Hello, friends!
In 2005, a famous Hollywood film was released, The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Although there are many horror films in Hollywood, there is something special about this film. Look at the poster of this film. What’s written on it? “Based on a true story” was based on an actual incident. It was based on the story of Anneliese Michel. It is one of the most famous exorcism incidents in the history of the world.
Anneliese Michel was a girl born in 1952 in West Germany. When she was 16 years old, she suddenly fainted in school. Her friends report that when she fainted, for a minute or two, she was in a strange trance-like state. When she returned home that evening, she went to sleep in her room; sometime during the night, she woke up suddenly.
She said that she felt as if there was a heavy weight on her body. When she looked around, she realized that she had wet the bed. But for the next few weeks and months, nothing happened until a year later. Once again, a similar incident occurred. And this time, Anneliese’s parents felt she should be taken to a doctor. The Sun newspaper reported that when the parents went to the doctor, neither the doctor nor the neurologist found anything wrong with Anneliese.
But then, about a year later, in February 1970, Anneliese got tuberculosis, because of which she had to be admitted to the hospital. This time, when she was lying on the hospital bed, Anneliese said that she saw strange colors and heard voices. The doctor said that she has temporal lobe epilepsy, due to which she was having seizures. Now, it is not a rare disease. More than 50 million people in the world suffer from it.
But Anneliese’s case was unique. A few days later, Anneliese started having dangerous hallucinations. She started seeing things that no one else could see. She heard voices that no one else could hear. She had some voices in her head that kept telling her that she was cursed. Because of this, she went into a depression. But this was just the beginning.
Catholic Christians often kneel while doing a type of prayer. The Telegraph newspaper reported that Anneliese started doing this about 600 times a day. To the extent that her knee ligaments were damaged. Then, once, she went under a table and hid. And for two consecutive days, she started barking like a dog. One day, she ate a spider; another day, she ate a piece of coal
and once she ate a bird.
Her parents were not able to understand what was happening. When they could not get any answer from the doctors, they went to a bishop and asked him to do an exorcism for Anneliese. ‘Exorcism’ means to take out an evil spirit from someone’s body by religious procedures. In India, it is called ‘Jhad Phuk.’ It was said that six demons were residing in Anneliese’s body.
German dictator Adolf Hitler, Roman Emperor Nero, and Judas, a disciple of Jesus, who had deceived Jesus. Fourth, Cain, son of Adam, who had killed his brother Abel. Fifth, Lucifer is the main demon in Christian theology. And the sixth, Valentin Fleischmann, a German Catholic priest who lived in the 1500s who was expelled from the church due to his alcoholism and a murder charge.
As the exorcism on Anneliese Michel progressed, it’s said that the demons residing within her started talking. The actual audio clip of this exorcism, is still available online.
Anneliese Michel’s case is one of the most bizarre cases in the history of the world. But this is not the only one. Ten years ago, an American man was found unconscious in his hotel room. When he was taken to the hospital and regained consciousness, he started speaking Swedish. When his ID card and other documents were checked, his name was found to be Michael Boatwright. But when he was asked his name, he said that his name was Johan Ek. How did an American man start speaking Swedish after becoming unconscious? How did Anneliese Michel start making these demonic sounds? Did a demonic soul enter these bodies? In this blog, we will understand these mysteries from a scientific perspective.
In English, it is called demonic possession. In Hindi, it is known as a ghost taking control of your body. The real reason behind all this is Multiple Personality Disorder. You must have heard of this disorder somewhere. If not, then you may have seen it in films. Aparichit. Karthik calling Karthik. Fight club. Or Psycho. As the name suggests, ‘multiple personality disorder’ means that a person has multiple personalities. But how is this possible?
To understand this, we need to stop using this name. Because now this mental condition has been given a new name. DID. Dissociative Identity Disorder. You know what an identity is. Identity refers to your true self. So, what can Dissociation of identity mean? Famous poet Nida Fazli once wrote, “Every man has 10-20 men inside him, Whomever you want to see,
make sure you see them more than once.”
This poetry has a deeper psychological meaning. First of all, you are the person you are in reality. But secondly, you are the person you think you are. Do you understand the difference? If a person is a fool, he may still feel bright and intelligent. In psychology, a specific term is used for this: the Dunning-Kruger effect. This effect is seen when a person overestimates his ability, even though he severely lacks knowledge and skill.
