The True Story of the Exorcist

Some moviegoers were so overcome by fear when they watched 1973's "The Exorcist" that they passed out. Sometimes, however, the true story is far more terrifying than anything that can be conjured up by Hollywood. Tonight, we'll talk about the chilling real events on which the movie was based.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Jen Lee and I'm Jenna Sullivan.
And we'd like to welcome you tobeneath your bed a podcast where
we drag out all those fears atwork, beneath our beds from the
paranormal to true crime, to thesimply strange along the way,
we'll be drinking cocktails andsharing stories from our
Appalachian upbringings.
Some movie goers were soovercome by fear when they
watched 1973 is the Exorcistthat they passed out.

(00:22):
Sometimes.
However, the true story is farmore terrifying than anything
that can be conjured up byHollywood tonight.
We'll talk about the chillingrelevance on which the movie is
based.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
TJ,

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Hey Jen, how are you?
I'm doing okay.
How are you doing?
I'm doing well.
So do you have any plans thisweekend?
Actually, I, I did a lot ofonline shopping that was impulse
buying today.
Do you want to know what Ibought?
Yeah.
What did you buy?
So I bought like 10 cat pensfrom some shop in Japan, and

(01:08):
then I need that and I boughtthese a set of wineglasses,
which you know, that I need likea hole in the head.
Cause I have so many wineglasses already.
And then I bought a pair ofshoes that have daisies like
really random.
Where are you going to wearthose at?
I have no idea, but a couple ofweeks ago I bought shoes that

(01:30):
had citrus on them.
I don't know where I'm going towear those.
I think of like grapefruits andoranges.
I'm really not sure what I wasthinking.
Jen kind of like when you wentthrough that, is it Lou LiRo
please?
I don't want people to knowabout that.
It's so bad.
Yeah.
I blame it on the pandemic.
Can we just give the numberthough?

(01:51):
The number of leggings I own, Iown 55 pairs of leggings that
I've never worn.
So I may have a problem.
I just thought it was 37.
I thought that no, no.
It's 55.
I counted them and you've worn.
I think you've worn at least onepair.
Y eah.
I've worn like a couple, butmost of them h ave never been

(02:12):
worn and they were in a box inmy closet.
So I'm thinking like maybe I canmake a quilt out of them.
S ome might be cool, but I don'tknow how to quilt.
I w ore the peacock ones thatyou gave me when we went t
ubing.
That's right.
Have you worn them since I'llthink of one, th e l ike one
other time, two oth er times, Ican't remember on, on a date
with your wife.
Prob ably.

(02:34):
Th ey don' t loo k so good onme.
They don't look good on it's either.
That's why they're in my closet.
But I tell myself at, ye ah, itis.
It's definitely not you.
It's the print.
It's the peacocks.
It's a very soft fabric.
It is.
They describe it as buttery,which I'm not sure if you want
to put something buttery on yourlegs, but if you do help
yourself to my 55 pairs ofbuttery leggings, but are they

(02:57):
still thing?
Are they still like a businessor do they

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Go out?

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I think, I think they're kind of holding on, but
it seems like it jumped theshark.
There were so many people tryingto sell this stuff and it's,
mid-level marketing peopletrying to make an extra buck or
two.
It just seemed like a reallynasty company as I got into it.
I mean, as I learned more aboutit, it sounds like it's the
Amway of leggings.
It is in t he stuff is so ugly.

(03:21):
I'm not sure what compulsion wasto buy the stock.
It's like, I think you had toclaim them before other people
did.
So somehow when I hit sold, likeI felt really good about myself
for about five seconds.
They had limited prints.
Right?
They did.
Yeah.
And then they have these partieswhere they talk you up and talk
about like how great you'regoing to look a nd these
leggings and then you put themon and you're like,, I don't

(03:41):
really look so good.
So, so what are you havingtonight?
I'm having, u m, nothing, allthat exotic, but it's one of my
favorite drinks.
It's a lemon drop martini.
So I think yo u c an make them afew ways.
I just do the vodka, simple syrup, fresh lemon juice.
And of course lemon cello.
And then the most important partyou co uld l ike take the lemon

(04:01):
around the side of your glassand then dip it in sugar.
So you kind of get that likesweet sour thing going on.
So that's wh at I'm having.
What are you having?

Speaker 3 (04:09):
I am having a Georgetown punch and that has
clear Bacardi.
It has dark rum, coconut rum,pineapple juice, cranberry juice
and lime juice.
That sounds so good.
And you're all about the rum.
I am all about the rum and it'sreally, really boozy.
So I think I might've made a badchoice.
We'll have to see

Speaker 1 (04:29):
If you start repeating yourself.
I'll let you know if I stillhave my wits about me.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah.
My editing might be reallyjacked up depending on how I'm
doing.
You might have your work cut outfor you this week.
So this is a story.
Well, it's a story that I thinka lot of people have heard about
or watch the movie, but I don'tthink they really know the full
story and what's behind it.
Is it I'm going to talk aboutthe true story of the Exorcist?

(04:54):
Oh my God.
So what was behind the book andalso what was behind

Speaker 1 (04:59):
I'm so anxious to hear this.
So let me see.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
You're really, really, really early in August
20th, 1949, the Washington postpublished an article priests
freeze, Mount rain.
Your boy reported held a devil'sgrip and it was written by bill
Brinkley.
And I'll just read you a couplepassages from the article.
Cool.
And what is perhaps one of themost remarkable experiences of

(05:22):
its kind a nd recent religioushistory, a 14 year old M ount R
ainier.
Y our boy has been free by aCatholic p riest of possession
by the devil Catholic sourcesreported yesterday only after
between 20 and 30 performancesof the ancient ritual of
exorcism here in s t.
Louis was t he devil finallycast out of the boy.
It was said, another passagegoes on to say a nd a ll, e

(05:45):
xcept the last of these, the boybroke out into a violent tantrum
of screaming, cursing, and voice i t of Latin phrases and
language.
He had never studied wheneverthe p riest reached the climatic
point of the ritual a nd thename of the, the son and the
Holy ghost, I cast the outdevil.
So I don't think a lot of peoplehave heard about that article.
They've just heard about thebook

Speaker 1 (06:04):
It's much earlier than I would've guessed 1949.
You said

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yes, 1949.
So William Peter Blatty, he'sthe author of the Exorcist.
When that article came out, hewas a junior English student at
Georgetown university and heread the article and he just
became fascinated with thestory, but he didn't do anything
with it.
He just read it.
I think he just forgot about itor maybe thought about it
throughout the years, but henever did anything with it.

(06:29):
And he did a lot of things inhis career while he was getting
his master's degree at GeorgeWashington university.
He worked as, um, vacuumsalesman, a beer truck driver.
He enlisted in the air force.
And then later he worked inLebanon and it was with the
United States informationagency, which I had never heard
of before.
So in 1960 he published hisfirst book.

(06:53):
It was a like a comedy and itwas called which way to Mecca
Jack.
And it talks about hisexperiences in Lebanon.
So in 1969 is when he beganwriting the Exorcist and it only
took them nine months to writethis.
Then it was published in 1971and it sold 1 3 million copies
in the U S and was translated, Ithink in 12 other languages at

(07:15):
that time.
I'm not sure what it i s now

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Curious when he was at George, you said he was at
Georgetown or George Washingtonuniversity.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
He was at Georgetown.
He actually was very poorgrowing up and he got a
scholarship.
What did he study?
He studied English.
I was wondering he did hismasters at George Washington
university.
Okay.
He writes the book and it turnsinto a movie, the write a
screenplay and the exercisecomes out the day after
Christmas in 1973, since it wasreleased$441 million is what

(07:48):
it's gross.
And people were having all thesevery strong reactions to them.
Like even physical reactions,you know, throwing up some
people were shaking, crying.
The reports of people feigningtheir lines, going around the
block for people to just come inand see this movie.
But there was a lot of visceralreaction to this.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
You can see why.
I mean, having watched the movieseveral years ago, I get it.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah.
I just watched it yesterday.
I've been putting it off allthese years.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Was that your first time watching it?
Yeah, it was a very first time.
How can we hear what you thinkabout it?

