A priest had to perform between 20 and 30 interventions of the ancient rite of exorcism to be freed from the demon that possesses him, the case was published in 1949 in the Washington Post.
50 years ago, the movie “The Exorcist” was released, considered the best horror movie so far, now we tell you the story he was inspired by.
In August 1949, the media received information about a shocking case that had been kept hidden, but it was revealed on August 20 of the same year in a Washington Post publication where it revealed that a 14-year-old had been subjected to various occasions. to an exorcism process and the result was successful.
“In what is probably one of the most remarkable experiences of its kind in recent religious history, a 14-year-old man from Mount Rainier was released from the possession of the demon by a priest, Catholic sources reported yesterday,” the article read. . cover.
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The publication stated that between 20 and 30 interventions were needed to be delivered by the devil: “Only after 20 and 30 interventions of the ancient rite of exorcism, here in St. Louis, the demon was eventually expelled from the young man.
According to the chronicle, the religious responsible was the chronicler Bill Brinkley and he was the one who accompanied the young man for several months.
“In all but the last three stages, the teenager exploded in an attack of screams, insults and shouts of Latin phrases unknown to him when the priest reached the climax of the ritual, saying” in the name of the Father, of I drive the devil and the Holy Spirit away from you ‘”, the text describes.
The ecclesiastical authorities hid the young man’s identity to protect him, the case was known under the pseudonym Roland Doe and over time the amazing and unusual story became known.
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In the chronicles they told that the young man started to show a strange behavior after the death of a woman from his family dedicated to spiritualism. Among other things, he heard noises at any time in the house, walked at night and had various seizures, including screaming and crying.
The young man’s family started contacting various medical experts, but none gave a concrete diagnosis of what was happening.
According to the Washington Post article, in the first instance the young man was taken to the Georgetown University Hospital and another to St. Louis, both Jesuit institutions.
“Finally, both hospitals, according to the priest in charge of the intervention, stated that they are not able to cure the child by natural means,” according to the article.
The exorcism was performed “by a Jesuit priest in the 1950s, who dedicated the task to prayer.”
The publication describes: “In a demonstration of his total devotion to his mission, the priest personally witnessed various manifestations of the young man while he slept.”
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The priest lived practically in the young man’s house because he was with him day and night. She also accompanied him to hospitals to assess the best time to start new rite sessions. According to the publication, during the ritual sessions, the teenager’s reactions were similar: he would insult and speak Latin, in addition to being irritable.
The story had a happy ending because after the last session the young man had no other strange episodes. The case has become famous all over the world and now has versions of all kinds.
William Peter Blatty and the movie
“A priest frees a young man from the clutches of the devil” was the headline of the Washington Post 71 years ago and the one that caught the attention of William Peter Blatty, who was a college student in Georgetown, the US capital.
Warner Bros. Photography
No one expected the headline of one of the most important newspapers in the country to be the hit for a story that will come out two decades later.
For years, history has obsessed Blatty to the point of soaking in the subject by searching for information in archives, church records, interviewing priests, even though he knew much about religion and especially Catholicism through his studies at the Jesuit university.
As he said in various interviews years later, in a few months he read “all the books he owned that had been published in English since 1940.”
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However, it was difficult for him to reconstruct the case as it had happened. So he opted for fiction. In fact, he changed a few details about the story of the newspaper he had read in his youth and wrote about an exorcist girl.
In 1971, the novel “The Exorcist” was to hit bookstores, which sold 13 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 57 consecutive weeks.
Two years later, starring actress Linda Blair, he adapted the novel for the film version of one of the most memorable horror stories of all time.
Few knew then that those scenes that shook everyone on the screen had taken place in real life.