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The Fatal Possession of Anneliese Michel · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So if you think back to 2005, you probably remember
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: that movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Oh, yeah. Terrifying.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It just completely terrified audiences. And, you know, it had
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this incredibly grounded portrayal of a young woman going through
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: demonic possession.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And they actually, they pulled their punches slightly just
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: to get that PG-13 rating.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But even with that, I mean, the sheer visceral
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: dread of Jennifer Carpenter's performance is it really left a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: lasting mark on horror cinema because it just felt entirely
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: too real.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Well, that's because it was based on something real.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's the most unsettling part. The terrifying part isn't
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: what happened on the screen. It's the heavily documented, totally
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: true reality that the script was based on.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Right. And the historical events are honestly significantly more disturbing
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: than the Hollywood version.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: When you strip away all that cinematic framing, you know,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: you're left with a sequence of events that really challenges
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: our whole understanding of human fragility.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to our mission for today's deep dive.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: We are going to unpack the true story of a
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: young German woman named Anneliese Michel.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: That's a heavy one.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: It really is. We're exploring this very specific intersection, the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: collision of medical science, deep-rooted religious belief, and... this tragic
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: legal case that ultimately forced the Catholic Church to completely
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: reconsider how it views and authorizes exorcisms.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the timeline here is fascinating. Right.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: It starts in 1950s Bavaria, moves through this baffling medical mystery,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and then escalates into 67 real-life exorcisms.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And ends in a devastating negligent homicide trial.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So for you listening, if you've ever been fascinated
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: by the blurred lines between mental illness, and the supernatural.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Or, you know, if you've ever wondered just how deeply
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: our early environment shapes our fundamental reality.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, because this exploration is just essential. It's not just
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a ghost story. It's a profound study in confirmation bias,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: human psychology, and, well, what happens when people we trust
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: are operating under absolute, unwavering certainty.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: So to really understand this, I mean, we have to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: start at the very beginning. We need to look at
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Annalise's childhood.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Right, because her foundation is entirely defined by an intense,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: pervasive sense of guilt.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So Annalise was born on September 21st, 1952 in
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: this small municipality in Bavaria, West Germany. And her parents,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Joseph and Anna Mikkel, they were deeply devout Catholics.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Very devout.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, on paper, they were a standard family for
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: that era and region, right? Attending mass twice a week.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Right. Totally normal for the time. And Annalise was known
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: as this bright, sensitive girl. She actually planned to attend
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the University of Würzburg eventually.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: But beneath that quiet Bavarian exterior, the family was harboring
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: this profound secret. Yeah.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And this secret carried just an immense psychological weight, specifically
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: for her mother, Anna.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: To really wrap your head around Annalise, you have to
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: understand the sociology of 1940s and 50s rural Bavaria.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: This was a deeply conservative, insular environment. They were recovering
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: from the trauma of the Second World War. The Catholic
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Church wasn't just a place you went on Sundays.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: It was everything.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It was the absolute moral and social anchor of
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: the community.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, so four years before Annalise was born, Anna had
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: a daughter named Martha. Yes. And Martha was born out
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: of wedlock. Now, in that specific cultural and religious climate,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: having an quote-unquote illegitimate child wasn't just some local gossip.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: No, it was viewed as a severe moral failure. Right.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: And the sources detail that the shame surrounding this was
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: so absolute that when Anna finally did marry Joseph Michel,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: she actually wore a black veil on her wedding day. Wow.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, the visual symbolism of that is just staggering.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Because a wedding is culturally understood as a celebration, right?