Speaker 3 (08:19):
Well, that type of thing, like demonic possession,
that really scares me.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
It does me too.
I think I could deal with anyghosts or cryptids, but you get
the devil involved, which I'mnot even sure.
I believe in.
Maybe I should touch wood, butthat freaks me out.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
I didn't watch it all these years because of that.
And when I was reading, we'redoing the research for this.
There was a night or two.
I was here by myself and I waslike really creeped out.
And what I would do is I would,u m, go check the doors and lock
them, check them over and overagain, I brought a flashlight
upstairs.
I looked into the walk-incloset.

(08:57):
U h, I went to the bed.
Did you look under your bed?
I didn't look under it.
We have all these boxes underthe bed.
I know that someone could notfit underneath there.
Well, that's still, so what Idid, I was too scared to look
underneath.
I just kicked it a couple times,but I feel

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Like locking the doors.
It's not going to protect youfrom the devil.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
That's a good point.
Not to freak you out, but itjust made me, I guess, feel
better.
Like, you know, it's hard tobattle a regular person and
Satan at the same time.
That's true.
I was trying to hedge my betsvery wise.
So with the, with the reactionsthat people were having, I read
that there was an articlepublished in 1975 and it was in

(09:40):
the journal of nervous andmental disease.
And it was called cinematicneurosis.
Following the Exorcist, I reporta four cases by JC Bazuto.
So I thought that was, um, Ithought that was crazy because
people were having suchreactions.
And that is fascinating to me.
Have you ever heard of thatbefore?
I have.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
I work in mental health, but I actually have
never, never heard of that.
It almost sounds like hysteria,what they used to call.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Well, hysteria.
I would like to read that and itsays following the, following
the distribution and release ofthe movie, the Exorcist much
publicity concerning thepsychiatric hazards of the film
was reported numerous cases oftraumatic neurosis and even
psychosis were supposedly noted.
So that would be a good read,but you know how journals are,

(10:24):
it's sometimes really hard to,to get the article without
paying an arm and a leg are soexpensive.
And I don't, if the journal ofnervous and mental disease is
still going strong.
Yeah.
Kind of doubt that.
I try and find that that soundsso interesting.
There used to be something Ipaid a membership to.
It was called Lexus nexus, Ithink.
And you could get, have accessto all sorts of documents and

(10:45):
journals.
And I don't know what happenedwith them.
That's too bad, but I used touse that a lot to do research.
So when the movie was releasedamong the moviegoers were father
William S bodhran and fatherWalter Halloran, the priest who
performed the actual exorcism.
So how Peter bladdy came towrite the book was that 20 years

(11:07):
later, after reading thatarticle, he had a friend, um,
some say it was a professor thatknew father Belden.
I knew that father Bowden wasinvolved in the exorcism.
And so Peter bladdy reaches outto Belden and asked him, you
know, is this true?
And Beltran revealed to bladdythat they had kept an impeccable

(11:31):
diary of the exorcism itself,but refuse to share it with him.
Somehow he gets a hold of it.
And in an article entitledexorcism receives renewed
attention by bill Broadway in2000.
And that again was in theWashington post.
It says that bloody is among aselect few who know the identity

(11:51):
of the boy and the news account,but said he will absolutely not
reveal his name or whereabouts.
He said, the boy lived incottage city, not Mount Rainier
as most reports, including theWashington post indicated.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Well, so that's a huge difference.
I mean, that's on the other

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Side of the country Mount Rainier, that's actually
right outside of DC.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Oh, I thought [inaudible].
I thought they they're talkingabout Washington.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
No, no.
I think it's a, I don't know ifit's in Montgomery County, but
it's not far from, from the cityof DC and cottage city where
it's not cottage city is nearBladensburg and it's, I think
it's less, almost six miles, alittle bit less than six miles,
six or seven miles from DC.
So in the fictional account,it's actually a really big deal

(12:36):
in the movie.
You know, there's a famous scenewhere the priest dies at the
steps and it's actually kind ofa bit of a tourist attraction.
People go and, you know, go andtake their picture, go by and
see it.
Not knowing that, you know,that's the fictional accounts.
Interesting.
So they're not really at theright place.
No, no think they are, butthey're not.

(12:56):
So in the fictional account ofthe Exorcist and the book and
also the, the movie, the maincharacter was Reagan MacNeil and
is played by Linda Blair and anot so fun fact.
Do you wanna hear not so funnyfact about Linda Blair?
I do.
Am I going to be shocked?
Maybe because she gave such likea realistic portrayal of the

(13:17):
character and the possession.
Some people thought that itglorified Satan.
Really?
Yeah.
And she was receiving a ton, amassive amount of death threats.
Insane.
I can't believe that it was somuch so that she had to have
security or a house.
And I think one time, I think itwas, was it at Warner brothers?
I think that released it.

(13:39):
I think they provided securityfor a while too.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
She was really young when she did that was, she must
have been a young teenager.
Do you know?

Speaker 3 (13:45):
She was, I think she was around the same age as the
boy, the real boy, um, was when,when this happened 13 year old,
I think she's around 13 at thattime.
So yeah.
So she was getting a lot ofdeath threats and she also, I
haven't, I couldn't find it butyears ago I was watching
something and I think on YouTubeand she's, um, an equestrian and

(14:10):
she would go and compete.
Yeah.
She would go and compete andpeople would shout at her like,
turn your head around.
So this thing scene this wholelike character, you know, just
dogged her for the rest of herlife,

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Still acting.
I mean, trying to think of she,did she have a career later
trying to remember?

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Well, yeah, she had, she was in a very disturbing
movie called gosh, what was itcalled?
She was a runaway.
And she had a problem withalcohol and she went to
detention center.
It made a real impact on me.
So let's just put it

Speaker 1 (14:41):
That way.
Well, not straight, but

Speaker 3 (14:44):
You know, he's scared the bejesus out of me and I
didn't even, that's justsomething I remember from a long
time ago.
It's not something that Istumbled across during my
research.
I just remember she was in thatand I wish I could remember the
name of the movie.
So yeah, she was in otherthings, but that was really her
defining role, but she's a real,um, activist for animals.

(15:04):
Um, so she has a foundation forthat and I've seen her
interviewed as you know, it wasgoing on YouTube and doing
research and she seems to have,you know, a positive outlook, I
think at one time, y ou k now,she had a problem with drugs and
alcohol.
She seemed to be well adjustedand doing well.
So i t's g ood.
Yeah, it does.
It makes you feel good about it.
So the real story, the r uralpossession that this was based

(15:26):
on, if you look i n, try to findinformation about this allegedly
or supposedly happening, you'llfind various names for this kid.
You'll find rolling.
Robbie, Ronald.
It gets very confusing.
As I was saying earlier, it allbegan in 1949 in cottage city.

(15:46):
And he was, he was around 13years old and he lived with his
parents and his grandmother andhe had an aunt and later she's,
um, referred to is on Harriet.
So it was very close to thisaunt and she was actually, um,
flying in from st.
Louis cause they had family inst.
Louis and he was very close toher and she was described as a

(16:07):
spiritualist.
They were Lutheran.
But evidently even though theBible, I think in Leviticus and
maybe Deuteronomy, they talkabout, I don't know, I think
killing you if you're a, ifyou're a wizard or practice
witchcraft.
So it was kind of weird that shewas regarded and considered
herself a spiritualist.
Like she could communicate withthe dead, but people didn't feel

(16:29):
like her family didn't feel likeit conflicted with them being
Lutheran, which I thought wasreally interesting.
I've been doing a littleresearch on spiritualism too.
And I've also read that, youknow, for a lot of
spiritualists, theirspiritualist beliefs co-exist
with their Christian beliefs.
So that's interesting co-existswith what their Christian
beliefs.
Oh, okay.

