Exorcism Of Anna Ecklund - A Very Dark History
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- Hi, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's murder, mystery and makeup Monday.

If you are new here, hi. We've been waiting for you. Every Monday I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin and I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you hit that subscribe button 'cause I'm here for you every Monday. Let's jump into today's story.

There have been many, many, many stories about demons. Demons trying and sometimes succeeding in invading our bodies and taking over our minds for their own demon purposes. Which then often lead to exorcisms in many forms to try and rid of these dark forces. Every so often there are some cases of possessions that are just so hard to believe because they're just so extreme and you're like, "Really?"

One of the most terrifying was the exorcism of a demon-plagued young girl in a small town in Wisconsin. I feel like Wisconsin always has some stuff going on over there. What's going on, Wisconsin? Is it the cheese? So there's this girl, her name was Anna Uckland.

Actually, that wasn't her name. It was something else, but they came out with a book about this whole exorcism. They changed her name to protect her privacy, but if...

a simple Google search you could find her name and everything you know so it's like that that's unfortunate and I was going to use her uh her real name but I'll just respect what they originally intended. So her name Anna Uckland is what we're going to call her. So Anna was born in 1882 in Marathon, Wisconsin. Her parents were German immigrants

Not much is known about her upbringing or her early childhood, I should say. Some reports say that there wasn't much to be said about her upbringing, that it was very normal,

Other sources say that Anna's father, his name was Jacob, he had a reputation for being very against the Catholic Church, and that he was a womanizer as well. It was also alleged that Jacob was an alcoholic, and that he may have sexually abused Anna.

So allegedly, maybe. So two different stories here. Also not much was to be said about Anna's mother. It's believed that she had died during the early 1890s. So Anna was raised in a pretty hardcore, I feel like hardcore is not the right word, strict Catholic family.

household. Her mom was super Catholic and that's how she got introduced to it. Again, the father wasn't, he didn't like it. People would describe Anna as being charming, sweet, kind, and just a happy girl. But something happened. Something changed. And at the age of 14, things just took a very dark turn. The

The family went to church every Sunday. Anna was said to have really enjoyed it. She was involved with many of the church activities. All of her friends were a part of the church, and that's what the family's life revolved around. But once Anna turned 14, she started to feel very ill and uncomfortable whenever she stepped foot into the church. Now this was strange, you see, because Anna loved church,

She looked forward to attending, but all of a sudden she just was hesitant to step inside. She was just complaining that she felt really sick. She would say as soon as she entered the building, she would just feel even worse, even more ill and more uncomfortable. Anytime she laid her eyes on any type of religious imagery, she would just feel uncomfortable.

Not so great, not so great. This would slowly grow in an intensity until she had a hard time even stepping into the church at all, as if some barrier was preventing her from entering. If she did manage to enter, she would become horribly ill, super panicked, was overcome with unbearable dread, which is not how you should be feeling when you go to church. So this was concerning.

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Anna began describing how she wanted to smash holy water fonts or she would go into a gruesome detail about how she wanted to harm the priest. She would still attend church because she had to. You know how they give you those like communion wafers, body of Christ?

After she had her communion wafers, instantly Anna would vomit it up in front of everyone in church. Now, of course, like a lot of the church members and his father, they just thought more as her being sick, like she had some kind of flu or something. They weren't thinking demons.

So this whole thing had gotten so bad that the once happy-go-lucky girl, she just began to go into screaming fits when she was confronted with the Bible, with holy water, or with any holy imagery. And eventually this would lead to her not even attending church at all. I know it doesn't sound that serious, but this was very unlike her. Anna began to suffer from depression as well as intense sexual thoughts.

Anna was said to get more and more depressed because she didn't understand why or what was happening to her or why she was feeling this way. She felt like she had no control over her own feelings or over the rage. Anna thought she was becoming insane. Some believed that

that this was happening as a result or reaction to her mother's death. At home, Anna's behavior had done a 180. She would blurt out incredibly obscene things. She would go into great detail about violence and the things she wanted to do to the people at the church.