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: A new beginning.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You wear white. Right.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: But by choosing a black veil of mourning, Anna was
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: publicly communicating this state of perpetual penance.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: She viewed herself as fundamentally flawed.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Yes. She was framing her own marriage not as a
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: joyous union, but almost like a continuation of her punishment.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Or maybe a desperate attempt at social and spiritual redemption.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: It just sets a very, very dark stage for a family.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And then the tragedy compounded because Martha, that first daughter,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: she tragically died at the age of eight following an
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: unsuccessful kidney surgery.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Which is just devastating.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: It is. So now Anna is carrying the religious shame
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: of the out-of-wedlock birth, plus the agonizing trauma of losing
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: a child.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: And the sources indicate that Anna processed all of this
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: by projecting the burden entirely onto her next daughter, onto Annalise.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Right. Anna raised Annalise with an explicit mandate. basically telling
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: her she had to help atone for the sin of
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: her mother's past.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Which creates a crucial psychological cornerstone here.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this a little, because I really want
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: to look closer at that mechanism. How does that level
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of early conditioning actually wire a child's brain?
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Well, imagine the developing brain of a child.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: A child relies completely on their primary caregivers to define reality.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't know any better. Exactly. Exactly.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: So if the main narrative dictated by your mother is
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: that you are responsible for balancing a spiritual ledger, one
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: that was in the red before you were even born,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: it fundamentally alters your psychological development.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: It's like being born with a massive financial debt that
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: you didn't accrue, but instead of money, it's a spiritual debt.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: And you're told the debt collectors are actual literal demons. Yes.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: It wires the brain for hypervigilance and hyperresponsibility.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And the sources describe Annalise as incredibly sensitive. Like, she
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: took this mandate so literally that she would sleep on
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: a bare stone floor in the middle of winter.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Just to atone for the sins of local drug addicts
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: she saw at a train station.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: She was taking on the spiritual weight of total strangers.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Which shows you how deep the conditioning went. When a
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: child is taught from birth that they are the designated
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: shock absorber for the failings of the world, their nervous
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: system is in a constant state of alert.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: She's basically in fight or flight forever.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. She was taught that sin is this tangible, ever-present threat,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: and that physical suffering is the required currency for spiritual safety.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: So her baseline reality is already operating at a level
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: of existential terror that most of us will never even
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: come close to experiencing.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Precisely. Her worldview was built entirely on a foundation of
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Catholic guilt and the necessity of bodily suffering.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And the mind, when it's faced with an inexplicable crisis
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: later in life, will always reach for the tools and
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: the language it already knows.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Right, the language it learned in childhood. Exactly.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And for Annalise, that vocabulary was already fully formed by
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the time she was a teenager.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the moment that specific vocabulary was activated.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: So Annalise is 16 years old. She's pushing through all
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: this heavy guilt, trying to maintain the life of a
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: normal teenager going to school. And suddenly, she just unexpectedly
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: blacks out. She starts walking around in a daze, completely
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: unresponsive to her environment. And then she experiences these severe,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: violent convulsions.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: These were massive physical events.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But despite how debilitating these convulsions were, she actually
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: attempted to push through.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: She did.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: She still tried to attend college and maintain her academic trajectory, which,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, that speaks to an incredible level of personal resilience.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: It really does. And the family did seek medical intervention
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: at this point. Right.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: They went to a neurologist. Yes.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And the diagnosis they received was temporal lobe epilepsy. She
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: was prescribed anti-seizure medication.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: But, and this is a detail that the movie actually
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: kept pretty accurate, the medication did not stop the symptoms.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: No, it didn't. And to understand why this diagnosis is
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: the turning point of the entire narrative, we really need
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: to look at the anatomy of the brain.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Okay. Break that down for us.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: So the temporal lobes, they're located on the sides of
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: the brain, behind the temples. They are heavily involved in
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: processing emotions, forming memories, and attaching meaning to our experiences.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Meaning is the key word there, right?
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They house structures like the amygdala and the hippocampus.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: So when there is an electrical storm, which is what
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: a seizure is, in that specific part of the brain,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: it's not just causing physical shaking.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: It's actively disrupting the very center of how a person
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: processes reality and meaning.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: That is the core issue here. And it leads to
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: a very specific condition mentioned in the medical literature surrounding
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: this case.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Which is?