(16:50):
Yeah.
So I thought that was reallyinteresting.
You know, I was raised SouthernBaptist and you would have been
booted out and exercised realquick.
Yeah.
So anyway, his aunt Harriet wasvery close to her and she
introduced him to the Weegeeboard.
Oh yeah.
She said that she couldcommunicate with the dad.
She showed them how to use it.

(17:10):
And she went back to st.
Louis for a bit and strangethings started happening around
January 10th, like scratching onthe walls, dripping sounds.
And then she died.
She died suddenly.
And he was really, you know, hewas really upset about it.
He was close to her.
And so he continued to get thatWeegee board out and try to

(17:31):
communicate with her, Oh gosh,he did it by himself.
And more than once, this soundedlike it was an ongoing thing.
So his parents startedobserving, you know, they
started hearing the scratchingon the walls, a dripping sounds
and his grandmother objects suchas a vase, you know, moving on
its own and starting to getscared.
Can I send a picture of Christwould shake on the wall and

(17:53):
scratching in his bed.
And this really flips me out.
He started to hear, sounds thathe described a squeaky shoes
walking along his bed and atschool, his desk would move to
the aisle and collab with otherkids.
Um, which of course caused a lotof disruption.
And the teacher just assumed hewas doing it.

(18:13):
So eventually he was taken outof school, but back to the
squeaky shoes.
So he was saying that he couldhear squeaky shoes along his bed
and in a book written by ThomasAllen and the book is called
possess the true story of anexorcism.
He described the following.
He said after a number of nightsof the squeaking Robbie's mom

(18:34):
and his grandmother laid on thebed with him, they all heard the
sound of moving feet, but thefeet seemed to be marching to
the beat of drums up the bed,down the bed, up the bed, down
the bed.
Isn't that creepy, creepy hisaunt Harriet.
And she's shared this, I believewith his parents too.
She was talking about the bestway to get in contact with the

(18:54):
dead would be having a seance.
Another way, I guess, kind of aprimitive way would be to, you
know, knock on a wall and say,if you're here, you know, not
three times or not four times,whatever it may be.
And evidently when his mom andhis grandmother were on the bed
with him, they thought it wasHarriet.
Yeah.

(19:15):
He said, Harriet, if that's youknock three times, so what
happened was the bed kind of,you know, if you like sat, you
just plopped down on the bed,the force of it would force it
up and then become back down onthe floor.
And so the bed did like threethumps and then they asked
again, I believe.
And it did it four times.

(19:35):
So like I'm not Harriet kind ofthing.
No, they were saying Harriet isthat so she was replying to them
if it was, Hey, it's me or it'ssome other spirit, some other
force.
And so the, these thingscontinued and his behavior and
his mood changed dramatically.
He became very angry, you know,highly agitated.

(19:56):
And his family supposedly tookhim to see several
professionals, like apsychiatrist, a doctor, a
psychologist.
And again, this is per ThomasAllen's book.
And they all said that there wasnothing wrong with him, but he
was described as high strong.
So incomes, there are Reverend,Reverend Luther miles Scholtz
and they go to him and theyexplained to him what's going

(20:19):
on.
And he, he didn't really, I'mgonna say he didn't really take
it seriously.
He really just didn't believeit.
And so he would go, he wouldpray with a boy, talked to his
parents about it.
He agreed to take Robbie, we'llcall him Robbie into his home
for observation for a few days.
Hmm.
That's weird.
Yeah, it is kinda, it's kindacreepy now.
And he stayed in the same roomwith him.

(20:40):
They had double beds orsomething in the room, S chultz.
He also thought privately Robbie was causing things, but he
didn't want to say that to thefamily.
Of course.
And he just thought that R obbiewas pranking them, but he ended
up witnessing many of the samethings.
Like he saw objects moving ontheir own R obby's bed would
shake.
He also, he sat R obbie in achair at one point it was th e a

(21:03):
rm back chair.
That's what it was.
It was a p retty solid he avy du ty c hair.
So Ro bbie s a id s its in thechair and he pulls his knees up
underneath his chin.
And Sc hultz s ays that thechair tipped over, but it took a
minute

Speaker 1 (21:18):
To do it.
Like it was doing it in slowmotion or something.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah.
That's what it sounded like.
And he tried to do it himself totry to replicate it.
He couldn't do it.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
It's interesting too, that that stuff is continuing to
happen at somebody else's house.
So it's, it's not a hauntedhouse phenomenon.
This is following Robbie,wherever he's going.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
It's kind of weird Scholtz.
Not only was he a Reverend, hedidn't really believe in demonic
possession, but he did have abelief in pair of psychology and
ESP, that type of thing, whichagain, you would think conflicts
with perhaps a religiousbeliefs, but it doesn't so
Schultz.
He felt like it received, likethere's nothing else that he

(21:57):
could really do for Robbie.
So he recommended the familythat they reach out, or he took
them to, there's a couple ofdifferent variations of this,
that either they reach out or hetook them to the rectory to a
local Catholic priest namedfather Albert Hughes.
And this was at st.
James Catholic church, which islocated really close to them.

(22:17):
And this priest, he witnessedmany of the same things, you
know, objects moving on theirown.
Robbie also used a lot ofprofanity and he spoke in a
really strange voice and fatherHughes.
He evidently or supposedlyfollow the Hughes sought and
received permission to performan exorcism on Robbie at

(22:37):
Georgetown university inFebruary.
So he said that when he wasgiving the right to Robbie, he
had to stop because Robbie Torahspring from the bed and slashed
his arm with it.
Also read another report sayingit slashed his shoulder.
So there's one report until ashes, arm a nd o ther o ne t h
an t hat, it's s lashed his slashed R o bbie, right?

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Priest.
No, he's great.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Father Hughes.
Yeah.
So Robbie tore the spring outfrom the bed and he slashed him
with it.
And red scratches began to peeron him, one r ed L ouis.
So the family interpreted that,that they were meant to go to
st.
Louis, u m, where they hadfamily.
So they take R obbie to s t.
Louis.
And I think it's a cousin andthey s tay with this cousin or

(23:25):
this family member and thisfamily member put them in touch
with a professor at st.
Louis university, father WalterHolleran.
I was talking about earlier andReverend and father William
Beltran.
And after consulting with thest.
Louis university's president,these two Jesuit priests ag reed
t o perform an exorcism on youngwith the help of several

(23:46):
assistants and the pr iests.
At first, they went to the houseand they observed the behavior
that Ro bbie w as exhibiting.
And in order to perform anexorcism, you have to get
approval.
I think from like, u m, a n archBishop

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Hearing about that.
I wondered if it had to go ashigh as the Vatican, but like
it's an Archbishop

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Be part of the Vatican.
I don't know.
They went to an Archbishop, Ithink his last name is Ritter
and he approved it and theDurham is kind of like, well,
okay, well, who's going to dothis.
Ritter is like, Archbishop islike, you're going to do this.
And he just felt overwhelmed andreally didn't know what to do
because something like thathadn't been performed in the U S

(24:28):
and ages.
And it's something that theywere very reluctant to give
approval for because people werebeginning to have a better
understanding of mental illness,

Speaker 1 (24:37):
So much sense.
And it sounds like he'd neverperformed an exorcism,

Speaker 3 (24:40):
Right?
No, no.
I mean, I think it's very hardto find that, especially in the
U S so he ends up doing it.
There've been various storiesabout who was there during the
exorcism.
I've read that it was as few astwo, t wo, it was seven.
And then I heard like it wasover 30 an d a nother report.