It was said that Anna had a unhealthy interest in sex. She would detail sexual relations in which there's like no way she would, she could have known about the sexual

things, relations, you know what I'm saying? She would have these intense mood swings and she would have sudden and violent outbursts where she would shout at people or break things in fits of rage that came out of nowhere. Anna though, like once she was done, once she calmed down, she would have no recollection of doing any of these things.

So I was like, "Hey, why'd you throw that plate at my head?" And she'd be like, "What are you talking about?" Like the family was growing very frustrated with her because she's obviously causing some stress, correct? Yes. But it was making Anna feel worse and worse again about herself because she just didn't understand what was going on. And she was becoming more distant. She was spending most of her time away from everybody else, alone in her room. She would turn away any type of company or friends,

if they wanted to come over, she would just completely cut off everybody and just stay alone in her room. She just felt like she couldn't go anywhere or talk to anybody because she just didn't know what was gonna happen. Now things were just getting worse and worse and you know at first Anna's dad was just kind of waiting it out, seeing if it was just gonna calm down, maybe it was just a reaction to her mother's passing, but things were getting worse so the family decided to

finally seek out medical advice and psychiatric professionals, but no one could find anything physically wrong with her. One leading specialist at the time said that she didn't have quote, "the least sign of nervousness" and that she was normal in the fullest sense. Walk it off, you're fine. And to be fair, this is 1908, okay?

Can't relate to 1908. Medical science had a very basic understanding of mental illnesses, whereas today Anna's case could have had a dramatically different ending. Every single professional that had looked at her deemed her to be completely normal, and she never did seem to display her bizarre behavior during these visits, so they really couldn't help her because

To them, they didn't see anything, you know? Things at home were getting scarier. Anna's violent temper seemed to intensify, and it was noted that she started to blurt out words and phrases in Latin, a language that she had no knowledge of. Now, sadly for Anna, this would go on for years, years, with little to no answers on what to do, how to treat her,

even how to protect yourself when Anna was being violent towards the family. It caused so much tension in the household and it just wasn't good. Finally, Anna's aunt, which side note, listen here, look. Allegedly, Anna's father was having an affair with his wife's sister. Oh yes. This being Anna's aunt. Once his wife passed away, Anna's mother, they carried on the relationship together but

Isn't that a little suspish? Come on. Anna's aunt, she started to think that maybe, maybe Anna was under the influence of a demonic force. She had been doing her research about what could really be going on with her. She ended up going to the church for help. So Anna was referred to a Capuchin monk by the name of Father Theophilus Riesinger. But this man was considered an expert in exorcisms and one of the few with an expertise in that area.

Father Reisinger would witness Anna's total aversion to religious objects. She would react negatively to prayers and rites in Latin, but when conversational Latin was used, there would be no reaction. It was said that Anna knew and understood German and English, but she began speaking and understanding Latin, Hebrew, Italian, and Polish. If she was given articles, food,

clothing, whatever, sprinkled with holy water or presented her with things that were secretly blessed, she would react violently. She would start throwing things, she would get very vulgar and mean and quite dangerous as well. Now they thought, well, Father Reisinger, he was like, okay, let me just try a little placebo here. I'm gonna use some fake holy water, AKA tap water and sprinkle this on like this,

I don't know, spray it on her or whatever and see if she reacts. And then they'll know like if she's faking it or not. Well, they did that and she didn't react, no reaction. And she had no idea that they had used fake holy water. Now the actual cause of the possession could not be certain, only during the process of the exorcism may they find what was really the cause of it.

So on June 18th, 1912, Father Reisinger performed an exorcism on the now 30 year old Anna, and at this time it was successful. That's what they thought. She was freed of her possession. Anna returned to her quote, "normal self" for many years.

The end. No, I'm just kidding. But it seemed that whatever dark forces had gravitated towards her were not quite done with her just yet. Nay nay. Over the next few years, Anna's turmoil and troubles would slowly creep back into her life. She claimed to constantly have sexual thoughts and believed she was also tormented by the spirits of her father and her aunt. At this time, they had since passed.

Eventually, Anna's symptoms, once again, left her unable to act normally or live a normal life. She was growing desperate. Anna started looking for help again. In 1928, Anna is now 46 years old. She's not doing too great.