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Geschwind syndrome. It's a behavioral phenomenon that is sometimes observed
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: in patients with chronic temporal lobe epilepsy.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: It's characterized by distinct personality changes. Things like hypergraphia, which
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: is a compulsion to write extensively. Interesting. altered sexuality, and
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: most notably for this case, intense hyper-religiosity.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, wait. I need to stop you there and challenge
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: this concept slightly.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Go for it.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Are neurologists actually suggesting that intense religious devotion is just
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a misfiring of neurons? Like, how does medical science differentiate
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: between someone who simply has a deep, genuine faith and
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: someone experiencing a temporal lobe seizure?
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: That is the exact debate that makes this condition so
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: controversial and honestly so fascinating.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Right, because it sounds almost insulting to a religious person.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: It can, but neurologists are not dismissing faith. What they
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: are identifying is a physiological component.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: A compulsion. Okay.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: The difference lies in the sudden onset and the obsessive,
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: all-consuming nature of the behavior.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So it's about how it affects their daily life.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Yes. Genuine faith, even when it's intense, typically integrates into
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: a person's life. It allows them to function within their community,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: maintain relationships, that sort of thing. Right. But the hyper-religiosity
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: seen in Geschwind syndrome is rigid. It's overwhelming, and it's
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: accompanied by those other behavioral markers we mentioned.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: So it's not a choice.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a sudden, extreme shift in personality driven by
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: electrical instability in the brain.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Wow. So if the temporal lobe is responsible for assigning
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: a sense of profound significance to things, and when it
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: misfires constantly, Every single thought, every shadow in the room,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: every passing feeling is suddenly injected with this overwhelming, terrifying
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: cosmic importance.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: That is an excellent way to describe it.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, think of
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: it as a catastrophic collision between her biology and her psychology. Right.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: The hardware of her brain, the temporal lobe, is malfunctioning,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: generating this overwhelming sense of profound significance. And the software,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: her upbringing, is interpreting that significance through the only lens
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: she has.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Which is demonic possession, sin, and spiritual warfare.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Man. So you have a young woman who has literally
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: been terrified of hell her entire life. And she suddenly
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: develops a neurological disorder that forcibly amplifies religious fixation.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating combination.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: It's the perfect storm. And when the neurologist's medication failed
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: to stop the physical convulsions... The medical science of the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: late 1960s had effectively failed her. It had. And the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: tragedy is the family didn't seek out a second opinion.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: They didn't look for experimental clinical trials or anything. They
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: turned away from the clinic and looked toward the church.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Which represents a critical psychological shift. Yeah. When conventional medicine
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: fails to provide a cure or even an explanation that
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: makes sense of the suffering, human beings naturally search for
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: an alternative framework.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: They needed to make sense. Exactly.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: They needed an explanation that fit their existing worldview.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And because the medication wasn't working, Annalise became absolutely convinced
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: she was possessed by a demon. Yes. And crucially, her
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: parents agreed with her. So the symptoms start escalating rapidly.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: It goes from physical convulsions into severe hallucinations.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Really severe.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: The sources describe her hearing demons whispering to her while
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: she was trying to pray. They were telling her she
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: was damned, that she would rot in hell.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: She even claimed she was visually hallucinating the devil.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Now, these auditory and visual hallucinations are well documented in
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: cases of severe psychosis, which can absolutely be compounded by
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: untreated temporal lobe epilepsy, plus extreme stress and severe sleep deprivation.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Which she was definitely experiencing.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Her brain was essentially buckling under the strain.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: But it's the physical behavior that the sources outlined that
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: is truly just difficult to process.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: It's horrific.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: She began compulsively performing 400 squats a day.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Which would destroy anyone's joints.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Right. She crawled around the house on all fours, barking
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: like a dog.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: She was leaking her own urine from the floor, eating