(25:02):
So it's just all these differentrumors flying around.
And it's really hard to reallyverify any of these, u m, t hese
assertions, there was also, u h,a f ather Raymond Bishop, and
he's the one who kept the diaryand was responsible for
reporting on the case.
So he took detailed notes ofeverything that was going on and

(25:22):
cal led it.
H e did th a t.
A nd so he was taken, u m, be cause th e parents were just
exasperated and they took him tothe Alexian brothers hospital in
st.
Louis for the exorcism and thishospital, I don't believe exists
anymore.
So again, Bowden had askedArchbishop Ritter for permission
to perform the exorcism.

(25:42):
And on April 18th, 1949, Robbiecontinued to have outbursts.
And he explained that Satanwould always be with him.
So they continued this, right,the exorcism.
And later that night, the boywoke up from a trance and he
said, he's gone now, really?
And he also said that he had avision of st.
Michael battling Satan.

(26:04):
So that was the end of the, ofthe exorcism.
Oh, also wanted to say there'salso, I read in another article,
um, in the st.
Louis dispatch, it was calledthe st.
Louis exorcism of 1949, the reallife inspiration for the
Exorcist.
And that was actually publishedin 2020.
This reporter says that therewas also a father van roux who

(26:27):
also either participated orobserved the exorcism of Robbie
van Ru Bowden always said, youknow, this was the real thing.
100%, this is a real demonicpossession and van Rue, father,
van Ru.
And he was very guarded aboutwhether he believed this was a
case of demonic possession, andthis is what he said.

(26:49):
I'd rather not commit myself onthat.
He said, speaking by telephonefrom his apartment at Marquette
university.
And he was also, they said arenowned theologian.
So he didn't want to, didn'twant to commit to it.
But you said he watched itright.
He was there of all these thingsthat I'm reading.
I only came across, I think thisarticle in the st.

(27:09):
Louis dispatch that said therewas a father van Ru that was
there.
I didn't see that anywhere else.
And the book that I was talkingto you about, uh, Thomas Allen,
I didn't have it, but I was ableto access it online, not the
complete thing, but probablyabout 40 pages.
So some of the information I'mgiving to you came from Alan's
book, the possessed book, and inthe book, Alan also said that

(27:33):
this occurred in Mount Rainier.
He said, in addition to, um, inaddition to van Ru father
Halloran, he actually, what hisjob was.
He had to hold the kid downduring the exorcism, the space
look of what he did.
So father Halloran always keptthe perspective.
They were helping a 13 year oldboy who was in trouble.

(27:54):
I've seen him interview too.
He said that there was somethinggoing on that he had witnessed
things moving and that sort ofthing.
But he seemed like reluctant to,you know, be full on that, you
know?
Yes, he was possessed likeboundaries and was a hundred
percent convinced.
And he bowed her and went to hisgrave with the belief that, you
know, he had actually fought thedevil.

(28:15):
When he wrote a letter toWilliam, Peter Blatty, the
author of the Exorcist, he said,quote, I was there.
This was the real thing.
So he was convinced, it's hardto know, you know, it's hard to
know who to believe it is.
It's really hard to know who tobelieve and there's even more.
And now this is where it getseven more interesting to me.
Um, I know a lot of people gethung up on the actual, right.

(28:37):
The exorcism to me, that's maybethe least interesting thing of
this.
That's why I kind of, you know,I didn't go into a whole lot of
detail.
I think a lot of people alreadyknow the scratches, a period of
the body, the cursing, thespitting urinating on the bed,
those types of meditating.
Maybe at least they did that inthe movie.
I think.
Yeah.
I love attaining.

(28:57):
So the story gets even betterbecause of a bad-ass author
named Mark obsessed, obsessed.
I think that's how you pronounceit.
It's probably not.
But for the purpose of thisstory, we're going to call him
Mark.
If you want to know how to spellhis last name, it's O P S a S N
I C K.
And he wrote a very detailedseries of articles called in

(29:19):
parts.
I think there was five parts toit.
It's called the haunted boy ofcottage city sounds creepy.
And he, I don't know if he's theowner or, um, of strange
magazine.
If you go online, you can findthat article and you can find
other things that are writtenabout, you know, that are
paranormal or strange things.
So he did some really hardcoreresearch.

(29:43):
He was really, Mark was reallythe first person who really
investigated the story of Robbiebecause much of the information
was hearsay.
Other people it's just thepriests and the family and the
Lutheran minister.
So the exorcism and people liketo say that it took place at 32,
10 bunker Hill road in MountRainier, Maryland, but the boy

(30:05):
never lived in Mount Rainier,you know, on bunker Hill road.
He actually lived in cottagecity.
As we said earlier, throughMark's research, he said there
was no evidence of father AlbertHughes taking him to Georgetown
to perform this exorcism or thathe was ever injured.
He ultimately discoveredRobbie's real identity.

(30:26):
Oh my God.
Really?
Which no one had ever been ableto do.
So how he went about it was hedetermined his identity through
just exhaustive research.
Like he went back and he lookedat a previous article that
indicated Robbie was born onJune 1st, 1935.
So he was guessing that R obbieprobably graduated in 1954.

(30:48):
He went back and he r echeckedsome n ews stories and he found
the very first reference to Robbie's address.
Um, that was first printed andit was in the Prince George's
Sentinel.
There was no definitive sourcefor that address that was given.
So what he did was Mark went andhe went to Mount Rainier.
He pounded the pavement, wentaround, talking to everyone.

(31:11):
He could talk to asking him, didthis happen here?
Were you aware of this?
He couldn't find anybody.
He talked to a ton of peopleabout this.
Couldn't find anyone with that.
When was he doing this?
I want to say that he was doingthis in the, I want to say he
was doing this, like in the, inthe nineties, in the mid
nineties.
So he couldn't find anybody.

(31:31):
So he started to get suspicious.
Like, yeah, this just doesn'tseem right.
You know, you would thinksomething like this going on,
that someone would have knownhim or his family.
And he went to a public libraryand he found a copy of the
Prince George's County directoryof the Mount Rainier in
Hyattsville college park area.
And you know, like the oldfashioned photo books, you look

(31:53):
up people's names has theirphone numbers in it, according
to the street address.
Um, so he lucked out and hefound that, and he looked at the
entries for bunker Hill road andhe found the listing for the 32,
10 bunker Hill road.
He discovered that theoccupants, at that time, it was
not Robbie and his family.
So he's able to verify thatRobbie hadn't lived at 32 10 on

(32:16):
bunker Hill road.
And then he remembered thatsomeone had told him that father
Hughes had revealed that Robbiehad gone to Gonzaga high school,
which is a Catholic school.
So then what Mark does, he goes,and he checks the yearbook.
And when he was going throughthe yearbook, it had pictures of

(32:38):
people.
And it also underneath thepictures and their name, if they
would print the student'saddresses, Oh my God.
And the parishes under thesenior picture.
And so he found the picture ofRobbie, but how did he know what

Speaker 1 (32:52):
He looked like?
He just because he knew thename,

Speaker 3 (32:55):
He, he did it through like birthday.
Cause they had that informationtoo.
And he had a couple ofpossibilities, but somehow he
narrowed it down to just thisone guy, R obbie, and they'll
just, s o-called, w e'll stillcall h im R obbie.
He determined that R obbie hadlived at 38 O h seven 40th

(33:17):
Avenue a nd cottage in cottage,city, Maryland.
And also from an unnamed source,he got the b oys adult name, the
new address and phone number.
He didn't say where he got itfrom.
But somehow he got where, y ou know, t his, this guy lives now
his new address, h is new phonenumber.
So he calls t he number and Robbie actually picks up the

(33:38):
phone and you know, he wasreally kind of gruff and R obbie
wouldn't verify that he was theboy from the reports, but he was
really, he was really surprisedand concern that he had been
located.
And he acknowledged that he hadsaw the movie.
He never gave an impression ofit, but he told Mark that he
never wanted to be contactedagain.

(33:59):
I don't blame him.
No I don't.
And father van Ru and thedispatch, the article, he was
saying that, you know how thisinformation leaked out, not that
his name, but just that even hadan exorcism, it leaked out and
that had a potential ruin in hislife.
And, you know, he said he wasvery upset about that.

