The Exorcism of Emily Rose is based on the tragic case of a young German woman named Anneliese Michel, who in the early 1970s underwent an ordeal that eventually led to her death. The details of her case can be found in such Web article as "The Real Emily Rose" and "What Really Happened to Emily Rose?". The controversy surrounding her illness, exorcism and death resulted in a sensational trial, all of which are part of the Emily Rose film.
Anneliese was diagnosed by doctors as suffering from grand mal epilepsy, a condition of the brain that causes severe seizures. This, compounded by other possible mental and psychological disorders, resulted in hallucinations of demonic faces and voices. Her religious parents, apparently baffled and frustrated by their 16-year-old daughter's increasingly psychotic and often violent behavior, chose to thwart the medical diagnosis and sought an exorcism.
For years, the Church refused to grant an exorcism. They accepted the medical diagnosis, finding no supernatural criteria to warrant an exorcism. There were certainly very serious and highly disturbing symptoms: Anneliese would mutilate herself, eat flies and coal, drink her own urine and physically lash out at her family. A profoundly disturbed girl. But there was no levitation, no documented telekinesis (heck, even poltergeist cases have some telekinesis) - nothing whatsoever that could be deemed supernatural.
Making Matters Worse
Despite this lack of evidence, however, in 1975 the Michels finally convinced priests to perform exorcisms - a whole series of them, in fact, sometimes two rites a week! Certainly, this only reinforced Anneliese's delusion that demons were inside her. And not just any demons. She claimed to be possessed by the spirits of Cain, Judas Iscariot, Nero, even Adolf Hitler, among others.
Only for a short time did she seem to improve because of the exorcism rites. But soon the mental anguish returned with a vengeance. She stopped eating and her knees ruptured from the 600 genuflections she performed obsessively.
Ultimately, the exorcisms failed. On July 1, 1976, Anneliese died of starvation, and her parents and exorcising priests were charged with negligent homicide - and rightly convicted.
The exorcisms failed because there was nothing to exorcise. Anneliese Michel was not possessed; she required heavy duty medical attention. Had her parents sought proper medical care for their daughter instead of seeking refuge in superstition, Anneliese might be alive today. With the improved medications and treatments now available, she might even be living a normal life.
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