|
A Movie Based on a True Story
|
|
|
|
On August 10, 1949, The Washington Post ran an article titled, “Pastor Tells Eerie Tale of ‘Haunted’ Boy.” The same day, The Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) ran an article titled, “Minister Tells Parapsychologists Noisy ‘Ghost’ Plagued Family.” The family was referred to as “Mr. and Mrs. John Doe” and their 13-year-old son “Roland.” The article quoted Richard C. Darnell [president of the Society of Parapsychology] and Dr. J. B. Rhine [director of the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University], as saying the so-called haunting was the “most impressive manifestation studied in the poltergeist field.” |
|
Then on August 11, The Times-Herald ran an article titled, “‘Haunted’ Boy’s Parents Tell Of Ghost Messages," giving the story immense credibility in several publications. The Evening Star follow-up article a week later was titled, “Priest Freed Boy of Possession By Devil, Church Sources Say.” The article recapped events and disclosed that the boy was in good condition and free from all troubles. Because of the articles and reports, many began to inquire for more information about the "Exorcism of Roland Doe." One of which years later was an author by the name of William Peter Blatty. Through his own thorough investigation, Blatty obtained a diary of the exorcism that belonged to one of the two priests involved at the scene; and in 1971 Blatty released his novel "The Exorcist", based on the events of the Roland Doe case, and it became a nation wide best-seller spending 55 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. Due to the books success, he wrote a screenplay adaptation to produce a movie of the same name. Blatty's screenplay was fictional, replacing the Roland boy with a girl named Regan, and including many events that were not part of the original story. For further help, he sought the senior priest involved in the Roland Doe case. Author Blatty communicated with the Jesuit exorcist Fr. William Bowdern before he passed away. |
|
|
Fr. William Bowdern |
When Fr. William Bowdern was asked if he would help with the movie, he replied, "I'm sorry. But I want to help you. I think a lot of good could be done for a lot of people if they knew what happened. But I can't... I can tell you one thing... The case I was involved with was the real thing. I had no doubt about it then. I have no doubt about it now. Good luck with your apolistic pursuits." Having already obtained Fr. Bowdern's diary, Blatty asked if it was proper to visit the family and connect them to the film. Fr. Bowdern answered, "No. No. No. We have sworn secrecy and confidentiality to the family of this boy. They STRICTLY do not want any kind of publicity over being connected. Please be careful. Don't ever say anything ever to connect your book, the movie, with this boy. |
|
Don't go on television and do this now or you hurt somebody connected to it. Please. Please don't do it."
THE TRUE STORY
It began in January 1949 and involved not a little girl [as the movie portrays], but a 13-year-old boy named Roland [called Robbie in many accounts to protect identity] who lived with his parents and grandmother in Mt. Rainier, Maryland. Roland was very close to his aunt who visited the family frequently from St. Louis, Missouri. She was a medium and attempted to communicate with the spirit world. Not only did she spark Robbie’s interest in this practice, she also taught him how to use the Ouija board. After the aunt died suddenly on Jan. 26, Roland continued to use the Ouija board to communicate with her and others. Strange phenomena began to happen. The family heard bangs and scratching on the walls, but exterminators found no evidence of pests. Then stranger things began to happen. Items would move around the room, the mattress the boy was on would shake slowly and then violently. Tables would turn over and chairs would move across the room. A vase would toss through the air, and a picture of Christ would visibly shake, and many other like things. At first everyone thought these were pranks, but they started to become convinced otherwise after the events continued for some time. The family thought the dead aunt was attempting to contact them. They spoke to her and asked for signs. At night Roland felt scratching in his bed and suffered nightmares frequently. Moreover his disposition changed and he became unsettled, agitated, and angry. Because his personality was changing, the family called in Reverend Luther Schultze, a Lutheran minister, because they now believed there was a poltergeist tormenting their son. Over several nights Rev. Schultze witnessed that the boy was having awful nightmares where he would tear at the sheets and thrash in agony all night. Being a Lutheran, Pastor Schulze was very skeptical. Upon his recommendation, the family took Roland to the Mental Hygiene Clinic of the University of Maryland for testing. After two rounds of testing, nothing abnormal was discovered. Night after night, the thrashing in agony continued. Scratches started to appear on the boy's body, and that's when Schultze decided it was more of a job for the Catholics. Roland and his parents visited Father Albert Hughes of St. James Catholic Church in Mt. Rainier. While interviewing Roland, the boy cast obscene and blasphemous remarks at the Father in a strange diabolical voice. The room became eerily frigid. Father Hughes was skeptical and reluctant to get involved in the matter, but during the visit Roland addressed the priest in Latin, a language that he did not know. Shaken, Hughes applied to his archbishop for permission to conduct an exorcism. Father Hughes was convinced that Roland was possessed. After reviewing the facts of the case and the medical evidence, Cardinal O’Boyle authorized an exorcism.