(34:21):
So it makes you wonder in, inthe diary that they were keeping
of the account of the exorcism,they of course had Robbie's rule
name and you know, his addressat that time.
And it was like 24, 25 pageslong.
Somehow bladdy got ahold.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
I wonder how he got hold of that.
You mentioned that earlier andI'm just, I mean, somebody had
to given that to him or wouldthink,

Speaker 3 (34:44):
Yeah, so you don't know, you know, who did that,
but also this Thomas Allen, heevidently in his book that I was
talking about the most recentedition, which I think is maybe
2013, he supposedly actuallypublished the diary.
So somehow he got his hands onit and he actually, he said he

(35:06):
got it kind of indirectlythrough father Halloran.
So that all sounds kind of, alot of, it just sounds kind of
shady and how this informationgot out.
And I kind of speculate justreading from things that the
minister or Reverend Schultz,the Lutheran minister that they
first went to.
I had read somewhere where hewas having pray.

(35:27):
Um, he was having prayer circlesfor Robbie.
So the information could havegotten out

Speaker 1 (35:31):
That way.
The more people you getinvolved, you

Speaker 3 (35:33):
Know, the, the less, so something just, you know,
something just kind of didn'tseem right with him.
And I, I think that's maybe oneof the ways that it had gotten
out, but it c ould h ave gottenout from some of the other
people that were observing thisexorcism, as I said,

Speaker 1 (35:48):
It's something, how can you not talk about it?
I mean, if you've been throughsomething like that, I would
think the urge to tell whatyou've seen would be tremendous.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah.
I wouldn't be able to, I don'tknow.
I wouldn't be able to, I couldtake your secret to the grave,
but I don't, it's something likethat.
Yeah.
So anyway, what Mark did as wellwas he went to cottage city and
again, he was looking for peoplethat had grown up with Robbie or
heard a Robbie before.
And he was able to get in touchwith a few people and cause he

(36:19):
wanted to find out like, whatwas Robbie like evidently he was
seen as kind of, um, he was seenas a prankster and a bit of a
bully or he was a bully.
Like he had this, he had thisdog, he had this Cocker spaniel.
I believe that, you know, whichis by people, you know, on a
dime.
And so Robbie would think itwould be funny to, Oh, call a

(36:40):
friend over to play and thensick, the dog lot sucks.
Yeah.
So he did things like that.
So Mark, he comes to theconclusion that he thinks that,
you know, this wasn't apossession.
He was very critical of people.
He felt that didn't thoroughlyresearch would report on this,
but didn't really research oreven try to find him.

(37:02):
And I think Thomas Allen was oneof those because he felt that he
s hould h ave tried to at leastfind out R obbie's story, locate
him, talk to people that knewhim.
C ause you have t hose hugegaps, y ou just r elying on
other.
Y eah.
So he believes that R obbie was,was a bully.
He believes that he, u m, thathe was actually disturbed.

(37:24):
T here w as some type ofdisturbance there and that's
what some other people thoughtas well.
There was something going onwith n ow

Speaker 1 (37:28):
Call that conduct disorder.
I mean, as he got older or maybehe had oppositional defiant
disorder when he was younger,along with some psychosis, you
know,

Speaker 3 (37:37):
He had some real problems and some people had
viewed him as spoiled.
So I can't remember where I readthis one account, but o ne a
ccount was that, or maybe it wasreported for one of his friends
that they saw, the mom is be inghyper religious

Speaker 1 (37:54):
And I

Speaker 3 (37:55):
Had never seen that anywhere else.
So it makes you think if thatsomehow played,

Speaker 1 (37:58):
That's very interesting.
And like, somehow that was herinterpretation, but I can't get
away from, you know, not that Idefinitely want to believe he
was possessed, but how do you,how do you account for the
objects flying across the roomor the bed shaking?
That's just crazy to me.
Levitating.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah.
So it's really, it's a mystery.
So to me, to me, the mostinteresting aspects of the story
is one like the whole accountwith his relationship, with his
own Harriet, i t seems, I d on'tk now for whatever reason that
kind of creeps me out a bit.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
W what part of it creeps you out that she was kind
of teaching him to

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Kind of treated him more like a peer, I think.
And, and just that she wasintroducing these things to him
and he was becoming immersed in,you know, we G or whatever else
that, yeah,

Speaker 1 (38:50):
The interesting thing is too, like if his mom was
hyper religious, I mean, did sheeven know what cause if she was,
I can't imagine she would havebeen okay with that, with what
supposedly she wants really,

Speaker 3 (39:02):
She was a spiritualist.
They, the mom even bought intothat.
And so they were okay with that.
So there's all this informationthat just is contradictory, all
these conflicts.
And it's just so complicated totry to figure out what's true,
what isn't true, but you know,I'm with you as far as, how do
you account for, you know, avase flying across the room or

(39:24):
levitation or the screen

Speaker 1 (39:26):
I should hit the whole time.
You've been talking about this,I'm looking through my French
doors into the other room andthere's this vase sitting in my
fireplace and I'm just expectingit to come flying across the
room.
Really scared.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
So do you think that's, I mean, as I was saying,
like, for me, the interestingpart was Harriet and then the
final part where this, you know,author, Mark tracks him down.
Yeah.
And time, and the effort that hetook to, to find him or to find
out the real story.
He never, to my knowledge, henever divulged this guy's name

(40:02):
and it is out there.
You have to look for it, but itis out there.
I don't want to say it becausehe still could be alive.
He would probably be in his mideighties,

Speaker 1 (40:11):
He was born in what?
1934, 35, 45.
So he was like two years youngert han my dad a nd my dad.
I think if he were still herewould be like 82.
So yeah,

Speaker 3 (40:20):
That's right by accounts.
He had lived a normal life.
He had gotten married, he was ofcourse converted to Catholicism.
And some say that he worked forNASA.
He was a scientist, but itseemed like he, you know, had a
good life set up for himself.
So that's the interesting partto me too, is that with this
author, he goes and he actuallytracks him down, interviews his

(40:41):
friends.
And there's all this mystery.
That's always been trotted withthis exorcism.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
It makes me wonder about that.
Guy's motivation too.
I mean, especially because hedidn't share the name, it's not
like he was out to out this guy,but I'm like, why was it such an
important thing for him to knowthat always fascinates me?
Why people want to know whatthey want to know.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
He was really into it.
And I think there's a tendencyyou want to kind of believe,
even though it's somethingterrible, I was just going to
ask.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
If you're wanting to be true, like if you could
decide what is true about thestory, what would you want it,
would you want him to have beenreally possessed?

Speaker 3 (41:15):
I'm not sure what I think about this.
I'm just feel like the authorthat did all this research and
eventually tracked him down.
He might've been a little bitharsh in his assessment, but
he's the only one who took thetime to do this.
So I think that speaks a lot ofhim.
And also the fact like youbrought up, he did not give out
guy's name.
Right.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
And I mean, you know, if what he got was accurate
information, I mean, it soundslike he was the only one.
He's the only source that wehave that really had firsthand
accounts of what this kid wasreally like.
And I think that thatinformation does complicate it.
C ause it does seem like he wasa troubled kid.
I d on't k now.
Yeah.
And then it gets me going backto that relationship with A nne
Harriet that you talked aboutlike, w ell, that's just an

(41:56):
interesting relationship,especially if he was already
kind of troubled.
And what do you think I'm askeptic as well.
And r eally, you know, I'm not areligious person I'm agnostic.
I do think or want to think thatthere's a higher power, u m, or
maybe not in the world, butbeyond the world, but I'm still
a skeptic and I'm agnostic.

(42:16):
So it's just k ind o f like, Idon't know, but I'm afraid to
say that it's not true because Idon't know.
There's something about demonicstuff that really just, even
though I'm a rational 21stcentury person, it's really
scary to me to think that, youknow, against your will, someone
could invade your spirit or yourbody and take over.

