You may think exorcisms are confined to the convulsing scenes in cinema or a distant, superstitious past, but the tradition is still very much alive in both Australia and abroad.
Just as recently as 2014, the Vatican formally recognised a group of 250 priests known as the International Association of Exorcists, that operate across 30 countries. While closer to home, Cardinal George Pell appointed an official exorcist for the Archdiocese of Sydney in 2010.
Here are three cases that travelled the world:
An atrocity in Antwerp, Australia
In 1994, Australian man Ralph Vollmer and three exorcists were implicated in the murder of his wife Joan, after her decomposing body was found at their Antwerp farm in Victoria.
Four years earlier, Joan was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric institution by her husband Ralph, and in January 1993, he began believing she was possessed. He claims to have noticed unusual changes in Joan, such as increased swearing and promiscuous behaviour, which led him to his conviction.
Two local amateur exorcists were brought in and attempted to rid her of demons. During this time Joan was forcibly locked in her house, prayed over and at one point restrained.
The day of her death, another exorcist - who was just 22 at the time - was called to the family home and efforts began to try and push the demon out of Joan by forcing it up through her mouth.
She died of a heart attack during this procedure with her autopsy revealing that her thyroid cartilage had been fractured from pressure applied to her neck.
Ralph was convinced the exorcism had been a success and was awaiting his wife’s resurrection when police became aware of her death two days later.
The real ‘Emily Rose’
The true story of a 23-year-old German woman who underwent 67 exorcisms before dying of malnutrition and dehydration is so harrowing it inspired the 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
When Anneliese Michel was 17 she began suffering from epileptic fits, it was the 1970s and she was treated with medication. Four years later however, she became severely depressed and suicidal.
Anneliese claimed to be hearing voices telling her that she was damned and saw the faces of demons in people around her. This reportedly escalated to bizarre behaviour including eating spiders and licking her own urine.
She was referred to a local exorcist after an older woman supposedly noticed that Anneliese had a hellishly bad smell and did not walk past an image of Jesus while on a pilgrimage. Two reverends were brought in and conducted 67 rites to rid her of demons, many of which lasted for multiple hours and 42 were recorded on tape.
At some point during her six months of religious treatment, Anneliese stopped seeing medical professionals and refused to eat. She weighed just 30kgs when she died of starvation in 1976.
The two reverends involved in the rites and Anneliese’s parents were later found guilty of negligent manslaughter by a German court.
A bloody end
Around the time of Anneliese’s death, English couple Michael and Christine Taylor visited an exorcist in the quaint market town of Ossett, in West Yorkshire.
Former butcher Michael later attacked his wife and “tore her eyes out, her tongue out and tore her face almost off” to a prosecutor, before he was found wandering the streets naked and saturated in her blood.
A 1975 court heard that Michael had undergone an intense exorcism to expel 40 demons from his body during an all-night ritual. On his return home, he turned his thoughts to wife Christine, believing that she too was possessed by demons and brutally killed the 29-year-old the next morning.
Michael was acquitted of murder for reasons of insanity but found himself again before the courts in 2005 facing charges of sexual assault.
