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excorcist |
| Date Added: January 17, 2012 03:02:16 PM |
| Author: pds20 |
| Category: People And Society: History |
| There is a story that usually gets mentioned around Halloween in St. Louis. Like many tales, it is blown up and out of proportion, and the details are shaky at best. The only true rumor usually heard is that it was a boy who was possessed. This is the true story of the exorcism that took place, partly in St. Louis. The novel and film "The Exorcist" were both very popular years ago, and they were partly based on the events which took place nearly fifty years ago. Many of the details were "Hollywood-ized," so in 1993, author Thomas B. Allen released a book called "Possessed". In it he wrote in great detail about the exorcism which took place in 1949. The story begins with the boy and his family living in Mt. Rainier, Maryland. According to Allen, the boy's aunt had started to teach him how to use a Ouija board. Soon after, she died. A few nights after her death, the family started to notice strange sounds, first a dripping, and then a scratching sound under the floorboards. The family was convinced that it was the dead aunt attempting to contact them. They spoke to her, and asked for a sign. A wave of pressure was sent into the members of the family and then into the floor. Soon after this night, stranger things began to happen. Items would move around the room. The mattress the boy was on would shake slowly at first, and then violently. His desk would fall over at school. At first, everyone thought these were pranks, but they started to become convinced otherwise after the events continued for some time. The family called in Reverend Luther Schultze, a Lutheran minister, because they now believed there was a poltergeist tormenting their son. The boy was now having awful nightmares where he would tear at the sheets and thrash in agony all night. Scratches started to appear on the boy's body, and that is when Schultze decided it was more of a job for the Catholics. Father Albert Hughes attempted to take on the exorcism. One night, after he was tied down, the boy was able to free one of his arms from restraint. He somehow got a bedspring loose, and cut a huge gash into Hughes' arm. Hughes left the exorcism and soon after had a breakdown. The family decided that they needed to get away from home, and maybe a trip to stay with family in St. Louis would help the boy's condition. Strange events continued to take place in St. Louis, however, and the family decided the boy needed more religious help. Father Raymond Bishop was called in to help. He contacted a close friend, Father William Bowdern, to assist him. Neither man was very familiar with the act of exorcism, so they began studying. Meanwhile, the boy was fine during the day, but at night was still having terrors. He was falling deeper into possession. Bowdern was told by the Archbishop not to discuss the case with anyone. He asked Walter Halloran, an academic at St. Louis University, to drive him to the house where the boy was staying. Bishop kept a diary of the events, in order to help in future exorcisms. Bowdern started the exorcism by reciting prayers from "The Roman Ritual". Once he began, the boy needed to be held down much of the time. The boy would scream out in pain at the prayers. Each time the name of God was mentioned, in any form, deep scratches or welts would appear on the boy's chest and stomach. At one point, the word HELL was scratched onto the boy's chest, but upside down so when the boy looked down he could read it. The boy would spit at the people in the room. "He was an utter marksman at a distance of four or five feet," said Halloran. "His eyes were closed, and he'd spit right in your face." The prayers would . "Because of the state of possession, he took off running," said Halloran. "He ran to the bluffs, towards the edge, where there was a big drop below. I finally caught him. I have no idea if he would've awakened before he got to the edge or not."The story actually started out in Cottage Hills Maryland and involved a young boy named Robbie Doe instead of a teenage girl as depicted in the Maryland where Robbie lives to this day as a devout Catholic. He remembers very little of the horrible events that plagued him as a child. |
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