(42:38):
That's just really, reallyterrifying to me.
I don't want to say it couldn'thappen because I feel like, you
know, maybe something wants toprove me wrong.
Um, so yeah, I think in my heartof hearts, if I'm being really
honest, I find it really, reallyscary.
And like, I don't want to gettoo close to it.
Um, have you ever had a Weegeeboard by the way?

Speaker 3 (42:59):
Yes.
I had a really bad weed boardexperience.
So I got

Speaker 1 (43:02):
A weird one t oo.
We should talk about that.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
My grandmother who was very, very religious again,
she was Southern Baptist.
She had some board games and oneof them was a Weegee board and
we used to play it h im one day.
She comes back from church andshe takes the board and she puts
it in the trash and we're like,what are you doing?
What are you doing?
Pl ay w ith that?
And she wouldn't really, shewouldn't tell us why she was
putting in the trash, but shetold us, yo u k n ow, that we

(43:26):
weren't to play with it anymore.
And then I play with it o nce.
And, u m, a nd I, I think, youknow, when I was growing up,
maybe, you know, nine, 10, 11,and then again in college.
And that's when I had the badexperience.
I' ll l e t y o u

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Tell me about the bad experience.
Cause I had a weird experiencetoo,

Speaker 3 (43:43):
As I said, I played it quite a few times before
because my grandmother had itand then I played it with
friends later who had it.
And when I was at college, wehad all been drinking a lot and
I was pretty torn up and therewas three of us playing and I
don't even remember what we wereasking it or anything.
Any specifics about that?
All I know is that what's thelittle thing that you put your

(44:05):
hand on the plant chat.
Yeah, the plant yet, that thingwas going crazy, but it i t's
one thing.
Like if it's just drifting, if,if you have your fingers barely
on it and it's just drifting, Ithink it's easier for someone to
guide it.
Sure.
Without being, without beingdetected, but the pl ants, it w
as just going nuts an d i tdidn't seem, I know it wasn't

(44:27):
coming from me and he d id notseem to be coming from the other
people.
I mean, it was going around andaround and around and zi
gzagging.
And ca n y ou tell what it wasspelling?
It wasn't spelling anything, butthere was like this, there was
this fo rest b ehind it.
That was propelling it and no,and I ha ve n ever played with
it since.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
Well, my experience and I was in college too.
And I'm trying to think whatyear it was.
It was probably my junior year.
Cause there was this girl namedKelly and I think she was the
person who had the Weegee board.
So we were playing, I had asingle room at that time.
Um, most of us did.
So we were in my room and thelight I had was an overhead

(45:07):
light, you know, where you'dhave to get up and like change
the light bulb.
I mean, of course you alwayshave to change the light bulb,
but you had to like unscrew thewhole thing or whatever.
So we're doing it.
And we seem to be, um, like Iwas somehow we made contact with
something or someone who said itwas my grandmother, my, I called
her Lala growing up and she wasanswering all these questions

(45:28):
and it seemed like it was herand it was just really freaky.
And then, and I swear, I swearto God, this is the truth.
The light bulb blew out on topof the ceiling and it was
completely dark.
We about died.
Um, and that was it.
You were screaming, Oh God, wewere screaming and we've been
playing with it for a fewnights.
And that was, that was it.

(45:49):
How old were you?
I was 1920.
It was junior year of college.
We think

Speaker 3 (45:56):
This way that we both had, we both had experiences at
college.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
It is, you know, and I was with all girls.
I don't know where you withgirls guys.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
Yeah.
I think girls are more into thatstuff.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
No, I think so too.
And sometimes I'm just thinkingabout robbing, you know, they
talked about how this happenedwhen he was around 13 and
sometimes people say aroundpuberty that people become like
the channels inside them sort ofopen up for, I don't know,
spirits or demons to kind oftake control, but then it's, you
know, if you think about it,it's also that time of life when

(46:27):
you're going a little crazy, youknow, your hormones are all over
the place.
And it's just so that, that tome is interesting too, about how
, you know, it often kind ofhits kids at that age

Speaker 3 (46:38):
When I would go to church, they would talk about,
and again, this isn't theAppalachians or Appalachia

Speaker 1 (46:44):
That's right.
Under the Abilene Appalachia,

Speaker 3 (46:48):
We talked a lot about revelations and they were always
talking too about being castinto the pit of hell where there
would be wailing and gnashing ofteeth.
I remember them

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Terrifying as a kid to hear that so scary.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
It is.
And um, so to them, the devil'sa very real physical thing.
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
And I can't say that, I believe in that, but
superstitious part of me thatbelieves I could be possessed,
you know?
So I better,

Speaker 3 (47:18):
Better.
You better straighten up.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Well, I know I've told you thisbefore.
I think we're, uh, my favoritepastor not, uh, his name was Joe
and he get up and when there hadbeen, had been a fatal accident,
he would get up and do a sermonon, well, you know, they weren't
saved and you know where they'regoing to go.

(47:38):
Basically.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
That's just all that really.
I don't know that tinydefinition of what they think
you need to do to be saved.
Just seems so crazy.
Like you can just mouth thewords and that would suffice,
you know, in the go do somethinghorrible and you have like a get
, get out of jail, free card.
It's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Someone wanted to get baptized.
Of course they had the taintbehind the pulpit, but in the
summer and the spring, if youwanted to get baptized, they
would take you to the river andhave a, either two ministers or
a minister and a deacon.
T hey'd Wade out into the water.
Did they

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Put a rope on him?
Like a white robe?
No,

Speaker 3 (48:15):
I mean, they would just wear like their Sunday best
dress and everybody would gatherat the river.
And you know, I remember onetime they, this woman, she
looked like I said, she waswearing her Sunday best and they
take her and we're all standingaround and watching.
And then they put her underwater and she comes up and she's
like screaming and yelling andhappy, I guess, happy.

(48:37):
But it frightened me as a kid.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
I can see that.
I can't believe you actuallywitnessed a baptism at the
river.
That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
There was that same.
My fav Joe, he did this wholesermon on how he went to wash
his car.
You know, t hose car wash bays,where you get out and you just
spray it down yourself.
I t was like, do it yourselfthings.
So he goes, he takes his carthere and he doesn't have
anything to really wash the carwith except just this spray gun.

(49:08):
And he looks over and on thisbucket is t he sponge and he
goes on and on and on i n thesermon about how Satan was
tempting him to take that spot.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
Wow.
It really stuck with you.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
I remember thinking at the time, it's like, I was so
bored and he was going on and onabout it and I was just like,
take the s pot

Speaker 1 (49:29):
And then put it back.
Exactly.
Just use the sponge.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
I can't take this any longer t o s it i n here, listen
to this.
So yeah, so it was a very real,tangible thing.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
That's so interesting.
Wow.
So I went to the Baptist churchtoo.
I didn't go every week, but Iwent pretty often, um, not with
my parents, but I went with mymammo and I don't remember a lot
of fire and brimstone, but I doremember the Bab dismal thing,
you know, they would dunkpeople.
That was actually exciting.
I like to see people kid, but Idefinitely didn't want it to be

(50:00):
me.
I just remember like, they'd goon and on about like all that
man had done, like the sins ofman and man was going to be
punished.
And I just thought, God, I'm soglad I'm a girl.
I thought I'd escaped all ofthat because I was a girl
because clearly it was only manthat was in trouble.
I don't know, in your churchwhere the women are allowed to
speak because in mammals,church, women, couldn't like,

(50:21):
they couldn't lead anyone inprayer.
They couldn't preach, you know,they couldn't speak up.
No, they couldn't.
I mean,

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Behind the scenes.
Yeah.
I think they had a voice and itwas just a very male dominated
thing.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
And then, but you know, there's something that
fascinates me about all of that.
So where my mom still lives,there's this guy who lives
across the street and sadly hiswife just died.
Maybe I don't know, two monthsago.
So he used to be my Facebookfriend.
He's younger than my mom.
He's probably in his sixties andhis wife was probably around the
same age, but it's just, he'sthat kind of primitive Baptist,

