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Anneliese Michel was born on 21st September 1952 in Leiblfing, Bavaria, West Germany to a Catholic
family. She was brought up along with three sisters by her parents, Josef and Anna. She was deeply
religious and went for mass twice a week. Anneliese was a young, German Catholic who underwent an
Exorcism and died within the same year due to her stopping any medical treatment psychiatric help.
After this case there were many investigation cases carried out as well as court cases which led to public
attention, which inspired the film makes of ‘The Exorcism Of Emily Rose’ to base the story of the
narrative around Anneliese. When Anneliese was just sixteen she had her first epileptic attack and was
then diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. She was then diagnosed with depression shortly after
this, and was then treated in a psychiatric hospital. By 1973, Anneliese became completely intolerant of
various religious objects and even began to hear voices. As part of her psychiatric treatment, Michel
went to San Damiano with a friend who regularly oganised pilgrimages to ‘holy places’. It was whilst
they were there that the friend concluded that Michel was suffering from demonic possession as she
could not even walk past holy objects such as a crucifix and refused to drink any holy water.
From this her condition worsened Michel started to drink her own urine and even went to the extremes
of eating insects and despite taking her medication she even became suicidal. Her family soon became
extremely concerned and were sure she was possessed, so they reached out to the Catholic Priest to
proceed an exorcism which was rejected at first. However in 1975 two priests were granted permission
from the Bishop and demonstrated exorcism rites on Anneliese secretively. She died on 1st July 1976 and
through a carried out investigation it was clear that she died due to starvation and dehydration in which
her parents and the priests were blamed for negligence. It was described that her death was due to the
strain of the rites that were carried out on her.
Investigations also state that she could have been saved if she was given the right medical help, even if it
was a day before. Therefore after this, there was major media and public attraction, especially as the
Church allowed such a rite to be performed. After being found guilty the defendants were sentenced to
six months in jail, but given three years of probation and a fine.

3. The Exorcism
• The exorcism took place with a priest named Ernst Alt, who had met Anneliese and told her that
what she was experiencing were not signs of any Epileptic fits. The priest believed that Anneliese
was suffering from demonic possession and in which case urged the local bishop to allow the
exorcism to be performed on Anneliese.
•Whilst the process of the Exorcism was taking place, Anneliese wrote the priest Ernst a letter in
1975 claiming that ‘[she] is nothing, everything about me is vanity. What should I do, I have to
improve you pray for me. She also stated within the letter ‘ I want to suffer for other people.. But
this is so cruel..’
•Josef Stangl in September of the same year agreed for the priest Arnold Reinz the exorcism on
Anneliese however he made it clear that he wanted this exorcism done in complete secrecy.
•In late September, Arnold Reinz carried out many exorcism’s on Anneliese and soon her parents
thought that they would stop seeking medical attention and medication but rely on just purely the
exorcism’s on Anneliese in order to make her better...
•Overall, there was a total of 67 exorcism’s performed on Anneliese over a duration of about ten
months between the time period of 1975-1976. These exorcisms were performed roughly about
once or twice a week by the priest each lasting a total of four hours long.
•Anneliese soon became very tired, and weak and started to talk about dying. She soon started to
refuse to eat towards the end of her exorcisms and eventually died in her home on the 1st July 1976.
•After she died, a report stated that the cause of her death was due to malnutrition and dehydration
as she suffered from starvation for almost a year whilst the exorcism's were taking place.

4. inspiration
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This particular Case Study inspired our group as part of our advanced portfolio we have had to choose a
sub-genre in which we would like to base our work and narrative around, in which we have chosen the
sub-genre of Possession where this particular real life case study and inspired us as Anneliese suffered
from a real life demonic possession where she had to undertake several exorcisms. From looking into a
real life possession, this has been entirely helpful for our group when making decisions for our
preliminary tasks but also our narrative, as we have been able to focus on the effects of possession.
Anneliese being the antagonist within this real life story had no control over what was occurring in her
own body as the Possession had completely taken control. The topic of whether Possessions and
exorcisms are real is very debatable however there is always truth behind every story and within our
group whilst researching into real life case studies we have even questioned ourselves whether they are
real presenting a clear link of the question of unknown. Through studying this case study thoroughly, as
a group we have learnt and taken some inspirational ideas to use in our own work which we will link
into our narrative and plot in order for the audience to be able to connect fully with the sub-genre of
Possession. Within the case study Anneliese states that she hears noises and voices, this is a particular
aspect of the study that we have taken to include within our own narrative as well as the religious
elements as using religion within a Possession film is a clear convention used commonly.
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Below is the link to the film trailer that used Anneliese as an inspiration for their film :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULuC2XkFiD8