Definition according to
the free dictionary
Exorcism: as ceremony that seeks to expel an evil spirit from a person or place.
Cleansing ritual: cleanse: to free from dirt; ritual: the prescribed order of a religious ceremony.
Supernatural: of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a film of 2005 directed by Scott Derricksion. It is one of the very few great movie story about supernatural, that generally accepted as picture of the real story of Anneliese Michel. In this movie, Jennifer Carpenter really has a great and impressive acting as Emily Rose who has slowly become insane and die being possess by the evil. The movie which largely takes place in a courtroom, depicts the trial of Emily's parish priest, who performed the exorcism, and who was accused by the state of negligent homicide of Emily.
Anneliese Michel (1952 ~ 1976), was enjoying the life of a normal, religiously nurtured young girl until her age of 16 years old in 1968. At first she began shaking and found she was unable to control her body, started seeing devilish grimace, and subsequently worse and erratic, the doctor's prescription couldn't cure her. Anneliese refused to eat because the demons would not allow it. She slept on the stone floor, ate spiders, flies, and coal, and even began drinking her own urine. She could be heard screaming throughout the house for hours while breaking crucifixes, destroying paintings of Jesus, and pulling apart rosaries. At the ending stage before her death, she was self-mutilation, paralyze, fall unconscious very frequently. And at the last day of exorcism on 30th of June 1976, Anneliese was totally emaciated, high fever, exhausted and unable to physically perform the genuflections herself. Her death was recorded on 1st of July 1967 noon, the authorities in Aschaffenburg was informed and the investigation began immediately.
The prosecutors took more than 2 years to to take Annaliese's case to court, using that time to sort through the bizarre facts. Not as the movie, Anneliese's parents, as well as the exorcists, were found guilty of manslaughter resulting from negligence and omitting first aid. They were sentenced to 6 months in jail and probation.The verdict included the opinion of the court that the accused should have helped by taking care of the medical treatment that the girl needed, but instead, their use of naive practices aggravated Anneliese's already poor constitution
A commission of the German Bishop-Conference later declared that Anneliese Michel was not possessed, however, this did not keep believers from supporting her struggles, and it was because so many believed in her that Anneliese's body did not find peace with death. Her corpse was exhumed eleven and a half years after her burial, only to confirm that it had decayed as would have been expected under normal circumstances. Today, her grave remains a place of pilgrimage for rosary-praying and for those who believe that Anneliese Michel bravely fought the devil.
Not far away in Kuala Lumpur, such a capital of Malaysia, an Al-Arqam follower is charged with murdering a couple admitted in the High Court here that he had hit the victims with a piece of wood, crash helmet and mop handle to exorcise the evil spirit in them. The accused Muhammad Ilyas Abdul Razak, 25, said he, however, had no intention of causing death to the couple as they were his uncle and aunt, and was unaware that his action during the exorcism would cause their deaths.
Muhammad Ilyas said he saw his grandmother's spirit telling him to be loyal to the teaching of Al-Arqam leader Abuya Ashaari Muhamad, just about two weeks before the incident on 1st of October 2008. After his dream, he could deliver lectures on Islam, and methods of healing came to him from Abuya, he believed. Everyone in his family believed that he had the gift from God and could see evil spirit and demons.
Together with his brother and cousin who are 23 and 21, they were said to practice the teaching of Abuya Ashaari, who claims to have the ability to raise the dead. In the incident, Muhammad Ilyas was allegedly beaten up his uncle and aunt to death, because he claimed that he could see evil spirits in them and he was performing cleansing ritual to help them instead of homocide.
However, how evil were the spirits in his uncle and aunt was not stated. Perhaps he may refer to the movie Exorcism of Emily Rose, then he could have more fantastic imaginary of his uncle and aunt evil spirits, such as eat cockroach, drink their own urine, speak in a strange dialect, scream unreasonably or self-inflict. With this strong "evidences", cleansing ritual till death may be sound necessary to be performed. I guess his uncle and aunt would rather living together with the "evil spirit" happily, can eat, can work, can have fun, and may be can enjoy playing with their grandchildren, instead of being beaten to death just because want to get rid from evil spirit?
Besides this Muhammad Ilyas, there are a lot of religious or con artists using the name of God or religious ceremony to cheat people money or even turn out become rapist and killer.