(50:59):
you know?
A nd like they're so religious,they give all the money to the
church and like t heir poorlittle h ouses falling down.
C ause I don't think they keepany money for themselves.
It was just really sad.
So I couldn't take any more ofhis posts about God, this and
God that, so I unfriended himseveral years ago, but his
Facebook isn't private.
So he makes all of his postspublic.
And I don't know, I was justcurious about how h e was doing

(51:20):
after his wife died.
And so I find myself checking upon him a lot.
It's really weird.
I have this weird likefascination with that kind of
that certainty of belief, youknow?
C ause he posts a ll a nd, butit runs along these very
conservative political lines too, which to me p ortrays the
very spiritual stuff he'stalking about, you know, but I'm

(51:42):
just, I'm f asting.
Like I can't look away from it.
I don't know.
It's just so weird.
I k ind o f

Speaker 3 (51:48):
The people in a way that are really spiritual or
have that kind of belief becauseit makes things

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Exactly.
And I think that's why I'mfascinated with this guy on
Facebook where I love to notlove, love is the wrong word,
but why I'm drawn to read hisposts and to think, think about
that.
Cause it's so easy.
Like if you sign on the dottedline, you don't have anything to
worry about.
Your life is going to be givenover to God and Jesus and you
know, like they make it soundand look so simple.

(52:14):
Can I say, is there any small,like tiny iota part of you that
wonders?
Is it true?
Like I'm going to be doomed whenI die because I didn't sign on
the dotted line because I thinkI have a tiny part of me like
that.
I don't like to admit it.
I think

Speaker 3 (52:27):
I do too.
And when they would constantlytalk about revelations and
revelations is really trippy andscary, you know, if you read it

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Last on it in college, it was on the
literature of apocalypse.
And so we didn't spend a lot oftime on the book of revelation.
And I think when you come fromAppalachia, you know, I grew up
in a town, but it was, uh, atown in, in the middle of
Appalachia.
And I felt a lot of pressure inhigh school to join this there's
this group called campus life.
I don't know if you had that,where you went, but it was this

(52:58):
religious group.
And so it was almost like, Ithink I've always felt a little
bit like an outsider in my lifebecause that's where I came to
really fit in where I came from.
You had to be that person, youknow, you have to be this person
who went to church who accepted,you know, Jesus as your personal
savior and belonged to thisgroup.

(53:19):
And like in it's like if you didall that, no matter what else
you did, like you were okay, youknow, am I could never, I don't
know, is it enough of a, I thinka rebel that I just wanted to do
my own thing.
And I just felt like that wasjust such a cheap way out.
But because of that, I paid, youknow, I think I still have pain
in my mind.
Like I still never quite feellike I fit anywhere.

(53:41):
You know,

Speaker 3 (53:42):
I stopped going to church because I would spend the
summers with my grandmother.
I lived there at one time as youknow, and then we moved in, but
I would spend the whole entiresummer with my grandmother
there.
I mean, I l ove the area.
I love it.
Absolutely love it.
It's beautiful.
Love the people, but you know, Iwould never w ould h ave, u m,
thrived in that kind ofenvironment.
And it's really ingrained inyou.

(54:05):
And even in that area a t onetime, I don't think it's now,
but it's very close to Kentuckyto o.
There were people that werechurches that were still doing
st eak h andling.
Ca use t hey would come into theER.
Wow.
Ca use t hey got bit.
Wow.
And I remember thinking tomyself, I was probably about 13
or 14 and I had the Bible outand I was reading like
obsessively through revelationsand, and all these things that

(54:28):
you couldn't do like throughoutthe Bible, you can't do this.
You're going to go to hell, youcan't do that.
You're going to go to hell.
And I remember having, makingthis decision in my mind that
there's something inherentlywrong with me and I can't abide
by these things.
I can't, I don't know how to dothat.
And so I just went bu ck w i lda fter that.
Yeah.
It was all downhill.
Actually.

(54:48):
It was all uphill.
It was all up until I fell offthe mountainside that time,

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Her story.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think that's one of thereasons, one of the reasons why
we're such good friends.
Ca use I think we both reallyunderstand that, that we kind of
have that outsider feeling inthat, but deep down, like this
wanting to belong, but alsoresisting it, not wanting it
either.
I don't think maybe, maybe a lotof people do relate to that, but
I haven't come across them.

(55:14):
So I think that's, that's a bigreason why we get each other

Speaker 3 (55:17):
When you're there in that situation and around that
you don't feel like you belong,but then when you leave that
area, you know, how many jokesare there about Appalachia, you
know, and hillbillies, you know?
So in a way you don't reallybelong anywhere.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
Exactly.
You're always an outsiderbecause, and I think as I've
gotten older, I've kind ofidealized, you know, a lot from
that culture and wished that Icould have.
Cause I don't sound like I'mfrom there.
Oh my family sounds like theyare.
And I think like what was wrongwith me that I had to kind of
reinvent myself.
You're always still part oftheir, and yet you're not, but

(55:53):
you're not fully part of theother place either.
I didn't tell you this.
This is kind of embarrassingbecause my family, they were
like, they were definitely notreligious.
My mom was raised Catholic, youknow, really some bad
experiences.
And so we were kind of like, Idon't know.
I think we were outcasts in away cause we weren't.
Um, and I think bringing upanything religious or having do

(56:16):
with Jesus in my house was kindof embarrassing.
Like you just didn't talk aboutit.
You know?
So anyway, I actually bought aBible about two months ago.
Is that insane?
Or what are you shocked?
I know, I don't know why this is w hen I was obsessed with like
checking in on this p erson,Facebook and I'm thinking, well,
maybe he's right.
Like maybe, maybe I n eed t oread t he Bible, but I haven't

(56:39):
read very much of it.
Like I, I opened it looking forcomfort and I couldn't find any
comfort at all.
So yeah, there's not a lot inthere n ow, but I do have it.
It's pink and i t i s pretty, Iordered a pretty one.
So no y ou didn't, you didn'ttell me that.
No, I didn't even tell Br ian.
It was almost like orderingpornography fo r I'm go ing t o
h ide this.

(57:00):
So I can't believe I'm ou ting myself right now, but at least
maybe it's beside my bed.
Maybe it'll keep me from beingpossessed.
Wh y

Speaker 3 (57:06):
I have a Bible beside my bed?
I don't know if you've noticedin the house upstairs or there's
all these crosses.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
I would have thought that was your wife's doing.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
Yeah, it was.
Most of it was.
I mean the Bible was mine.
She has some rosaries around.
And then when my brother, thefirst time I'd ever been to the
house here in the corner, mywife has this huge statue of
Jesus, but both of his hands arebroken off.
I call them no hands, Jesus.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
I told my brother

Speaker 3 (57:37):
Because my brother's a big guy and he was in the
guestroom and like, there's, youknow, here's no hand Jesus,
don't get scared.
Don't knock him over.
C ause if you knock t hem over,it's going to be then

Speaker 1 (57:48):
My, I have my uncles.
Um, he was a Catholic priestactually and I loved him dearly.
He passed away.
I don't know, maybe 10 yearsago, but I have a couple of his
crucifixes, um, in a little bagnext to my bed too.
Mainly because they remind me ofhim and there's something
special that I have from him.
I think there's part of me thatreally envies people who have
that kind of certainty, but I'mnot willing to give up my

(58:10):
curiosity for that in my, youknow, my acceptance of so many
things.
And so I just, you know, I find,I guess I find my version of God
and beauty, you know, and inother people in the spark
between people and nature andbeautiful creations that people
make, I don't know

Speaker 3 (58:28):
In life so much more complex than the black and the
white.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
And that's kind of, I think what, we're kind of the
underlying theme of some of thethings we're talking about is
those the gray areas.
Right?