Okay, she's feeling like her life has pretty much been destroyed by this evil presence. So she seeks out Father Reisinger once again. When Anna had reached out to him the second time, he had now performed 19 exorcisms and was becoming the go-to guy for this kind of thing. I mean, he was before, but like he was sealing

the deal in, but it was concerning to him when Anna reached out again saying that, you know, it came back. So this time when Anna had contacted him, he decided that he would ask for extra help. So Father Reisinger was on a missionary trip. He was visiting his old friend who was also a priest. His name was Joseph Steiger.

and he was at St. Joseph's Parish and he asked Steiger for permission to have Anna brought to his parish in Erling, Iowa and have an exorcism performed there. Now it was said that

Father Reisinger had selected Erling, Iowa for a number of reasons. In the 1920s, only a few hundred people lived in this region and the area had both a convent as well as a Catholic church. The roads, they weren't very good, but they had this advantage of a rail line system to support the trip. So the convent was more private. It was secluded from anyone around them. And Father Reisinger,

believed that it would allow the exorcism to be done in secrecy and would allow Anna to stay anonymous. They also hoped that coming away from her home to a new area would hopefully disorient whatever demons possessed her.

On August 18th, 1928, Anna had arrived to Erling, Iowa by train. Again, the entire process was done in extreme secrecy with only a couple people knowing what was really going on. There were the two priests, a couple of nuns that were helping them as well, and then a housekeeper who was just helping her out, and then the demons too were there.

Within a few hours of staying in the convent, Anna became enraged because one of the sisters in the kitchen had sprinkled holy water over her food on the tray. When Anna got her food, she was instantly upset by the presence of the blessed food and became a cat. Yeah, she became a cat and not like a physical cat, but it was said that Anna was purring. She meowed and she hissed.

and it was impossible to make her eat the food. They pissed her off, okay? This caused problems because the first rule was not to upset Anna when she got there, leave it up to the priest, play it safe, but instead they were just off to a bad start.

So the first session was held between August 18th to August 26th, 1928. Anna was placed firmly upon the mattress of an iron bed. Her arm sleeves and her dress were tied like in a knot or whatever, just to make sure that she stayed dressed. The strongest, buffest nuns were selected to assist by holding Anna down on her bed because they knew once the prayers had begun, Anna was just gonna fucking...

Demons! They had to make sure that she was secure. They begin, okay? Now, they begin with some prayers and instantly it was said that Anna sank into unconsciousness and she remained like that throughout the whole period of the exorcism. Her eyes were closed so tightly that no force could open them. So they just let her be while the exorcism continued. The demons did not like this. Oh.

No. They continued with the exorcism and Anna dislodged herself from her bed and from the hands of the nuns holding her down. Now it's said that her body carried through the air and landed high above the door of the room, like in the corner of the room. So she's floating, goes to the corner of the room,

If I saw that shit, I would nope out of there really quick. Reason number 321 as to why I couldn't be a nun. Father Reisinger was said to have kept his peace and composure, acting like nobody was floating to the ceiling.

What a strong, brave man. Now he ordered the nuns to pull her down immediately, okay? Bring her back to the bed, we need to secure her better. So first they give her a duster and they're like, can you get the cobwebs up there? Grab her and they pull her down and then they bring her back to the bed to better secure her so that she can't escape again. So once they locked her back into the bed, that's when the prayers continued. Anna began howling and it was said, quote, like a pack of wild beasts suddenly letting loose.

Now the howling had gotten so loud that the neighbors actually could hear her. Now they are kind of, they're pretty far out there, but it was so intense that of course, nosy neighbors, as always, they became curious as to what was going on. A great number of people are said to bear witness to the screams coming from inside the convent. So the details of the exorcism sessions have gotten a bit lost in the mix.

but it was noted that Father Reisinger experienced physical attacks that left him, quote, "trembling like a fluttering leaf in a whirlwind", end quote. So, mm-hmm.

