Paperback: Was a twenty-three-year-old university student a hostage to the devil?
Two priests claimed Anneliese Michel was possessed by Lucifer, Nero, Judas, Cain and Adolf Hitler.
Physicians diagnosed her seizures as a form of epilepsy.
Here a noted anthropologist offers a startling explanation of this tragic case.
In 1976, a young German girl named Anneliese Michel underwent a series of exorcisms. The rites were administered by two priests of the Catholic Church to free Anneliese of the six demons they believed possessed her.
Seemingly, as a result of the exorcisms, the girl died.
Worldwide publicity followed when the girl's parents and the two exorcists were brought to trial and convicted of negligent homicide. Here a noted anthropologist offers her own interpretation of the exorcisms of Anneliese Michel. Drawing on interviews with the two exorcists, the girl's parents and friends, transcripts of the trial, and tape recordings made during the exorcisms—as well as studies of religious experience in various cultures—, Felicitas Goodman has written a fascinating, compelling book, one that finally tells what happened in this strange case as it delves into the age-old mystery of demonic possession.
The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel (2005, reprint of 1981) is a brilliant, spellbinding new report of a young woman's bizarre religious experience.
About the author: Felicitas D Goodman (1914-2005) was Associate Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. A Religious Anthropologist, she wrote numerous books including Speaking in Tongues, How About Demons?, Where the Spirits Ride the Wind and Esctasy, Ritual and Alternate Reality. In 1978, she founded the Cuyamungue Institute, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The institute is a nonprofit anthropological research and teaching institution specializing in ecstatic trance and the use of ritual body postures. Before her death in 2005, Goodman had published over forty articles and more than seven books. Her book, The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel, was the inspiration for the film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
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