Speaker 3 (58:39):
So the story of the exorcism, I don't know if some
of that stuff was new to you or

Speaker 1 (58:44):
A lot of it was.
Yeah.
I mean, I think in ourconversations one time you had
mentioned to me that it wasactually based on, you know,
this boy, but I didn't know somuch of the rest of it.
And so I think you did, you didsome great research.
I'm wondering why, like, why didthe film people, o r whoever
wrote the screenplay, why didthey have to turn into a girl?

(59:05):
Is it because like aprepubescent pubescent girl i s
much more interesting to watch wheeling around?

Speaker 3 (59:12):
I find that fascinating because when I was
watching the movie, I watched itactually I watched it yesterday
because I wasn't alone.
And it was during the day.
Were you though?

Speaker 1 (59:22):
Um, I wasn't

Speaker 3 (59:22):
As scared as I thought I would be, but since
some of you know, was here withme, if I had been by myself and
it was night, I probably wouldhave been really scared.
So it would be reallyinteresting to like examine the
whole movie, like from afeminist perspective

Speaker 1 (59:37):
That would be now you're talking my language,

Speaker 3 (59:40):
You know, when Reagan's going through this
stuff and they're doing allthese invasive procedures and
things on her and in the mom,you know, she was divorced and
you know, she was independentand a successful actress.
That's right.
So it kind of gives you theimpression because she was these
things.
That's another way that it wasinvited into their

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Lives.
She opened herself up to it

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
And to, you know, she was a very loving mother and
very involved and then thepriest became involved and she
just kind of faded into the,into the background.
But what I think disturbingmost, I know what disturbed me
most was that, you know, thescenes with the crucifix and the
masturbation, cause she's likethis young, it's a child and it

(01:00:24):
just,

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
I can't help.
But think that, you know, one ofthe reasons they made her made
the character into a girl isbecause, you know, for a certain
portion of the audience likemen, you know, it was
titillating to see a pubescentgirl doing those things.
U m, it was really great.
It's really gross.
It really is.
And t h you know, the otherthing, if you're looking at it

(01:00:47):
from a feminist perspective is,you know, all the authority is
male.
It's this male patriarchal.
Um, wh en they have to, and it,I think possession too, i t's
like, it's an invasion of yourbody, almost like a rape.
And I think that's, it' s another way you could look at it,
u m, in tha t so mehow like onlya man can fix that is suspect at

(01:01:08):
best.
Oh, you kn o w,

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
Something else interesting.
This is, I think, a relation tothe get out of jail free card
bladdy he was married like 1 4.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
He had, I counted him

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
At least had five.
I think he had seven kids.
He was hyper religious.
And, you know, he has divorcedafter divorce, after divorce.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
And I don't understand how you can get
marriages and all that manytimes to me, it's not being
married that many times.
It's like, yeah.
You know, sometimes it makes youwonder about a person, but, but
the annulments are what strikeme as strange were probably
cause he was famous.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
Um, he was really hyper Catholic, especially I
think in later years.
Um, so maybe, you know, that'swhy, again, it's, I guess it's a
form of a male privilege because I think of a woman, you
know, f or marriages

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Way, especially if you had a child, I mean, usually
for an annulment, there has tobe like no sexual contact or I
don't know, everything relates.
Yeah.
A lot of times like you can,well, I think in way, way back,
like you couldn't get anenormous, if there had been
sexual Congress of some kind oryou could just lie about it,
they'd probably examine you andsee if you're, Oh, it's

(01:02:19):
disgusting.
It's disgusting.
It's good that we live when welive, you know, I want security,
but I also want to hold on to myindependent curious mind, you
know, I don't want to give thatup.
I can't really believe that aGod would want anyone to give
that up to live in certainty.
That just seems, I don't thinkthat's what life is about.

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
I think if you're going to have a full, meaningful
life, everything, can't just bein terms of black and white for
me anyway.
So well, but I mean, I think toowith the region as well, and as
we go along, we can do morestories.
One of the things I love aboutthe region is that there's
always just like such still,like I'm such a mystery and

(01:03:03):
possibility.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Yeah.
And I think the good parts of itare really good.
You know, I think there's alsolike deep kinship and I think
there's some magic i n some ofthose stories and beliefs and u
h, you know, and I think theother side of t hat evangelical
Christianity that's kind oftaken hold is that the other
side of it is this kind ofmagical mystical, you know,
folklore, folkloric, beliefs.

(01:03:26):
There's that too.
So k ind o f, it's not just thisone, one way of being, but I
think that both of us reallyfelt those pressures.
Well, this has been reallyinteresting.
Are you drunk?

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
Um, you know, I'm doing pretty good because this
has so much booze in it.
I'm actually I'm feeling allright.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
You said you're doing pretty good because this has so
much booze in it.
That doesn't make sense.
I feel really good.
You feel really good, but you'renot, you're not super drunk.
No, no.
Either

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Feeling it though, a few more sips and probably, but
I, you know, I'm the only one inthis household that d rinks.
So yeah.
I look forward to kind of, ifyou're not someone who drinks
alcohol, you don't get it, whichi s f un,

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
But we're not having

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
A drink and enjoying it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Exactly.
I think for us, part of it is welike making, like we make like
making our own cocktails and youknow, and just trying different
things.
So that makes it fun too.
My husband, he has a drink everynight.
He's a whiskey man.
So

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
What to get, I always knew what to get him for his
birthday.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
He tells me he wants to try absence.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
So I watched the LSD and

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
He told me, cause we, we went out someplace.
It's been like four years ago orso.
And he had an absence, drip likethat brought this whole water
thing and you hold this slottedspoon with the sugar cube and
then you let it drip, the waterdrip into your abs.
And the, he like, he thought hewas in heaven and he's like, and
he has add.
So he's like, this was like themost clarifying, like

(01:04:57):
inebriation I've everexperienced.
So it's nasty stuff.
It tastes like licorice, which Iabsolutely makes me want to gag
me too.
I'm going to have to buy him abottle of absence.
I'll wait until I do something.
When he, when he sees all themoney that I spent on the cat
pens and the all the other crap,I'll, I'll make it up to them.
Some apps they're really, youknow, you always dress nicely.

(01:05:20):
Well, that's very nice of you tosay it's because I don't wear my
55 pairs of leggings to subjectanybody, to seeing that nobody
needs to see that when I wastrying to coax you into
admitting that you had bought aton of them, I thought it was
like 37.
I don't know why that piece at55.

(01:05:41):
It's like it is sick.
I have a therapy appointment onMonday and I'm actually going to
talk about my obsession withbuying things because it needs
to stop.
I bought a bunch of shapelessdresses from them too.
That were really hideous.
Like they did me no favors.
They looked like nightgowncompanies.
You buy 15, some of that.

(01:06:03):
You need to sell it.
You can make a little bit ofchunk of change there.
Yeah.
And then I could buy some morecat pens.
I want to have some Yetileggings is what I want.
I want some Yeti.
I could probably hook you upwith those.
That's my dream for myself.
All right.
Well, I'm on it.
I'm going to find you a pair ofcue.
I think the Yeti is scary.
It is scary.

(01:06:25):
Did I ever tell you I was inlove with the beast for beating
the beast.
Do you remember that show in thenineties?
I think you had somepsychological, his name was
always clearly Vincent in that.
What was the other?
Linda Hamilton was his loveinterest, but he was like, he
was so poetic and like, it wasgreat.
Cause like you knew they wouldnever have sex.

(01:06:45):
It was completely safe.
And he just like read her poetryand was like super romantic.
But like it was kind of chased.
I did not know that about you.
I just learned more and more aswe go along.
Paul Vincent beast.
Thank you to everyone wholistens to the best thing you
can do to help us grow is tolike review and subscribe on
iTunes and better yet tweetabout us or post about us on

(01:07:09):
Facebook.
Tell your friends if you thinkthat they would like us and have
a good night,

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
[inaudible].