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: spiders and coal. And in one documented instance, she actually
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: bit the head off a dead bird.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: This is a portrait of total psychological and physical collapse.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: It's unimaginable.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: The compulsion to perform 400 squats a day requires this manic,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: uncontrollable energy. It's a classic presentation of severe, untreated psychiatric illness.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: But they didn't see it as psychiatric.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: No, because her cultural framework dictated that demonic control manifests
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: as absolute degradation and humiliation. So her deteriorating mind produced
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: behaviors that aligned perfectly with that cultural expectation.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense. So confronted with this terrifying behavior,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: The family reached out to the local clergy. They wanted
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: an exorcism.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: But what really surprised me in the source material is
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: that the local priests initially said no.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's a very important detail.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Multiple priests rejected the request, and they actually urged the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Michel family to seek more medical help.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: It's a crucial historical nuance because it demonstrates that the
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Catholic Church, even at the local level in 1970s Germany,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: did not immediately default to supernatural explanations. Right.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: They weren't just handing out exorcisms left and right. Exactly.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: The priests looked at a young woman eating coal and
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: recognized it as a psychiatric emergency.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: They told the parents she belonged in a hospital. Yes.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: They understood the boundaries between spiritual distress and medical crisis.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: But Annalise had lost all faith in doctors by this point.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: She had.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: By 1975, she was severely depressed and actively contemplating suicide.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And her mother's perspective on this is very revealing to me.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: How so? Well, years later, in 2005, Anna Michelle gave
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: an interview to The Telegraph, and she described Annalise as
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a kind, loving, sweet, and obedient girl. Okay. But she
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: stated that the possessed state was unnatural and something that, quote,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: you can't explain.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: The stark contrast between those two descriptions really highlights the
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: immense cognitive dissonance those parents were experiencing.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about the psychology of the mother here.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: To a grieving mother. deeply religious parent, attributing this animalistic,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: horrifying behavior to an external demon might actually be easier
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: to bear.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Easier than the alternative, yes.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Right. Easier than accepting that her child's brain is organically decaying.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Because if it's a neurological disease, it is just a senseless,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: random tragedy. Right. But if it is a demon, it
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: is a spiritual battle. It gives the horror a purpose.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: It makes it mean something.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: That psychological defense mechanism is very, very common.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Is there a name for it?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Well, in psychiatric terms, we often discuss the concept of
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: folie a deux, or shared psychotic disorder.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, I've heard of that.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Now, while it's usually applied to shared hallucinations, the broader
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: concept totally applies here. It's an isolated group reinforcing a
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: shared delusion.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Right, the echo chamber.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Because for the parents, accepting a psychiatric diagnosis meant
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: accepting a reality where their daughter was fundamentally broken by nature.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Which would be unbearable.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yes. But a demon, on the other hand, is an invader.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Right. In their theological framework, a demon can be expelled.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: It can be fought. And that offered the potential of
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: returning their pure, obedient daughter to them.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: So it gave them hope.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. This shared narrative provided them with a bizarre
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: form of hope and an antagonist they could actively fight against.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: And it was that shared narrative that drove them to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: keep searching until they finally found a priest who would
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: validate their belief.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, yes.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: So in 1975, Anna Mischel found a priest named Ernst Alt.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: And he listened to their story. And he actually petitioned
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the local bishop, Josef Stengel.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: He asked for permission to perform the Rituale Romanum, which
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: is the official Catholic rite of exorcism.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And Bishop Stengel approved the request. He appointed another priest,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Arnold Renz, to conduct the exorcisms alongside Alt.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: But the bishop attached a highly specific condition to this approval.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this part is wild. He said the exorcisms had
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to be kept absolutely secret.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: The stipulation of secrecy from the bishop is highly significant.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Why do you think he did that?