Roland was admitted to Georgetown
hospital, where Father Hughes began a ritual of exorcism. The
boy became violent, with spitting and screaming obscenities and blasphemies at
Father Hughes. Although restrained to the bed,
Roland broke loose and wrenched out a metal
spring with which he slashed Father Hughes from
his left shoulder to wrist. The wound required
over 100 stitches to close it. Hughes left the
exorcism and soon after had a breakdown. Roland seemed
calm after this attack, not remembering the
ordeal. He was then released and sent home. The two priests and a young Jesuit scholastic Fr. Walter Halloran went to interview Roland on March 9, 1949. They noticed bloody zig-zig scratches on his chest. They saw all the phenomena in the boys room. The priests petitioned Cardinal Ritter for permission to perform an exorcism. After reviewing the evidence including medical and psychiatric exams, he granted permission on March 16. As the priests began the Rite of Exorcism, Roland became violent. He made howling and growling noises. The bed shook up and down. On his chest appeared bloody scratches with the words hell and devil. Roland spit at the priests as he hurled obscenities and blasphemies, with intermittent fiendish laughter. For his own safety and for the family’s welfare, Roland was then transferred to the Alexian Brothers Hospital and placed in the psychiatric ward. Father Bowdern, continued to perform the exorcism there. Bishop kept a diary of the events, in order to help in future exorcisms. Bowdern started the exorcism by reciting prayers from "The Roman Ritual". Once he began, the boy needed to be held down much of the time. The boy would scream out in pain at the prayers. Each time the name of God was mentioned, in any form, scratches or welts would appear on the boy's chest and stomach. In Bishop's diary the demon was recorded as saying to Bowdern, "I'm in hell. I see you. You're in hell. It's 1957." The remark seemed to have some effect on Bowdern. The boy would spit at the people in the room. "He was an utter marksman at a distance of four or five feet," said Halloran. "His eyes were closed, and he'd spit right in your face." The prayers would continue until dawn for many nights, and then the boy would fall into a natural sleep. He was getting worse. The boy would sing and yell and curse and make sexual references about the men in the room. One night during the ritual, spitting in the faces of the priests who knelt and stood by his bed, he punched and slapped the priests and the witnesses, and he broke Fr. Halloran's nose. He constantly urinated, belched and passed gas. He confronted the priests with information about themselves that he could not possibly have known. His body thrashed and contorted into seemingly impossible shapes and would continue during the night time hours. Each morning though, he would appear to be quite normal and would profess to have no memory of the events that took place after dark. He usually spent the day reading comics or playing board games with the student assistants. The exorcism was now at an impasse. Seeking a solution, Bowdern again plunged into literature regarding possession. He learned of an 1870 case that took place in Wisconsin that seemed similar to Roland’s plight and he devised a new strategy. On the night of April 18, the ritual resumed. Bowdern forced Roland to wear a chain of religious medals and to hold a crucifix in his hands. Suddenly, Roland became strangely contrite and he began to ask questions about the meaning of certain Latin prayers. Bowdern ignored him though, refusing to engage the entity in conversation, and he instead demanded to know the name of the demon and when he would depart. Roland exploded in a rage. Five witnesses held him down while he screamed that he was a "fallen angel", but Bowdern continued on with the ritual. There are instructions in the ritual that command the exorcist to “pronounce the exorcism in a commanding and authoritative voice.” The Roman Ritual of Christian Exorcism reads: “I cast thee out, thou unclean spirit, along with the least encroachment of the wicked enemy and every phantom and diabolical legion. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, depart and vanish from this creature of God….” He recited it incessantly for hours until Roland suddenly interrupted in a loud, masculine voice, identifying himself as "St. Michael the Archangel". The voice ordered the demon to depart. Roland’s body then went into violent contortions and spasms. Then, he fell quiet. A moment later, he sat up, and spoke in a normal voice and told the priests of a vision that he had of St. Michael holding a flaming sword. Roland left St. Louis with his parents 12 days later and returned to Maryland. He wrote to Father Bowdern in May 1949 and told him that he was happy and had a new dog. He was, by last report, still living in Maryland with three children. He has only dim recollections of what happened in 1949. Father Bowdern believed until the end of his life that he and his fellow priests had been battling a demonic entity. His supporters in this maintain that there were many witnesses to the alleged supernatural events that took place and that no other explanations existed for what was seen. A full report that was filed by the Catholic Church stated that the case of Roland Doe was a "genuine demonic possession." According to Father John Nicola, who had the opportunity to review the report, he noted that 41 persons had signed a document attesting to the fact that they had witnessed "paranormal phenomena" in the case. Many feel that Roland suffered from a mental illness and not demonic possession. He may have been hallucinating or suffering from some weird psychosomatic illness that caused him to behave so strangely, to curse and scream and to thrash about so violently. The people who have suggested this are all people who were in no way involved in the case. ***********************
A 1988 interview with Father Walter Halloran; a priest who aided Father Bowdern in the exorcism of Roland Doe in 1949.