Anna reportedly would vomit, defecate and urinate, quote, "in quantities that were humanly speaking impossible to lodge in a normal being," end quote. Shitting, barfing, peeing, in order to prevent the exorcism from continuing because like it smelled like shit in there. So everyone's trying to exit the building, not the building, but exit the room so they could get out of there 'cause it stinks. When Father Reisinger demanded to know who was possessing her, he was told, quote,

So Father Reisinger demanded to know who the lead demon was. So he's asking, who am I talking to? Who is the lead demon? So he was told he was speaking to Beelzebub. The demon claimed, quote, ha, did not her own father curse us into her, end quote. Father Reisinger challenged this further. The demon responded, quote, you can ask him, leave me in peace for once, end quote.

This response prompted the priest to ask if Anna's father was part of the possession. The demon allegedly responded with, quote, "What a foolish question. He has never been with us ever since he was damned."

At other times, the demon claimed to be the Apostle Judas and that Judas was there to, quote, bring her to despair so that she will commit suicide and hang herself. She must get the rope. She must go to hell, end quote.

If you don't know Judas, well, it's not simple. Oh my gosh, I went down a rabbit hole last night. This is a side note. I never realized how controversial Judas is or was, is based on different religions. They see him in different light and it's a lot. But to keep it simple, Judas,

betrayed Jesus. I'm getting off track, it doesn't matter. But apparently Judas is inside of Anna. At another time, it was said that the demon claimed to be Jacob, who was Anna's father. He claimed to have tried to force Anna into a sexual relationship, but she had resisted. He also claimed to have

actively tried to encourage Anna in a sexual manner, AKA he was trying to sexually abuse Anna. In a conversation with Anna before the demons came forward, like when she was just being herself, she seemed to have a memory of her father cursing her, but

but she would rarely say anything negative about her father. Like they couldn't get anything from her. Father Reisinger was able to do a little digging around and he found out that Jacob had a reputation as a hater of the church, that he disliked religion and wanted nothing to do with it. But there wasn't any proof that there was abuse going on. Another demon they encountered through Anna claimed to be Mina. Who the hell is Mina Bailey?

You can't just introduce people like this in the middle of the story. She was Anna's aunt, remember? The mistress of Anna's father. Yeah, she had a name. I forgot to mention it in the beginning, Mina. Anyways, so she came through. She claimed that she had murdered three children while she was alive and that she practiced witchcraft. Mina said that she and Jacob had put a curse on Anna. All throughout the various exorcisms, Anna suffered from physical distortions that would alter her appearance.

Her face would become twisted, her body would contort in impossible ways, her eyes and lips would swell to huge proportions, and her stomach would become hard like a rock or a stone. During the exorcisms, Anna seemed to react strongly towards different elements. Whenever approached with holy water, like in the beginning, she would scream, she would hiss,

shout, if the holy water touched her skin, it would burn off. They would watch her skin sizzle and burn. As the days passed with little to no success in saving Anna, a tension started to grow between the two priests. Father Reisinger was like the main guy holding the exorcism, but they were using Father Steiger's convent.

But he was there too. Father Steiger had started to regret his decision to allow the exorcism to be held in his church in the first place. He was like, you guys have been here too long. She's floating.

So he's really regretting this and this is causing a tension between the two priests. And so he brought up his concerns to Father Reisinger. But Father Reisinger, he wasn't surprised because it was going on for quite some time and it was draining for everybody. And he blamed the devil for stirring ill feelings between the two priests.

He told him to remain focused and not let the devil get between the two of them. So Father Sager said that the demon possessing Anna told him to withdraw permission for the exorcism by the end of the week, or he would be sorry. This didn't sit well because Anna was the demon now threatening to kill him?

The week goes by and that following Friday, Father Steiger received a call from a local farmer with a critically ill mother who was needing her last sacraments. So he does this job, gets in his car, he's going to drive to the home and he was just about to cross a bridge over a ravine. It was middle of the day, he said it was a clear sky and then all of a sudden it just got very, very dark, dark heavy clouds. He couldn't see in it.

anymore, like he couldn't see in front of his car. So he's driving.

I can't see what's gonna happen. Because of this, he ended up crashing his car into the railing of the bridge. The car was totaled, but luckily for Father Steiger, he was not seriously injured. He had some cuts and bruises, but he was still able to walk away from it. He fully believed that the demon was behind this. Over the next couple weeks of exorcism, Anna always seemed to lose consciousness once the rite began and would wake up with no knowledge of the events.

