presence of a demon in a human body. The evil symptoms do not have to be continuous but can alternate between periods of crisis and periods of rest. Possession implies intervals of temporary suspension of mental, intellectual, affective, and volitive faculties.Symptoms can include the knowledge of languages unknown to the victim, superhuman strength, and the ability to know the occult or someone else's thoughts. Typically, there is an aversion to anything sacred, often in conjunction with blasphemy. There are also frauds who pose as demoniac; therefore, we need to be extremely wary.

" (Graham) Anneliese displayed many of the characteristics of diabolic possession before and during her exorcism, only confirming the idea of her being truly diabolically possessed. "There is no neutral ground in the universe.Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counter claimed by Satan. " (Peck) Although Anneliese Michel was regarded as being a devout catholic, her obsession to atone for the

sin's of others was taken to the utmost extreme. This consuming passion, perversely disguised as a holy act, was Satan's entryway into Anneliese's soul.

The story of Anneliese Michel is one of the most shockingly severe forms of possession to be recorded in recent history. Society must realize the devil does not fade away with history; he is always around, influencing and tempting them through the most unexpected ways.