There is a saying in Hindi, ‘A fool thinks of himself as the most intelligent being.’ Being a fool or being intelligent is only one aspect. This Dissociation of identity can happen even when a person feels good at heart, but in reality, he is selfish. Or it can be the other way around. A person may be good at something but may feel that he is not good enough.
So, number one, the person you are. Number two is the person you feel you are. This is your self-image. Number three is the concept of the ideal self. The person you want to be. This depends on every person as well as your social conditioning. Some people’s ideal self can be someone like Elvish Yadav. But Dr Vikas Divyakirti tells his son that the watchman of the apartment protects them and that he is older than the child. So, the child should greet them respectfully. So, what will be the ideal self for this child?
To be humble and knowledgeable. If a person’s identity #2 and #3 vastly differ, his confidence will be pretty low. Low self-esteem. But if, on the other hand, a person’s identity #2 and #3 are pretty similar, then their self-esteem and confidence will be high because this depends on one question only. How much do you like and accept yourself? Are you like Geet from the film “Jab We Met?”
Or are you a person who doesn’t like himself at all? Self-image, ideal self, and self-esteem. Psychologist Carl Rogers says that our self-concept comprises these three things. And these three parts depend on numerous things.
Our habits, the environment around us, the things we are proud of, the things we feel embarrassed about, our regrets, our secrets, the things we fear, our desires, and our fantasies; it is possible for a person to look very happy from the outside, but inside, he may be feeling sad and lonely.
Like Kaifi Azmi once wrote, “What sorrows are you hiding behind your bright smile?” A person may look very religious to you, but, in reality, he might not believe in God. A person may seem very respectful and humble to others when angry and frustrated with his boss or a family member. Biologically, it is also possible that someone has been born with a male body, but he may feel as if he is a woman.
Someone may be biologically female, but she feels that she is a man. So, I want to say here that our identities and minds are very complex. Sometimes, our multiple identities dissociate into different personalities. These distinct personalities are known as Alters. A person can have two alters, four, five, or even twenty alters. There is the famous case of Kim Nobel, who has over 100 personalities.
Each of them has a different name, different age, different gender identities, different temperaments, different body language, and even different memories stored in the mind. Usually, to some extent, even in many ordinary people, different personalities can be seen. Some people spend time with their friends, but their behavior and body language are quite different from when they spend time with their parents.
How they talk, emotional tolerance and everything else changes depending on who they are with. But in this DID disease, this harmless little habit goes to an extreme level. Not only your body language and behavior but your name changes, too, and your age changes. In the case of some people, different memories start forming in their minds. It’s almost as if their minds are divided into various compartments.
In these cases, a leading personality is seen in people for the maximum percentage of time. This is called the Host Identity or Primary Identity. Usually, it is the personality the name you are born with. But in some cases, an alter can also become your host identity. Like in the case of Kim Noble, her alter Patricia became her primary host identity.
Kim’s daughter was 14 years old then. When she takes care of her daughter as a mother, she doesn’t see herself as Kim but as Patricia. Besides Kim and Patricia, she has other identities, like Judy, Julie, Aby, Don, Ken, Bonnie, and Hailey. In 2017, the Hollywood film Split was released. It showed the same thing. Kim and her daughter were filmed twice when they went to the Oprah Winfrey show.
Once, when they were at home, Kim’s personality was Patricia’s. When they came on the show, her personality was that of the 15-year-old Judy. There is nothing to worry about because, as you can see in films, personality doesn’t change suddenly and dramatically. Most of the time, if people don’t know about it, they might not be able to notice it.
One exciting thing we see here is that the memory of the other personality’s actions or experiences disappears whenever this personality switch happens. So often, throughout her life, she may forget her keys somewhere. Sometimes, she orders pizza but then forgets that she has ordered it. Sometimes, she finds her car mysteriously parked miles away. One day, something disturbing happened. The personality switch occurred while she was driving.
Her 15-year-old Julie’s personality came on while driving, leading to an accident. A person who suffers from this dissociative identity disorder does not know that he is suffering from it. He knows that he has frequent memory loss or he does not have a proper sense of time. They can’t remember where they were when a different personality had taken over a few hours ago. When Kim was told that she suffers from DID, Patricia and many other personalities refused to believe it.