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Because it implies an institutional awareness that authorizing this ritual
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: would absolutely not withstand public or medical scrutiny.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: They knew it looked bad.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The church was navigating a modernizing secular Germany in
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: the 70s. Returning to medieval rites of possession was a
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: massive PR and legal risk.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: By demanding secrecy, the bishop isolated Anneliese completely. She was
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: totally cut off from the medical community, and now her
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: ordeal was hidden from the secular world.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And the details of what occurred over the next 10
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: months are just harrowing.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: They're very difficult to read.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Priests Alt and Renz visited the Mikkel home weekly, sometimes
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: twice a week. They conducted sessions that lasted up to
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: four hours.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Four hours.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Four hours of restraining a severely ill woman, shouting prayers,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and demanding the demons reveal themselves.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Over the course of 10 months, they performed 67 separate exorcisms.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: 67.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, that represents an unfathomable level of sustained physical
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: and psychological trauma inflicted on a nervous system that was
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: already completely compromised.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: And we know exactly what happened in those rooms because
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the priest recorded the sessions.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, the audio tapes.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: There are 42 hours of audio tape. You can actually
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: hear Annalise speaking in multiple voices, screaming obscenities, growling like
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: an animal.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: It's chilling to listen to.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: And during these sessions, she claimed to be possessed by
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: six specific entities.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: This part is fascinating from a psychological perspective.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: She named Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Adolf Hitler, Nero, and
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: a disgraced local priest from the 16th century named Father Fleischmann. Wow.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: She claimed these six entities were constantly arguing within her,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: fighting for dominance over her body.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is if we analyze those specific names
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: through the lens of psychology rather than theology, the selection
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: is incredibly revealing.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Well, the combination of Hitler and biblical figures seems so chaotic.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: How does her specific background create that exact cast of characters?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Well, a deteriorating mind. does not pull hallucinations out of
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: thin air, right? It constructs them from the raw materials
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: of its environment and education. They represent her culture's ultimate
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: archetypes of evil.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: You have the foundational biblical villains she was taught to
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: fear from infancy, Lucifer, the origin of evil. Cain, the
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: first murderer, and Judas, the ultimate betrayer.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Right. Standard Catholic education stuff.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Then you have historical figures synonymous with tyranny and
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: the persecution of Christians, like the Roman Emperor Nero.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: But the inclusion of Adolf Hitler is particularly striking.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that one stands out.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: Think about it. For a young German woman, born just
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: seven years after the fall of the Third Reich, Hitler
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: was the most immediate, visceral representation of absolute, world-destroying evil.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Her parents lived through it.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: It was recent history for her.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And finally, Father Fleischman, a disgraced local priest, represents the
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: corruption of the very institution she relied upon for salvation.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: So her fracturing mind essentially built a pantheon of her
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: deepest cultural and religious terrors.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting, though. Amidst all the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: screaming on those tapes, she articulated a specific motivation for
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: her suffering. Yes. She stated that she was dying to
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: atone for the wayward youth of the day and the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: apostate priests of the modern church.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: The echo of her mother's mandate.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Even in the depths of what was classified as possession,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: her core motivation remained atonement.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It always came back to that.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: She was fulfilling the exact destiny her mother had established
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: for her from birth, the necessity of suffering to pay
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: off the spiritual debts of others.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: It's tragic.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Her illness continued. basically weaponized her deepest childhood traumas against her.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And the prosecution would later argue during the trial that
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the exorcism rituals themselves actively reinforce these delusions.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Well, by engaging with the perceived demons, demanding their names,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: and treating the hallucinations as tangible entities, the priests provided
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: a scaffolding for her psychosis.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: They gave the delusion structure.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They validated her terrifying reality rather than treating the
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: underlying medical condition.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And the physical consequences were catastrophic. I mean, over those
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: 10 months of secret rituals, she completely stopped eating.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Her body just gave out.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: The sources detail that she was dropping to her knees
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to genuflect in prayer with such obsessive repetition and with
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: such sheer force that she ruptured the tendons in her knees. Ouch.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: They were physically broken.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: This is the total collapse of a human body deprived
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: of basic life-sustaining care.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And then, on July 1, 1976... The secrecy ended.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Because Annalise Michelle died in her home in Klingenberg.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: She was just 23 years old.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly sad.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: At the time of her death, she weighed just 66 pounds.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: She was emaciated. She was suffering from pneumonia. The official
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: cause of death was malnutrition and dehydration. She literally starved
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to death while surrounded by her parents and two priests.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: It is a death that was entirely preventable with basic
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: medical intervention.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Like an IV. Exactly.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: An intravenous drip or a feeding tube would have saved her.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: And once the local authorities discovered a 66-pound body in
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: a modern European home, the private religious ordeal was forced
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: into the harsh light of the secular justice system. Right.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Just over a year later, the state intervened. The New
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: York Times covered the story globally.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: It was international news.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Priests Arnold Renz and Ernst Alt, along with Joseph and
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Anna Michael, were indicted on charges of negligent homicide.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: And the trial commenced on March 30th, 1978.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: It was a massive media spectacle, wasn't it?
