The Story Behind The Exorcist

By Rosemary Ellen Guiley

c. Visionary Living, Inc.

The book is scary. The movie even scarier. Perhaps even most chilling of all is the fact that The Exorcist is based on a real case of apparent demonic possession. Some elements have been changed and fictionalized, but the case was taken seriously by the Catholic Church.

In Peter Blatty’s 1971 bestseller and in the movie based on it, a young girl possessed by the Devil is subjected to an exorcism by Roman Catholic priests. In the 1949 case that inspired this story, however, the subject was a 13 year-old-boy who was apparently the subject of some classic poltergeist manifestations and may also have exhibited dermography (writing and designs produced on the skin). Although his case was identified as one of demonic possession by Jesuits in Saint Louis who performed a widely publicized exorcism on him, there is little evidence for this interpretation.

The boy, who has come to be known by the pseudonyms “Roland” and “Rob Doe,” was born in 1935 and grew up in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Cottage City, Maryland. He was an only child and had a troublesome childhood, according to neighbors and friends interviewed in the 1990s by journalist Mark Opsasnick.

In January 1949, when he was thirteen and a half, Roland’s family began to be disturbed by scratching sounds coming from the ceilings and walls of their house. Thinking that they had mice, his parents called an exterminator. This man could find no signs of rodents, and his efforts failed to end the scratching, which only became louder. Noises that sounded like someone walking about in squeaky shoes began to be heard in the hall. At times, dishes and furniture moved for no evident reason.

The noises and movements were frightening enough, but then Roland began to be attacked. His bed shook so hard that he could not sleep. His bedclothes were repeatedly pulled off the bed, and once, when he tried to hold on to them, he was pulled off onto the floor after them.

After a few weeks, Roland’s parents were convinced that an evil spirit, possibly that of a recently deceased relative, was behind the disturbances and appealed to their Lutheran minister, Luther Schulze, for help. Schulze tried praying with Roland and his parents in their home, and then with Roland alone in his home. He led prayers for Roland in church. Reverend Schulze ordered whatever was possessing the boy to leave him in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, but the affliction continued.

The boy was tormented by the weird noises and movements of objects day and night, with the result that he was unable to sleep. In February, Schulze offered to let Roland spend a night in his house, to which his parents agreed.

That night, Mrs. Schulze went to a guest room, while Roland and the Reverend retired to twin four-poster beds in the master bedroom. Some time after they had said goodnight, Schulze heard Roland’s bed creaking. He grasped the bed and felt it vibrating rapidly. Roland himself was wide awake, but was lying absolutely still.

Schulze suggested that Roland try to sleep in an armchair, while he kept an eye on him from his bed. Before long, the heavy chair began to move. First it scooted backward several inches. Schulze suggested that Roland raise his legs, to add his full weight to the chair, but that was not enough to stop it from continuing until it had slammed into the wall. The chair then began to turn, as if in slow motion, until it had deposited the boy, unhurt, on the floor. Schulze noticed that Roland appeared to be in a trance, and made no effort to move out of the chair, even though it had been moving slowly enough for him to have done so.

After this night, Schulze was able to persuade Roland’s parents to have him tested in a mental health clinic, but he began to act wildly, and according to some reports, the message “Go to St. Louis!” appeared scratched on his skin in blood-red letters. Roland’s favorite aunt lived in Saint Louis, and since it was thought that he might benefit from being closer to her, he was sent to St. Louis Hospital. But more and more he began to act like someone possessed. He began to cough up phlegm and to drool in a steady stream, and more scratches mysteriously appeared on his arms.

Roland was introduced to Jesuit priests, who diagnosed possession, and performed an exorcism. They may have been joined by a Lutheran minister and an Episcopal priest, who took turns performing the ritual. After several weeks, Roland’s behavior changed, and in April, the exorcism was declared a success. As a result, his mother converted from Lutheranism to Roman Catholicism.

Much else about this case has been reported but these things have either been shown to be false or are in doubt. For instance, for many years the Does were said to have lived in Mt. Rainer, rather than Cottage City, Maryland, and it was reported that a first, partial exorcism, was performed in Washington, D.C., but failed. Many of these errors can be traced to inaccurate news reports, but they are perpetuated in a book written about the case. Thanks to Opsasnick’s detective work, we now have a more complete portrait of Roland as a child and a more accurate outline of the case, but Opsasnick may go too far in dismissing it as no more than the story of a naughty boy who managed to delude the adults around him into believing that he was possessed by the Devil. Several of the persons he interviewed (and whose words he quotes) recall strange happenings, suggestive of poltergeist phenomena and dermography.

In 1979 Dennis Brian interviewed Schulze and parapsychologist J. B. Rhine, shedding additional light on the case. Schulze contacted Rhine while the phenomena were underway.  J.B. and his wife Louisa Rhine drove from Durham to Washington, where they discussed the case with Schulze. Unfortunately for Rhine, the phenomena had ceased by the time they arrived. Nevertheless, he recognized the case as that of a classic poltergeist, which he interpreted in line with the experimental results he was obtaining. In the Bulletin of his Parapsychology Laboratory, he suggested that the phenomena were expressions of Roland’s own unconscious ability to influence objects in his environment and his own body through the power of his mind, or psychokinesis.

William Peter Blatty was a student at Georgetown University in Washington in August, 1949, when he read an Associated Press account of the case in the Washington Post. He began to look into the story and soon made himself as thoroughly familiar as possible with current sources (many of which are now known to be in error). When Blatty turned to writing his best-selling novel 20 years later, he changed so many details and added so much new material that the actual case was doubly obscured.

The story was “Hollywood-ized” for the film, with the inclusion of dramatic and violent phenomena.  (Real life is seldom dramatic enough for film and fiction.)  Decades later, the film still has the power to frighten audiences — even with the mere idea that demonic possession can, and does, happen.

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Adapted from The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, 2nd ed., by Rosemary Ellen Guiley, published by Facts On File, 2000.