|
|
|
Fr. Walter Halloran |
"The little boy would go into a seizure and get quite violent," Halloran said in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "So Father Bowdern asked me to hold him. Yes, he did break my nose."
SD: What was the most striking physical
phenomena that you witnessed yourself
during the exorcisms? |
|
There were a couple of times when
something very dangerous might have
happened and he had no recollection whatsoever of anything
that took place when he was in one of
these sieges. And that affected me, the power that someone or
something has over someone.
SD: Did you see anything fly across the
room or furniture move?
SD: How high was the bed going?
SD: Was there any particular prayer that
the evil spirit seemed to react to the
most?
SD:
Flailing around with his hands, that sort of thing?
SD: Did you see the 'Exorcist' movie?
SD: So there was no neck craning around?
SD: There was some spitting, though,
wasn't there?
SD: Did you fast during that whole
thing?
SD: Bread and water?
SD: Did Father Bowdern fast?
SD: How old were you?
SD: Anything else that sticks out in
your mind when you think back about Roland?
SD: Did you fear for your life.
SD: What a confirmation of the power of
our faith, and the powers that struggle
with each other on this earth. **************
|
|
|
THE EXORCIST The Movie
|
|
|
|
There has never been a movie that has captured the true terror of supernatural darkness and the reality of spiritual warfare like The Exorcist. Adapted from William Peter Blatty’s best-selling 1971 novel of the same name, the film was released by Warner Brothers on December 26, 1973 and immediately played to packed movie theaters across the country. The ensuing media blitz focused its attention on both the movie’s hard-to-stomach scenes that depicted a child possessed by the devil and the fact that author Blatty had based the story on the real event that took place in the Washington, D.C. back in 1949. |
|
The film was nominated in 1974 for ten Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and was the recipient of two: “Best Screenplay Based On Material From Another Medium”, and “Best Sound”. The Exorcist to date has grossed over $240 million, including $40 million during its' re-release in 2003 (making it the thirteenth top grossing film of all time), with video sales and rentals still bringing home healthy sums. The Exorcist is an extraordinary film, but there is another story behind the scene's of this film. The people involved in the making of this movie went through a powerful spiritual experience. The actress Ellen Burstyn in the film is still terrified of the movie to this day, and many who worked on the film have documented that they believe the production was haunted. The following are facts that took place during the filming of the movie. Nine people associated with the film died during it's year long production, including actors in the film Jack MacGowran and Vasiliki Maliaros who died before the film was released. At one point the film was delayed six weeks because the set of Regan's room caught fire due to an electrical problem and had to be completely rebuilt. Several serious injuries during the filming also caused delays. |
|
| Jason Miller's [who played Father Damien Karras] son Jordan was struck by a speeding motorbike during a beach visit, putting him in intensive care; a gaffer cut off his own fingers in an accident. Director Friedkin went to some extraordinary lengths to abuse the cast. He fired off guns behind the actors to get the required startled effect. He slapped one actor across the face before rolling the camera to obtain realism in his performance. |
 |
|
He even went as far as to put Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn in harnesses and have crew members yank them violently. Ellen Burstyn received a permanent spinal injury during filming because of this. In the sequence where she is thrown away from her possessed daughter, she fell on her coccyx and screamed in pain, which was filmed and actually used in the movie. |
|
| What people may not be aware of and should take into account is that the director of the film, using Blatty’s novel was quoting ritual commands from a diary that was actually used by the priest's in the true 1949 exorcism, and using the words as script lines. In the diary, there are instructions to command in a authoritative voice, “I cast thee out, thou unclean spirit, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, depart from this creature of God….” In the movie, these words are shouted at the devil by the actor playing the priest, |
 |
|
as well as
many other commands shouted at the devil in the name of Jesus
Christ. In fact a good portion of the film's dialog is conversations
with the devil taken right from the diary book as script lines. Even though the Bible warns against doing these things
falsely or incorrectly, director William Friedkin used the actual
ritual commands as a script against the girl playing the part of the
Devil. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