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, completely. You had four deeply religious individuals in a
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: modern courtroom attempting to defend actions based on ancient theology
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: against the rigid standards of secular law.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: The foundational conflict of the trial centered on the legal
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: doctrine of a duty of care.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Explain that for us.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: In secular law, when you are responsible for a dependent
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: person who is visibly dying from starvation, you have an
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: absolute legal obligation to seek medical assistance.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: You can't just watch them die. Exactly.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: The prosecution's burden was to prove that the defendants recklessly
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: ignored that duty.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: But the defense, they mounted an argument based entirely on
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: their subjective reality.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: They argued that they were not neglecting her. They claimed
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: they were providing the only care that mattered, spiritual care.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Which doesn't hold up in a secular court. No.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: They claimed that secular medicine had exhausted its utility. The
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: epilepsy medications were ineffective and the doctors had completely failed.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: And priest Ernst Alt provided testimony that perfectly encapsulates this disconnect.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: He told the court that when he first met Annalise, she, quote,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: didn't look like an epileptic.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Wow. Right.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: That statement is a stunning example of the arrogance that
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: can accompany unchecked belief.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like he knows better than the neurologist.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. A clergyman empowering himself to visually diagnose, or in
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: this case dismiss, a complex neurological disorder highlights the profound
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: danger of a closed ideological loop. Right. When specialized scientific
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: expertise is locked out, laypeople make life or death decisions
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: based on theological assumptions.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: And the prosecution aggressively dismantled that defense.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: They had to.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: They established that simple medical interventions could have easily saved
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: her life at literally any point during those 10 months.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Any point.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: They brought in medical experts who testified definitively that Annalise
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: was never possessed.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Right. The medical consensus presented to the court was that
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: she suffered from severe mental illness.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Stemming from the volatile combination of her strict religious upbringing
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and the physiological effects of temporal lobe epilepsy.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: And the prosecution's medical experts explicitly argued the point we
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: discussed earlier.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: About the rituals. Yes.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: That the exorcisms themselves were a form of psychological harm. Right.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: By participating in the delusion, the priests deepened the psychosis,
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: effectively trapping her inside her own hallucinating mind.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: The prosecution even called other members of the Catholic clergy
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: to testify against the defendants, which I found fascinating.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: That was a huge blow to the defense.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Father Dieter Feineis, a priest from a local church in Klingenberg,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: he actually took the stand and stated unequivocally that he
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: would never have conducted those exorcisms.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: So the prosecution demonstrated that this was not some simple
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: battle of science versus religion.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: No, it was much more complex.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: It was secular law, medical science, and mainstream theology all
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: agreeing that these four individuals had crossed a fatal line.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: The verdicts ultimately reflected that consensus, though they also reflected
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: the complex emotional reality.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Of the case. Yeah, the jury found both priests guilty
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of manslaughter resulting from negligence.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: They were sentenced to six months in prison, a sentence
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that was actually later suspended, and three years of probation.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Which is pretty light.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: It is. But the parents, Anna and Joseph Mikkel, they
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: were also found guilty of manslaughter. However, the court took
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: this highly unusual step of exempting them from punishment.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that part always sticks with me.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: The legal reasoning was that they had already, quote, suffered
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: enough by losing their daughter.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: It is a verdict that attempts to balance the objective,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: undeniable guilt of medical negligence with the subjective tragedy of
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: grieving parents. Right. Parents who, in their own deeply flawed
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: and ignorant way, truly believed they were saving their child.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: The law recognized their actions as criminal, but recognized their
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: motivations as tragically misguided rather than malicious.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And the aftermath of the trial forced significant institutional reflection.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: On the part of the church. Yes.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: The Catholic Church, which had authorized the ritual in secret, remember,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: they later officially recanted the finding of possession.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Wow. They backed away from it.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: They publicly attributed Annalise's condition to mental illness and updated