They thought it was strange. That was not possible. She had to undergo therapy for six years. Only then could she accept that it was happening to her. Once she understood this, gradually, the pieces of the puzzle started falling into place, And she began to understand why she was losing time again and again and why there were so many gaps in her memory. With the help of psychotherapy, eventually, Patricia started to accept her condition but what is the solution to this?
The solution is the opposite of Dissociation. Reintegration. Communication should be established between different alters so that identities can be united. When this article was written, as of that time, her identity was not yet fully integrated. She had 3-4 switches every day. But with time, she understood the triggers that were changing her personality. For example, Judy’s personality would come out whenever food was served. Whenever she went to take a bath, she would be overtaken by the spirit of water.
By understanding these triggers, she started managing her DID system. But on the other hand, Anneliese Michel, whose story I told you at the beginning of the video, was not that fortunate. She had to suffer through 67 exorcisms in 10 months. After that, she passed away. What was the reason behind her death? Some people say that evil spirits form negative energy. And as a solution to this, they often talk about positive energy.
Often, you are told ways to harness the universe’s positive energy to fight against negative energy. Similar to this is the idea of the Law of Attraction. This has been discussed in the book The Secret and Alchemist and in a dialogue in the film Om Shanti Om. Is there any truth to this? Many of you have asked me to talk about this topic. I want to present this e-book on Dhruv Rathee Academy, The Power of Universe.
Anneliese’s death was not due to any demon or negative energy. She died due to starvation and acute dehydration. That is, she didn’t have any access to food or water. She was so light that she weighed only 32 kg. When the news of her death spread all over the world, it became a national scandal. Law agencies started getting involved here. They saw that Anneliese had been kept under psychiatric care ever since she was 16.
The physicians who were treating her said that she had a positive response to medication and therapy. They noted that Anneliese suffered from 3 mental illnesses. First, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. I have already talked about it. Second, Anorexia Nervosa. This is a mental illness in which people have distorted perceptions about their weight. Healthy people think they are gaining weight and becoming fat while their body is healthy.
Because of this, they keep on eating less and less, and gradually, they reach abnormally low body weight. And the third disease she had was Hyper-Religious Personality Disorder. A condition in which a person’s religious beliefs become so intense that they report experiencing mystical experiences. They start having delusions about spirituality. Such people often become obsessed with unholy things. Their regular thoughts are always about whether their actions are sinful.
The reason behind this is said to be Anneliese’s highly religious parents. Anneliese’s childhood was an extremely religious upbringing. This is why Anneliese felt that there were demons in her. And sometimes she would call those ‘demons’ Hitler, or Judas, or Lucifer. This is very obvious because had it been any Hindu, Muslim, or Atheist who was suffering from the same problem, these names would not have come to his mind.
Anneliese only knew the names of Lucifer, Judas, and Cain because she was taught about these names in her childhood. A professor at Wuertzburg University said that when all of this added up, Anneliese was facing a heavy psychic disturbance. The District Attorney said that had she received medical assistance at the right time, her death could have been prevented. This is why charges were filed against her parents and two Roman Catholic priests who did this exorcism on her. These four people were also convicted of negligent homicide.
You might be thinking about one question: Many of us go through irrational thoughts, internal conflicts, regrets, fears, fear of different things, repressed desires, superstitions, and other negative emotions. But not everyone has DID. Why is this? What is the difference between those who have this illness and those who, despite all these things, do not suffer from this disease? What is the root cause of this Dissociative Identity Disorder?
When the data of people suffering from DID was compiled in the US, Canada, and Europe, it was found that in approximately 90% of the cases, the people who suffer from this disorder have been victims of some form of abuse in their childhood. The abuse could have been physical, emotional, or sexual. It can be repetitive or only last for a short period. But because of this abuse, there is trauma.
It leaves a mental wound in your brain. And because of this trauma, your brain dissociates. It may sound a little weird, but it is true. Dissociation is a coping mechanism of the body. To overcome the injury to your mind, your brain splits into different personalities. This method of overcoming challenges is not very safe. It is a severe mental illness. Because of this, people may fall into stress, anxiety, and severe depression. Because of this, people may become addicted to drugs and alcohol.
And in many cases, they become violent against themselves or others. Any traumatic event that happened to a person in their childhood often gets drilled into their unconscious mind. And in most cases, these victims don’t even remember what happened to them. You may find the treatment a little strange, but when these patients are treated using psychotherapy, the therapist tries to remind them of that traumatic event.