She would claim to have visions of horrible battles between spirits, but that's really all she knew. She had no idea she was floating up to the ceiling. I wonder if you tell someone that. Yeah, you were floating.

Yeah, you were up there. It was wild. During the entire time, she was unable to eat solid foods and she experienced heavy vomiting. She would vomit 20 to 30 times a day. She was becoming more and more fragile, malnourished, and just very weak because she's not eating. So in total, there were three periods of exorcism performed on Anna. The first were held August 18th through the 26th. The second was held from September 13th to the 20th.

and the final group of exorcisms began December 15th and lasted until December 23rd. Anna's room was said to have filled with swarm of flies and mosquitoes that would appear out of nowhere, only just to vanish just as fast. Sickening stenches would fill the room, forcing everyone out, preventing anyone from continuing the exorcisms, prolonging the process.

Over time, this would all become so unbearable that the now terrified priests and nuns involved refused to stay too long in Anna's presence. Instead, they would work in shifts. Father Reisinger was the one who spent the most time with Anna and was determined to rid her of these demons, but it seemed that he might be losing this battle. He was committed to helping her and gradually the demon began to weaken, lose their grip on Anna, and then,

It was said one day Anna bolted up in bed and claimed, "Demons, Judas, Jacob, Mina, hell, hell, hell, praised be Jesus Christ." And it was said just like that Anna was back. It had appeared that the demons had left.

I know, it's kind of like a, it's not like a great ending. It's just kinda, it doesn't, like I have a lot of questions about this ending, right? But I don't know, there's no answers really. In the aftermath of the exorcism, most of the nuns who had been present asked to be transferred away to anywhere but there.

And the convent that they were all staying at would eventually be demolished in the 1990s. Anna would go on to lead a somewhat normal life, although the experience is said to haunt her for the rest of her life. Father Reisinger, he would gain some bit of fame from it all. He would go on to become America's expert on exorcisms, like the number one spy.

He even earned a page in Time Magazine in 1936 with an interview and everything. Father Steiger would go on to lead a quiet life. Now he was shaken and very disturbed by what had played out and he didn't want any attention about

what went down. There was a priest named Father Carl Vogel, and he went on about interviewing anyone he could find who had been at the exorcism. So he found some of the nuns who were there, and then he ended up talking to Father Steiger himself.

He got an interview with him. He wanted this because he wanted to compile a record of events and then create a little booklet. It would end up turning into a book called "Begone, A Soul-Stirring Account of Diabolical Possession in Iowa."

But it was mainly going to be used for other priests as just information on like what happened, how they treated it, stuff like that. At some point, it turned into like a book that you can buy. Now, a lot of people did not believe this story. They're like, this is just too over the top. The guy who was doing the interviewing, he ended up interviewing a girl, a woman, I should say, sorry. She worked as a housekeeper for Father Steiger and she claimed, quote,

"I was a witness to almost the whole period of the exorcism of the possession case, and I can truthfully say that the facts mentioned in 'Begone Satan' are correct. Some of the scenes were even more frightful than described in the booklet. There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the devils were present, and I will never forget the horrible scenes, vile, filthy, and dirty as long as I live.

End quote. And that my friends is a story about the exorcism of Anna Uglund. It's a lot, I know. And it can be hard to believe. What are your thoughts on possession? I always have mixed feelings about it. I think it's hard to believe when you've never seen it in real life. Like I've seen movies and stuff and it's always freaky. It freaks me out. And I don't wanna see it in real life. So I'm not saying prove it. I'm not challenging you or anything demons.

No, I'm just like minding my own business. If the demons are there, that's cool, but I don't want to know about them. I just mind my own business and I hope the demon minds his own business too. I don't mess with demons, no. You want to be a demon? That's fine.

but I'm not grabbing your ass down from the ceiling. Whatever you believe, the exorcism of Anna has managed to become one of the most terrifying alleged exorcisms of history. As always, have a good day, make good choices, don't mess with demons, and I hope to be seeing you guys later.