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: their protocols regarding the authorization of exorcisms to require way
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: more rigorous medical evaluations.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: And the town of Klingenberg was just left grappling with
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: this profound shame.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: I can imagine.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Christiana Metzler, who was a local resident, she noted this
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: pervasive feeling in the community that the parents' extreme religious
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: views had completely blinded them to the reality of their
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: daughter's physical deterioration.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: The legal system, the local community, and the institution of
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: the church all ultimately recognized the massive failure of care
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: that occurred in that house.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But the sources indicate that there was one person who
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: never recognized that failure.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Anna Mikkel.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Anna Mikkel, Annalisa's mother. She never expressed a single regret
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: for her actions. Never? No. She told the press there
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: was no other way.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: That is chilling.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Even decades later, after the Hollywood film generated a new
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: wave of morbid tourists and pilgrims, visiting Annalise's grave, Anna
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: was there, handing out prayer cards. She maintained until the
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: very end of her life that her daughter did not
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: die of a neglected medical condition, but died as a
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: holy martyr, suffering to save the souls of other sinners.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating testament to the impenetrable nature of
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: the human ego and, honestly, the power of confirmation bias.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Because think about it. To accept the verdict of the
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: court or the recantation of her own church Anna Mikkel
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: would have had to admit that she starved her own
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: daughter to death based on a delusion.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: And nobody wants to admit that.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: The human psyche will often build an impenetrable fortress to
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: protect itself from that kind of world-shattering realization, even if
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: it means living inside a delusion forever.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: So, as we wrap up this deep dive, we look
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: back at a truly tragic trajectory.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Annalise Mikkel was a young woman burdened from birth by
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: an inherited mandate of guilt. She was struck by a
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: severe neurological disease that forcibly amplified her religious terror.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: And when the medical establishment of the era failed to
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: cure her, she was swallowed by a closed ideological loop.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: An echo chamber that interpreted her medical cries for help
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: as demonic activity. She endured 67 grueling rituals in secret,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: culminating in a death by starvation that was completely, entirely preventable.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: And as I think about you, the listener, processing this
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: heavy history, I think it is important to recognize the
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: modern parallels.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, definitely.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: We may not be dealing with 1970s exorcism rites, but
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: the psychological mechanisms remain evident. absolutely identical.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: When we are desperate for a cure or when we
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: are terrified by something we don't understand, the temptation to
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: abandon scientific consensus for an alternative narrative that feels more
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: empowering is incredibly strong.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: We see it all the time today.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Whether it is internet echo chambers promoting dangerous alternative medicines
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: or communities that validate shared anxieties over objective facts, the
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: danger of confirmation bias is ever-present.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: We will often ignore the experts telling us what we
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: don't want to hear, building protective walls around our beliefs,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: sometimes at a terrible cost.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: That is such a crucial takeaway. And I want to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: leave you with one final thought to mull over. Okay.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Think back to the medical reality of Geschwind syndrome. We
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: discussed how electrical misfirings in the temporal lobe force the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: brain to assign overwhelming, terrifying significance to its environment.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Now, Imagine if Annalise Michel had been born into a
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: family with absolutely no religious background whatsoever.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting thought.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: No Catholic guilt, no illegitimate sister to atone for, no
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: vocabulary of demons or hellfire. How would her temporal lobe
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: epilepsy have manifested?
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Right. What would the software do with that hardware glitch?
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Would her failing brain have fabricated a completely different
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: kind of obsession, like A fixation on mathematics, perhaps. A
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: belief that she was a historical figure or being monitored
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: by alien entities.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: It's entirely possible.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Or is the architecture of our madness always built using
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: the specific cultural bricks we are handed in childhood? Keep
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: that in mind the next time you wonder exactly where
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: our beliefs end and our biology begins.