Did you know about the Survivors of Andes? Some people called it The Miracle of Andes?
Because if you want to reintegrate the scattered identities, to make sure that the patient has a single identity, then whatever happened to them, the acceptance and forgiveness of that traumatic event is essential. The solution to this is to remember the past and accept it. Now, Dissociation is something that, in severe cases, transforms into a mental illness DID. But its mild cases can be seen in many people, as I told you at the beginning of this blog.
Chances are, every other person reading this blog has experienced a dissociative episode at least once. Some studies suggest that 74% of people have experienced at least one dissociative episode in their life. Some studies conducted in America claim that this number is around 50%. This is a considerable number. Almost half of the world’s population has experienced it at least once. But don’t get confused. It is not black and white. “You will either experience it or you won’t.” This is a spectrum.
Just like there is a spectrum of democracy and dictatorship, there is a spectrum of Dissociation. There can be many cases ranging from moderate to mild. But only in extreme cases does this cause the mental illness DID. Examples of mild cases can be dissociative amnesia. You must have heard this dialogue in some movie or the other. “I don’t remember what happened after this.” When people suffer from a traumatic episode, their mind dissociates that episode from time. So they forget many details about it. This type of Dissociation is called Dissociative Amnesia.
Apart from this, there can be a Dissociative Fugue. I discussed this example at the beginning of the video, Michael Boatwright’s story. An American man who started speaking Swedish after fainting. Do you know how this happened? There was a simple reason behind it. He had spent a lot of time in Sweden. Swedish public records showed that Boatwright had lived in Sweden on and off from 1981 to 2003. When several Swedish people were asked about it, they said he knew an American who was highly interested in medieval history.
Did you know about the Survivors of Andes? Some people called it The Miracle of Andes?
Photos of him as a child were also released. But after spending so many years in Sweden, he moved to Japan, where he married and became a father. After that, he moved to China, where he taught English. Later on, he moved to California. Doctors said that he was suffering through a dissociative fugue state where people get confused about their past events. Here, too, the trigger is some form of trauma.
Boatwright had one son and two ex-wives. But when Boatwright was asked about them, he didn’t remember them. There is a song by the Linkin Park band called Numb. This song has a line: ” “I have become so numb that I can’t feel you there.” Some people often feel detached from their actions, thoughts, and feelings. They see themselves as an outsider. This type of Dissociation is called Depersonalisation.
A similar dissociation is Derealisation, where people feel that the world and the people around them are unreal. Everything seems like a dream. Time either moves very slowly or very fast. These are serious mental health issues. Unfortunately, most films portray them in either a scary or insensitive way. In Bhool Bhulaiya, a character played by Rajpal Yadav is Chhota Pandit. He has a mental illness, but the film uses it as a comic relief.
At the end of the film, a so-called psychiatrist treats him by slapping him. Even the main lead in the movie, Avni, played by Vidya Balan, treats her too, and the psychiatrist uses strange methods. In real life, no therapist would approve of these methods. On the other hand, some films portray DID patients in a violent light, like Aparichit or Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary film Psycho. They represent a hazardous person. This illness is sensationalized for entertainment.
Did you know about the Survivors of Andes? Some people called it The Miracle of Andes?
Dr Simone Reinders from King’s College London says that because there’s already a stigma about these illnesses in society, films that make DID patients look violent and dangerous only add to the problem. In real life, most of the DID patients are not violent. A 2017 research came to the same conclusion. A film that showed a DID patient in a sensitive and well-thought-out way was Karthik Calling Karthik. You might remember this film by Farhan Akhtar and Deepika Padukone. Apart from this, a Haryanvi web series called Opri Paraai portrays the psychotherapist’s therapy rules quite well. This video shows how a psychotherapist creates a safe, confidential, and trustworthy environment around the patient. It also includes some real-life techniques. Such as guided imagery and Bandler’s handshake are used in hypnotherapy.
After reading this blog, I hope you understand this illness well. You must have understood that we should not create any stigma around mental illnesses. If someone has a heart problem, they go to a cardiologist. If someone has a mental issue, they should go to a therapist. This should not be about any person’s ego. In real life, if a person is suffering from a lot of stress, anxiety, depression, or irritability, then the root cause may be some form of mental illness. That’s why it’s always a good idea to consult a psychotherapist. And if you think that in real life, things like ghosts, demons, and witches do exist,
then open your eyes. We are living in 2024.
